One Child, Two Languages: Bilingual First Language Acquisition in

Transcription

One Child, Two Languages:
Bilingual First Language Acquisition in
Japanese and English
Yuki Itani-Adams
A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
August, 2007
© Yuki Itani-Adams, 2007
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people who supported and encouraged me during my years of
research towards this thesis. The support and encouragement came in many different
forms – from valuable academic advice to telephone calls from friends for a chat. I
appreciated them all and I know I would not have achieved what I did without that
support. As much as I would like to list everyone’s name to express my gratitude,
space limits me to name only a few.
My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisory committee members, Bruno Di Biase,
Satomi Kawaguchi and George Saunders. I especially thank Bruno and Satomi for
the continuous guidance, encouragement and friendship they gave me over the years.
As I worked on my research in a country town far from the university, their prompt
reply to my inquiries by either telephone or e-mail kept my research flowing.
Without their support, I would not have been able to complete this thesis today.
I would like to thank Manfred Pienemann, who introduced me to the world of
language acquisition and Processability Theory and encouraged me to embark on
PhD research in the area of my interest. Without Processability Theory, the depth and
scope of my research would not have been what it is today. I also thank him for his
continuous interest in my research. I would also like to thank Gisela Håkansson,
Yanyin Zhang, Junko Iwasaki, Yumiko Yamaguchi and other participants who
gathered at the annual Processability Symposia, for their interest and encouragement
for my work when we met at the symposia. I also thank Malcolm Johnston who
kindly spent time on the telephone explaining the grammatical theories to me.
This study would not have been possible without the informant and her family. I
deeply thank them for their willingness to participate in my study and their sharing
my interest in bilingualism. I wish to express my deepest thanks to Geoff Adams
who assisted me in many ways at all levels of my research. Geoff assisted me with
technical matters ranging from setting up audio-visual equipment during the datacollection stage to computer support during the data-analysis stage, which included
the writing of various computer programs for the analyses. Such technical assistance
extended the scope of analysis possible. I would also like to thank Geoff for
reviewing the non-target-like English grammar of the early drafts of my chapters. My
thanks also go to Yoshiko Ohkura and Jo Pearson for their assistance with the
transcription of the data. I also wish to thank Peter Cerone for taking time to read a
draft of this thesis and for his advice to improve it.
My thanks also go to my editor, Elizabeth Murphy BA(Hons) (Linguistics, ANU),
member of the Canberra Society of Editors, who fortunately has a background in
psycholinguistics, for helping me improve my English to make my thesis more
readable. Elizabeth’s editorial assistance was restricted to the language of the text
and overall consistency of expression. Her advisory notes were provided on hard
copy of the text. Her linguistics background assisted her when reading the text, but
she gave no advice on the substance or structure of the thesis. Her advice was
restricted to that allowed under the policy developed between the Council of
Australian Societies of Editors and the Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies of
many universities across Australia. She restricted her work to that coming under
Standards D (Language and Illustrations) and E (Completeness and Consistency) of
the Australian Standards for Editing Practice. Elizabeth is willing to be contacted to
confirm this summary of her editorial advice – phone (Australia) 02 6286 6722.
I wish to express special thanks to my parents and brother for their continuous love
and support. Their frequent telephone calls and e-mail messages across the seas gave
me the strength to continue my study. Parcels from my parents arrived at my door
step whenever I felt the need for cheering up and they indeed brightened my grey
days. I am grateful to my parents for giving me the opportunity to learn my second
language, English, in Australia so many years ago. That was when I began my
journey of bilingualism. I also thank my family-in-law for their understanding and
support – especially the help they gave to care for my children when I needed to be
away from home attending various symposia. Finally yet most importantly, I thank
my own family, Geoff, Mari, Takuma and Daishi. I cannot express in words how
grateful I am to them all for their understanding, unfailing support and
encouragement to pursue my own interests, and their interest in what I was interested
in. Although I was the one who was doing the research, they were all always with me,
taking this journey towards a PhD together with me. I am happy today that I can
finally present the result of our journey together.
Statement of Authentication
The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original
except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this
material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution.
__________________________
Yuki Itani-Adams, 2007
Table of Contents
List of Tables............................................................................................................. v
List of Figures.........................................................................................................viii
Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... ix
Abstract .................................................................................................................... xi
1
2
Introduction........................................................................................................1
1.1
Aim ............................................................................................................ 1
1.2
Issues arising from previous studies of bilingual first language acquisition .2
1.3
Description of thesis structure.....................................................................6
Background........................................................................................................8
2.1
Introduction................................................................................................ 8
2.2
Description of English and Japanese grammars........................................... 9
2.2.1
A brief sketch of feature unification in Lexical Functional Grammar 10
2.2.2
Word order and encoding of grammatical relations ........................... 11
2.2.3
Morphology...................................................................................... 15
2.2.4
Summary .......................................................................................... 18
2.3
Terminology and concepts in the studies of Bilingual First Language
Acquisition .......................................................................................................... 19
2.4
Lexical development ................................................................................ 22
2.4.1
The relationship between the two developing languages of bilingual
children: Lexicon ............................................................................................. 23
2.4.2
2.5
Description of children’s lexical development................................... 27
The acquisition of morphosyntax .............................................................. 33
2.5.1
The relationship between the two developing languages of bilingual
children: Morphosyntax ................................................................................... 34
2.5.2
Description of monolingual children’s morphosyntactic development43
2.5.3
The relationship between lexicon and grammar................................. 55
2.5.4
Summary .......................................................................................... 60
2.6
Theoretical framework for the present study ............................................. 61
2.6.1
A brief description of Levelt's language production model ................ 63
2.6.2
Processability Theory........................................................................ 67
2.6.3
Review of empirical studies on application of PT to SLA ................. 75
i
2.6.4
Comparison between L1 and L2 acquisitions: Application of PT to L1
acquisition........................................................................................................ 86
2.6.5
3
Research methodology ..................................................................................... 94
3.1
Introduction.............................................................................................. 94
3.2
Research questions ................................................................................... 95
3.3
Informant ............................................................................................... 101
3.3.1
Family background ......................................................................... 102
3.3.2
Hannah’s linguistic environment..................................................... 103
3.4
Data........................................................................................................ 106
3.4.1
Study design ................................................................................... 106
3.4.2
Data collection................................................................................ 107
3.4.3
Transcription .................................................................................. 112
3.4.4
Coding of computer data................................................................. 117
3.5
Description of metadata of the analysed corpora ..................................... 120
3.5.1
Word counts ................................................................................... 120
3.5.2
Mixed utterances............................................................................. 122
3.6
4
Summary .......................................................................................... 92
Linguistic Analysis................................................................................. 126
3.6.1
Mean length of utterance (MLU)..................................................... 127
3.6.2
Lexical development....................................................................... 128
3.6.3
Word order ..................................................................................... 132
3.6.4
Acquisition of morphology ............................................................. 132
Results and Discussion................................................................................... 139
4.1
Introduction............................................................................................ 139
4.2
MLU ...................................................................................................... 140
4.2.1
Hannah’s Japanese and English MLU ............................................. 140
4.2.2
Comparison of Hannah’s Japanese and English MLU ..................... 144
4.2.3
Comparison of Hannah’s MLU to that of L1 MLU in the literature . 146
4.2.4
Summary ........................................................................................ 148
4.3
Lexical development in a general context ............................................... 148
4.3.1
Lexicon........................................................................................... 149
4.3.2
Type-token ratio ............................................................................. 152
4.3.3
Summary ........................................................................................ 153
4.4
Lexical development in a specific context............................................... 153
ii
4.4.1
Composition of lexicon................................................................... 154
4.4.2
Personal pronouns........................................................................... 158
4.4.3
Summary ........................................................................................ 159
4.5
4.5.1
Acquisition of Japanese morphology............................................... 162
4.5.2
Acquisition of English morphology................................................. 184
4.5.3
Comparison with other L1 findings ................................................. 208
4.5.4
Application of PT to Hannah’s morphological development............ 212
4.6
Word order ............................................................................................. 219
4.6.1
Japanese word order........................................................................ 220
4.6.2
English word order ......................................................................... 221
4.6.3
Summary ........................................................................................ 222
4.7
5
Acquisition of morphology ..................................................................... 161
Lexical-Grammatical Development Connection...................................... 223
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 226
5.1
Overview of the study............................................................................. 226
5.2
The findings of the study ........................................................................ 227
5.2.1
The acquisition of morphology and syntax ...................................... 227
5.2.2
Lexical development....................................................................... 233
5.2.3
The relationship between lexical development and the acquisition of
grammar 235
5.3
6
Suggestions for further studies and future work ...................................... 236
References ..................................................................................................... 240
Appendix A Japanese romanisation....................................................................... 256
Appendix B Format for glosses .............................................................................. 258
Appendix C Session codes, duration and Hannah’s age.......................................... 259
Appendix D Transcription conventions .................................................................. 260
Appendix E Hannah’s MLUs ................................................................................. 263
Appendix F Examples of Hannah’s Japanese utterances......................................... 264
Appendix G Examples of Hannah’s Egnlish utterances .......................................... 272
Appendix H New English nominals in each period................................................. 276
Appendix I New English verbs in each period........................................................ 281
Appendix J New Japanese nominals in each period ................................................ 283
Appendix K New Japanese verbs in each period .................................................... 293
Appendix L English 20 most frequently used words in each period ........................ 301
iii
Appendix M Japanese 20 most frequently used words in each period ..................... 302
iv
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Examples of Japanese verbal morphemes ................................................. 16
Table 2.2 Volterra and Taeschner’s (1978) three-stage model .................................. 24
Table 2.3 Brown’s stages ......................................................................................... 44
Table 2.4 Summary of the MLU of the acquisition of EL1 (from Brown, 1973) ....... 49
Table 2.5 Summary of the age of acquisition of EL1 (from Brown, 1973) ................ 49
Table 2.6 Japanese children’s earliest verbal morphemes (from Clancy, 1985, p. 426)50
Table 2.7 Summary of the acquisition of morphology in JL1................................... 52
Table 2.8 Shirai’s (1998) verb categories ................................................................. 58
Table 2.9 Hierarchy of processing procedures and structural outcome of English L2
(from Pienemann, 1998a, p. 9) (presented with the highest level being Stage 5)70
Table 2.10 Kawaguchi’s (2000) original hypothesised structures of Japanese........... 78
Table 2.11 Revised hypothesised structures of Japanese morphology and syntax
(from Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi 2005a, 2005b)....................... 79
Table 2.12 Clahsen’s (1984) German L1 development sequence (after Pienemann,
1998b, p. 13) .................................................................................................... 89
Table 2.13 Overview of grammatical development in German L1 and L2 (from
Pienemann 1998b, p. 15) .................................................................................. 90
Table 3.1 Morphological structure predicted for each stage in each language (based
on Pienemann, 1998a: Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b)
......................................................................................................................... 96
Table 3.2 The six Japanese verbal morphemes selected............................................ 97
Table 3.3 Hannah’s age, interlocutors, duration and activities for the analysed
Japanese sessions ........................................................................................... 110
English sessions ............................................................................................. 111
Table 3.5 Agreement rate for Japanese transcription .............................................. 116
Table 3.6 Agreement rate for English transcription ................................................ 116
Table 3.7 Summary of type, token, turn numbers in Japanese corpus ..................... 121
Table 3.8 Summary of type, token, turn numbers in English corpus ...................... 121
Table 3.9 Mixed utterance in Japanese corpus........................................................ 123
Table 3.10 Mixed utterance in English corpus........................................................ 123
Table 3.11 Hannah’s age and sessions for each period ........................................... 129
v
Table 3.12 Coding for each period ......................................................................... 129
Table 3.13 Coding for cumulative period ............................................................... 130
Table 4.1 Rate of lexical learning (Japanese).......................................................... 151
Table 4.2 Rate of lexical learning (English) ........................................................... 151
Table 4.3 English preposition, determiner and conjugation appeared in each segment156
Table 4.4 Order of appearance of the nine nominal particles .................................. 157
Table 4.5 English personal pronouns...................................................................... 158
Table 4.6 Tokens of verbs with the morphemes investigate during the first period
(1J-6J)............................................................................................................ 165
Table 4.7 Supply* of morphemes for each session ................................................. 168
Table 4.8 Number of verb types for each session by morpheme type (lexical variation)
....................................................................................................................... 168
Table 4.9 Summary of verb types that also appear with different morpheme (form
variation)........................................................................................................ 168
Table 4.10 Emergence of Japanese verbal morphology .......................................... 169
Table 4.11 Summary of Japanese Verbs and Their Suffixation (* = for inanimate
objects. # = for animate objects) ..................................................................... 170
Table 4.12 Samples of Hannah’s V-te V ................................................................ 173
Table 4.13 Supply* of V1-te V2 ............................................................................ 174
Table 4.14 Lexical variety of V1-te V2 .................................................................. 174
Table 4.15 Emergence of V-te V............................................................................ 174
Table 4.16 Hannah’s benefactive utterances with oblique argument ....................... 178
Table 4.17 Number of tokens of dative marker....................................................... 182
Table 4.18 Emergence of dative marker in benefactive structure ............................ 182
Table 4.19 Summary of point of emergence in Japanese ........................................ 182
Table 4.20 Supply* of verbal morphemes in each session ...................................... 185
Table 4.21 Verb stems used with -ed...................................................................... 185
Table 4.22 Verb stems used with -ing .................................................................... 188
Table 4.23 Summary of verb types for each session by verb forms (lexical variation)190
Table 4.24 Number of verbs that appear in other form(s) (form variation) .............. 190
Table 4.25 Emergence of English verbal morphology ............................................ 190
Table 4.26 Summary of English verbs and their suffixation.................................... 192
Table 4.27 Samples of N-s ..................................................................................... 193
Table 4.28 Supply of N-s ....................................................................................... 195
vi
