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The aim of the present study is to document how speakers of English process and produce the two dative alternation constructions during their acquisition of English and to discover any patterns or paths of acquisition in that processing and production. This section contrasts the nativist, generative approach to first language acquisition with the frequentist or empiricist usage-based framework. After discussing these theories of first language acquisition, this section will also lay out how they relate to the dative alternation in particular.

Nativist theories argue from the “poverty of the stimulus” (Chomsky 1980:34): in their view, the sum of all the language input received by a child is logically insufficient for the linguistic generalizations that the child will later make; it follows that there must be another component to language acquisition beside the input, and nativists argue that some innate biological endowment is the obvious candidate. Furthermore, since all adult speakers of one language community have (more or less) the same grammar, language acquisition must stop at some point and thus yield a steady adult grammar. The innate component or “initial state of the mind might be regarded as a function . . . that maps experience into the steady state” (Chomsky 1980:187; see also Pinker 2004). This process of mapping is then specified in the Principles and Parameters approach (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993): all stages of language acquisition, including the final steady one, adhere to certain principles, and the differences between stages and between different adult steady stages, or languages, are entirely due to parameters being set to one value or another (see Hyams 1998 for crosslinguistic evidence).

Although a comprehensive and uncontroversial list of parameters has not yet been produced, it is generally agreed (and indeed obvious) that setting a parameter value requires a trigger or cue in the input. If the triggers for one parameter value are too infrequent (or absent) in the input, that value is not set (in a diachronic view, the value is lost; see Niyogi 2004). In effect, Principles and Parameters theory assumes that there is a cognitive system that uses the currently best grammar (or combination of parameter values) while also evaluating this and other grammars against the input. Parameters are mostly seen as binary; the value that has fewer formal features can be seen as the unmarked, ‘default’ one (Roberts 2007). Like values, entire parameters can also be more marked or complex than others. This is used to explain why parameters are apparently set successively, even though a simple sentence can arguably contain triggers for many different parameter values: at such a stage, it may be the case that “the overall system has not matured sufficiently . . . to permit certain parameters or parameter values to be attained” means that the double object construction is more likely even after a prepositional prime (Gries 2005:376). It should be noted, however, that Gries (2005) is a corpus-based study, whereas the priming in this study is systematically varied. The present study is therefore better suited for investigating the existence of a priming effect and any resistance of that from verb bias.

(Roberts 2007:211).

The same point is also recognized in Lightfoot (2010)’s cue-based variant of nativist acquisition theory. This approach does not use parameters, but instead restricts the learner’s cognitive operations on linguistic representations to those that are innate and those that the input contains enough evidence or cues for. In this view, complex operations will often operate on the output of simpler ones. Therefore, the cues for the simple operations have to be recognized before the more complex cues can even be found (Lightfoot 2003:7), moving from simpler to more complex operations and from core to periphery. This theory also offers an account of how language can change in a strongly nativist approach: the nativist argument is an answer to the question how language acquisition can so consistently yield a system that is the best model for the input. A priori, this assumption would also lead us to expect that the output of that system would in effect mirror the input (for an infinitely large sample) and thus that there is no language change; yet there is. If, however, the input changes (for whatever reason), then the cues expressed by it would of course also change, as would the system learned from them—in other words, “grammatical shifts are to be explainedonlyby a prior change in the trigger experience” (Lightfoot 2003:18, original emphasis). To summarize, nativist theories of language acquisition posit innate language-specific cognitive mechanisms in order to explain the apparent contradiction between the limited input and the unlimited generative capacity and changeability.

Frequentist or empiricist theories, on the other hand, argue that it is pointless to find explanations for such apparent contradictions because the nativist generative approach is inherently flawed in several respects: it assumes psychologically real generalizations about (or rules of) grammar without having any evidence for them (Bowerman and Croft 2008:287–292), it fails to explain children’s use of learned expressions as wholes (Abbot-Smith and Tomasello 2006), and it ignores the flexibility of adults’ grammars (Bybee 2010:112–114).

The nativist argument from the poverty of the stimulus can be simplified into the following form: innate domain-specific language learning mechanisms are necessary to infer general grammatical rules from limited input. This formulation makes more apparent the fact that this necessity would not exist if there were no categorical rules at the end of the acquisition process: if there are no psychologically real grammatical generalizations, then no specialist cognitive mechanism is needed to infer them. Bowerman and Croft (2008) argue that the absence of evidence for psychologically real rules of grammar is enough to reject the premise that such rules exist. This is perfectly parsimonious, of course, but stronger evidence for this absence of categorical grammatical rules is naturally difficult to find. For example, Bowerman (1994) shows that it is not the case that all children use one and the same innate set of motion categories, even at a very early age, and argues that this is evidence against innate categories at least in the domain of motion. However, it may be that all newborn children have the same set of motion

categories (and other linguistic mechanisms) and that they have subsequently learned enough to deviate according to language by age two.44Therefore, Bowerman (1994)’s findings do not

constitute unequivocal evidence against grammatical rules.

