Chinese pronominals in universal grammar: A study of linear precedence and command in Chinese and English children's first language acquisition

Abstract

This paper concerns a particular problem raised by Mandarin Chinese pronouns, viz. they appear to obey a linear precedence constraint unlike English (e.g., Huang (1982)). This calls into question the nature of UG and how it can account for these crosslinguistic differences.In this paper, experimental analyses of children's (null and lexical) pronoun interpretation in Chinese and English argue for universal 'structure dependence' (including 'command') in the Initial State and against either a universal or a languagespecific role of 'linear precedence' alone. A linear precedence effect is developmentally achieved only in Chinese.The acquisition results provoke a revised theoretical analysis of the grammar of pronouns in Chinese and a strong form of UG. We argue that it is not necessary to propose a language-specific definition of 'command' in Chinese in order to explain the apparent linearity effects on Chinese pronouns, and it is not necessary to propose a linear precedence rule in UG. Rather, consideration of an articulated structure of Chinese NP, which is motivated by the acquisition data, explains essential differences between lexical ta pronominals and null pronominals in Chinese and accounts for linearity effects in the adult language. We propose that ta pronominals are not themselves in argument position and are not N o heads. They are not equivalent to null pronominals.Together the experimental and theoretical results support a 'strong continuity' theory of UG in which universal "principles and parameters" of UG continuously constrain the child's mapping from UG to a specific-language grammar. Language development, and the Chinese precedence effect for pronouns, lies in pragmatic/semantic features connected with the lexical realization of the specifier of a pronominal NP, not in the development of UG. tigation we are led to new insights regarding the grammar of Chinese pronominals and its relation to Universal Grammar (UG). This paper represents one component of a cross-linguistic project in which first language acquisition of English and several other languages are compared in order to investigate the nature of principles and parameters in UG. We assume the theory of UG (as summarized in (1)) to provide a model of the "Initial State" for language development (cf. Lust (to appear, in preparation)).

Knowledge about Pronouns: A Developmental Study Using a Truth-Value Judgment Task

“…If the speaker uses a sentence with a subject pronoun, and a grammatically possible preceding sentence-internal subject antecedent, then assume that the speaker intends this sentence-internal antecedent to be pronoun referent, regardless of external referential context. (See also Lust, Chien, Chiang, & Eisele, 1996, for a report of a similar effect on pronoun interpretation in Chinese adults.) This pragmatic factor, which appears to guide adult judgments, must now be subjected to further study.…”

Ultimate attainment of anaphora resolution in L2 Chinese

“…To the best of my knowledge, there is no such study in L2 Chinese. I will review two relevant Chinese acquisition studies: Lust et al (1996) on L1 acquisition of anaphora resolution in complex sentences and Zhao (2011Zhao ( , 2012a on L2 acquisition of the interpretation of the overt pronoun and the representation of Ø topic in embedded object clauses.…”

“…Additionally, pro tends to take a subject antecedent in intra-sentential anaphora, whereas the overt pronoun tends to take a non-subject antecedent. Lust et al (1996) conducted a study on the L1 acquisition of the overt pronoun and the null element in Chinese complex sentences like (1) and (2) above by using a Truth…”

Backward Versus Forward Anaphora: Reconstruction in Child Grammar

“…For kids, the antecedent that makes the sentence true is promoted to salience, and the other is discarded. Whether this is so (and why), or whether other factors specific to the nature of the null subject may also be playing a role, must be left to further research (see Lust, Chien, Chiang, and Eisele (1996), who discussed some results on Chinese, also a null-subject language, which might be interpreted as going in the same direction).…”