We begin with three general typological dimensions along which lan- guages vary: properties of their morphological systems (Section 3.1.1), their general orientation towards subjects vs. topics (Section 3.1.2), and their reliance on pro- cesses of lexicalisation vs. grammaticalisation for the encoding of information in different domains (Section 3.1.3).
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Cross-linguistic invariants and variations 3.1.1 Morphological systems
One major source of variation across languages stems from the extent to which they provide morphological markings and from the properties of these morphological systems. I briefly describe four of these properties below, all of which have been shown to have an impact on the rate and course of acquisition in different domains of child language: the richness of morphological systems, their transparency, their uniformity, and a number of other formal properties character- ising these markings.
3.1.1.1 Morphological richness
The richness of morphological systems concerns the complexity of the markings provided, as shown by the number and types of distinctions encoded. Some languages present practically no morphology, whether in their verbal or nominal system. Thus, Chinese has no verbal inflections and therefore no grammaticalised tense, person and/or number distinctions in the verb. Optional adverbials temporally locate events, for example in the past or non-past (e.g.jin1tian1‘today’,zuo2tian1
‘yesterday’,you3yi4tian1‘a long time ago’), particles mark aspect (e.g. perfective le, imperfective zhe), as well as adverbials (imperfectivezai4), and particles or verbs mark modality (e.g.dei3‘must’,neng2‘can’). Chinese also has no obligatory markings in the nominal/pronominal system for case, gender, or number distinc- tions, although some relevant morphemes are optional (except under particular conditions, as shown below): optionalmenmarking the plural in personal pronouns (e.g.wo1men‘we’,wo1‘I’ or ‘we’); particles marking role relations (e.g.ba3orbei3 for preverbal objects with OSV or SOV word orders); specific classifiers, optional with determiners, which categorise nominals as a function of various dimensions (see further discussion in Section 3.2 below).
Furthermore, languages that do have morphological systems vary a great deal with respect to the richness of these markings. English presents a relatively weak morphological system. Only number is marked on nominals (plural-s, e.g.dog/dogs) and no markings occur on nominal determiners (a/the N). The pronominal system presents two-way number distinctions (singular, plural), three-way case distinc- tions (nominative, genitive, other roles), as well as three-way gender distinctions, mostly linked to sex or animacy (masculine, feminine, neuter). Person distinctions are roughly restricted to the auxiliaryto be(e.g.am/is/are) and to the third person singular with present inflections otherwise (e.g.havevs.has,eatvs.eats,walkvs.
walks). Verbal morphology also encodes tense (past, non-past), aspect (progres- sive, non-progressive), while most other distinctions are carried by auxiliaries (e.g.
futurewill, conditionalwould). In comparison, German provides a much richer mor- phology. A number of markings occur on nominal determiners, on nominals, and on pronouns: a two-way number distinction, a four-way case system (nominative,
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Some general typological dimensions accusative, dative, genitive), and a three-way gender system (masculine, feminine, neuter), which is mostly grammatical and only partially linked to sex or animacy.
Furthermore, these markings also occur on modifiers such as adjectives and past participles, for example the adjectiveklein‘small’ is marked for [Sg-Masc-Nom]
inein kleiner Hund, for [Sg-Masc-Acc] ineinen kleinen Hund(‘a small dog’), and for [Sg-Fem-Nom/Acc] ineine kleine Katze(‘a small cat’). German verbs also pro- vide a variety of person distinctions among first, second, and/or third persons with auxiliaries and other verbs, particularly in the present (e.g. with the verbgehen‘to go’:gehe,gehst,geht,gehen‘go’), but also to a lesser extent in the past (e.g.ging vs.gingst‘went’).