Table 4.29 Number of noun types (lexical variation) .............................................. 195
Table 4.30 Number of nouns that appeared in both N-s and N forms (form variation)195
Table 4.31 Nouns that appear both as N and N-s .................................................... 195
Table 4.32 Emergence of plural marker.................................................................. 195
Table 4.33 Hannah’s tokens of N-s in Plural NP .................................................... 197
Table 4.34 Productivity of NP agreement............................................................... 199
Table 4.35 Supply of third person singular -s (3sg-s)............................................. 201
Table 4.36 Number of different types of verb that appear with -s in the obligatory
context (lexical variation)............................................................................... 204
Table 4.37 Number of verbs that are suffixed with -s and also appear in different
form(s) within the same session (form variation) ............................................ 204
Table 4.38 Emergence of SV agreement rule application........................................ 205
Table 4.39 Summary of points of emergence in English ......................................... 206
Table 4.40 Comparison of timing of acquisition between Hannah’s Japanese and JL1210
Table 4.41 Timing of acquisition (MLU) of Hannah and Brown’s (1973) children . 211
Table 4.42 Timing of acquisition (age) by the four children ................................... 211
Table 4.43 Point of emergence of each processing procedure in Japanese .............. 215
Table 4.44 Point of emergence of each processing procedure in English ................ 215
Table 4.45 Comparison of the emergence point of different stages in Japanese and
English........................................................................................................... 216
Table 4.46 Hannah’s lexical and grammatical development at 1;11 ........................ 223
Table 4.47 Hannah’s lexicon and word order at the time of emergence of verbal
morphology.................................................................................................... 224
Table 5.1 Morphological structures predicted for each stage in English and Japanese
(based on Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b; Pienemann,
1998a)............................................................................................................ 227
vii
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Three structures for Peter pats a dog (after Kawaguchi, 2005a) .............. 10
Figure 2.2 Lexical entries of Peter owns a dog (Kawaguchi, 2005a) ........................ 11
Figure 2.3 Lexical entries of many dogs (Pienemann, 1998a, p. 172)........................ 15
Figure 2.4 Levelt’s model of language generation (Levelt, 1989, p. 9) ..................... 64
Figure 2.5 Direct mapping (Pinker, 1984, pp. 298–307) ........................................... 71
Figure 2.6 Lexical entries of many dogs ................................................................... 71
Figure 2.7 c-structure of many dogs ......................................................................... 71
Figure 2.8 c-structure of Peter owns a dog ............................................................... 73
Figure 2.9 Information flow in inflectional structures (Sells, 1995, p. 308)............... 80
Figure 2.10 The c-structure of the verb phrase kat-te tabe-ru.................................... 82
Figure 2.11 f-structure – c-structure correspondence for active neko-ga sakana-o
tabeta. (Kawaguchi, 2005b, p. 274).................................................................. 83
Figure 2.12 f-structure – c-structure correspondence for passive sakana-ga neko-ni
tabe-rare-ta. (Kawaguchi, 2005b, p. 275)......................................................... 83
Figure 3.1 Proportion of Japanese and English environments ................................. 104
Figure 3.2 Accuracy rate and development (after Pienemann 1998a, p. 137) .......... 135
Figure 4.1 Mean length of utterance (MLU) of Hannah.......................................... 141
Figure 4.2 Distribution of number of words of utterances in 22J (N=290) .............. 142
Figure 4.3 Distribution of number of words in utterances for 25J (N=200) ............. 143
Figure 4.4 Hannah’s MLU and Brown’s stages ...................................................... 145
Figure 4.5 Comparison of Hannah’s Japanese MLU with L1 Japanese MLU......... 146
Figure 4.6 Comparison of Hannah’s English MLU with L1 English MLU ............. 148
Figure 4.7 Number of word types in Hannah’s lexicon of Japanese and English ..... 149
Figure 4.8 Type-token ratio and age ....................................................................... 152
Figure 4.9 Hannah’s use of different grammatical categories in English ................. 154
Figure 4.10 Hannah’s use of different grammatical categories in Japanese ............. 155
Figure 4.11 Direct mapping (Pinker, 1984, pp. 298-307)........................................ 220
Figure 5.1 Emergence of procedural stages compared with Hannah’s age .............. 230
viii
Abbreviations
ACC
AUX
BENE
BFLA
CAUSE
COH
COMP
COP
DAT
DES
DUFDE
EL1
ESL
GB
GEN
GF
GL1
GSL
IL
INT
IPG
JL1
JSL
LFG
LOC
MCDI
MLU
N
NEG
NOM
NP
O/OBJ
OBL
P
PASS
POSS
POT
PROG
PT
Q
REQ
Accusative
Auxiliary verb
Benefactive
Bilingual first language acquisition
Causative
Cohortative
Complimentiser
Copula
Dative
Desiderative
Deutsch und Franzosisch - Doppelter Erstspracherwerb
English as a first language
English as a second language
Government and binding theory
Genitive
Grammatical function
German as a first language
German as a second language
Interlanguage
Interjection
Incremental Procedural Grammar
Japanese as a first language
Japanese as a second language
Lexical Functional Grammar
Locative
MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory
Mean length of utterance
Noun
Negative
Nominative
Noun phrase
Object
Oblique
Particle
Passive
Possessive
Potential
Progressive
Processability Theory
Question
Request
ix
S/SUBJ
SDH
SL1
SLA
SLI
SSL
TL
TOP
TTR
UG
V
VP
ZISA
Subject
Separate Development hypothesis
Swedish as a first language
Second language acquisition
Specific Language Impairment
Swedish as a second language
Target language
Topic
Type-token ratio
Universal grammar
Verb
Verb phrase
Zweitspracherwerb Italienischer und Spanischer Arbeiter
x
Abstract
This is the first Japanese-English Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA)
longitudinal study carried out within the framework of Processability Theory (PT)
(Pienemann, 1998a). The informant of this study is Hannah, who was raised in
Australia in a one-parent one-language environment from birth. Hannah’s speech
production in each language was collected in a language-specific setting with
different interlocutors (i.e., Japanese with the Japanese-speaking mother and English
with the English-speaking father), from the time she was 1;11 (one year and eleven
months) until she was 4;10. This study investigates Hannah’s lexical development,
the acquisition of morphology and syntax in the two languages.
Unlike previous studies in bilingual children’s lexicon (Deuchar & Quay, 2000), this
study focuses on the composition of the lexicon in each language to test for
language-specific developmental patterns (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001).The study
also compares the development of these two languages in terms of MLU, lexical,
morphological and syntactic development. Furthermore, the study examines the
relationships between lexical and grammatical development within each of the two
languages and tests the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994) in a
bilingual context.
One of the central issues in the field of BFLA, identified by scholars such as De
Houwer (2005) and Meisel (1990a), is to characterise the relationship between the
two developing languages of one child. Does a bilingual child initially develop the
two languages as one linguistic system that later separates into two as expounded by
Volterra and Taeschner (1978), or does a bilingual child develop the two languages
separately from the beginning, as represented by De Houwer’s (1990) Separate
Development Hypothesis (SDH)? Previous BFLA studies addressing this issue (e.g.,
De Houwer, 1990; Meisel, 1990a; Mishina, 1997; Paradis and Genesee, 1996) did
not have a common point of reference to compare the development of two different
languages directly. In the present study, PT provides a common point of reference for
a direct comparison of the development of two typologically distant languages.
xi
Results indicate that both Japanese and English of the child developed in the
sequence predicted by PT. They also support the SDH for lexical development, the
acquisition of morphology and word order. The study confirms the Critical Mass
Hypothesis in bilingual context. The results from the present study suggest that, for
one bilingual child, Japanese and English each developed in parallel but in a separate
manner.
xii
1 Introduction
1.1 Aim
Children are successful language learners. All normally developing children become
native speakers of the language they are exposed to in their environment. While
some variation in the rate of development is documented (e.g., Barrett, 1995), overall,
children’s language learning is characterised by universal success. Compared with
this, when adults – who are more cognitively developed – learn a second language,
they rarely achieve the level of proficiency that children can achieve as native
speakers. It is a wonder that the majority of young children learn a language so well.
What is more amazing is that some children acquire more than one language well.
Some children are exposed to two different languages from birth. These children
receive two different sets of linguistic input in their environment and they manage to
acquire both languages simultaneously. How can one child acquire two different
languages at once?
This study1 aims to investigate how a child acquires two typologically different
languages (Japanese2 and English) from birth. The type of language acquisition
investigated in this study is referred to as Bilingual First Language Acquisition
(BFLA) (De Houwer, 1990). This is a longitudinal study covering three years of the
child’s life from the time she was 1;11 (one year and eleven months) until she was
4;10.
1
The term ‘study’ is used to mean the empirical study I conducted. I refer to this written report of the
study as the ‘thesis’.
2
The terms Japanese and English are used to denote these languages throughout this thesis, unless
noted otherwise.
1
The study addresses the development 3 of lexicon, morphology and syntax of the two
languages of the child, and further explores the relationship between lexical and
grammatical development. I conducted this empirical study within the framework of
a language acquisition theory called Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a),
which is briefly introduced in page 3.
1.2 Issues arising from previous studies of bilingual first language
acquisition
One of the central issues in the field of BFLA has been the characterisation of the
relationship between the two developing languages in one child. Two hypotheses
have been proposed to address this issue. One proposes that the two languages
initially develop as one linguistic system that later separates into two. This view was
put forward by Volterra and Taeschner (1978) and is known as the Unitary Language
System Hypothesis (ULS) (Genesee, 1989). Studies such as Taeschner (1983) and
Saunders (1988) support the ULS. The other hypothesis proposes that the two
languages develop separately from the beginning. This view is represented by De
Houwer’s (1990) Separate Development Hypothesis (SDH). Studies such as Deuchar
and Quay (2000), Meisel (1990a; 1994a), Paradis and Genesee (1996) support the
SDH. In recent years, the number of empirical studies supporting the SDH in the area
of morphosyntax based on bilingual data of different language constellations has
been growing (see Genesee, 2000). However, there are still some issues that need to
be resolved. Four such issues in the area of morphosyntactic development of
bilingual children are presented below.
Firstly, there is a need to continue the integration between the field of BFLA and
current linguistic and language acquisition theories. While some previous studies of
BFLA were informed by language acquisition theories (e.g., De Houwer ,1990;
Döpke, 2000a, 2000b; Meisel, 1990a, 1990b; Paradis and Genesee, 1996), there are
others that based their results on data-driven description. Findings based on limited
3
In some literature, the term ‘development’ is used for first language (L1) learning and the term
‘acquisition’ is used for second language (L2) learning. In this thesis, the term ‘acquisition’ is used for
both L1 and L2 learning and it is used interchangeably with the term ‘development’.
2
descriptive data can be readily modified or altered with more data. Furthermore, as
Genesee (2000) says ‘studies of simultaneous bilingual acquisition can contribute
significantly to the development of a general theory of language acquisition’ (p. 168),
the continuous integration between the field of BFLA and the existing linguistic and
language acquisition theories can benefit both fields of research.
Secondly, methods employed in past research have not adequately examined the
separate development of two languages. To understand the relationship between two
languages in one child, the development of the two languages has been compared.
Past research has employed different methods for comparison of the two languages.
Some studies used measures such as chronological age and mean length of utterance
(MLU) (Brown, 1973) for comparing two different languages. Other studies
compared the timing and the order of acquisition of different linguistic features
between the two languages of a bilingual child, or between bilingual and
monolingual children of the language in question. Each of these methods has not
achieved effective direct cross-linguistic comparison. Therefore there is a need for a
new method that allows direct crosslinguistic comparison of the acquisition of
morphosyntax of the two languages.
Thirdly, there is a need to expand the samples, on which investigations are based, to
different language combinations and to wider varieties of language structures. De
Houwer (2005) points out that the evidence for separate development of bilingual
children, so far, is gathered from a limited number of language constellations and
from limited varieties of linguistic structures. A question has been raised as to
whether such evidence serves as evidence for the universal separate development of
bilingual children (De Houwer, 2005).
Fourthly, previous studies have not adequately addressed the mechanism of language
acquisition. They have focused on the differentiation of linguistic presentation of the
two languages.
In this study of acquisition of Japanese and English by a bilingual child, I address
these four issues. I achieve this by conducting the study within the framework of
Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). PT is a language acquisition theory
3
developed to explain the developmental sequence which occurs in the course of
second language acquisition (SLA). It is based on the general architecture of the
human language processor and proposes a hierarchy for the acquisition of specific
procedural skills necessary for processing the target language. PT integrates Levelt’s
(1989) speech model and Incremental Procedural Grammar (Kempen & Hoenkamp,
1987) as the description of the grammatical encoding process, and Lexical
Functional Grammar (LFG) as a formal linguistic theory to describe the grammars of
the languages. PT chooses LFG as the grammatical formalisation because of its
psychological plausibility (Bresnan, 2001) as well as its typological plausibility.
Researched within the framework of PT, this study integrates the language
acquisition theory with the field of Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) and
focuses on the mechanism of acquisition of two languages. The application of PT in
this study also offers benefit to the development of the theory itself.
PT was originally developed based on the data obtained for German as a second
language (GSL). However, because it is based on the general architecture of the
human language processor, Pienemann (1998a) claims PT to be applicable to the
acquisition of any human language, both in terms of different typology of language
and different types of language acquisition. PT’s universal applicability has been
supported for SLA of a number of typologically different languages (e.g., Di Biase &
Kawaguchi, 2002, for Italian as a second language and Japanese as a second
language) and for first language (L1) acquisition by monolingual children
(Pienemann, 1998b, for German L1). However, to my knowledge, PT has not yet
been applied in the context of the BFLA.
This thesis reports on the first study to apply PT in the context of BFLA. The study
attempts to extend the types of language acquisition described by PT through the
application of PT in the context of BFLA. The study offers an excellent opportunity
for the application of PT, not only because it presents a new type of language
acquisition to be considered in PT, but also because the typological distance of the
languages involved. If PT is found applicable in a BFLA context, it means that we
can directly compare the acquisition of morphology of two typologically different
languages. This is achieved by comparing the timing of acquisition procedural skills
4
in each language.
The question of the relationship between the two languages of a bilingual child is
also pertinent to lexical development. There is also a need for a new approach in this
area. Researchers have assumed the existence of translation equivalents between two
languages to be evidence of two separate lexicons and therefore separate linguistic
systems (Deuchar & Quay, 2000; Pearson, 1998; Pearson, Fernández & Oller, 1993;
Quay, 1995). However, more recently the legitimacy of this assumption has been
questioned (Deuchar & Quay, 2000), leaving a need to find a new method to
investigate the relationship between the lexical development of two languages.
This study also addresses the relationship between the two languages in the area of
lexical development of the child. However, in this study, I achieve this objective by
investigating whether the child develops each language in a language specific
manner. I focus on the acquisition by one child of lexical categories and personal
pronouns of two languages.
The unresolved issues presented above all relate to the relationship between the two
developing languages within a child. There is yet another issue that relates to a type
of research that needs to be conducted in the field of BFLA.
De Houwer (2005) pointed out that understanding the transition and connection
between the acquisition of different aspects of language would further our insight
into the mechanism of language acquisition. Research of this nature does not seem to
have been conducted in the field of BFLA. To date, the findings of the relationship
between different aspects of language acquisition, e.g., between lexicon and
grammar, have been limited to first language (L1) acquisition by monolingual
children. Therefore, any cross-linguistic comparisons conducted in this area have
been limited to monolingual data. BFLA offers an excellent opportunity for crosslinguistic analysis as a number of factors such as ‘personality, age and cognitive
development are controlled with bilingual children’ (Meisel, 1990a, p.17).
Furthermore, what we know about the relationship between lexicon and grammar to
date is very general. Therefore, obtaining a more detailed understanding will benefit
5
our understanding of the mechanism of language acquisition. This study examines
the relationship between lexical and grammatical development of Japanese and
English by a bilingual child.
1.3 Description of thesis structure
This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1, the introduction, presents the aims
and rationale of the research. Chapter 2 provides background information for my
study. This chapter begins with a brief description of both Japanese and English
grammars. I limit the description to only the relevant structures to my study. I then
define some terminology used in the field of bilingual first language acquisition. The
chapter proceeds to review previous studies of bilingual language acquisition. I focus
on the studies that questioned the relationship between the two languages of one
child, in areas of lexical development and the acquisition of morphology and syntax.
The final part of Chapter 2 presents Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a),
the theoretical framework used in this study. I also present Levelt’s (1989) speech
generation model since PT utilises this model. I then review previous empirical
studies of the application of PT. I focus on the application of PT to English as a
second language (ESL) (Pienemann, 1998a for both adult and child ESL) and to
Japanese as a second language (JSL) (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi,
2005a, 2005b for adult JSL; Iwasaki, 2003 for child JSL). In this review, I will
present linguistic structures of Japanese and English predicted by Pienemann (1998a)
and Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) to emerge
at different stages of PT. I review two studies that applied PT to first language (L1)
acquisition (Pienemann, 1998b for German as L1; Håkansson, 2001 for Swedish as
L1) to show how they applied PT to different types of language acquisition.
