Control Principles in the Grammars of Young Children
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-1990
Publication Title
Language Acquisition
Abstract
We conducted two studies investigating the status of control principles in children's grammars. In the first, 20 children ranging in age from 3;9 to 5;4 acted out and gave judgments on sentences containing control in complement and adverbial clauses. We found some children with a grammar type in which PRO has arbitrary reference, as well as children with the grammar types previously attested in the literature. We also found some children whose grammars apparently had a conference requirement for adverbial clauses, causing pronouns to behave like PRO in such constructions. The second study longitudinally explored the findings of the first with 14 children, initially aged 4;1 to 4;10. The results of the second study comported with and elaborated on those of the first. We attempt to characterize the children's grammar types in terms of Universal Grammar and to account for how the grammar types change.
Recommended Citation
McDaniel, Dana, et al. "Control Principles in the Grammars of Young Children." Language Acquisition, vol. 1, no. 4, 1990, pp. 297–335.