French is intermediary with respect to morphological complexity.1It presents three-way case distinctions on personal pronouns, as well as two-way number and gender distinctions on nominal determiners, pronominals, and some modi- fiers. Gender (masculine, feminine) is mainly differentiated on singular nominal determiners and on third person pronouns. Gender markings also occur on a subset of adjectives (e.g.grand‘big [Masc]’ vs.grande‘big [Fem]’) and of past particip- ials (e.g.mis‘put [Masc]’ vs.mise‘put [Fem]’). Grammatical gender is by far the most frequent, although gender is partly linked to sex in the case of animate NPs and in these cases it is also partially marked on some nouns in relation to sex in the case of animate referents (e.g.le chien‘the [Masc] dog [Masc]’ vs.la chienne
‘the [Fem] dog [Fem]’; le maˆıtre ‘the [Masc] teacher [Masc]’ vs. la maˆıtresse
‘the [Fem] teacher [Fem]’). Number is marked on nominal determiners, which op- pose singular forms with a plural form neutralising gender. With the exception of rare irregular nominal forms (e.g.le cheval‘the [Sg] horse [Sg]’ vs.les chevaux
‘the [Pl] horses [Pl]’), number is not marked on nouns in the oral modality, being only partially marked on (first and second person) pronouns. Case is only marked on pronouns, that is different clitics exist for all persons depending on whether the NP is a subject, a direct object, or an indirect object. French verbal morphology marks tense, aspect, modality, and mood. The most person distinctions occur with auxiliaries (ˆetre‘to be’,avoir‘to have’), but these markings are otherwise variable with different verb classes (see below).
3.1.1.2 Morphological transparency
Another variable property of morphological systems is the trans- parency with which they encode various distinctions. This property is linked to several dimensions, such as the symmetry of the marked distinctions. For example, the verbal morphology of many languages simultaneously marks tense and aspect distinctions, but these two types of markings are more symmetric in some lan- guages than in others. English distinguishes progressive and non-progressive forms in all tenses and modalities (e.g.She eats/ate,is/was eating). In contrast, French
Cross-linguistic invariants and variations
differentiates perfective and imperfective forms only in the past (e.g.Elle mangeait
‘She was eating’,Elle a mang´e‘she ate’), neutralising aspect in the present (Elle mange‘she eats/is eating’) and providing no inflection specialised for the marking of ongoing events, although periphrastic constructions are available in all tenses for this purpose (e.g.Elle est/´etait en train de manger‘She is/was in the course of eating’). The same is also true of German, although the available aspect distinctions in the past provide a less clear-cut opposition between the perfective and imper- fective as compared to French (see Section 3.4.1 below). Spanish, in comparison, presents both types of properties: a perfective vs. imperfective distinction in the past (e.g.Comi´o/Com´ıa‘[She] ate [PFV].’/‘[She] ate [IMPF]’), as well as progressive vs. non-progressive forms in the past and non-past (Esta/estaba comiendo‘[She]
is/was eating’).
3.1.1.3 Morphological uniformity
A related property of morphological systems, which is variable across linguistic systems, is their relativeuniformity. Uniformity refers to whether or not morphological paradigms are consistent in their (high or low) level of complexity.
In order to be uniform, a morphological system must contain only complex forms or no complex forms at all, in contrast to other paradigms that are mixed in this respect.
For reasons that will become clearer below (Section 3.2), recent discussions have invoked this property particularly in relation to verbal morphology. For example, as noted above, Chinese has no verbal morphology and therefore no distinction between finite and non-finite forms (notwithstanding aspect particles). No verbal form, then, is complex with respect to person marking, and the Chinese verbal paradigm is therefore uniform. Similarly, Italian presents different verbal forms with all persons (which all differ from the infinitival form) and its verbal paradigm is therefore uniform. In contrast, English simultaneously presents complex verbal forms that diverge from the infinitive (eats,eating,eaten) and simple ones (eat) which are formally identical to the infinitival form. As a result, its verbal paradigm is mixed and it is therefore not uniform. This particular property of verbal morphology has been claimed to have major consequences for a variety of linguistic phenomena, such as whether a given language does or does not allow null elements in independent finite clauses (Jaeggli and Safir 1989; Hyams 1989, 1992b; Sano and Hyams 1994). Thus, English (mixed system) does not allow null elements in these contexts, whereas both Italian and Chinese (uniform systems) do so.
3.1.1.4 Other formal properties of morphological markings
Among the languages that present morphological systems, great vari- ation also occurs with respect to the particular formal properties of these markings.
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Some general typological dimensions This type of variation can be illustrated in two ways. First, the form of morphological markings may vary with properties of the items they modify. For example, English presents basically one past tense morpheme (-ed) used on a majority of verbs, as well as a variety of so-calledirregularforms (e.g.come/came,go/went,eat/ate).
