Hollebrandse, Bartjan

Lindenbergh, Charlotte

van Hout, Angeliek

English

Dissertations of the University of Groningen

   University of GroningenThe acquisition of sentence ellipsis in Dutch preschoolersLindenbergh, Charlotte; van Hout, Angeliek; Hollebrandse, BartjanIMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Publication date:2014Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):Lindenbergh, C., van Hout, A., & Hollebrandse, B. (2014). The acquisition of sentence ellipsis in Dutchpreschoolers. Poster session presented at 39th Annual Boston Conference on Language Development,Boston, United States.CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 21-01-20231. IntroductionEllipsis is the linguistic phenomenon where meaning is conveyed without form. Linguistic structure is missing, but we do assign meaning to what is not there (i.e. to the ellipsis site). There are different types of ellipsis, varying in the amount of structure that is elided. Sluicing or sentence ellipsis is a type of ellipsis where the sentential portion of a constituent questi-on (a whole TP/IP) is elided, leaving only a wh-remnant, see (1).1(1) Anna can see something, but I don’t know what […].Why is it interesting to look at the acquisition of ellipsis?Learnability problem: The interpretation of the ellipsis site is very restricted. It is an interesting question to see how and when children have learned this restriction.Relation to acquistion of anaphora: Ellipsis is a type of anaphora, where the interpretation of the ellipsis site needs to be recovered from the previous discourse. This type of research thus provides us with another way to look at the acquisi-tion of anaphora and to study how children locate the correct antecedent in linguistic discourse.5b. Results production experiment2. Acquisition of ellipsisOnly one study so far looked at the acquisition of sluicing, and found that English 5-year-olds did not accept sluicing sentences in a grammaticality-judgment task, whereas 7-year-olds did.2This is not in accordance with results from studies that looked at other types of ellipsis, namely noun phrase and verb phrase ellipsis (NPE/VPE). These studies mostly tested the acquisition of NPE and VPE in English and found that children are already able to comprehend and produce these elliptical structures at quite an early age, and that they are thus capable of discourse integration.3,4,5 Our research extends the research on the acquisition of ellipsis that has been done so far, by including another type of ellipsis and another language.4a. DesignParticipants N=30, average age=5;4, age range=4;8-6;1PretestIn the pretest we tested simple embedded sentences (2) to make sure all participants were able to interpret the embedded clause within the sluicing sentences. The pretest was also used to familiarize participants with the procedure, since it had the same set-up as the comprehension experiment.(2) Ik zie niet wie een bloem tekent.   I can’t see who is drawing a flower.Comprehension experimentTo test the comprehension of sluicing we developed a picture selection task. A hand puppet said the test sentence and participants were instructed to help the puppet choose the picture that best fitted the sentence. ItemsTest items- 8 sluicing sentences with negation (SluiceNeg)- 8 sluicing sentences without negation (SluicePos)  Control items- 2 non-elliptical sluicing counterparts with negation (CounterNeg)- 2 non-elliptical sluicing counterparts without negation (CounterPos)- 2 non-elliptical regular coordinated sentences with different object (CoordObj)- 2 non-elliptical regular coordinated sentences with different action (CoordAct)PicturesNext to the target picture there were three distractor pictures. Picture 2 was included to make sure participants interpreted the whole sentence and not just the first conjunct. Pictures 3 and 4 provided non-adult like interpretations of the sluicing sentence with different, less restrictied antecedents for the ellipsis site.Production experimentWe developed an elicitation task in the form of a card game to test the production of sluicing sentences in Dutch. Every item con-sisted of 3 cards, with a picture on each of them, that were given to the child. The experimenter was not allowed to see the pictures and asked questions about what the child could see on the cards. The answer to the last question elicited a sluicing sentence. The production task had 8 items.References1. Merchant, J. (2006). Sluicing. In: Everaert, M. & Van Riemsdijk, H. C. (Eds). The Blackwell Companion to syntax, volume IV. Malden, MA: Blackwel Publishing.2. Wood, G. C. (2009). The identity of silence: Acquiring the identity condition on sluicing. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, 15, pp. 138-150.3. Matsuo, A. (2007). Differing interpretations of empty categories in English and Japanese VP Ellipsis contexts. Language Acquisition, 14:1, pp. 3-29.4. Thornton, R. & Wexler, K. (1999). Principle B, VP Ellipsis, and Interpretation in Child Grammar. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press.5. Wijnen, F. Roeper, T. & Van der Meulen, H. (2004). Discourse binding: Does it begin with nominal ellipsis? In: Van Kampen, J. & Baauw, S. (Eds). Proceedings of GALA 2003. Utrecht: LOT.4b. Item comprehension experimentTest sentenceIemand tekent een bloem, maar ik zie niet wie.Someone is drawing a flower, but I can’t see who.The blue areas represent paper doors that cover the subjects.Pictures1 = Target2 = Control3 = Different object4 = Different action4c. Item production experimentQuestions             Target answers1. Is er iemand gitaar aan het spelen?       Ja, een mevrouw. Is someone playing guitar?             Yes, a woman.2. Is er iemand een plant water aan het geven?       Ja, een meneer. Is someone watering a plant?            Yes, a man.3. Is er iemand een boot aan het trekken?      Ja, maar ik zie niet wie. Is someone pulling a boat?             Yes, but I can’t see who.5a. Results comprehension experimentcharlottelindenbergh@gmail.com6. ConclusionOur results show that Dutch children at the age of 5 are fully able to comprehend sluicing sentences in an adult-like way. Furthermore, most children produced a great number of sluicing sentences (63%) and they even preferred to produce sluicing sentences over their full non-elliptical counterparts (13%).Our results contradict the findings from the only other study on the acquisition of sluicing, which concluded that 5-year-olds do not ac-cept sluicing sentences as grammatical.2However, our results do align with studies on VP and NP ellipsis, supporting the view that children at the age of five are fully able to reconstruct the antecedent of ellipsis, by integrating the elided phrase in the discourse.3,4,5Our sluicing study thus contributes to theories of the acquisition of ellipsis and anaphoricity in general. Additionally, it provides the field of acquisition research with a method that can easily be adapted to test different sluicing varieties with young children in different languages.3. Research questions1. How do children interpret anaphora?a. At what age do Dutch children comprehend sluicing sentences?b. At what age do Dutch children produce sluicing sentences?1 2431 2 3The acquisition of sentence ellipsis in Dutch pre-schoolersCharlotte LindenberghBart Hollebrandse Angeliek van Hout

The acquisition of sentence ellipsis in Dutch preschoolers

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The acquisition of sentence ellipsis in Dutch preschoolers

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