Null Arguments in German Child Language

Abstract

Acquisition research has shown that, in German, the use of null subjects does not drop from about 50% to 5% in a very short space of time, but there is a drop from about 45% to between 10% and 20%. In the present article, I investigate this 10% to 20% Null Subject stage in 3-year-olds and show that this stage, though surprisingly long, is not final. Moreover, the children under investigation use structures in this phase that are found neither in the state of Early Null Subjects nor in adult German, namely postverbal referential null subjects. The latter result, the fact that this stage is not final, and differences to object-drop at the same time strongly suggest that the phenomenon cannot only be topic-drop. An analysis is proposed admitting competing strategies for a certain time, a topic-drop strategy (i.e., a strategy of identification via discourse), and a strategy of licensing and identifying null subjects through feature transfer under Government.

Roots and Rogues in German Child Language

“…These hypotheses are contrasted with the approach proposed by Harald Clahsen and his associates; for example, Clahsen (1990/1991, Clahsen and Penke (1992, Clahsen, Eisenbeiß, and Vainikka (1994), Clahsen, Eisenbeiß, and Penke (1996). The data presented here-especially those concerning the developmental trajectory of various types of overt pronominal elements-are argued to be more consistent with the latter hypothesis, complementing related work by Hamann (1996) and Haegeman (1996). 1 The term "Strong Continuity" has been used in various ways by different researchers.…”

“…I also consider two acquisition papers dealing with similar Rogue phenomena: Hamann (1996) and Haegeman (1996).…”

“…Rogues were identified as a problem for Rizzi's approach reasonably early onsee Duffield (1992Duffield ( /1993 and Hamann (1992)-but no extended theoretical discussion of this distribution was published until the work of Hamann (1995; and Haegeman (1996). 15 These two authors offer competing interpretations of the Rogues stage, both of which are claimed to be broadly compatible with Rizzi's approach.…”

“…15 These two authors offer competing interpretations of the Rogues stage, both of which are claimed to be broadly compatible with Rizzi's approach. Hamann's (1996) account is based on spontaneous production data from two German-speaking children, Christoph and Elisa, and comes from recordings made after the children's third birthdays (Christoph 3;3.28-3;7.6, Elisa 3;1.5-3;4.13). The difference in age and linguistic development between these children and those in the present study is a crucial one.…”

Children’s Grammar of Null Subjects: Evidence from Comprehension

“…Also, as noted by Hamann and Plunkett (1998), the metrical account does not generalize easily to other languages. In German, for example, non-clause-initial subjects are omitted to a much higher degree than in-situ objects, although the metrical structure is the same (Hamann 1996); and in French, object clitics are dropped from both iambic and trochaic feet (Hamann, Rizzi, andFrauenfelder 1996, Jakubowicz et al 1996).…”