Relative clauses

1
Relative clauses
2
Construction grammar
Meaning
Meaning
Form
Form
Meaning
Form
Meaning
Meaning
Form
Form
3
Lexically-specific constructions

• Get doggy .
• Get milk.
• Get him .
• Get Billy.
• Get something to eat.

4
Emergence of schematic constructions
VERB __
Get __
Get doggy
Get milk
Get him
Get Billy
5
Think-clauses

• I think I'm go in here. 31
• And I think... we need dishes. 32
• Think some toys over here too. 33
• I think I play jingle bells with the record
  player. 35
• I think he's gone. 35
• Oh... I think it's a ball. 35
• It's a crazy bone... I think. 35
• I think it's in here. 35
• I think it's in here Mommy. 27

6
Emergence of schematic constructions
I think __
Remember __
7
Emergence of schematic constructions
I think __
Remember __
8
Emergence of schematic constructions
NP VERB __
NP think __
He thinks __
I am thinking __
I think __
Remember __
9
Experimental test items

• (1) The dog that jumps over the pig bumps into
  the lion.
• (2) The lion that the horse bumps into jumps
  over the giraffe.
• (3) The pig bumps into the horse that jumps
  over the giraffe.
• (4) The dog stands on the horse that the
  giraffe jumps over.

10
Childrens spontaneous relative clauses

• (1) Thats the rabbit that fall off. Nina 27
• (2) Look at dat train Ursula bought. Adam
  210
• (3) This is the sugar that goes in there. Nina
  30
• (4) Thats a picture I made. Adam 30
• (5) Heres a tiger thats gonna scare him. Nina
  31
• (6) Its a song that we dance to. Nina 32

11
Semantic complexity

(1) Heres the tiger thats gonna scare him. gt
The tiger is gonna scare him.
(2) This is the sugar that goes in there. gt The
sugar goes in there.
(3) Its a song that we dance to. gt We dance to
a song.
12
Data
Age range Finite Nonfinite
Adam Sarah Nina Peter Naomi 23-410 23-51 111-34 19-32 18-33 178 32 62 25 8 120 36 71 44 16
19-51 305 287
13
Head of the relative clause

• (1) The man who we saw was reading a book.
  SUBJ

(2) He noticed the man who was reading a book.
OBJ
(3) He saw to the man who was reading a book.
OBL
(4) The man who was reading a book.
NP
(5) Thats the man who was reading a book.
PN
14
Head of relative clause (total)
15
Head of relative clause (earliest)
16
Head of relative clause (development)
PN
OBJ
PN
NP
OBJ
OBL
NP
OBL
OBL
SUBJ
17
Motivating factors

• Semantic complexity.
• Input frequency.
• Information structure.
• Pragmtic function.

18
Conclusion

PN-relatives are the earliest relative clauses
that children learn because
(1) they suit the communicative needs of young
children
(2) they are semantically similar to simple
sentences.
19
Syntactic amalgams

(1) Thats doggy turn around. Nina
111 (2) Thats a turtle swim. Nina
22 (3) Heres a mouse go sleep. Nina
23 (4) Thats the roof go on that home. Nina
24 (5) Thats the rabbit fall off. Nina 24
20
Relativizsed syntactic role

• (1) The man who met the woman. subj

(2) The man who the woman met. obj
(3) The man who the woman talked to. obl
(4) The man who the girl gave the book to. io
(5) The man whose dog bit the woman. gen
21
Relativized syntactic role (total)
22
Relativized syntactic role (development)
obj
subj
obl
23
Experimental study

This is the girl who __ saw Peter on the bus this morning. This is the girl who the boy teased __ at school yesterday. This is the girl who Peter borrowed a football from __ . This is the girl who Peter played with __ in the garden. This is the girl whose horse Peter heard on the farm. subj do io obl gen
Das ist der Mann, der mich gestern gesehen hat. Das ist der Mann, den ich gestern gesehen habe. Das ist der Mann, dem ich das Buch gegeben habe. Das ist der Mann, mit dem ich gesprochen habe. Das ist der Mann, dessen Hund mich gebissen hat. subj do io obl gen
24
Results
English
German
subj vs. do p . 001 do vs. io p
.173 Do vs. obl p .169
subj vs. do p . 001 do vs. io p
.061 io vs. obl p .001
25
Subj-relatives

English ITEM This is the girl who the boy
teased at school. CHILD This is the girl
that teased the boy at school.
German ITEM Da ist der Mann, den das Mädchen
im Stall gesehen hat. CHILD Da ist der Mann,
der das Mädchen im Stall gesehen hat.
26
Subj-relatives

English (1) This is the girl who bor/ Peter
borrowed a football from. German (2) Da ist
der Junge, der/ dem Paul die Mütze weggenommen
hat.
27
Questions
Why are children inconsistent in their
responses? What explains the frequent occurrence
of repairs?
What determines the ease of activation?
28
Frequency and ease of activation
The more frequently a grammatical construction
occurs, the more deeply entrenched it is in
mental grammar, and the easier it is to activate
in language use.
29
Input frequency
(Diessel 2004)
30
Order of thematic roles
(1) The boy kissed the girl. (2) This is the boy
who kissed the girl. (3) This is the boy who the
girl kissed.
31
Order of thematic roles
AGENT VERB PATIENT. Simple clause
PRO is AGENT rel VERB PATIENT. Subj
relative
PRO is PATIENT rel AGENT VERB. Other
relatives
32
Question
Why did the English-speaking children basically
produce the same amount of errors in response to
obj- and obl-relatives?
33
DO, IO, OBL-relatives
(1) The boy who kissed the girl. SUBJ (2) The
boy who the girl kissed. DO (3) The boy who the
girl talked to. OBL (4) The boy who the girl
gave the letter to. IO (5) The boy whose brother
kissed the girl. GEN
34
Word order in English relative clauses

• NP V subj
• NP NP V do
• NP NP V io
• NP NP V obl
• NP GEN N V gen

35
Relative pronouns in German relative clauses

• Der Mann, der subj
• Der Mann, den do
• Der Mann, dem io
• Der Mann, mit/von dem obl
• Der Mann, dessen N gen

36
Question
Why were genitive relatives almost always
incorrect?
37
Gen- and io-relatives
Both gen- and io-relatives are basically absent
from the ambient language.
Io-relatives caused fewer errors than
gen-relatives because they are similar to
do-relatives.
38
Summary
Important is the similarity between
constructions

• Subj-relatives caused few problems because they
  are similar to simple sentences.
• English do-, io-, and obl-relatives caused
  basically the same amount of problems because
  they have the same word order.
• Io-relatives caused relatively few problems
  because they are similar to direct do-relatives.
• Gen-relatives and German obl-relatives caused
  great problems because they are dissimilar to
  other relative clauses.

39
Why does similarity matter?

• Relative clauses are constructions (i.e.
  form-function pairings) that are related to each
  other in a network like lexical expressions.

Children acquire this network in a piecemeal,
bottom-up fashion by relating new relative clause
constructions to constructions they already know.

40
A network of relative constructions
gen-relative

-relatives
-relatives
-relatives
That is N subj-relative
Simple Sentences