The Sequential Unfolding of First Phase Syntax: Tutorial and Applications to Development

Abstract

This tutorial is an introduction to first phase syntax (FPS; Ramchand, 2008). FPS provides a new, crosslinguistically motivated perspective on clause internal structure. A new sequence of syntactic development is proposed based on FPS with 4 levels of complexity: (0) verb particles and adjectives in the 1-word stage, (1) semantic relations of entity + location/attribution, (2) intransitive structures encoding change of location/state, and (3) transitive sentences with an internal argument that changes state/ location and an external, causer argument. A novel prediction of this framework is that a Level 2 structure emerges earlier than a Level 3 structure. Method: Archival longitudinal data of 15 children (8 boys) were selected to test the proposed developmental sequence. The 15 children's data were drawn from the DeKalb corpora (Rispoli, Hadley, & Holt, 2008, 2009) and Champaign corpora (Hadley, Rispoli, Holt, Fitzgerald, & Bahnsen, 2014), selected because their mean lengths of utterance did not exceed 2.54 at age 2;6 (years;months). One-hour language samples taken every 3 months from 1;9 to 2;6 were searched for Level 1-3 structures. The diversity of the internal argument was tracked across levels. Results: Average argument diversity shifted across levels over the period of 1;9-2;6. At 2;0, argument diversity was highest for Level 1; at 2;3, diversity was highest for Level 2; and at 2;6, it was highest for Level 3. Paired-samples t test revealed that, at 2;3, argument diversity in Level 2 was significantly higher than that in Level 3. Conclusion: This developmental application of FPS provides a theoretical framework for a developmentally ordered sequence of syntactic goals and treatment targets for children struggling with the acquisition of syntax.

Do simple syntactic heuristics to verb meaning hold up? Testing the structure mapping account over spontaneous speech to Spanish-learning children

“…In contrast, previous investigations have shown that children not only pay attention to nouns in order to recover syntactic information and the meaning of unknown words: they can also use function words and phrasal prosody (Soderstrom et al 2008, de Carvalho et al 2019). In addition, proposals such as Rispoli (2019) suggest a developmental sequence of syntactic learning not determined by the acquisition of certain grammatical categories before others (e.g., nouns before verbs) but by the addition of syntactic layers to clause structure.…”

Exploring Sentence Diversity at the Boundary of Typical and Impaired Language Abilities

“…Because the copula may or may not appear in these early sentences, they are characterized as having copula contexts. Rispoli (2019) demonstrated that argument diversity emerged in copula contexts prior to other simple sentence types and that simple state predicates are later incorporated into more complex SV and SVO sentences.…”

“…The first and simplest sentence type is a state predicate with a subject and no lexical verb (cf. Rispoli, 2019 ). A state predicate ascribes some property to the sentence subject such as its location encoded with a prepositional phrase (PP; e.g., The hat is on ) or an attribute encoded by an adjective phrase (AP; e.g., The pizza is hot ), and in mainstream American English, a copula BE form is obligatory.…”

“…Following Rispoli (2019) , we hypothesized that subject diversity in third-person sentences would be influenced by the complexity of the simple sentence type and appear in a developmental sequence: in one-argument copula contexts first, followed by one-argument SV sentences, and finally in two-argument SVO sentences. Based on the developmental patterns reported by Hadley et al (2018) and McKenna and Hadley (2014) , we also expected that toddlers with the greatest risk for persistent SLI, those with severe grammatical delays at 36 months, would have limited sentences with third-person subjects well beyond 30 months of age.…”

“…We also hypothesized that third-person subjects would be more diverse in copula contexts compared to intransitives when they emerged; however, an early advantage for copula contexts was not apparent. Our prediction was based on Rispoli's (2019) study of children with low-average language abilities. Rispoli observed greater subject diversity in copula contexts at 24 months when his participants had a mean MLU of 1.86.…”