Chapter 3 presents the research questions and methods employed in my empirical
study. The aim of the study is to investigate the development of two languages by
one child. This aim is dealt with in the following areas: lexical development,
acquisition of morphology and syntax, and the relationship between lexical and
grammatical development. In order to achieve this aim, I asked eight specific
questions. These questions included: whether a child develops Japanese and English
6
morphology in the sequence predicted in PT, whether the child arrives at the same
developmental stage in the two languages at the same time, and whether the child
develops the words of the two languages in language specific manners. After
presenting the research questions, I then discuss the methods employed in my study.
I describe the informant and her background and the method of data collection, and I
present the metadata. Then I describe the method of data analysis.
Chapter 4 presents the results of the empirical study and discussion. First, I describe
how the child’s lexicon developed in Japanese and English. Then I describe her
development of morphology in the two languages. I describe the developmental path
and then I compare her results against the findings from the L1 acquisition studies of
Japanese and English monolingual children to examine whether the bilingual and
monolingual children follow the same path of development. I further apply PT’s
developmental hierarchy to the bilingual child’s results obtained in this study to
examine whether the bilingual child developed the two languages in the sequence
predicted by PT. Then I describe her acquisition of syntax. Finally, I examine the
relationship between lexical development and the acquisition of morphology and
syntax.
The final chapter, Chapter 5, concludes the thesis. In this chapter, I summarise the
findings of the empirical study and discuss the implication of the findings. I also
identify areas for future research.
7
2 Background
2.1
Introduction
This chapter presents the necessary background information pertaining to my study
of acquisition of Japanese and English by one child from birth. This chapter is
organised as follows:
Section 2.2 describes the Japanese and English grammars. The description focuses on
the linguistic structures relevant to my study and illustrates the differences in the
input languages the child receives. The structures discussed in this section are word
order, the encoding of grammatical relations and morphology. When describing
grammar, I use Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) (Bresnan, 1982). I follow
Pienemann (1998a) who adopts LFG in his Processability Theory (PT) because of its
psychological as well as typological plausibility (Bresnan, 2001).
Section 2.3 briefly defines the terminology from the field of Bilingual First Language
Acquisition (BFLA) (De Houwer, 1990) used in this study.
Sections 2.4 and 2.5 present a review of past research of child language acquisition
(both bilingual and monolingual) germane to the current study. Section 2.4 focuses
on lexical development and Section 2.5 on the acquisition of morphology and syntax.
A key theoretical issue in the field of BFLA is to investigate the relationship between
the two developing languages of bilingual children at the level of both lexicon and
morphosyntax.
In each of Section 2.4 and 2.5, I first present how this relationship was characterised
in each area of bilingual language acquisition. Then, I review the past studies of first
language acquisition focusing on the methods used to measure children’s linguistic
development as well as the linguistic milestones of Japanese as first language (JL1)
8
and English as first language (EL1) of the relevant structures. In order to understand
the BFLA, it is necessary to have knowledge of the linguistic development of
monolingual children as well. Further, I review findings from recent L1 acquisition
studies addressing the relationship between different aspects of language acquisition.
Section 2.6 presents the theoretical framework used in the present study, namely
Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). PT is a language acquisition theory
that sees language acquisition as the acquisition of the procedural skills needed for
the processing of the language. PT is based on the human language processing
mechanism, therefore, Pienemann (1998a) claims that it is applicable to any language
across their typology as well as any types of language acquisition. In this section, I
describe PT and its explanatory power. In doing so, I demonstrate the rationale for
using this theory for the present study. Pienemann (1998a) incorporates Levelt’s
(1989) language production model in PT. Therefore, prior to presenting PT, it is
necessary to give a brief overview of Levelt’s (1989) language production model.
After presenting PT, I review the application of PT to Japanese and English as
second languages (JSL, ESL). In this review, I describe the predicted linguistic
structures for each language for different developmental stages defined by PT. I also
show PT’s applicability to typologically different languages. Then I introduce the
debate surrounding the issue of the similarities and differences between first
language (L1) acquisition and second language acquisition (SLA) from the past
studies. Then I review the studies that applied PT to L1 acquisition in relation to this
issue.
2.2
Description of English and Japanese grammars
Before I review the acquisition of Japanese and English by bilingual or monolingual
children, it is necessary to give a brief description of the grammars of these two
languages. I use LFG (Bresnen, 1982) as the representation of grammar. Although
LFG developed from Transformational Grammar (Chomsky, 1965), unlike the
original grammar theory, LFG does not hypothesise transformation or movement of
constituents. LFG considers grammar to be lexically driven and it uses the concept of
information unification known as ‘feature unification’ in LFG terminology.
9
2.2.1 A brief sketch of feature unification in Lexical Functional
Grammar
There are three levels of presentation of a sentence in LFG: the argument structure
(a-structure), the constituent structure (c-structure) and the functional structure (fstructure). The a-structure represents the argument structure of the predicate of the
sentence. The c-structure represents the surface structure and it differs according to
language and it is therefore language-specific. The f-structure represents grammatical
relations of constituents of the sentence, such as subject (SUBJ) and object (OBJ),
and is universal across languages. Pienemann (1998a) explains the f-structure to be
‘generated by the interaction between c-structure and the lexicon’ (Pienemann, 1998a,
p. 95). These three levels of representation interact with each other. An example of
the interaction of the three structures is given in Figure 2.1, using the sentence Peter
pats a dog.
a-structure:
pat
<AGENT
PRED
‘pat’ <(
TENSE
PRESENT
SUBJ
PRED
‘Peter’
NUM
SG
PERSON
3
PRED
‘dog’
NUM
SG
f-structure:
OBJ
PATIENT>
✁✂✄☎✆ ✝
✞✄☎✆✟
c-structure:
S
VP
NPSUBJ
N
V
NPOBJ
N
det
Peter
pats
a
dog
Figure 2.1 Three structures for Peter pats a dog (after Kawaguchi, 2005a)
10
The lexicon plays an important part in generating grammatical structures. LFG posits
that syntactic information necessary for the generation of sentences is annotated
within the lexicon. These pieces of information are termed ‘features’ and there are
different values for each feature. LFG proposes that sentences are generated by the
unification of values for features annotated in lexicon. This operation is called
‘feature unification’, and this concept plays an important role in PT.
The lexical entries for the sentence Peter owns a dog are shown in Figure 2.2 (from
Pienemann, 1998a, p.94). Take the lexical item Peter as an example. The ‘PRED’
value for Peter is ‘Peter’, the value for the feature ‘PERSON’ is third (3rd) and the
value for the feature ‘NUM(BER)’ is singular (SG). The lexical entry for the item
owns also has features ‘SUBJ(ECT) PERSON’ and ‘SUBJ(ECT) NUM(BER)’ and
the value for each feature is 3rd and SG. Note that the values for these features
between the two lexical items unify. This is an example of feature unification.
Peter: N,
PRED
= ‘Peter’
PERSON
= 3rd
NUM
= SG
owns: V,
PRED
= ‘pat’ (SUBJ, OBJ)
TENSE
= present
SUBJ PERSON
= 3rd
SUBJ NUM
= SG
a:
DET, SPEC
= ‘a’
NUM
= SG
dog:
N,
PRED
= ‘dog’
NUM
= SG
Figure 2.2 Lexical entries of Peter owns a dog (Kawaguchi, 2005a)
In the following section, I describe Japanese and English grammar in the areas of
word order, how grammatical relations are expressed, and morphology. Appendix A
describes the Japanese romanisation system and Appendix B the format for gloss
used in this thesis.
2.2.2 Word order and encoding of grammatical relations
Typologically English is an SVO (subject-verb-object) language. The grammatical
functions of arguments are encoded by word order. The SUBJ of the sentence is
obligatory in declarative sentences. The verb (V) or a verb phrase (VP) is positioned
after the subject noun phrase (NP). Where the verb requires an object (OBJ), the
11
object argument is also obligatory. Using LFG terminology, the canonical SVO word
order rule follows directly from the c-structure rules (Pienemann, 1998a, p. 172), as
written in (1). Brackets ‘( )’ indicate that the constituent inside them is optional. This
phrase structure rule means that a sentence has NP, assigned as SUBJ, and a V. The
V can be followed by an optional constituent; an object NP, an adjective (ADJ), or
another sentence (S).
(1)
S
NPSUBJ V (NPOBJ) (ADJ) (S)
(Pienemann, 1998a, p.172)
English is regarded as a noun-friendly language (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001). This
is due to the obligatory nature of argument and the non-salient position of V – being
sandwiched between SUBJ and OBJ.
On the other hand, the Japanese canonical word order is SOV (subject-object-verb).
Japanese is a head-last language. Verbs are required to be in final position in both the
main and subordinate clauses. In an existential sentence, the copula (COP) occupies
the sentence final position. Due to this head-last nature, any modifiers precede the
head in any type of clause. For example, adjectives precede the head noun within a
NP, and a relative clause (RC) precedes the head noun.
Kawaguchi (2005a, p. 85), taken after Matsumoto (1996), shows a Japanese phrase
structure rule as in (2).
(2)
S
XP4
✁
( GF)=
{V, A}
✂ ✁=✂
Kawaguchi’s (2005a) description of the phrase structure rule (2) is that a Japanese
✁✂
sentence is ‘headed by either a verb or a predicative adjective (indicated by = )
appearing in the last position of the sentence, proceeded by zero or more XP(s) with a
variety of grammatical functions’ (p. 85).
4
Kawaguchi’s (2005a, p. 61) explanation of XP is as follows:
A standard assumption of X’ theory is that one of the projections of a category is a maximal
phrase, and is thus usually written as XP. In other words, the category XP is the maximal
projection of the category X’ (Dalrymple, 2001, p. 56), where ‘X’ stands for the lexical head of
the phrase.
12
Japanese expresses the grammatical relations with postpositional nominal particles.
Therefore, in contrast to English, the word order alone does not encode the
grammatical relations. Among the postpositional nominal particles, there are four
case marking particles. They are: the nominative marker (NOM) -ga; the accusative
marker (ACC) -o; the dative marker (DAT) -ni; and the genitive marker (GEN) -no.
Of these particles, the first three suffix a NP to mark its grammatical relations to the
predicate. The -ga (NOM) marks SUBJ by default. The -o (ACC) marks OBJ by
default. The -ni (DAT) marks the oblique object (OBL). The genitive marker -no
(GEN) is placed between two nouns to indicate the relationship between the nouns,
e.g., papa-no wain ‘daddy-GEN wine’ (= Daddy’s wine). As the grammatical
relations are expressed by the case markers, word order can be flexible; however, the
verb must remain in the final position (Shibatani, 1990). Two example sentences (3a)
and (3b) act to illustrate the same event ‘Hanako ate an apple’ using different word
order.
(3)
a. Hanako-ga
Hanako-NOM
ringo-o
tabe-ta.
apple-ACC
eat-PAST
‘Hanako ate (an) apple.’
b. Ringo-o
apple -ACC
Hanako-ga
tabe-ta.
Hanako-NOM
eat -PAST
In addition, Japanese allows ellipsis of constituents such as NP, particles or V.
Ellipsis occurs where information is already in the discourse model, and therefore the
information is understood from the context (Hinds, 1982). Ellipsis is extensively
used in spoken Japanese. Examples (4a) to (4d) illustrate the nominal ellipsis of the
sentence (3a). The sign Ø indicates the omitted constituent. Nominal ellipsis allows
utterances consisting of a verb only, as illustrated in (4d). This type of utterance is
common in the spoken TL (target language) Japanese.
(4)
a. no ellipsis
Hanako-ga
ringo-o
tabe-ta
Hanako-NOM
apple-ACC
eat-PAST
13
b. ‘Who ate the apple?’
Hanako-ga
Ø
tabe-ta
Hanako-NOM
Ø
eat-PAST
‘Hanako ate (an apple).’
c. ‘What did Hanako eat?’
Ø
ringo-o
tabe-ta
Ø
apple-ACC
eat-PAST
‘(Hanako) ate (an) apple.’
d. ‘What did Hanako do to the apple?’
Ø
Ø
tabe-ta
Ø
Ø
eat-PAST
‘(Hanako) ate (an apple).’
Due to the characteristics of the salient position of V, i.e., V-final, and the occurrence
of utterances that consist of V only, Japanese is regarded as a verb-friendly language
(Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001).
There is another nominal particle which marks a grammatical function, although not
a case marker. It is the topic marker (TOP) -wa. This particle marks S by default (see
Bresnan, 2001), but it can also topicalise other arguments and non-argument NP. (5a)
and (5b) show that both -ga and -wa can mark the SUBJ of the sentences expressing
the same event ‘Hanako ate an apple’.
(5)
a
Hanako-ga
ringo-o
tabe-ta.
Hanako-NOM
apple-ACC
eat-PAST
b
Hanako-wa
ringo-o
tabe-ta.
Hanako-TOP
apple-ACC
eat-PAST
14
2.2.3 Morphology
English has at least three verbal inflectional morphemes and one nominal morpheme.
The three verbal morphemes suffix lexical verbs and they are presented in (6).
(6) -ing, to express progressive aspect (e.g., Tom is reading a book)
-ed, to express the past tense (e.g., Mary walked)
-s, to express the relation between the subject and verb in a present indicative
sentence when the subject is the third person singular (e.g., Peter owns a dog).
The last structure, the third person singular marker, is also referred to as SVagreement. In the brief sketch of LFG above, I described how Peter and owns carry
the same value for the features NUM(ber) and PERSON in Figure 2.2. They both
have the value of SG (i.e., singular) for NUM and the value of 3rd for PERSON.
The English nominal morpheme is the plural marker -s. This suffixes the noun when
the number of the entity is greater than one, e.g., dogs. The plural marker can occur
to the head noun within a NP with a plural modifier, e.g., many dogs. Using the LFG
terminology, for example, the plural modifier and the noun in many dogs both have
the PL(ural) value for the feature NUM(ber) as shown in Figure 2.3.
many: DET,
dogs:
N,
PRED
NUM
PRED
NUM
=
=
=
=
‘many’
PL
‘dog’
PL
Figure 2.3 Lexical entries of many dogs (Pienemann, 1998a, p. 172)
Compared with English, Japanese morphology is more complex. Morphologically
Japanese is an agglutinative language. Japanese verbs are composed of the
combination of the stem (Vstem) and a series of morphemes. Japanese verbs inflect
for tense, aspect, level (i.e., politeness) or polarity, but they do not inflect for gender,
person or number. A verb stem is suffixed by one or more morphemes. A verb stem
never occurs alone—it is always suffixed by at least one morpheme. In this thesis, I
use the nonpast tense of a verb without the hyphenation between the stem and the
nonpast morpheme (e.g., miru (= look)) to indicate the verb stem. For inflected verb
forms, I hyphenate a verbal morpheme to the verb stem (e.g., mi-ru ‘look-
15
NONPAST’ (= look)). Examples of suffixation are given in Table 2.1 with a verb
stem miru (= look).
