Title

<stringer@human.mie-u.ac.jp>

Mie University, Japan

Beyond a binary typology of motion events: Lexical and syntactic universals in the L1 acquisition of Japanese, French and English

The proposal of a narrow typology in some aspect of grammar raises the question of whether a parameter may be operational in first language acquisition. In Talmy’s (1991; 2000) binary typology, ‘verb-framed’ languages such as Japanese, French and Arabic systematically encode PATH (or ‘direction’) in verbs, e.g. {‘cross the river swimming’ / ‘enter the house running’}, whilst ‘satellite-framed’ languages such as English, Russian and Chinese generally do so in adpositions, e.g. {swim across the river / run in(to) the house}. In order to bring acquisitional evidence to bear on this phenomenon, an experiment was conducted with 77 monolingual Japanese (J), French (F), and English (E) children from 3 to 7 years, with adult control groups. Utterances with directional predicates were elicited using a purpose-designed picture-story, illustrating events with both MANNER and PATH (e.g. a monkey running under a bridge, etc.). A total of 1307 child utterances were selected for analysis. The data revealed expected general tendencies: utterances in which PATH was encoded in the absence of an inherent PATH verb accounted for 15.78% (68/431) of the Japanese data, 32.19% (131/407) of the French data, and 93.39% (438/469) of the English data. However, several findings suggest a non-parameterized account of PATH predication.

        First, the three languages fell into discrete response categories, the ranges across age groups being 12.50% - 20.18% for Japanese, 25.84% - 40.22% for French, and 92.77% - 94% for English, which implies that Japanese and French do not share a single setting. Second, both lexicalization types were found in each language (e.g. the ‘English setting’ characterizes several Japanese utterances and vice-versa: <J6d: yama no ue kara korogatta> - mountain GEN top from rolled - ‘He rolled from the top of the mountain’; <E5b: he crosses the river>). Third, assuming a layered PP structure, with directional P above locational P above spatial N above ‘grammatical’ P (van Riemsdijk, 1990; Cinque, 1999; Koopman, 2000; Ayano, 2001), the data provide strong support for a universal syntax of PP, in evidence from the earliest stages of elicited production. Errors such as *inside from the cave (context: from inside the cave; *P_PLACE before P_PATH) or *from top on the hill (context: from on top of the hill; *N_PLACE before P_PLACE) were never attested at any age. Fourth, in each language certain classes of MANNER verb were combined with locational P to produce a directional interpretation (e.g. <F7d: il nage de l’aute cote> - he swims P_+F the other side - ‘He swims across’), which bolsters the proposal of a universal functional PP layer.

        These findings suggest that while Talmy’s (1991; 2000) typology remains broadly descriptive, it resists formalization as a parameter. Rather, both directional V and a fully articulated PP structure are available in all three languages, show no discernable development, and are presumably part of the machinery of Universal Grammar. Children already understand the syntactic possibilities in the predication of PATH, but must learn the particular complexities of their lexicon, the primary locus of variation in the linguistic expression of motion events.