The case against psychologically real grammatical rules is also made by Paul (1880). It is axiomatic in linguistics that speakers form some categories of, or associations between, stored forms in their minds. Paul points out that this fact does not mean that these associations are identical with grammatical concepts, “even though they usually coincide with them” (Paul 1880:31, my translation).45 In other words, his argument is that the fact that a language can

be described using concepts like ‘verb’, ‘case’, and ‘collocation’ does not automatically mean that these concepts have psychological reality.46Thus, Bowerman and Croft (2008)’s argument

against the poverty of the stimulus is sound—if one accepts the premise that there are no psychologically real grammatical rules.

Generative nativist theories assume that learners analyze input and (re-)generate output based on what their innate language processing system has been able to extract from the input. Empiricist theories recognize the importance of direct imitation in early language acquisition: in the view of Abbot-Smith and Tomasello (2006), generalizations are formed slowly out of many single items that ‘overlap’ in one way or another. The elements that are shared by all these items (for example, doin second position in When do you want to eat?,Why do we think that?,Where

do they come from?, and so on) are retained in the generalization, whereas the differences

‘blur’ and thus leave only their common features behind (wh-word before thedoand VP after it, in the previous example). This process, however, requires many examples and is therefore slow. Abbot-Smith and Tomasello (2006:283) argue that much of children’s early speech must therefore be made up of exemplars that are very frequent as a whole in the input (What’s that?

orWhat do you want?, to continue the example). Support for this comes from D˛abrowska and

Lieven (2005)’s study of questions in early speech, which shows that most of them are in fact imitations of previously heard questions (as much as 75% in one case; D˛abrowska and Lieven 2005:450), and from Lieven et al. (2009)’s corpus study of early child language in general, which shows that the majority of two-year-olds’ utterances (as much as 92% in one case; Lieven et al. 2009:492–493) are either exact imitations of a previous utterance or can be reduced to a previous utterance with no more than one simple substitution or addition. These findings thus

44This is of course one of the difficulties in showing the absence of innate grammatical rules: people who have only the innate mechanisms without the benefit of any subsequent learning—newborn children—do not make good subjects of linguistic studies, and therefore older children are often chosen as subjects.

45In Paul (1880:31)’s original words: “. . . wenn sie sich auch gewöhnlich mit diesen decken”.

46Psychological reality of linguistic structures, processes, or rules is frequently assumed tacitly. There are some explicit claims of empirical evidence for it, for example with CPs in some Semitic languages (Friedmann 2001), NP traces (McElree and Bever 1989), and rules concerning theta attachment and center-embedding (Sadeh-Leicht 2007). It is important to note that such evidence is a matter of interpretation, at least to some degree. For one argument against psychological reality of linguists’ constructs, see Barrios (2012).

provide empirical support for the above argument against grammatical rules: at least for young children’s speech production (if not their internal representations), generative rules seem largely unnecessary.

Finally, some empiricist approaches like Yang (2004) and Bybee (2010) discuss the notion of ‘grammatical rules’ more intensively. The original argument from the poverty of the stimulus assumes that innate language-specific mechanisms or knowledge are needed to explain how all speakers of one language at one time converge on the same grammar when there logically are many grammars that can analyze and generate the same data equally well (Berwick 1985:235– 238). These empiricists argue that there is no evidence for all speakers in a language community actually sharing the very same grammar (see Kayne 2012:Section 2). Yang (2004:51), for example, argues that “adults speakers, at the terminal state of language acquisition, may retain multiple grammars, or more precisely, alternate parameter values”. Bybee (2010:112–114) goes further than that: in her view, adult grammars are not “discrete and unchanging” (Bybee 2010:114), but rather statistical and flexible. Yang (2004) combines statistical learning with Principles and Parameters: his theory of acquisition uses different parameter settings to create different (competing) grammars in a learner’s mind. Those grammars that do not allow for an item of input are penalized, which over time leaves only a few ‘surviving’ grammars. The adult speaker then has access to these grammars only. Bybee (2010:64–66)’s theory of acquisition is also statistical (or exemplar-based), with abstract patterns emerging from the repetition and modification of stored exemplars. These patterns are not above the variations of them, however: “the same factors operate to produce both regular patterns and the deviations” (Bybee 2010:6). In this theory, variation is constrained by how it spreads: since exemplars are associated with each other in a rich network, language change tends to affect all forms that are similar in a relevant way. That means that the variation has to make sense, as it were, for all those forms. In first language acquisition, variation appears to be limited to “consistently” replicating variation in the input (Bybee 2010:117). However, because she does not assume fixed adult grammars, she can explain variability in adult speech with just one (flexible) grammar as the end result of acquisition. Of course, a flexible grammar does not have to change dramatically to be flexible, and dramatic changes are intuitively unlikely in adult grammar. This important point is also realized by the more fleshed-out theories of Batali (2002) and Bod (2006), which will be discussed below. It is worth pointing out that Batali (2002) technically describes an exemplar-based modeling and simulation system for the negotiation of a shared language, not a theory of the evolution of language or its subsequent acquisition by following generations. This system is nevertheless deserving of discussion because it is quite detailed and because, through that level of detail, it reveals a fact about exemplar-based approaches that is central to the discussion here.