Table 2.1 Examples of Japanese verbal morphemes
Morpheme
Function/Meaning
Example
-te
request (REQ)
mi-te ‘look-REQ’
(= look!)
-ta
past tense (PAST)
mi-ta ‘look-PAST’
(= looked)
-u
non past tense (NONPAST)
mi-ru
(= (I’ll) look)
‘look-NONPAST’
-nai
negation (NEG)
mi-nai ‘look-NEG’
(= (I) do not look)
-teru
present progressive (PROG)
mi-teru ‘look-PROG’
(= (I’m) looking)
More than one verbal morpheme can agglutinate to one verb stem. When this
happens, they are suffixed in a certain order according to the information the
morphemes carry. Shibatani (1990, p. 307) gives the order of verbal morphemes as:
(7)
Vstem-causative-passive-aspect-desiderative-NEG-tense.
Examples below illustrate how three different morphemes in (8a), (8b) and (8c) can
be agglutinated as in (8d). When suffixes are sequenced, each morpheme may inflect
or undergo some phonological alteration.
(8)
a. mi-rareru
‘look-passive’
(= (I) am looked at)
b. mi-tai
‘look-desiderative’
(= (I) want to look )
c. mi-nai
‘look-NEG’
(= (I) do not look)
d. mi-rare-taku-nai
‘look-passivedesiderative-NEG’
(= (I do) not want to be
looked at)
Due to the verbal agglutinative morphology, Japanese can express various meanings
with a verb suffixed by series of morphemes when English would utilise additional
auxiliaries (e.g., do, can, may, etc. ) or lexical verbs (e.g., want, make etc.).
Take the above example (8d). The verb mi-rare-taku-nai ‘look-passive-desiderativeNEG’ carries the notion of passive and desiderative as well as NEG within one word.
However, to express all these notions in English, additional words; not for NEG, be
16
for passive, want to desiderative and the preposition to for connecting the two verbs,
resulting in a sentence (I do) not want to be looked at.
More than one verb can be concatenated successively. When this happens, the finite
verb is placed in the final position. The first verb must be marked with the
complementiser (COMP) -te, forming V-te V structure, e.g., kat-te tabe-ru ‘buyCOMP eat-NONPAST’ (= buy (something) and eat (it)). An example of the V-te V
structure is the benefactive (BENE) structure. This is the structure used to express a
situation when one person’s action benefits another person (Clancy, 1985).
The BENE structure is expressed by the lexical verbs of giving and receiving:
kureru (= give), ageru (= give), morau (= receive). Kureru is used when the speaker
is the receiver of goods or a favour. For other cases of giving, the verb ageru is used.
When these three verbs are used as a single verb, it is to indicate the giving and
receiving of objects. However, they can also be used as the second verb in the
concatenated verb structure V-te V to express the giving or receiving of an action
expressed by the first verb, e.g., kat-te ageru ‘buy-COMP give-NONPAST’ (=
(someone) buy (something for someone else)).
The BENE structure not only has the morphological operation on the verb, but also
has repercussions for the encoding of the grammatical relations of NPs. When the
verb of giving is used, the agent is marked as SUBJ with -ga (NOM), the patient is
marked as OBJ with -o (ACC) and the beneficiary/recipient is marked as oblique
object (OBL) with -ni (DAT). However when the verb of receiving is used, the
beneficiary/recipient becomes SUBJ marked with -ga (NOM) and the agent becomes
OBL marked with -ni (DAT). (9a) and (9b) illustrate the change of grammatical
relations.
(9)
a. Hanako-ga
Hanako-NOM
Yoshiko-ni
ringo-o
kat-te
age-ta
Yoshiko-DAT
apple-ACC
buy-COMP
give-PAST
‘Hanako bought an apple and gave it to Yoshiko.’
b. Yoshiko-ga
Yoshiko-NOM
Hanako-ni
ringo-o
kat-te
morat-ta
Hanako-DAT
apple-ACC
buy-COMP
receive-PAST
‘Yoshiko received an apple bought by Hanako.’
17
Japanese also has nominal morphemes. Some of them were already mentioned above
when I described the particles -ga (NOM), -o (ACC), -ni (DAT), -no (GEN) and -wa
(TOP). In addition to these, there are other postpositional semantic nominal particles.
They include: -de (instrumental), -e (goal), -kara (source), and -to (comitative).
There are also particles that are placed at the end of a clause. These particles include:
-ka for question (Q), -ne (generally for seeking agreement and confirmation), and -yo
(generally confirming the speaker’s agreement). Of these three, the latter two do not
occur in formal written language. A yes-no question is formed by the insertion of -ka
(Q) in the clause-final position. Such insertion does not require a change of word
order in other parts of the clause.
2.2.4 Summary
In this section, I described aspects of the grammars of English and Japanese. Firstly,
English and Japanese are typologically different. English is an SVO language
whereas Japanese is an SOV language. While English relies on word order to encode
the grammatical relations of NPs, Japanese uses particles to encode them.
Secondly, compared to English, Japanese allows the extensive use of ellipsis. In
Japanese, constituents such as nominals, nominal particles and verbs can be omitted
where the information is already in the discourse model. As a result, it is common to
have an utterance consisting of single verb in Japanese. On the other hand, SUBJ is
obligatory in all English declarative sentences. These characteristics allow Japanese
to be classified as a verb-friendly language while English a noun-friendly language
(Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001).
Thirdly, Japanese is richer morphologically than English, especially in the area of
verbal morphology. Japanese agglutinate a number of morphemes carrying various
meanings. This allows Japanese to be able to express a complex meaning with one
verb, while to express the same meaning in English, one may need to add separate
AUX and verbs. Some morphological structures of Japanese verbs have
repercussions to the syntax, such as change of grammatical relations of NPs seen in
the case of BENE structure.
18
In the next section, I present definitions of some terminology used in relation to the
acquisition of two languages from birth, namely Bilingual First Language
Acquisition, one-parent one-language approach, and mixed utterances.
2.3
Terminology and concepts in the studies of Bilingual First
Language Acquisition
The acquisition of two languages by a child who has regular and consistent exposure
to both languages from birth is termed Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA)
(De Houwer, 1990)5. This study adopts this term. Other terms have previously been
used to describe the acquisition of more than one language in childhood, such as
McLaughlin’s (1984) ‘simultaneous bilingual language acquisition’. The differences
between the definitions of BFLA and McLaughlin’s term are the criteria for the age
of first exposure to the two languages, and their consideration of the type of
linguistic exposure. McLaughlin (1984) defined ‘simultaneous acquisition’ to apply
to a child exposed to both languages prior to reaching the age of three. De Houwer
(1990) criticised McLaughlin’s use of the age of three years as arbitrary and too
broad, and McLaughlin’s lack of consideration of the type of linguistic exposure.
BFLA refers to exposure to the two languages from birth. De Houwer (1990) defines
the maximum difference between the time of first exposure to the two languages for
BFLA to be ‘no more than one week’ (p. 3). She also refers the need for regular and
continuous exposure to each language for development of BFLA.
Genesee (2000) points out that while reference to the type of exposure, i.e., regular
and continuous, is not necessary in the context of L1 acquisition, it is necessary in
the bilingual context
in the L1 context, most children receive enough input to
support normal language acquisition (Snow, 1995, p. 187). In contrast with the
uniform level of development of L1 reached by the majority of monolingual children,
5
De Houwer (1990) attributes the term ‘bilingual first language acquisition’ to Meisel’s (1989)
manuscript which was prepared for publication in a book edited by Hyltenstam and Obler (1989) at
the time of the preparation of De Houwer’s own book. However, the published version of the paper
by Meisel does not discuss the definition of bilingual first language acquisition.
19
bilingual children may reach different stages of development in each of the two
languages they are exposed to. Furthermore, any two individuals raised in similar
linguistic environments of two languages may not achieve similar levels of
attainment. In their studies of L1 American children, Hart and Risley (1995)
measured the amount and richness of quality in the parents’ language and related
them to different rates of vocabulary growth of the children. In the BFLA context,
Genesee (2000) says that we do not know ‘what constitutes “sufficient bilingual
exposure”, either with respect to quantity or regularity nor do we know how to assess
these aspects of exposure with enough validity to be confident in our judgements’
(p.167).
Some researchers (e.g., Döpke, 1988, 1992) have investigated the non-uniform level
of language attainment of bilingual children. They identified some factors
influencing the level of attainment of the two languages of bilingual children. Among
them are parental attitudes and the techniques employed in teaching the languages
concerned – in particular the consistency and continuity of exposure to the
languages6 (Döpke, 1988, 1992).
Within families where the provision of more than one language is possible7, one of
the approaches used to raise children bilingually is the one-parent one-language
method. In this approach, one parent speaks one language to the child and the other
parent speaks the other language to the child. For example, the children studied in
Döpke (1992) were raised in the one-parent one-language environment where a
German-speaking parent spoke to the child in German and the other parent in English.
Döpke (1996) considered this approach to ensure ‘equitable and long-term exposure
to two languages’ (p. 1). In her investigation, Döpke (1998b) found that the stricter a
parent is in ensuring the use of the appropriate language by both the parent and the
child, the more successful the child is in acquiring the language.
6
Other factors reported include the attitudes of children concerned, availability and attitudes of
siblings and extended families, attitudes of friends and of the society they live in, quantity and quality
of exposure to a language concerned, and the social status of the language concerned (Clyne, 1991;
Döpke, 1988, 1992; Harding & Riley, 1986; Romaine, 1989; Saunders, 1988, 1991).
7
This includes cases where the two parents’ L1 is the same but one of them is competent in another
language (L2) to raise his or her child in that language (e.g., Saunders, 1991).
20
A phenomenon documented in the literature on bilingual language use is the
insertion of features from one language into the other language. In this thesis, I use
De Houwer’s (1998) term mixed utterances with her definition when referring to the
mixing of two languages. She categorises bilinguals’ utterances into six categories,
shown in (10). De Houwer uses the terms Language Alpha and Language A to refer
to the two languages of bilinguals.
(10)
Utterances in Language Alpha: they are unilingual utterances that
contain only lexical items and morphemes from Language Alpha
Utterances in Language A: they are unilingual utterances that contain
only lexical items and morphemes from Language A
Mixed utterances: they are not unilingual and they contain
morphological material from two languages
Utterances that could be categorized as either Language Alpha or
Language A
Utterances whose linguistic membership is unclear
Utterances that are not relatable to any language: they include
idiosyncratic exclamations, nonsensical utterances as well as other ‘nonlanguage specific’ items.
(De Houwer, 1998)
De Houwer (1998) focuses the bilingual language use within an utterance, and uses
the formal criteria for categorisation without any reference to the sociolinguistic
appropriateness. This is where her definitions differ from other terms used to
describe bilinguals’ language usage, such as Meisel’s (1994b) ‘language-mixing’
(p.414), a term to refer to the language use involving two languages in general.
Meisel (1994b) further categorises the ‘language-mixing’ into three different
categories8 according to the form (i.e., linguistic) as well as sociolinguistic
8
Meisel’s (1994b) three categories are as follows:
✁
‘Fusion’ is used to describe the case where mixing is due to undifferentiated grammars;
✁
‘Code-switching’ refers to the appropriate selection of language according to the
sociolinguistic context, and;
✁
‘Code-mixing’ refers to instances of speakers switching languages with a violation of the
constraints for code-switching, eg, using incorrect grammar, or social rules.
21
appropriateness. In addition, his terms are applicable to different levels of discourse,
e.g., utterances or turns.
De Houwer (1998) regards an utterance containing a lexical item available in both
languages with the same pronunciation, and the rest of the lexical items in the
utterance from one language, to be a unilingual utterance. Mishina (1997) noted that
the studies on bilingual children’s mixed utterances were rarer than similar studies of
adults. Nevertheless, she concluded that studies on children’s mixed utterances
showed that language mixing occupied only a small portion of their utterances.
This section defined some terminology from the field of BFLA used in this thesis. In
the next two sections, I review the past research of language acquisition of bilingual
and monolingual children. The first section deals with the lexical development and
the second section with the acquisition of morphosyntax.
2.4
Lexical development
In studies of BFLA, a key theoretical issue has been to find the relationship between
the two developing languages of bilingual children. A question raised in the area of
their lexical development is whether and at what point bilingual children develop two
lexical systems. The appearance of translation equivalents has been regarded as
evidence for lexical differentiation, and hence two separate lexical systems (e.g.,
Taeschner, 1983). Researchers of bilingual lexicon have been concerned with the
appearance of translation equivalents in the two languages children are exposed to,
and the timing of production of such translation equivalents. However, more recently
this view has been challenged (Deuchar & Quay, 2000). I shall review some of the
related studies which investigated the appearance of translation equivalents.
I then introduce different methods used to measure children’s lexical development in
first language (L1) acquisition studies. I focus on the studies of Japanese as a first
language (JL1) and English as a first language (EL1). The studies that conducted
qualitative analysis of monolingual children’s lexical development found universal
and language-specific patterns of children’s lexical development (e.g., Choi, 1998;
Gentner and Boroditsky, 2001; Ogura, 1998; Ogura, Naka, Yamashita, Murase &
22
Mahieu, 1997). In my view, the methods used in these L1 acquisition studies can also
be applied in the bilingual context to examine the relationship of two developing
languages of a child. In the review of relevant L1 acquisition studies, I briefly
describe different types of data considered in these studies.
2.4.1 The relationship between the two developing languages of bilingual
children: Lexicon
Early documentation of the appearance of translation equivalents in bilingual
children’s lexicon was in the form of parental diaries by Ronjat9 (1913, mentioned in
Duechar & Quay, 2000) and Leopold10 (1978). Ronjat’s son acquired French and
German simultaneously from birth and lived in France. Leopold’s daughter acquired
English and German and lived in the USA. Both children were reported to produce
the words in two different languages that were thought to carry the same meaning.
Ronjat recorded that his son produced such pairs at the age of 1;5 (one year and five
months) and Leopold recorded his daughter producing such pairs at the age of 1;8.
Taeschner (1983), on the other hand, reported that the initial lexicon of the bilingual
child had no equivalents despite such equivalents supplied in the input. Her results
were also reported in Volterra and Taeschner (1978). Taeschner’s study was based
on bimonthly11 recordings of spontaneous speech of two Italian-German bilingual
children (starting from 1;6 for one child and 0;11 for the other), together with the
diary record kept by their German-speaking mother. She found that for both children
at about the age of 1;5, their initial lexicon was one lexical system consisting of
words from both languages without equivalents in the other language. After this
initial lexical system, the children began to build a system of equivalents. This began
from the time the children were 1;8, which was a similar timing found in Leopold’s
diary record. Taeschner supposed the appearance of translation equivalents to be the
9
Due to my lack of knowledge of French, the review of Ronjat (1913) relies on Duechar & Quay
(2000).
10
Leopold’s original documentation was published in four volumes between 1939 and 1949 (Leopold,
1939, 1947, 1949a, b).
11
It is not clear if the description ‘bimonthly’ in Taeschner (1983) means ‘twice every month’ or
‘once every two months’.
