The Syntax and Pragmatics of Reference in First Language Acquisition

1
The Syntax and Pragmatics of Reference in First
Language Acquisition

• Margot Rozendaal
• Supervision Prof. dr. Anne Baker
• University of Amsterdam
• ACLC-NAP 12 September 2003

2
Outline

• Features of linguistic reference
• Present PhD-research
• Literature overview
• General approach
• Methodology
• Analysis procedure
• Later parts of project

3
What is linguistic reference?

• Speakers perspective
• A speaker uses a linguistic expression to refer
  to / identify an entity. (Brown Yule 1983)
• Listeners perspective
• A reference is relevant in relation to the
  context if its contextual effects are large and
  the effort to process it is small (Sperber
  Wilson 1986)

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Example

• A boy was holding a frog in a jar. When the boy
  went to sleep at night, the frog escaped from the
  jar. When the boy woke up in the morning, he
  noticed that the frog was gone and ø was very sad.

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Reference syntactic devices

• Amongst others
• Nouns determiners (indefinite, definite etc.)
• Pronominal elements (personal pronoun,
  demonstrative pronoun etc.)
• Zero anaphors

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Reference pragmatic functions

• Introduction (new a boy, a frog)
• Maintenance (given he)
• Shift (given the boy, the frog)

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Link between syntax and pragmatics in reference

• New given
• (intro)
  (maintenance )
• Indefinite gt definite gt pronoun gt zero
  anaphor
• But there is also an influence of.
• Mutual knowledge
• The presence of the referent in the physical
  context (exophoric reference)

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Present PhD-research goal

• Descriptive model of the acquisition of
  (appropriate) reference
• Influence of syntax
• Influence of pragmatics
• To attain this goal
• Cross-linguistic research
• Different populations (SLI)

9
Literature overview

• Spontaneous speech
• 111-90
• English, Dutch, Russian
• (Brown 1973, Bennett-Kastor 1983, Peterson
  Dodsworth 1991, Peterson 1993, Roelofs 1998,
  Avrutin Brun 2001, a.o.)
• Picture-based narratives
• 36 1010
• English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish,
  Japanese, Chinese
• (Karmiloff-Smith 1979, Bamberg 1987, Clancy
  1992, Kail Hickmann 1992, Aarssen 1996, Küntay
  2002, Hickmann 2003, a.o.)

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General conclusions previous studies

• Children experience difficulties in estimating
  the listeners knowledge this leads to too many
  presupposing devices (definite NPs, pronouns).
• More difficulties with introductions than with
  maintenance / shift.
• Difference between indefinite / definite NPs is
  not used systematically until 50

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Problems in comparing previous studies

• Differences in data collection
• Differences in research procedure
• Age ranges in studies
• Differences in data analysis

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General approach of present research

• Data
• Age of subjects starting at 20
• Spontaneous speech
• Data analysis
• Differentiating three pragmatic functions
• Development of correctness of forms and
  form-function mappings

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Methodology

• Transcripts from CHILDES
• Dutch, English, German, Swedish, French
• Analysis procedure
• Not analyzable utterances
• Analyzable references
• Syntactic analysis
• Pragmatic analysis
• Analysis of correctness

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Syntactic analysis

• Form of referential device
• Noun, pronoun, type of article etc.
• Features of referential device
• Number, gender, person
• Correctness

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Pragmatic analysis

• Pragmatic function
• Introduction, maintenance, shift
• Communicative situation
• Mutual knowledge / no mutual knowledge
• Environment
• Exophoric / endophoric reference
• Correctness

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Correctness

• Correctness of syntactic form compared to its use
  in adult language
• Choice of gender of article, singular-plural
  distinction, person distinction of pronouns etc.
• Correctness of form-function mapping
• Choice of syntactic form in relation to pragmatic
  function (from an adult perspective)

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Correctness four possibilities (1)

• Syntactically and pragmatically correct
• A woman was walking down the street, she had
  blond hair.
• Syntactically incorrect / pragmatically correct
• Het fiets staat tegen de muur
• (..in reference shift)

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Correctness four possibilities (2)

• Syntactically correct / pragmatically incorrect
  (form-function mismatch)
• She was walking down the street
• (.in an NMK-introduction)
• Syntactically incorrect leads to pragmatically
  incorrect
• I saw a woman, he had blond hair
• (.in maintenance)

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Form-function (mis)match summary for
introductions in Dutch
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Example Josse 30,06Form-function mismatch

• GER wat heb je gedaan op je verjaardag?
• CHI ltmet diegt / met die slingers is dat .
• CHI ltdiegt / die wast was iets in die
  auto.
• com JOS tells about his car he got for his
  birthday.
• CHI die lag er xx op .
• GER watte ...

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Some errors in syntax leading to pragmatic
difficulties

• Person selection
• Gender selection (pronoun or possessive article)
• Number selection (pronoun or possessive article
• Number of referents
• Noun unclear (phonological / morphological
  errors)

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Example Josse 30,20(syntactic error ? pragmatic
difficulty)

• CHI er wasse waren mooie boden
  boten .
• GER een bode ?
• HAN bomen, denk ik, nee ?
• CHI was ook boot .
• CHI boot .
• HAN een ltbootgt gt natuurlijk .

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Later parts of project

• Analysis of reference in spontaneous speech in
  five languages
• Analysis of reference in data from SLI-children
• Experiments on reference on the basis of results
  from spontaneous speech
• Development of model on the acquisition of
  reference