Children do not ignore (null objects): Against deficit accounts of the null object stage in language acquisition

Children across a variety of languages omit direct objects at higher rates that adults. It has been argued that these omissions arise from children’s performance or pragmatic limitations. The null object approach holds that children start by allowing a broader set of mechanisms for the recoverability of null objects than those possible in the adult grammar, which becomes more restricted with experience. Comprehension data is considered key evidence for evaluating representational approaches, but the interpretation of previous comprehension results is obscured by methodological issues. This article presents new data contrasting the interpretation of various types of direct objects in negative sentences, including null objects (Johnny is not eating) and anaphoric and negative polarity items (not eating it/not eating anything). English-speaking children aged 4–5 (n = 75) participated in three separate comprehension studies contrasting the interpretation of null objects to overt objects. Children consistently accepted sentences with overt anaphoric objects and rejected sentences with negative polarity objects, and treated sentences with null objects as fully ambiguous.Cet article se base sur les phrases négatives avec un objet nul pour montrer que les enfants anglophones monolingues de quatre à cinq ans (n=75) acceptent voire préfèrent l’interprétation anaphorique de l’objet nul (Johnny’s mom made him a sandwich, but he is not eating Ø) mais rejettent presque catégoriquement le même sens lorsque la phrase contient un item de polarité négatif (… but he is not eating anything). Ces résultats écartent la question méthodologique des inférences involontaires, présentent un argument incontournable pour l’approche représentationnelle, et remettent ainsi en question l’idée que l’omission de l’objet en langage enfantin découle d’un déficit acquisitionnel lié à l’habileté langagière limitée de jeunes enfants

A Phonetic Account of Spanish-English Bilinguals’ Divergence with Agreement

Does bilingual language influence in the domain of phonetics impact the morphosyntactic domain? Spanish gender is encoded by word-final, unstressed vowels (/a e o/), which may diphthongize in word-boundary vowel sequences. English neutralizes unstressed final vowels and separates across-word vocalic sequences. The realization of gender vowels as schwa, due to cross-linguistic influence, may remain undetected if not directly analyzed. To explore the potential over-reporting of gender accuracy, we conducted parallel phonetic and morphosyntactic analyses of read and semi-spontaneous speech produced by 11 Monolingual speakers and 13 Early and 13 Late Spanish-English bilinguals. F1 and F2 values were extracted at five points for all word-final unstressed vowels and vowel sequences. All determiner phrases (DPs) from narratives were coded for morphological and contextual parameters. Early bilinguals exhibited clear patterns of vowel centralization and higher rates of hiatuses than the other groups. However, the morphological analysis yielded very few errors. A follow-up integrated analysis revealed that /a and o/ were realized as centralized vowels, particularly with [+Animate] nouns. We propose that bilinguals’ schwa-like realizations can be over-interpreted as target Spanish vowels. Such variable vowel realization may be a factor in the vulnerability to attrition in gender marking in Spanish as a heritage language

A Phonetic Account of Spanish-English Bilinguals’ Divergence with Agreement

Does bilingual language influence in the domain of phonetics impact the morphosyntactic domain? Spanish gender is encoded by word-final, unstressed vowels (/a e o/), which may diphthongize in word-boundary vowel sequences. English neutralizes unstressed final vowels and separates across-word vocalic sequences. The realization of gender vowels as schwa, due to cross-linguistic influence, may remain undetected if not directly analyzed. To explore the potential over-reporting of gender accuracy, we conducted parallel phonetic and morphosyntactic analyses of read and semi-spontaneous speech produced by 11 Monolingual speakers and 13 Early and 13 Late Spanish-English bilinguals. F1 and F2 values were extracted at five points for all word-final unstressed vowels and vowel sequences. All determiner phrases (DPs) from narratives were coded for morphological and contextual parameters. Early bilinguals exhibited clear patterns of vowel centralization and higher rates of hiatuses than the other groups. However, the morphological analysis yielded very few errors. A follow-up integrated analysis revealed that /a and o/ were realized as centralized vowels, particularly with [+Animate] nouns. We propose that bilinguals’ schwa-like realizations can be over-interpreted as target Spanish vowels. Such variable vowel realization may be a factor in the vulnerability to attrition in gender marking in Spanish as a heritage language