23
evidence for two separate lexical systems. Based on this supposition, she reached a
conclusion that bilingual children’s lexicons develop in two stages: one lexical
system consisting of words from both languages in the first stage, followed by the
two separate lexical systems in the second stage. This conclusion forms a part of
Volterra and Taeschner’s (1978) three-stage model of language development of
bilingual children shown in Table 2.2. The first stage is shown in the bottom row of
the table as Stage 1. I discuss the syntactic part of this model in a later section of this
chapter (Section 2.5).
Table 2.2 Volterra and Taeschner’s (1978) three-stage model
Stage Description of linguistic development
In the third stage, the child differentiates two lexical and syntactic systems.
3
2
In the second stage, the child differentiates the lexical systems into two, but
applies the same syntactic rules to either language.
1
In the first stage, the child has only one lexical system comprising words
from both languages.
Deuchar and Quay (2000) remark on a number of limitations of the diary records by
Ronjat and Leopold. The researchers themselves, i.e., the speakers of one of the
languages concerned, recorded what they observed. Their presence might have
altered the children’s linguistic behaviour, especially in the situation of the other
language context. Deuchar and Quay (2000) re-analysed Taeschner’s (1983) data of
the two children. Their assessment was, contrary to the conclusion reached by
Taeschner herself, that both children had indeed had the translation equivalents in
what was regarded as the initial lexical system. Their calculation of Taeschner’s data
showed that the proportion of the words with translation equivalents in one child’s
initial lexicon was up to 20%. In other words, Deuchar and Quay’s re-analysis
showed that Taeschner’s children had translation equivalents from at least age 1;5.
Thus using her own definition, Taeschner’s bilingual children should have been
classified to have had two lexical systems from at least age 1;5.
More recently, Deuchar and Quay (2000) reported on words produced by an EnglishSpanish bilingual child between age 0;10 and 1;10. They collected their data through
video and audio recording twice weekly, in a separate language context namely,
24
either Spanish or English. The mother also kept a diary. Their analysis focused on
the timing of production of translation equivalents. Deuchar and Quay are cautious in
identifying the ‘translation equivalents’. As Quay (1995) pointed out, the absolute
synonym may be difficult to find in two different languages. Deuchar and Quay
(2000) identified the translation equivalents if the child interchangeably used a word
in one language and a word in the other language that have the same reference in
terms of object, event or process. Their results showed that the child produced the
translation equivalents as early as age 0;10,25 (10 months and 25 days), leading to
the conclusion that the bilingual child’s lexicon had translation equivalents from the
beginning of lexical acquisition.
Pearson et al. (1993) reported bilingual children have, on average, translation
equivalents for 30% of their lexicon. Their cross-sectional study was based on large
lexical corpus of 27 English-Spanish bilingual children, whose ages ranged from 0;8
to 2;6, using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI)
(Fenson et al., 1993). MCDI is a parent checklist about child knowledge of lexical
items. I shall describe the MCDI in more detail later in this section. For each child in
Pearson et al. the English corpus was collected using the English MCDI and the
Spanish corpus was collected using a separate MCDI designed specifically for
Spanish (Jackson-Maldonado & Bates, 1988, mentioned in Pearson et al., 1993).
These 27 children had varying exposure to the two languages. Some of them were
categorised as English dominant with the others Spanish dominant. They found that
language dominance did not influence the proportion of lexicon with translation
equivalents.
The above-mentioned studies showed that bilingual children have translation
equivalents for at least some of the words in their lexicon. As the lexical items
children acquire reflect input, it is not reasonable to expect them to encounter
equivalent situations for providing input of translation equivalents in all the lexical
items in both languages. The existence of translation equivalents was found in
longitudinal studies based on the production data of individuals as well as in a crosssectional study based on a large set of data collected using a parent checklist. Some
studies also established that bilingual children use translation equivalents from the
25
beginning of the lexical acquisition. This means that children accept and learn two
different forms having the same or similar concepts.
A theoretical question asked here is, as pointed out in Deuchar and Quay (2000),
‘can the appearance of translation equivalents alone sufficiently indicate language
differentiation, i.e., two separate lexical systems?’ Deuchar and Quay (2000) viewed
the appearance of translation as the evidence against the Principle of Contrast (Clark,
1987), rather than two lexical systems. The Principle of Contrast proposes that a
difference in form marks a difference in meaning, that is, one form to one meaning.
This principle applied in a bilingual context suggests that bilingual children would
accept only one form, i.e., one word from only one of the languages, for an entity.
This would suggest that bilingual children, at least initially, would not have
translation equivalents. Deuchar and Quay (2000) suggested that if bilingual children
have translation equivalents from the beginning of lexical acquisition, the Principle
of Contrast would not hold. As reviewed above, their analysis confirmed the
existence of translation equivalents from the beginning of lexical acquisition. Thus,
they concluded that the Principle of Contrast did not hold.
Deuchar and Quay (2000) consider that the use of translation equivalents reflects
bilingual children’s pragmatic differentiation. In this case, the question that should be
asked is whether bilingual children use the words concerned in an appropriate
language context in an appropriate manner. This has a bearing on the methodological
issue of data collection – the provision of language specific context. It also has a
bearing on the type of exposure a bilingual child receives. If a child receives
language input that includes the use of words from the other language freely, then the
child can be expected to behave in a similar manner.
Another theoretical question arising is what is meant by separate lexical systems.
Pearson (1998) summarises two possible models of bilingual lexical entry according
to the relationship between lexical representation12 and concepts. They are the single
store model and the double store model. The single store model represents the child
12
Pearson (1998) says ‘there is no general consensus about what a lexical representation is, but in a
minimal definition it is a sound-meaning pairing on an unordered list (Chomsky, 1965)’ (p. 350).
26
having a single lexicon and a single conceptual store with two labels (i.e., one in
each language) for each concept. The double store model represents that child having
‘two separate conceptual stores with two sets of conceptual representations and two
sets of word-labels associated with each concept’ (Pearson, 1998, p. 351). Both these
two models allow the existence of translation equivalents. Therefore establishing the
existence of translation equivalents does not prove the existence of either a single
(i.e., one) or double (i.e., two) lexicon.
I have reviewed the studies that investigated translation equivalents in bilingual
children’s vocabularies. While the existence of such equivalents from the beginning
of their lexical acquisition was established, it is not clear what that can tell us about
their language differentiation. On the other hand, I argue that an understanding of the
developmental paths of the lexicon of the two languages within one child would
reveal the mechanism of lexical learning: if the two languages follow different
developmental paths, it would indicate that a bilingual child acquires lexicon from
the two input languages separately.
In the next sub-section, I review some methods used to measure monolingual
children’s lexical development. Firstly, I briefly discuss the different types of data
used to characterise children’s lexical development, namely comprehension and
production data. I then review methods used to measure monolingual children’s
lexical development. While a similarity is reported in children’s lexical learning,
there is some evidence to show that children are sensitive to the language-specific
structures of the input languages.
2.4.2 Description of children’s lexical development
Different types of data
There are two different types of data used in studies of children’s lexical
development: comprehension data and production data. Comprehension data are the
words that a child or children know the meaning of but do not necessarily produce
themselves. This type of vocabulary is also called the receptive vocabulary. The
production data is those words that a child or children actually uttered.
27
Comprehension data is often obtained from a ‘parent checklist’, while production
data is often based on transcribed speech.
The parent checklist data collection method relies on a child’s parents/care takers to
indicate the words that they know their child comprehends or uses. The checklist
words are given to the care takers in the form of a word list. Two examples of parent
checklists are the MCDI (MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory)
(Fenson et al., 1993) and the Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989). They
are designed to extract a large amount of data. For example, the English version of
MCDI, i.e., the original MCDI, targeting toddlers, contains 679 words. The other
type of data, transcribed data, is a corpus of words produced by a child or children.
Such data are obtained by means of recordings, interviews, or observation. The size
of corpus depends upon the amount of recording conducted and/or the type of
interaction occurring during a recording.
Both types of data have their limitations. Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) found that,
with transcript data, the context influenced the results. They also found certain word
classes were represented differently in the two types of data. This was especially so
with nouns. The checklist data contained a higher proportion of nouns than the
transcribed data. This difference in the number of words each type of data contains
leads to a question of completeness. While the checklist has a larger coverage,
neither type of data represent the child’s total vocabulary. Gentner and Boroditsky
(2001) caution researchers to keep the limitations of the respective data type in mind.
It is also important to remember that these types of data focus on different aspects of
a child’s lexicon: checklist data reflects a child’s language knowledge, while
transcribed data indicates a child’s language use (Caselli, Casadio & Bates, 1999).
Monolingual children’s lexical development
Past L1 acquisition studies have used the number of words which children produce as
a measure of the growth of children’s vocabulary. For example, two year old
English-speaking children were found to produce from 50 to 600 words (Clark, 1995)
28
and five year old Japanese children13 approximately 3,000 (Okubo, 1984). The actual
lexical item each child acquires differs according to input. Okubo (1984) examined
the lexical items used by four Japanese children (pre-school age) with a similar
vocabulary size. Okubo found that out of 3,642 words used by the four children, only
318 were common in all four children.
For a bilingual lexicon, the notion of a total lexicon is complex. It is because the
relationship between concepts and lexical representation involves at least two labels
per concept, that is, one label from each of the two languages. Pearson (1998, p. 352)
states that a bilingual’s total lexicon would comprise two sets of singlets, items
known in one language only, and one set of doublets, items known in both languages.
The notion of singlets and doublets becomes important, if one is to establish the total
number of concepts known to a bilingual child or if a bilingual child’s total lexicon
in both languages was to be compared with that of the monolingual children.
However, if one merely wants to establish the number of words known to a bilingual
child in each language, it is not necessary to identify the singlets and/or doublets.
There are some universal trends found among children’s lexical acquisition. One is
that children comprehend many more words than they produce (Bates, Dale & Thal,
1995). Another is that the growth in children’s lexicon does not occur in a linear
manner. L1 acquisition studies in different languages have found that children
experience an accelerated growth in the acquisition of lexicon around the same stage
of language development. Although different researchers have described the timing
in different ways, this accelerated growth of lexicon occurs during the second year of
life shortly before the onset of word combination (Barrett, 1995; Dromi, 1987;
Veneziano, 1999; Watamaki, 1997).
The acquisition of lexical categories is an area in which children showed both
universal and language specific patterns of learning. Past L1 acquisition studies
found that children universally learn content words earlier than relational words
13
I use the term ‘Japanese children’ to mean monolingual children who acquire Japanese as their first
language. A similar convention is used for the Korean language. However for monolingual children
who acquire English as their first language I use the term ‘English-speaking children’.
29
regardless of the language they are learning. This phenomenon is termed ‘nounadvantage’ (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001). Content words are the words with
concrete perceptual referents, such as names of objects (e.g., ball, spoon) and
animate beings (e.g., cat, dog). The relational words are the words that express the
relation between entities. Each language expresses such relations differently. In order
to explain the universal noun-advantage, Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) proposed
two hypotheses: the Natural Partitions Hypothesis and the Relational Relativity
Hypothesis (pp. 216–218). The Natural Partitions Hypothesis proposes that content
words are easier to grasp conceptually. On the other hand, the Relational Relativity
Hypothesis proposes the assignment of relational words is linguistically variable, i.e.,
language specific; therefore, children need to discover how their language expresses
them. Hence, the learning of relational words is more challenging for children than
the learning of content words.
While noun-advantage was universally found, there is some evidence to show that
children are sensitive to the language-specific structures of the input languages. Verb
learning is one such example. Japanese and Korean children were reported to acquire
verbs at an earlier age than English-speaking children (Choi 1998; Gentner and
Boroditsky, 2001; Ogura, 1998; Ogura et al., 1997). Oshima-Takane, Naka and
Miyata (1997) compared the productive vocabulary of Japanese children and
English-speaking children. The lexicon of children of both types (aged up to 1;11)
contained more nouns than verbs; however, the prevalence of nouns over verbs was
clearer in English-speaking children. Ogura, Dale, Yamashita, Murase and Mahieu
(2006) found that Japanese children showed noun dominance during the one-word
stage, and as they grow their vocabulary and their grammar emerges, they showed
verb dominance. Ogura et al. (2006) found the context played a role in this shift of
dominance in the lexical category, and concluded that the verb dominance showed
during the context of playing with toys but not of reading books.
This difference in verb learning between English-speaking children and Japanese and
Korean children is thought to reflect the differences in the proportion of nouns and
verbs in the languages children receive (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001). Japanese and
Korean are categorised as verb-friendly languages whereas English is noun-friendly,
30
with Japanese and Korean children receiving more input of verbs than Englishspeaking children do.
The language specific patterns of verb learning, described above, were found through
cross-linguistic comparisons. Such comparisons of children’s learning of different
lexical categories relied on monolingual data. To my knowledge, there is one study
investigated the development of lexical categories of bilingual children. It is the
study conducted by Li Wei and David (2004), using the corpus from 13 FrenchEnglish bilingual children. They examined the distribution of lexical categories and
their order of acquisition in each language, and compared them with the findings
from L1 studies of relevant languages. The distribution of lexical categories and the
order of acquisition in both French and English of the bilingual children showed a
similar pattern to those of monolingual children of French and English. From these
results, Li Wei and David concluded that bilingual children developed their lexicon
in each language in a similar way to monolingual children of the respective
languages. While they mentioned that they detected differences in the pattern of
development between the two languages of bilingual children, it is not clear if
bilingual children followed language specific patterns in the learning of lexical
categories. Their result is also reported in David & Li Wei (2005).
In this area, my study offers an excellent opportunity to conduct a cross-linguistic
comparison to examine whether one child develops two languages, Japanese and
English, in language specific patterns. Japanese children and English-speaking
children are found to develop the lexicon of their language in language specific
patterns. Furthermore, Li Wei and David (2004) found that bilingual children
develop like monolingual children of the language concerned. I will investigate how
the informant of my study learns different lexical categories in the two languages.
Concerning the Japanese and English-speaking children, there is another area
reported in L1 acquisition studies that illustrates how they learn their languages in
the language specific patterns. That is the learning of personal pronouns. The
Japanese personal referent system differs from that of English. English personal
pronouns such as I and you, have a one-to-one form-function relationship. There are
31
no strict sociolinguistic rules for the use of these pronouns in terms of gender, age
and the relationship between the addresser and addressee.
On the other hand, Japanese personal pronouns’ form-function relationship is not
one-to-one. For example, the forms for the functions ‘I’ and ‘YOU’ change,
reflecting the relationship between the speaker and the listener in such factors as
gender and age, as well as the nature of the conversation. In fact, pronouns such as
‘YOU’ are not readily used in Japanese, instead, kinship terms or personal names
substitute for such personal pronouns (Clancy, 1985). For example, when speaking to
one’s own mother, a term such as okaasan (=mother) or mama (= mummy) would be
used instead of a personal pronoun meaning ‘YOU’. An example of such usage is
shown in (11). As the word okaasan is followed by a particle mo (= too), it is clear
that this okaasan is not a vocative.
(11) okaasan-mo
mother-too
ki-mas-u
ka
come-POL-NONPAST
Q
‘Would Mother (you) like to come, too?’
Personal references can be omitted in discourse where it is understood from the
context. This is again a characteristic of Japanese ellipsis.
Among the L1 acquisition studies, Brown (1973) reported that the three Englishspeaking children he studied used the pronouns ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘it’ and ‘my’ during what
he categorised as Stage I which covers ages 1;6 to 2;3. On the other hand, according
to Clancy (1985), Japanese children overtly used the first person pronoun only during
their third year. The belated acquisition of personal pronouns by Japanese children
compared with English-speaking children has been documented in past L1 studies
(Clancy, 1985, p. 451).
