Relative clauses

Experimental test items (1) The deer [that jumps over the lion] bumps into the donkey. (2) The lion [that the donkey bumps into] jumps over the deer. (3) The deer bumps into the donkey [that jumps over the lion]. (4) The donkey stands on the deer [that the lio jumps over].

Children’s spontaneous relative clauses (1)That’s the rabbit that fall off. [Nina 2;7] (2)Look at dat train Ursula bought. [Adam 2;10] (3)This is the sugar that goes in there.[Nina 3;0] (4)That’s a picture I made. [Adam 3;0] (5)Here’s a tiger that’s gonna scare him.[Nina 3;1] (6)It’s a song that we dance to.[Nina 3;2]

Semantic complexity (1)Here’s the tiger that’s gonna scare him. > The tiger is gonna scare him. (2)This is the sugar that goes in there. > The sugar goes in there. (3)It’s a song that we dance to. > We dance to a song.

Data Age rangeFiniteNonfinite Adam Sarah Nina Peter Naomi 2;3-4;10 2;3-5;1 1;11-3;4 1;9-3;2 1;8-3; ;9-5;

External syntax

Head of the relative clause (1) The man who we saw was reading a book. (2) He noticed the man who was reading a book. (3) He saw to the man who was reading a book. (4) The man who was reading a book. (5) That’s the man who was reading a book. SUBJ DO IO NP PN

Head of relative clause (total)

Head of relative clause (earliest)

Head of relative clause (development) PN OBJ NP OBL PN OBJ NP OBL SUBJ

How do we account for the development?

Motivating factors Semantic complexity Input frequency Information structure Pragmatic function

Conclusion PN-relatives are the earliest relative clauses that children learn because: (1) they suit the communicative needs of young children (2) they are semantically similar to simple sentences.

Syntactic amalgams (1)That’s doggy turn around.[Nina 1;11] (2)That’s a turtle swim.[Nina 2;2] (3)Here’s a mouse go sleep.[Nina 2;3] (4)That’s the roof go on that home.[Nina 2;4] (5)That’s the rabbit fall off.[Nina 2;4]

Internal syntax

Relativizsed syntactic role (3) The man who met the woman. (2) The man who the woman met. (1) The man who the woman talked to. (4) The man who the girl gave the book to. (5) The man whose dog bit the woman. obl obj subj io gen

Relativized syntactic role (total)

Relativized syntactic role (development) obj subj obl

Experimental study Das ist der Mann, der mich gestern gesehen hat. Das ist der Mann, den ich gestern gesehen habe. Das ist der Mann, dem ich das Buch gegeben habe. Das ist der Mann, mit dem ich gesprochen habe. Das ist der Mann, dessen Hund mich gebissen hat. subj do io obl gen This is the girl who __ saw Peter on the bus this morning. This is the girl who the boy teased __ at school yesterday. This is the girl who Peter borrowed a football from __. This is the girl who Peter played with __ in the garden. This is the girl whose horse Peter heard on the farm. subj do io obl gen

Results subj vs. do p =. 001 do vs. io p =.173 do vs. oblp =.169 subj vs. do p =. 001 do vs. io p =.061 io vs. oblp =.001 EnglishGerman

Subj-relatives Why did subj-relatives cause the fewest errors?

Subj-relatives English ITEM: This is the girl who the boy teased at school. CHILD: This is the girl that teased … the boy … at school. German ITEM: Da ist der Mann, den das Mädchen im Stall gesehen hat. CHILD: Da ist der Mann, der das Mädchen im Stall gesehen hat.

Subj-relatives English (1) This is the girl who bor/ Peter borrowed a football from. German (2) Da ist der Junge, der/ dem Paul … die Mütze weggenommen hat.

Questions Why are children inconsistent in their responses? What explains the frequent occurrence of repairs?

Hypothesis Subj-relatives can be activated more easily. What determines the ease of activation?

Frequency and ease of activation The more frequently a grammatical construction occurs, the more deeply entrenched it is in mental grammar, and the easier it is to activate in language use.

Input frequency (Diessel 2004)

Order of thematic roles (1)The boy kissed the girl. (2)This is the boy who kissed the girl. (3)This is the boy who the girl kissed.

Order of thematic roles AGENT VERB PATIENT.Simple clause PRO is AGENT rel VERB PATIENT.Subj relative PRO is PATIENT rel AGENT VERB.Other relatives

Question Why did the English-speaking children basically produce the same amount of errors in response to obj- and obl-relatives?

DO, IO, OBL-relatives (1)The boy who kissed the girl.SUBJ (2)The boy who the girl kissed.DO (3)The boy who the girl talked to.OBL (4)The boy who the girl gave the letter to.IO (5)The boy whose brother kissed the girl.GEN

Word order in English relative clauses NP [V …]subj NP [NP V …]do NP [NP V …]io NP [NP V …]obl NP [[GEN N] V …]gen

Relative pronouns in German relative clauses Der Mann, der …subj Der Mann, den …do Der Mann, dem …io Der Mann, mit/von dem …obl Der Mann, dessen Ngen

Question Why were genitive relatives almost always incorrect?

Gen- and io-relatives Both gen- and io-relatives are basically absent from the ambient language. Io-relatives caused fewer errors than gen-relatives because they are similar to do-relatives.

Summary Important is the similarity between constructions: Subj-relatives caused few problems because they are similar to simple sentences. English do-, io-, and obl-relatives caused basically the same amount of problems because they have the same word order. Io-relatives caused relatively few problems because they are similar to do-relatives. Gen-relatives and German obl-relatives caused great problems because they are dissimilar to other relative clauses.

Why does similarity matter? Relative clauses are constructions (i.e. form-function pairings) that are related to each other in a network like lexical expressions. Children acquire this network in a piecemeal, bottom- up fashion by relating new relative clause constructions to constructions they already know.

A network of relative constructions Simple Sentences That is N [subj-relative] …-relatives … [gen-relative]