at random. One is given a message to transmit to the other and has to use its stored message- to-signal formulae to find the signal that will best express the message to the other agent. This receiving agent then uses its own formulae to find the most likely meaning for that signal. Batali demonstrates in some detail how this gives rise to a stable but flexible language over time even if the agents are given no ‘words’ at all to begin with: through random string generation and imitation, words spread; given enough time, even reflexive and passive markers as well as phrase or clause delimiters and complementizers arise spontaneously in simulations of this system. One might argue that giving the receiving agent both the signal and the intended message in 90% of simulated interactions (Batali 2002:138, 166) invalidates the system as a whole, since hearers of natural language utterances need to infer the message from the signal. However, the 10% of interactions where only the signal was given to the receiving agent were explicitly used as testing interactions; and the intended message may well be inferable from non-linguistic clues in many cases, at least in early language evolution (and acquisition). The relevant point is a different one: this exemplar-theoretic system is nativist.

Although the agents are not given words to start with, they do start out with a full understanding of the messages that they have to express in the simulation. This includes not only the simple words, but also the two-place predicates (verbs, in effect). The simulated agents know how these message segments combine to form tree-like structures. In other words, the agents have an ideal and shared innate grammar of meanings and negotiate a grammar of strings based on that. Furthermore, they all share the same operations for combining the strings of the language they are to create. Though Batali (2002) does not say so, it can be inferred from his use of these innate operations that they are necessary for the simulation to work. This is not an argument against his simulation system, of course, but it supports nativist approaches. The arguments against this system being nativist are not strong enough to remove this support: firstly, while it is arguably true that the innate operations are “similar to those proposed in the domains of perception, analogical reasoning, and planning” (Batali 2002:128), there is no proof that they are identical. To dispel domain-specific nativism, this identity of operations is crucial, however. Secondly, the fact that these operations “might occur as solutions to the problem of encoding complex meanings into linear sequences” (Batali 2002:129) does not mean that they do for each real-world agent (speaker) individually. Finally, the argument that “deficiencies of the model might be fixed by modifying the agents’ system of internal representations, the algorithms and data-structures underlying their communicative behavior, and/or their learning mechanisms” (Batali 2002:169) only if these changes “seem biologically plausible,orof general cognitive utility” (Batali 2002:169, emphasis added) is obviously not an argumentagainstthis exemplar-based system being nativist, but ratherforthat.

Grammar (LFG), but it exhibits the same inconsistency. Briefly, it assumes that language acquisition and processing are cognitively realized by representations being disassembled (partially or completely) and reassembled from these fragments. This is achieved by strict “decomposition” and “composition operations” (both Bod 2006:295). Bod shows that acquisition based on this can be statistical or exemplar-based. However, this model relies on “grammatical functions and semantic roles” (Bod 2006:317) pre-existing in the learner’s mind. These are called “Universal Representation” (UR) by Bod (2006:318), and he argues that this differs from the idea of Universal Grammar in the result: a UR-based grammar can be statistical, whereas a UG-based grammar is restricted to categorical principles. Thus, the difference between nativist and empiricist theories of language acquisition is in the (possibly psychologically real) representation of grammatical knowledge. The mechanisms or operations that give rise to and apply to this knowledge apparently have to be somewhat specific to language, and they have to exist in the learner’s mind before acquisition begins. Thus, Pinker (2004)’s conclusion that most (if not all) linguistic frameworks are ‘innatist’ to some degree is borne out:

“For the behaviourists, the innate constraints reside in the generalization gradients and response classes. For the connectionists, they reside in the features defining the units and the topology of the networks. For Chomskyans, they reside in categories, operations, and principles. For MacWhinney, they reside in the cues, items, alternatives pitted in competition, and categories whose absence constitutes ‘indirect negative evidence.’” (Pinker 2004:949)

To summarize this discussion, there is evidence for statistical or item-based learning as well as a theoretical need for some component of the human language facility to be innate. ‘Compromise’ theories that incorporate this have been proposed: those discussed above obviously fit the description, but Yang (2004), for example, also arrives at a compromise theory after starting with a Principles and Parameters approach. He does theorize that learners maintain several grammars and use the input to constantly evaluate them, but the system allows for statistical rather than categorical learning. Abbot-Smith and Tomasello (2006) argue that the human language faculty can turn exemplar-based frames or constructions into more abstract categorical rules once they are frequent enough to allow the necessary generalizations. A similar model of item-based learning that leads to generalized rules is described in Bowerman and Croft (2008:293–296).

The rest of this section will briefly explain how different acquisition theories relate to the dative alternation. As shown in Sections 2.3 to 2.6, the current best view of the dative alternation approaches it as a choice between two constructions that is guided by an interaction of many factors of varying strengths. Thus, all that is necessary to embed the acquisition of the dative alternation into an acquisitional framework is to explain how these factors come to influence the

dative alternation and how their strengths can change over time.

Logically, there are two possibilities for how the factors start to have their effect: either they are innately effective, or they are added over the course of acquisition. As shown above, the