Clancy (1985) proposed two possible reasons of this phenomenon. One is that
Japanese children receive a low frequency of occurrence of personal pronouns in the
input language. This is due to the fact that kinship terms or personal names are used
instead of pronouns and the nominal ellipsis. The children refer to themselves by
32
(name/nickname) + chan14 and that they use this form of self-addressing until the age
of 6 years (Ide, 1977; Horiguchi, 1979). The other reason is that Japanese pronouns
do not have one-to-one form-function relations. Clancy (1985) considered that JL1
children’s ‘late acquisition is consistent with Slobin’s (1985) proposal that children
prefer a one-to-one mapping of form and function’ (p. 451).
How does a Japanese-English bilingual child learn personal pronouns of each
language with such different input systems? In my study, I will briefly look at my
informant’s acquisition and usage of personal pronouns in these two languages to see
if she learns them in language-specific patterns.
To summarise, children’s size of lexicon and actual lexical items depends upon
individual environment. Children universally comprehend more words than they can
produce, they increase their vocabulary rapidly at the end of one-word stage, and
they acquire content words earlier than relational words. On the other hand, the
timing of verb learning and personal pronouns develops in language-specific patterns
between Japanese and English-speaking children, reflecting the characteristics of the
input languages.
In my study, I investigate whether a Japanese-English bilingual child follows
language-specific patterns of lexical learning. It is of my opinion that if a JapaneseEnglish bilingual child follows language-specific patterns in lexical development, it
can serve as evidence for separate lexical development. The next section reviews the
acquisition of morphosyntax by both bilingual and monolingual children.
2.5
The acquisition of morphosyntax
In this section, I first review past BFLA studies that characterise the relationship
between the two languages of bilingual children through the acquisition of
morphosyntax. I then present different methods used to measure the development of
children’s morphosyntax. This leads to the review of linguistic milestones achieved
by Japanese and English-speaking children. Following that, I discuss the methods of
14
‘Chan’ is a diminutive suffix.
33
comparison of two different languages of bilingual children. Finally, I present recent
studies that connect children’s lexical development and the acquisition of
morphosyntax.
2.5.1 The relationship between the two developing languages of bilingual
children: Morphosyntax
In order to characterise the two languages of bilingual children, researchers
considered whether the morphosyntax of the two languages developed separately in a
bilingual child. There are two hypotheses proposed for the relationship between the
two languages. One proposed by Volterra and Taeschner (1978) is that bilingual
children initially develop one linguistic system, and then later they differentiate it
into two linguistic systems. Genesee (1989) called this hypothesis the Unitary
Language System Hypothesis (ULS). The other hypothesis is that from the start
bilingual children differentiate two linguistic systems. This is known as the Separate
Development Hypothesis (SDH) (De Houwer 1990). I outline the arguments for and
shortcomings of each hypothesis.
Unitary Language System Hypothesis (ULS)
The main thesis of this hypothesis is that bilingual children first acquire one language
system and later differentiate into two systems. Volterra and Taeschner (1978)
proposed a three-stage model of language development of bilingual children based
on a longitudinal study of two German-Italian girls from 1;0 to 4;0. I introduced this
three-stage model in the discussion of lexical development in section 2.4.1 as Table
2.2.
Concerning the acquisition of morphosyntax, Volterra and Taeschner (1978)
observed that the child applied ‘the same syntactic rules to both languages’ (p. 312),
presented as the second stage in Table 2.2. This observation suggests that the child
develops a single syntactic system during this stage. Then later, during the third stage
the child differentiates the single initial syntactic system into two syntactic systems.
Meisel (1989) suggests that their observation of the same syntactic rule used for both
languages is due to the ‘commonalities in the use of the two languages’ (p.19), rather
than as the result of a single initial syntactic system. Meisel (1989) criticised Volterra
34
and Taeschner’s study because of the unclear boundaries between the three stages.
Meisel (1989) questions ‘the theoretical assumptions about whether language
processing in young children is grammatical (or ‘syntactic’) in nature’ (p. 15).
Other researchers (e.g., Genesee, 1988, 1989; Genesee, Nicoladis & Paradis 1995;
Paradis & Genesee, 1996) criticised the ULS hypothesis for a different reason. They
criticised that Volterra and Taeschner’s use of the presence of mixed utterances in
bilingual children’s speech as evidence for the ULS. However, Deuchar and Quay
(2000, p. 67) pointed out that Volterra and Taeschner’s conclusion of a single initial
syntactic system was based on non-mixed utterances. Volterra and Taeschner were
not alone in using the presence of mixed utterances as evidence of a single initial
system. Redlinger and Park (1980) also used this approach. They found their
German-English and German-Spanish bilingual children produced mixed utterances
with a high frequency, and thus concluded the existence of a single initial system.
Genesee (1989) pointed out that the presence of mixed utterances may be due to the
sociolinguistic competence of bilingual children and not to be taken as an indication
of an underlying ULS. Paradis and Genesee (1996) also questioned the circularity of
reasoning between ULS and existence of mixed utterances – the mixed utterances is
used as evidence for the ULS, and the ULS is used as an explanation of mixed
utterances. Genesee (1989) cautioned that the environment in which child speech
samples were collected may affect the occurrence of mixed utterances. Furthermore,
if a child is exposed to mixed utterances in the input languages, e.g., parents use
mixed utterances when speaking to the child, then the child might think that the
mixed utterance is a normal phenomenon of the input language.
To summarise, ULS has been criticised for the methods used for drawing conclusions.
The existence of mixed utterances should not be used as evidence for ULS. Later
studies such as De Houwer (1990), Meisel (1990a, 1994a), and Paradis and Genesee
(1996) produced evidence for the rejection of ULS, and argued that bilingual
children differentiate two linguistic systems from the beginning.
35
Separate Development Hypothesis (SDH)
The finding that the bilingual children acquire two languages separately from the
beginning led to the rejection of the ULS hypothesis. In fact, a hypothesis proposing
an independent development of the two languages was not a new one. De Houwer
(1990) mentioned Bergman’s (1976) Independent Development Hypothesis (IDH).
Studies such as Lindholm and Padilla (1978a, 1978b) supported IDH. However, De
Houwer (1990) criticised the definition of IDH and its proponents for the lack of
definition of what ‘independent development’ means. She also criticised them for
lacking a description of the type of evidence that supports the occurrence of
independent development.
Thus, De Houwer (1990) proposed a new hypothesis, the Separate Development
Hypothesis (SDH). The SDH proposes, ‘a bilingual child’s morphosyntactic
development proceeds along separate, non-intersecting lines for each language’ (De
Houwer, 1990, p. 338). According to De Houwer, the SDH holds when there is
negative evidence of transfer between the two languages, and evidence that each
language develops in a language specific manner.
In the SDH, the transfer is to be indicated when morphosyntactic development in one
language is carried over into the other. It is possible that what appears to be transfer,
i.e., the child displaying a similar developmental path in both languages despite the
differences in the input languages, may in effect be a typical developmental path in
child language acquisition. Thus, a need arises to seek further evidence that each
language develops in a language-specific manner. Researchers considered that the
examination of the extent to which each language in BFLA develops like the
respective L1 will provide evidence for a language-specific developmental path. De
Houwer (1995) points out a possibility of having language-specific development in
the two languages of bilingual children without there being any similarity to L1
acquisition for either language. However, the SDH would be further supported if it
could be established that BFLA develops like L1.
Thus, the method employed to investigate the separate development of the two
languages of bilingual children was to first establish the bilingual child’s
developmental path of each language, and then to compare the developmental path of
36
each language with that of L1 acquisition of the language in question. This method
does not include a direct comparison of the development of the linguistic structures
in two languages against each other. De Houwer (1990) discusses the issue of direct
comparison of two languages and points out concerns and difficulties in conducting
such comparison.
One example of the studies that conducted a direct comparison between two
languages was Slobin (1973). He investigated the timing of the acquisition of
syntactic realisation to express locative in Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian. Slobin
found that the syntactic structure in Hungarian to express locative was acquired
earlier than that of Serbo-Croatian. The Hungarian locative marker is expressed by
noun inflection whereas two devices mark the Serbo-Croatian locative: noun
inflection and preposition. From this, Slobin regarded the Serbo-Croatian locative to
be more ‘complex’ than the Hungarian locative. This led to the conclusion that there
is a processing strategy whereby simpler structures are learned prior to ones that are
more complex.
One of the concerns that De Houwer (1990) raised about the methods employed in
Slobin’s (1973) study was the assumption that different structures from different
languages were comparable. Leaving this concern aside, De Houwer felt that the
selection of the structures from different languages for the purpose of comparison
raised a few issues. Firstly, it is problematic to find structures from two different
languages that map the ‘same’ semantic functions. Secondly, the ‘complexity’ of
structures needs to be independently defined to ensure the veracity of comparisons.
In other words, the complexity of structure should not be defined purely on the
impression of researchers. The phenomenon that a bilingual child acquired the
locative in Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian at different times remains true, but
Slobin’s (1973) explanation of the phenomenon was not testable. A direct
comparison of the development of two languages has not been effectively conducted
to date. In this thesis I use a new method of comparing two languages in this thesis.
Using the method of comparing BFLA and L1 acquisition, various researchers found
that each language of BFLA developed like L1, and therefore supported the SDH.
37
Below, I briefly summarise some such studies: De Houwer (1990), Meisel (1990a),
Paradis and Genesee (1996) and Mishina (1997). As reviewed above, De Houwer
(1990) was the first study to establish the methods and definition of the SDH. Meisel
(1990a) was a large-scale project involving five German-French bilingual children.
Paradis and Genesee (1996), in their study of French-English bilingual children,
introduced two additional conditions to define the separate development. Mishina
(1997), to my knowledge, is the only study to date that investigated the linguistic
development of Japanese-English bilingual children using this method.
De Houwer (1990) investigated the acquisition of morphosyntax of each language of
a Dutch-English bilingual child, Kate, from 2;7 to 3;4. Kate was raised in the oneparent one-language environment. De Houwer did not always collect the child’s
spontaneous speech in a language-specific context. The areas investigated were noun
phrases, verb phrases, sentence types, clause types and clause constituents –
structures that differ between the two languages. The results found no transfer
between the two languages. She found that the morphosyntactic structures of each
language were not only relatable to only one language but also used in a language
specific manner. De Houwer found strong similarities between her informant’s usage
of Dutch and English and that of L1 children. Thus, De Houwer concluded that the
results from her study supported the SDH.
Meisel (1990a) conducted a large-scale project of BFLA during the 1980s. It is the
Deutsch und Franzosisch – Doppelter Erstspracherwerb (DUFDE) (German and French
– Simultaneous First Language Acquisition) project. This was a longitudinal study of
five German-French bilingual children. Their spontaneous speech in German or
French in a language-specific context was collected from the time they were between
0;6 to 2;3 until they were between the age of 3;4 to 4;8. Starting times and finishing
times differed depending on the children. All of the five children were raised in a
one-parent one-language environment of German and French and were described as
balanced bilinguals (Schlyter, 1990a). This project’s objective was to find evidence
in support of children having access to the grammatical encodings constrained by the
Principles and Parameters Theory (Chomsky, 1981), a version of Universal Grammar
(UG) (Chomsky, 1965). However, they also compared the development of the two
languages of bilingual children with that of monolinguals.
38
The areas of syntax examined in the DUFDE projects were tense and aspect
(Schlyter, 1990b), prepositions (Klinge, 1990), word order and case morphology
(Parodi, 1990), gender assignment (Müller, 1990) and subject-verb agreement
(Meisel, 1990b). Their results supported the hypothesis that children had access to
grammatical encoding from an early age, that is, the development of grammar is not
functionally driven. Furthermore, they showed that each language developed in
accordance with the predictions of the Principle and Parameter Theory. In the course
of their research, they also found that from the time bilingual children started to
produce multi-word utterances, they followed separate developmental paths in each
language and that they ‘have available different underlying systems in German and
French’ (Meisel, 1990a, p. 279). The DUFDE project compared the development of
German and French by bilingual and L1 children, concluding that BFLA ‘did not
differ in substantial ways’ from L1 acquisition (Meisel, 1990a, p. 17). Thus, the
results from this project support the SDH.
Paradis and Genesee (1996) investigated whether French-English bilingual children
acquired the two languages separately. Paradis and Genesee (1996) defined the
interaction between the development of the two languages as ‘the systemic influence
of the grammar of one language on the grammar of the other language during
acquisition, causing difference in a bilingual’s patterns and rates of development in
comparison with a monolingual’s’ (p. 3). They suggest that interaction between the
languages manifests in at least three possible ways: acceleration, delay or transfer.
Both acceleration and delay refer to the difference in speed or rate of development of
a bilingual child compared with a monolingual child. Acceleration would manifest in
the bilingual child’s earlier timing of acquisition of a certain structure than that of the
corresponding monolingual child, because of influences from the other language.
Conversely, delay would manifest in a ‘lag in the development of one or both of the
bilingual’s languages relative to that of the corresponding monolingual’s’ (Genesee,
2000, p. 169). Transfer refers to the ‘incorporation of a grammatical property of one
language into the other’ (Genesee, 2000, p. 169).
Paradis and Genesee (1996) examined the acquisition of the properties of inflection
for finiteness and agreement, negation and pronominal subjects by three FrenchEnglish bilingual children. All children came from a family of an English-speaking
39
mother and French-speaking father and from the one-parent one-language
environment. The children’s speech samples were collected for each child on three
different occasions: one with the mother, another with the father and the other with
both parents. Paradis and Genesee conducted three sets of three recordings per child,
from the time the children were about two years old (ranging from 1;11 to 2;2) until
they were about three (ranging from 2;10 to 3;3). They selected the morphosyntactic
structures based on the prediction made by the Principles and Parameter Theory.
Their study found that bilingual children acquired these grammatical structures in
French and English at similar timings as those of L1 in the respective languages.
Therefore, Paradis and Genesee concluded there was no acceleration or delay in the
acquisition of these syntactic structures. They also found no evidence of transfer.
Thus, their study also supports that bilingual children acquire two languages
separately.
Mishina (1997), following Paradis and Genesee’s (1996) study, investigated the
acquisition of Japanese and English of two bilingual children, one from 1;11 to 3;2
and the other from 2;4 and 3;3. The results from her study are also reported in
Mishina-Mori (2002). Mishina examined the acquisition of the past tense marking,
negation, and question formation of Japanese and English. Then she examined the
transfer between the two languages within a bilingual child, and acceleration or delay
in bilingual data compared with the monolingual data of the respective languages.
She did not find any evidence of transfer. She did not find any evidence for
acceleration or delay, either. Thus, her conclusion was that bilingual children
developed each language separately.
There has been more BFLA research involving different combinations of languages
as well as different morphosyntactic structures and supporting the SDH (e.g JuanGarau and Pérez-Vidal (2000), who investigated the subject realisation of Catalan
and English in a bilingual child). However, not all studies that support SDH found
that the two languages of a bilingual child developed like L1.
Some studies of BFLA, while they also supported the SDH, found one of the
languages developed like L1 but the other developed like a second language (L2).
