Processing and Parameter Setting in Language Acquisition: A Computational Approach

C. Boster, 1997

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Table of Contents

Introduction (1)

1.1 Theoretical Framework (1)

1.2 Overview of the Study (6)

Early Subject Omissions: A Review and Critique of Previous Accounts (9)

2.1 Introduction (9)

2.2 Performance Accounts Based on Processing Limitations (13)

                 2.2.1 Early processing approaches (14)

                 2.2.2 Pragmatic accounts (18)

                 2.2.3 A prosodic account (20)

                 2.2.4 Bloom (1990) and the OOM (23)

                 2.2.5 Valians EPP-violation account (27)

2.3 Competence-based Accounts (30)

                 2.3.1 Pro-drop (30)

                 2.3.2 Topic-drop (32)

                 2.3.3 Matrix sentence effects (34)

                                   2.3.3.1 Lillo-Martin (1991) (34)

                                   2.3.3.2 Rizzi (1994) and first position effects (37)

                                   2.3.3.3 Hyams (1994) and diary drop (38)

2.4 Summary and Implications (40)

A Proposed Model of Sentence Generation (44)

3.1 Some Basic Assumptions (47)

3.2 Characteristics of the Generation System (48)

                 3.2.1 Speech errors and other evidence (49)

                 3.2.2 Approaches to sentence-building (55)

                                   3.2.2.1 Fromkin (1971) and Garrett (1975) (56)

                                   3.2.2.2 Yngve (1960) (58)

                                   3.2.2.3 The DTC and Fays (1980) DRM (59)

                                   3.2.2.4 Syntactic templates (Gerken 1991, Valian 1995) (61)

3.3 Proposed Model (63)

                 3.3.1 Overall design (64)

                 3.3.2 An upper limit on processing capacity (67)

                 3.3.3 Details of the syntactic component (71)

                 3.3.4 Evidence from adults and children (74)

3.4 Application to Adult and Child Speech (77)

What Children Have to Say (84)

4.1 Methodology for Extracting Sentences (85)

4.2 MLU Compared with Percentage of Overt Subjects (86)

4.3 Are Missing Subjects Pronominal? (92)

                 4.3.1 Subject omission rates differ by person (95)

                 4.3.2 Lexical subjects substitute for some early pronouns (99)

                 4.3.3 Different pronouns first appear at different times (106)

                 4.3.4 Pronouns are used noncontrastively (108)

                 4.3.5 Implications (110)

4.4 Wh-questions and Subject Omissions (112)

                 4.4.1 Are subjects omitted following moved wh-terms? (112)

                 4.4.2 Evidence for early wh-movement (118)

4.5 Negation (120)

4.6 Subject Omission and Verbal Morphology (126)

4.7 Sentential Complements (133)

4.8 Summary of Findings (135)

Accounting for Crosslinguistic Variation (138)

5.1 Overview (138)

5.2 Pro-drop and Topic-drop Languages (141)

5.3 Word Order Variations (153)

5.4 Surface Position Effects (155)

5.5 Summary (158)

Conclusions and Future Research (160)

References (166)

Appendix (176)