An analysis of syntactic regularities
in children′s acquisition of language

SS 2002, PS Approaches to Syntax

by

Anja Weber

Fremdsprachen in der EWB

5. Semester

Structure

1. Introduction 1

2. Theoretical Approaches to the Acquisition of Language and Syntax 1
2.1. General Aspects 1
2.2. Three Processes in the Acquisition of Syntax 3
2.2.1. Imitation and Reduction 3
2.2.2. Imitation with Expansion 4
2.2.3. Induction of the Latent Structure 5

3. Three topical investigations of children’s syntactic capacities 5
3.1. Pivot-open Grammar 5
3.2. Passive Sentences 6
3.3. Questions 8
3.4. Negation 9

4. Conclusion 10

5. Selected Bibliography 11

1. Introduction

Since human beings are able to communicate with each other using not only signs, but especially with their linguistic competence, it is interesting for linguists to find out general rules being automatically applied. These rules allow the speaker to utter messages in a precise and elaborated way adapted to all kinds of situations. The present study is aimed at delivering an approach to syntactic regularities within the children’s acquisition of language. First some theoretical and generally witnessed information about language and language acquisition will be outlined assuring a global understanding. Then, the second part of the theoretical analysis will deal with three main processes in the acquisition of syntax as an important influence within the child’s linguistic development and its ability to communicate with its environment. It will be described how the language learner becomes more and more competent by differentiating among syntactic categories, such as word classes. Some regularities within children’s syntactic capacities will be considered more in detail in the last chapter where representative examples from pivot-open grammar, questions, passive voice and not to forget negation do support the already mentioned theoretical elements. Children’s utterances are investigated in order to find out how they react in a particular situation in a grammatical way, as correctly as they have understood the rules of syntax. 

2. Theoretical approaches to the acquisition of language and syntax

2.1. General aspects

To write in the words of Wilhelm von Humboldt, language - as Noam Chomsky (1968: 426) has pointed out – can be regarded “as a structure of forms and concepts based on a system of rules that determine their interrelations, arrangement, and organization. [...] Language is thus a kind of latent structure in the human mind, developed and fixed by exposure to specific linguistic experience.”

Consequently, the child′s acquisition of language could be characterised as a kind of theory construction where the children approach to theoretical aspects of his language. But it has to be remarked that the language learner is acquiring this language knowledge "at a time when he is not capable of complex intellectual achievements in many other domains, and that this achievement is relatively independent of intelligence or the particular course of experience."¹

As Harris (1990:19) explains the term of language as "a developmental phenomenon, and all normal children eventually come to possess skills which reflect an enormously sophisticated knowledge of the grammatical system." Just from the very beginning of language development, children prove their instinctive knowledge of syntactical rules² in uttering two-word sentences on which will later be reported in detail. There, so Miller (1963: 325), "it appears that the children select the stressed utterance segments, which usually carry the most information" when they are trying to imitate adult speech.
Bever (1965: 264) suggests that the language learner is using the process of "contextual generalization" which simply enables the children to apply certain rules for word order to create new constructions in a quite correct way. Children are looking at the word′s position³ within the sentences uttered by their parents and are then unconsciously trying to learn syntactic structures. "Thus, the child learns such facts as: The first position in a simple English sentence is characteristically the noun position; the second position is characteristically occupied by a verb."⁴

[...]

1 Chomsky (1968 : 429)

2 Harris (1990: 25)

3 Holzman (1997: 124) argues that children follow the word order of noun-verb-noun from the very beginning on.

4 Bever (1965: 265)