The system is more complex in German, where the distinction between regular and irregular verbs is less clear than in English. In contrast, French verbal morphology presents different endings for several classes of verbs, which are partly defined in terms of their phonological properties:2verbs with infinitives ending in -er(e.g.
manger‘to eat’), by far the most frequent; most verbs with infinitives ending in -ir(e.g. finir‘to finish’); a third heterogeneous class comprising a number of verb forms (e.g. some verbs ending in -ir, such asdormir‘to sleep’, and other verbs, such asvoir‘to see’).
Furthermore, morphological markings vary along another formal dimension con- cerning their position in relation to the item they modify. Markings might be placed before the constituent they modify (prefixes), after it (suffixes), or inside it (infixes).
Similarly, note that a related fact concerns grammatical markings other than mor- phological ones. For example, depending on the language, some markings may take the form ofprepositionsor ofpostpositions, for example English provides preposi- tions which occur before the NP they modify (such as the spatial prepositionson, under,above), whereas Turkish expresses similar relations by means of postposi- tions, which occur after the NP they modify. As shown subsequently (Chapters 5 and 6), it has been argued that such formal differences affect the relative ease or difficulty encountered by children during language acquisition. For example, late overgeneralisation errors occur in some languages with past forms, and children have fewer difficulties acquiring morphological markings which are unit-final (suffixes) in comparison to other types (prefixes, infixes).
3.1.2 Orientation to subjects or topics
Languages have also been categorised as beingsubject-orientedvs.
topic-oriented. This dimension is partly related to morphological properties, which contribute to the marking of subjecthood. Subjecthood can be described as a bundle of features, some of which are distributional and others morphological. Depend- ing on the language, the subject NP has one or all of the following properties: it is in sentence-initial position (at least in so-called canonical clauses; see further discussion in Section 3.2. below), it governs verb-agreement (partially marked by distinctions in the verbal morphology), and/or it is marked with nominative case (in languages that provide case markings). In contrast to English, Chinese has practically no morphology and therefore neither subject-verb agreement nor case markings.3As a result, the sentence is not organised around the subject, but rather
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Cross-linguistic invariants and variations
in terms of aTopic-Comment Structure: a topic is established before something is predicated of it (as in subject-oriented languages), but this structure is not articu- lated through the grammatical network of the sentence. Example (3.1) (from Li and Thompson 1981) illustrates such a topic-comment structure in Chinese.
(3.1) Nei4chang2 huo3, xing4kui1 xiao1fang2dui4 lai2 de kuai4.
(that fire fortunately fire-brigade come PCL fast) (‘That fire, fortunately the fire-brigade came quickly.’)
The extent to which languages may or may not be categorised in terms of such a two-way distinction is a matter of debate (also see Li and Thompson 1976). Thus, it has been argued that some Romance languages such as French (Lambrecht 1981, 1987) or Italian (Bates and Devescovi 1989), which have been traditionally classified as subject-oriented languages on the basis of their morphological properties, actually share some properties with Chinese with respect to topic-orientation. Depending on the language, this argument may be based on different phenomena. For example, particular French structures, such as the so-called left-dislocations, which are heav- ily used in informal spoken speech, exhibit a Topic-Comment Structure, whereby one or more topic NPs are placed in front of the sentence and followed by a predica- tion that contains a coreferential clitic pronoun, for example (3.2). Related structures also exist that do not contain coreferential clitics but merely preposed nominals, for example (3.3). Similarly, French speakers strongly ‘resist’ the placement of new information in initial position, heavily relying on existential structures such as (3.4) and more strikingly (3.5), where the presentational function of the utterance (presenting a missing referent in discourse) overrides the semantic value of the ut- terance, resulting in a proposition that has no truth value (see related examples in Blanche-Benvenisteet al.1990). This rule is not strictly speaking grammaticalised (in the sense that it is not prescribed by the grammar, at least not in the written register), but it is heavily followed in the spoken register. In this respect, French resembles Chinese, where new information must be postverbal (see Chapter 1, as well as further details in Section 3.2 below).
(3.2) Son v´elo, les pneux, Pierre il doit les gonfler.
(‘His bike, the tyres, Pierre he must pump them.’) (3.3) Son v´elo, les pneux, Pierre il doit s’y mettre.
(‘His bike, the tyres, Pierre he must get started (with them).’) (3.4) Y’a un type qui arrive.