Schlyter (1993) is one such study. Schlyter was one of the team of researchers of the
40
DUFDE project (Meisel, 1990a). The DUFDE project examined the children who
were described as balanced bilingual (Schlyter, 1990a). However, in practice, it is
very common for a child who is exposed to two languages to develop one language
more than the other (e.g., Döpke, 1992). The notion of ‘balance’ between the two
languages led to the notion of ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ languages. This was defined
by the comparison of the mean length of utterance (MLU) values of the two
languages against the child’s age. The language with a lower MLU at the same age
was labelled the ‘weaker’ language.
Schlyter (1993) asked how a bilingual developed a weaker language. She
investigated the acquisition of verb finiteness, pronominal subjects, word order and
placement of negation of Swedish-French bilingual children. Schlyter’s (1993)
conclusion was that ‘the stronger language of a bilingual child is exactly like a
normal first language in monolingual children, whereas the weaker language in these
respects has similarities with a second language’ (p. 305). Döpke (1996) re-examined
the nature of development of the weaker language of bilingual children by comparing
it with that of L1 and L2. She compared the developmental sequence of German as
L1, L2 and BFLA. From the evidence she presented, Döpke (1996) argued that the
weaker language of BFLA was not like L2, rather BFLA ‘creates a bridge between
L1 and L2’ (p. 18). She found the existence of structures in BFLA that were unlike
either L1 or L2.
Like Döpke (1996), other researchers (e.g., Yip & Matthews, 2000; Hulk and Müller,
2000) found that bilingual children go through structures not seen in the monolingual
developmental path. They concluded that such structures are the product of crosslinguistic influence. Döpke (2000a) called these structures the cross-linguistic
structures. Döpke’s work (2000a) is a collection of nine studies that investigated
cross-linguistic structures involving different combination of languages. De Houwer
(2005) and Genesee (2000) argue that the interaction between two languages might
only occur in certain areas or structures of bilingual children’s developing grammars.
A question arising from the existence of cross-linguistic structures was what
linguistic conditions allow an interaction between two languages to occur. Yip and
Matthews (2000) found language dominance to be the condition for the occurrence
41
of cross-linguistic structures. This was based on their study of development of WHinterrogatives, null objects and relative clauses in the two languages of a CantoneseEnglish bilingual child in Hong Kong from age 1:5 to 3:6. The child displayed the
structure of more-dominant language (Cantonese) to the less-dominant language
(English). Döpke (2000b)15 and Hulk and Müller (2000)16 concluded that a possible
condition for cross-linguistic influence was not language dominance but ‘internal
language factors’ (Hulk & Müller, 2000, p. 227). They both suggest that crosslinguistic structures occur when there is an overlap in the surface structures of the
two languages. Döpke (2000b) suggests that the surface structures in the two
languages compete against each other, as hypothesised in the Competition Model
(MacWhinney, 1987). While Pienemann (1998b, p. 23) questions Döpke’s usage of
the UG framework (Chomsky, 1965) together with the Competition Model
(MacWhinney, 1987) for the explanation of this phenomenon, the existence of crosslinguistic structures appears to be not uncommon.
To summarise, the Unitary Linguistic System (ULS) hypothesis has been criticised
for its methodological flaw. Today, it is accepted that a bilingual child develops two
languages separately. However, there are differing findings about how each language
develops. Some studies found both of the two languages developed like L1, i.e., no
transfer between the two languages. Some studies found that while one of the
languages developed like L1, the other developed like L2. Some studies found some
structures in bilingual development which was not found in either L1 or L2
acquisition, proposing that they were the results of cross-linguistic influences.
All these studies regarded the differentiation of linguistic representation as evidence
of separate development. They have not searched for evidence in terms of the
language acquisition process. Furthermore, these studies characterised the
relationship between the two languages of BFLA derived by observation of data. In
other words, the results and possible explanations we have today are limited to the
morphosyntactic structures of particular combinations of languages investigated so
15
Döpke (2000b) investigated verb-order in four German-English bilingual children from 2;0 to 4;1.
16
Hulk and Müller (2000) investigated object-drop and root infinitives in a Dutch-French bilingual
child 2:3 to 3:10 as well as a German-Italian bilingual child aged 1;8.
42
far. De Houwer (2005) also remarks on this point and stresses the importance of
expanding the scope of structures to be examined, as well as the combination of
languages, in order to understand BFLA universally. While some studies such as
Meisel (1990a) and Paradis and Genesee (1996) were informed by linguistic theories,
there is a need for a more rigorous integration of language acquisition and linguistic
theories in the field of BFLA .
In search of evidence of SDH, researchers compared each language in BFLA with
that of L1 acquisition. No previous studies adequately directly compared the
development of two languages. Thus, there is a need for a new approach that can
directly compare the two languages of a bilingual child.
In my own study, I address these issues arising from the previous BFLA research by
using the framework of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a), a language
acquisition theory that views language acquisition as the acquisition of procedural
processing skills. However, before I present PT and explain how the theory helps to
address these issues, it is necessary to describe in the next section the methods used
to date to measure the morphosyntactic development of children. I also illustrate the
shortcomings of these methods in the case of cross-linguistic comparison. This leads
to a description of linguistic milestones achieved by English-speaking and Japanese
children respectively. I then review some recent studies that connect the lexical
development and the acquisition of grammar.
2.5.2 Description of monolingual children’s morphosyntactic
development
Many past L1 studies investigated the order and the timing of acquisition of specific
morphosyntactic structures. While some individual differences were found to exist in
the order of acquisition, children of the same L1 generally acquired the
morphosyntactic structures in a similar sequence and timing (Brown, 1973; Clancy,
1985; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1985).
The first measure I will describe is the mean length of utterance (MLU), its
advantages and shortcomings. I then describe the methods used in past research to
43
establish the morphosyntactic developmental sequence in English as a first language
(EL1) and in Japanese as a first language (JL1). I will describe the morphological
development of EL1 followed by that of JL1, then will describe the acquisition of
word order of both JL1 and EL1.
Mean length of utterance (MLU)
Brown (1973), in his study of EL1 by three children, found that these children
acquired certain grammatical structures at different ages. Therefore, in order to
prevent different rates of development of individuals prejudicing his analyses on
order and timing of language acquisition, he used a method of comparing the
children’s language based on the production of language. The method he employed
was to calculate the mean length of utterance (MLU) of each set of data and compare
the children's language based on MLU values. Brown (1973) calculated MLU by
dividing the number of words by the number of utterances. He used only the first 100
clear utterances in determining MLU. As a child becomes able to put more words
together, the MLU becomes larger. Hence, MLU was used as a measure of a child’s
syntactic development. MLU has since been used extensively in L1 acquisition and
BFLA research to describe the linguistic developmental level reached by children.
Based on MLU, Brown (1973, p. 271) divided the children’s language acquisition
into five chronological stages as given in Table 2.3. The first state is Stage I on the
bottom of the table.
Table 2.3 Brown’s stages
Stage
Range of MLU
> 4.00
V
3.00–4.00
IV
2.50–3.00
III
2.00–2.50
II
1.00–2.00
I
Miller and Chapman (1981) found a correlation between age and MLU for children
ranging from 18 months to five years, based on the MLU of 123 children. Thus, the
MLU offers a clinical use for identifying ‘children whose development of productive
syntax requires further evaluation’ (Miller & Chapman, 1981, p. 157). While MLU is
useful, there are also problems (Schlyter, 1990a, Ogura et al., 1997; Yip & Matthews,
2000). One problem concerns the lack of a uniform method for calculating MLU.
44
This causes a difficulty in comparing the MLU of different children of the same
language. A cross-linguistic comparison, especially when involving typologically
different languages, is even more problematic. Another problem is that the MLU is a
limited tool in reflecting the development of morphosyntax.
Different researchers analysing the same language used different methods for MLU.
Issues such as different definitions of a word, the difficulties in establishing utterance
boundaries, and different unit (word or morpheme) for the calculation resulted in the
use of different methods. For English, two main methods for determining MLU are
referred to in the literature: counting words and counting morphemes. For Japanese,
there have been a greater number of different methods used for the calculation of
MLU (Ogura et al., 1997). Within each method for either language, different studies
count some specific linguistic structures differently. Sample sizes also differ from
research to research; however, Rondal and DeFays (1978) and Ogura et al. (1997)
respectively found that the sample size, such as using the first 100 utterances or the
entire transcription, did not overly alter the MLU results.
Using different methods makes a comparison of MLU of the same language across
different studies somewhat difficult. When conducting such comparison, one needs
to take into account how each study calculated MLU and to remember that the value
of MLU in one study may not directly correspond to the same value of MLU in
another study.
In addition, MLU has been criticised for not reflecting the mastery of language. For
example, counting morphemes, an utterance such as I eated will be counted as longer
utterance than the target-like utterance I ate. Furthermore, MLU does not reflect the
meaning that a child tries to convey. Ideas that are more complex may be expressed
with fewer words but MLU does not capture this. In my opinion, these criticisms
were raised due to an unjust expectation of MLU. MLU is a mere index which tells
us how many words or morphemes, whichever unit one chooses to count, a child can
put together. It is not a device to indicate the mastery of child’s language or the
complexity of ideas that the child can express.
45
Another question raised is the validity of cross-linguistic comparison of MLU. This
is particularly so when the languages to be compared are typologically different.
Ogura et al. (1997) say that MLU of different languages are not comparable. They
argue that typologically different languages may express the same meaning with a
different number of words or morphemes. For example, an English utterance, say, I
went to the shop may be expressed in Japanese with one verb, itta ‘go-PAST’, due to
the NP ellipsis and agglutinative verbal morphology.
As pointed out above, MLU is an index for the average utterance length a child
produces. From this point of view, the cross-linguistic comparison of MLU is
justified when the purpose is to simply compare children’s ability to produce a
certain number of words or morphemes within an utterance on average. The
comparison of MLU between the two languages does not compare the complexity of
ideas expressed or morphosyntactic structure use in each language. In past BFLA
studies, researchers used MLU to compare the two languages (e.g., Döpke, 1996;
Meisel, 1990a; Schlyter, 1993; Yip & Matthews, 2000). Earlier BFLA studies used
MLU as the indicator of language dominance: stronger and weaker language.
However, studies that are more recent reassessed this usage of MLU. Döpke (1998a)
observed that MLU is useful in the studies of BFLA as an indication of a bilingual
child’s progress in each language. Yip and Matthews (2000, p. 198) said that MLU
could be used in a relative sense to show shifts between the two languages over time
within a child, but not in an absolute way to determine the dominant language.
Thus, MLU is a useful index for limited aspects of syntactic development. There are
things such as methods of calculation to be considered when comparing MLU within
or across languages. In the context of BFLA, we can use MLU to show the progress
of each language within a child. We can also compare MLU cross-linguistically in a
relative sense.
Morphology: English as a first language
My review of the acquisition of morphemes by English-speaking children focuses on
four particular morphemes. They are the nominal plural marker -s; the verbal
progressive marker -ing, the verbal past tense marker -ed and the verbal third person
singular marker -s (i.e., SV agreement). Brown (1973) conducted a systematic
46
longitudinal study of EL1 with three children, Adam, Sarah and Eve. In his study,
Brown (1973) investigated the acquisition of 14 grammatical morphemes. Brown
examined the use of these morphemes according to the ‘obligatory contexts’. In 1985,
de Villiers and de Villiers noted that ‘(t)he use of obligatory contexts has obvious
advantages over simply scoring the frequency or point of first (or fifth, or whatever
number) use of a morpheme. Since the morpheme is required by the grammar, its
presence or absence indicates what the child is able to say rather than what he
chooses to say’ (de Villiers & de Villiers, 1985, p. 67).
Context can be either linguistic or functional. A linguistic context means the
presence of a linguistic environment that requires a certain linguistic form to occur.
One example of this kind is the SV agreement rule in English. When the subject of
an indicative sentence is the third person singular (3SG) and the tense is present, the
regular verb of the sentence is suffixed with -s. In other words, in the linguistic
context, with a 3SG subject in the present indicative tense, the suffixation of -s to the
regular verb is obligatory.
However, not all contexts can be determined by linguistic environment. For example,
the English past tense marker -ed is not bound by any linguistic condition. It is the
functional context, for example talking about the activity of a past event, which
requires the suffixation of -ed to regular verbs. The speaker may use an adverb such
as ‘yesterday’ or ‘last week’ to indicate that what one speaks about is in the past;
however, the use of such an adverb is optional. Brown (1973) used three criteria in
determining the functional context: nonlinguistic context, linguistic prior context,
and linguistic subsequent context. Brown (1973, p. 255) gives an example for each
criterion and they are as follows:
(12)
Nonlinguistic context: If the child points as he speaks then the copula
should be in the present tense rather than the past or future, and if he
points at a single book the copula should be singular rather than plural.
In the sentence in question it could be either uncontracted (That is) or
contracted (That’s).
Linguistic prior context, from child or others: If this is the first mention
anyone has made of the book then the article ought to be the indefinite a.
47
Had the noun been one that began with a vowel, such as eraser, then the
obligatory indefinite would be an.
Linguistic subsequent context: The mother may confirm and expand the
child’s utterance as: Yes, that’s a book. Occasionally the child himself
expands his own utterance in this way. (Brown, 1973, p. 255)
Brown (1973) used a 90% accuracy rate as the criterion for acquisition. Brown (1973)
found that there was evidence for a sequence of acquisition. While there were
individual differences in the order and the timing of acquisition of these
morphological structures, Brown (1973, p. 274) worked out the average ranking
order of acquisition among the three children. The order of acquisition for the
relevant structures was: -ing marking > plural > -ed marking > SV agreement. The
linguistic structures on the left of the sign ‘>’ means that it is acquired earlier than
the structure on the right of the sign. A similar order of acquisition of the same
morphemes was found de Villiers and de Villiers in their own cross-sectional study
conducted in 1973 and reported by them in 1985 (de Villiers & de Villiers , 1985,
p. 67).
For the timing of acquisition, Brown (1973) used both the MLU and the actual age as
measures. The timing of acquisition in terms of MLU was shown using Brown’s
stages. Among the three children in Brown’s (1973) study, the -ing marking was
acquired during Stage II. This covered a difference in age of 13 months ranging from
1;9 by Eve to 2;10 by Sarah. All children acquired plural marking no later than Stage
III. The range of ages was from 1;11 to 2;6. The -ed marking was acquired after
Stage III but mainly during Stage V. The age of children at the time of the
acquisition of -ed ranged from 1;11 to 4;0. Eve was the only child to acquire this
morpheme early, with Adam and Sarah acquiring it after age 3;6. SV agreement was
acquired after Stage IV by all the children with ages ranging from 2;3 to 3;8. These
findings are tabulated below.
48
Table 2.4 Summary of the MLU of the acquisition of EL1 (from Brown, 1973)
Brown’s stage MLU range Adam
Sarah
Eve
> 4.00
SV agreement;
V-ed (past)
SV agreement
Stage V
V-ed (past)
3.00–4.00
SV agreement
Stage IV
2.50–3.00
plural;
Stage III
V-ed (past)
2.00–2.50
V-ing;
V-ing
V-ing
Stage II
plural
1.00–2.00
plural
Stage I
Table 2.5 Summary of the age of acquisition of EL1 (from Brown, 1973)
Morphology:
Adam
Sarah
Eve
3;6
3;8
2;3
SV agreement
3;6
4;0
1;11
-ed
2;6
2;3
1;11
Plural
2;6
2;10
1;9
-ing
Morphology: Japanese as a first language
The Japanese children’s linguistic milestones reviewed here concern verbal
morphology and nominal particles. Different studies used different methods of data
collection and analysis. Furthermore, different studies employed different criteria for
acquisition. Sometimes, these differences can complicate comparison. MLU was not
often used for JL1 until the mid-1990s, so the majority of studies summarised here
used the informants’ ages as the reference point for the timing of acquisition.