(‘There’s a guy that comes.’) (3.5) Moi, j’ai un livre que j’ai pas.
(‘As for me, I have a book that I don’t have.’)
Some general typological dimensions 3.1.3 Lexicalisation and grammaticalisation
A third general dimension differentiating languages concerns the ways in which systems encode information through grammatical or lexical means. The question of how to relate the grammar and the lexicon is controversial and ram- pant in linguistic theory, lying beyond the scope of this discussion. Nonetheless, some of the specific issues it raises are relevant to subsequent chapters, as illus- trated by three examples. First, some languages mark distinctions in their verbal morphology, while others express equivalent or related distinctions by other lexi- calised, semi-lexicalised, or periphrastic means. For example, as noted above (also see Section 3.4. below), whereas English grammaticalises the distinction between progressive and non-progressive forms, French expresses this distinction by means of a periphrastic construction (ˆetre en train de‘to be in the course of ’). In lan- guages such as Chinese, which provide no grammaticalised tense forms, speakers have optional lexical means such as adverbials, which partially perform some of the same functions. Furthermore, Chinese provides several means of marking aspect, including adverbials (imperfectivezai4) and particles (perfectivele, imperfective zhe), as illustrated in (3.6) and (3.7). The particlelehas also been claimed to mark several meanings depending on its position (perfectivity when verb-final,current relevance when sentence-final), but some analyses propose the unified meaning
‘focus on a new state’ to encompass both of these uses (see a review in Li, 1990).
Finally, Chinese provides complex verbal constructions that can mark simultane- ously a process and the result of this process, for example (3.8). According to some analyses (Smith 1985), all of these markings may serve as the basis for pragmatic inferences concerning tense.
(3.6) Ta1 pao3 le (3p run LE) (‘He ran.’)
(3.7) Ta1 pao3-zhe. / Ta1 zai4 pao3.
(3p run-IMP) / (3p IMP run) (‘He is/was running.’) (3.8) Ta1 pao3-xia4-lai2 le
(3p run-down-come LE) (‘He ran down.’)
A second example, noted in Chapter 1 and further discussed below (Section 3.3.), concerns the linguistic representation of motion events. As shown by Talmy (1975, 1983, 1985, 2000), languages differ greatly with respect to how they express motion events that imply a change of location. In particular, whereas path information is grammaticalised in some languages (satellite-framedlanguages), for example by
Cross-linguistic invariants and variations
means of particles and prepositions, it is lexicalised in the verb roots of other languages (verb-framedlanguages) (e.g. Englishto go/run into/out ofvs. French entrer/sortir en marchant‘to enter/exit by running’). As will be shown, a major consequence of this cross-linguistic difference is that different aspects of motion may be more or less salient than others in a given language, becoming more or less accessible to speakers in a variety of situations.
Third, within a cross-linguistic perspective it is sometimes difficult to maintain traditional distinctions between grammatical vs. lexical classes or betweenopen- classvs.closed-classitems, frequently used to describe child language (also see a discussion in Slobin 1997). Roughly, closed-class items have been taken to include grammatical elements, such as inflections, prepositions, particles, connectives, and the like, in contrast to open-class items, roughly including lexical items, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and the like. Some linguistic elements resist such clas- sifications, such as pronominal systems. On the one hand, pronouns are akin to nouns in that they can be substitutes for nouns when we denote entities (hence their label aspro-nouns), and they could be included among other items of the open class on this ground. On the other hand, pronouns are part of a larger net- work of complex grammatical processes, some properties of which are variable across languages. As noted above, the properties of clitic pronouns in Romance languages, as well as the particular settings exhibited by different languages with respect to null subjects, have both been linked to properties of their verbal morphol- ogy (Giv´on 1976, 1983; Lambrecht 1981, 1987; Jakubowiczet al.1996; Jakubowicz and Rigaut 1997). Thus, Romance clitic pronouns have been interpreted as being akin to morphological markings, for example as providing kinds of verbal prefixes marking topic and/or subject agreement. In addition, the possibility of omitting subjects in languages such as Spanish or Italian has been linked to the richness and/or uniformity of their verbal morphology. As a result, it becomes at least neces- sary to qualify the distinction between closed-class and open-class items substan- tially, perhaps in terms of a continuum, rather than a dichotomy (also see Victorri 1999).