Clancy (1985) summarised the previous studies of the acquisition of verbal
morphology of Japanese children and listed seven verbal morphemes to appear in
early JL1. They are: -te (request; REQ), -ta (past tense; PAST), -nai (negative;
NEG), -tai (desiderative; DES), -teru17 (present progressive; PROG), -ru (non-past;
NONPAST) and -chatta (completed past; COMPLETE). Table 2.6 presents these
seven morphemes together with their functions and examples are given using the
verb taberu (= eat).
17
The morpheme –teru is a contracted form of –te iru and at the beginning of acquisition, it is
produced as a single unit.
49
Table 2.6 Japanese children’s earliest verbal morphemes (from Clancy, 1985, p. 426)
Morpheme
Meaning
Example
-te
request (REQ)
tabe-te
(= Please eat.)
-ta
past tense (PAST)
tabe-ta
(= (I) ate (it).)
-nai
negative (NEG)
tabe-nai
(= (I will) not eat.)
-tai
desiderative (DES)
tabe-tai
(= (I) want to eat.)
-teru
present progressive (PROG)
tabe-teru
(= (I) am eating.)
-ru
non-past tense (NONPAST)
tabe-ru
(= (I will) eat.)
-chatta
completed past (COMPLETE)
tabechatta
(= (I) have eaten.)
As Japanese verb stems never occur alone, the Japanese children’s initial verb form
is always in the form of the stem suffixed with one morpheme. Among the seven
morphemes, the first ones to appear are -te (REQ) and -ta (PAST). Tanouye (1980,
mentioned in Clancy, 1985) reported that a child used the first verbal morpheme
productively before MLU was 1.5, that is, the one-word stage. The other morphemes
become productive when children produce two-word utterances frequently, which is
at approximately two years of age.
Children’s use of morphemes is found to be verb-specific. In other words, the initial
verb form occurs with a different morpheme depending upon the verb. Iwatate (1980,
1994, 1997) found that a morpheme appearing with one verb does not necessarily
appear with another verb. He also found that the most often used forms differ
depending on the verb. For example, children used the non-past form more often for
some verbs but the request form for others. After single verb morphology is acquired,
concatenated verbs (V-te V) appear, at about 2;6. Around the time children reach
three years of age, they acquire inflection of passive and causative verbs.
For the acquisition of particles, it is reported that the children begin with the end of
sentence particles (Watamaki, 1997; Miyahara, 1974). The timing observed for the
first use of particles was 1;11 for Watamaki’s (1997) informant and 1;6 for
Miyahara’s informant (1974). Other studies noted the appearance of the particles to
be towards the end of the one-word stage (Clancy, 1985).
50
Kameyama (1982, mentioned in Morikawa, 1997) reported the appearance of
nominal particles after the first verb use. The first nominal particle to appear is the
genitive case marker for possessive -no (GEN). Following the genitive marker, a
group of particles that expresses the relationship between the arguments and the
predicate appear. The topic marker (TOP) -wa appears next and at this early stage it
is used to mark the subject of the sentences (Miyahara, 1974). It is followed by the
appearance of the nominative marker (NOM) -ga. The timing of onset of -ga (NOM)
is reported to be between 1;7 to 2;1 (Morikawa, 1997, p. 27). The particle -ni also
appears during this period but it denotes a semantic meaning of location. Around the
same time other semantic particles -de (instrumental) and -mo (also) appear. The
appearance of -ni as the dative marker (DAT) comes slightly later, around 2;0 to 2;6
(Clancy, 1985). The accusative marker (ACC) -o is the last case marker to be
acquired around 2;6 to 3;0 (Clancy, 1985). Table 2.7 summarises the acquisition of
morphology by Japanese children.
51
Table 2.7 Summary of the acquisition of morphology in JL1 18
MLU
Age
Verb formation
Nominal particles
1.5
1;6
-te (REQ),
-no (GEN)
-ta (PAST)
-wa (TOPIC)
-mo (also)
-ga (NOM)
-ni (LOC)
-de (INSTRUMENT)
-ni (DAT)
2.0
2;0
-teru (PROG)
(frequent 2-ru (NONPAST)
-chatta (COMPLETE)
word
utterances)
-nai (NEG)
-tai (DES )
2;6
V-te V
-o (ACC)
3;0
-rare (PASS)
-sase (CAUSE)
The case marking particles do not appear until children start to produce multi-word
utterances, and they are not acquired all at once (Clancy, 1985). In order to mark
grammatical relations, Japanese children initially appear to rely on the word order to
mark grammatical functions. This takes us to the review of word order used by
Japanese and English-speaking children.
Word order
Concerning the word order, Brown (1973, p. 156) concluded that English-speaking
children start with the SVO word order from an early age. Brown drew this
conclusion based on his own data and other studies of spontaneous speech. While
there were a few instances of non-SVO word order, the utterances in SVO word
order predominated. Bever (1970) also found that English-speaking children
followed a strategy that any NVN sequence corresponds to ‘agent–action–patient’.
Bever (1970) suggested that the child follows a strategy based on the canonical word
order in the language.
As mentioned above, Japanese children initially appear to mark grammatical
relations by word order rather than by the use of particles. Japanese children are
reported to be sensitive to the verb-final constraint. For example, Miyahara (1973)
18
Sources: Clancy, 1985; Hakuta, 1977, 1982; Harada, 1977; Hayashibe, 1975; Iwatate, 1980; Sano,
1977; Uyeno, Harada, Hayashibe & Yamada, 1978; Watamaki, 1997
52
observed that her daughter (1;11) initially produced a rigid word order of OV, that is
the verb in the final position. Miyahara (1974) also observed that the ‘most two-word
utterances before 1;8 did not have particles marking subject or object’ (p. 285).
Hayashibe (1975) examined the role of word order and particles. Firstly, he
examined 60 Japanese children (ranging from 3;0 to 5;11) for their comprehension of
simple affirmative declarative sentences with two nouns and one verb, NNV. He
examined their comprehension of different permutation such as N1N2V, N2N1V,
VN1N2, with and without the case markers. He concluded that children initially
encode the semantic function of agent to be the first N and patient to be the second N
forming the ‘agent-patient’ word order before they can be reversed into the ‘patientagent’ word order. He also concluded that children initially used the word order cue
to encode grammatical relation, and then later they used the particle cues. A similar
finding that word order cue was used before the particle cue was obtained with
benefactive structures. Clancy (1985) summarised the studies conducted by Harada
(1977) and Uyeno, Harada, Hayashibe and Yamada (1978), which investigated the
comprehension of grammatical functions of NPs in benefactive structures. Harada
(1977) tested children who were 3;11 and Uyeno et al. (1978) tested children whose
age ranged from 3 to 6 years old. They found that the children relied on word order
to determine the grammatical functions of NPs rather than the particles.
Hakuta (1982) examined 14 children (ranging from 3;8 to 6;8) with imitation and
delayed production tasks of SOV and OSV active sentences. Example sentences of
SOV and OSV active sentences are presented in (13a) and (13b). These examples
are taken from Hakuta (1977, 1982).
(13) a. active SOV:
kirin-ga
tora-o
name-ta
giraffe-NOM
tiger-ACC
lick-PAST
‘A giraffe licked a tiger.’
b. active OSV:
tora-o
Kirin-ga
name-ta
tiger-ACC
giraffe-NOM
lick-PAST
‘A giraffe licked a tiger.’
He found that children had difficulty imitating the OSV sentences correctly. With
regard to the OSV sentences, although children retained the order of the two nouns,
53
they marked the first nouns as S with -ga (NOM). For a delayed production task, the
children performed overwhelmingly better with the SOV sentences. Hakuta (1982)
suggested that there is an association between the position of the noun within a
sentence and the particle -ga (NOM) for the agent. Hakuta (1977, 1982) also
investigated whether Japanese children used a similar strategy to that found by Bever
(1970) with the English-speaking children. Based on Bever’s findings Hakuta
predicted if Japanese children used a corresponding strategy, it would be the NNV
strategy. In other words, Hakuta predicted the Japanese version of Bever’s strategy to
be the correspondence of NNV to ‘agent-patient-action’ sequence. He examined the
comprehension of active and passive sentences in the SOV and OSV orders among
48 children (from 2;3 to 6;2). The active and passive sentences are distinguished by
the verbal morphemes. Therefore the four pattern sentences he tested were: SOVactive ,
OSVactive, SOVpassive, OSVpassive.. Example sentences of SOVpassive and OSVpassive are
presented in (14a) and (14b), taken from Hakuta (1977, 1982).
(14) a. passive SOV:
Tora-ga
Kirin-ni
name-rare-ta
tiger-NOM
giraffe-DAT
lick-PASS-PAST
‘A tiger was licked by a giraffe.’
b. passive OSV:
Kirin-ni
Tora-ga
name-rare-ta
giraffe-DAT
tiger-NOM
lick-PASS-PAST
‘A tiger was licked by a giraffe.’
The agent is marked as S with -ga (NOM) in SOVactive, but is marked as O with -ni
(DAT) in the passive voice (OSVpassive). The Japanese children showed a preference
for SOVactive as predicted. However, they did not show a preference for OSVpassive.
Hakuta suggests that while Japanese children pay attention to word order as
suggested by Bever (1970), they also pay attention to the particles. Hakuta (1982)
concludes that the Japanese children ‘interpret the first nouns marked by -ga is the
agent’ (p. 68).
In order to acquire the passive structure, Japanese children need to learn to mark
patient with -ga (NOM). Clancy (1985) suggests that this re-organisation of -ga
(NOM) may relate to the acquisition of -ni (DAT) to mark the agent in the passive
structure. Clancy (1985) summarised that Japanese children did not correctly
comprehend passive structure until they were older than four, mainly five or six
54
years old (Hakuta, 1982; Sano, 1977). As comprehension comes before production,
it is assumed that the production of passive or benefactive sentences with agent
correctly marked with –ni (DAT) would come later than the comprehension of such
sentences. Therefore, it is assumed that such production would occur at the earliest
after four years old.
More recently, Morikawa (1997) investigated the acquisition of case marking and
argument structures using the production data, collected and transcribed by Noji
(1974–1977), of a Japanese boy aged between 1;11 and 3;4. In her study, Morikawa
did not find the association between the sentence initial position and the agentive
subject as found by Hakuta (1982). Furthermore, Morikawa found that the boy’s case
marking reflected his parents’ use of case markers in the input.
I reviewed above the empirical studies that concluded that English-speaking children
used the SVO word order and the Japanese children SOV word order. However,
there is a view that all language learners begin with the SVO word order. In a more
recent study, Platzack (1996) proposed the existence of a universal default word
order of ‘S-V-Complement’, that is SVO, for both L1 and L2 learning. This idea is
known as the ‘Initial Hypothesis of Syntax’ (IHS) (Platzack, 1996) and it is based on
the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1993). On the other hand, Pienemann , Di
Biase and Kawaguchi (2005) proposed the ‘Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis’ in
which they predict that a language learner begins with the canonical word order of
the respective language.
In Section 2.4.2, I reviewed how researchers measured children’s lexical
development and summarised the findings from past JL1 and EL1 studies. In Section
2.5.2, I reviewed the morphological development of JL1 and EL1. In recent years,
some researchers in the field of L1 acquisition studies found that there was a
relationship between the development of lexicon and grammar. This is an area my
thesis also addresses. In the next sub-section, I review some of the findings from L1
acquisition studies that addressed such a relationship.
55
2.5.3 The relationship between lexicon and grammar
Recent L1 acquisition studies posit a view that there is a link between the
development of lexicon and the emergence of grammar. In addition to findings of the
temporal relationship between the accelerated growth of lexicon and the onset of
word combination (Barrett, 1995; Dromi, 1987; Veneziano, 1999; Watamaki, 1997),
there has been evidence found in support of a temporal relationship between lexical
growth and the development of grammar.
Watamaki’s (1997) study of Japanese child language development found a temporal
relationship between the acquisition of Japanese particles and lexical growth. His
analysis was based on monthly recordings (one hour per recording) of a Japanese girl
between the age of 1;10 and 2;9. Around 1;11, when the child showed a sudden
lexical growth, she began to use particles – in particular, the end of sentence particles.
Bassano (2000) investigated the development of French by a French monolingual
child aged between 1;2 and 2;6. Bassano examined the relationship between the type
of word and the use of grammar structures specific to the word class: nouns for use
of determiners, and verbs for inflection and use of auxiliary (AUX). Bassano found a
temporal relationship between the production of concrete nouns and the use of
determiners, and between the production of concrete action verbs and the use of
inflection and AUX.
Bassano, Laaha, Maillochon and Dressler (2004) investigated the production of verbs
and verb grammar in French and Austrian German. They based their analysis on the
spontaneous speech samples of two monolingual French-speaking children and two
monolingual Austrian (German-speaking) children, recorded from the onset of
production until 3;0. Bassano et al. (2004) found a temporal relationship between the
production of verbs and grammar in both languages. Ogura (1995) also found from
her cross sectional study of four Japanese children that the appearance of Japanese
particles and Japanese AUX was an important signpost for the development of
syntax.
Despite these studies looking at different languages and different aspects of grammar,
they each found the existence of a relationship between lexicon and grammar. These
56
studies based their analysis on monolingual data of a small number of children. Some
L1 acquisition studies, which used a large body of data, also found a link between
lexicon and grammar. These studies used monolingual data of different languages
obtained through the MCDI (MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory).
Here I mention those using English and Japanese data.
Bates et al. (1995), Bates and Goodman (1999), Caselli et al. (1995), and Caselli et
al. (1999) reported the findings based on the English data. They reported a strong
relationship between vocabulary size and the development of grammar. These studies
based their analyses on the large body of reported data from 1001 EL1 children aged
between 1;6 and 2;6, obtained using the MCDI. Their data showed a non-linear
correlation between vocabulary size and sentence complexity. The relationship
between vocabulary size and the onset of grammar they found was as follows:
(15)
Word combination appears for a vocabulary range of 50 to 200.
Verbal morphology appears during a vocabulary range of 400 to 600.
Sentence complexity begins to increase when vocabulary becomes 200 and
accelerates when more than 400.
(Bates et al., 1995)
Ogura (1998) reported results from 658 Japanese children using a Japanese version
of the MCDI developed by a team she led. In her report, Ogura compared the results
of Japanese and English-speaking children and concluded that some aspects of
development were parallel in these two languages. She found that the timing of
production of word combination and the increase in complex sentences were similar
between Japanese and English-speaking children (pp. 60–61). She found that
Japanese children began combining words (this includes a combination of a word
and a particle) around the time their lexicon reached 50 to 100. She also found that
Japanese children showed an increase in sentence complexity in the vocabulary range
of 200 to 400.
For both English and Japanese, data from L1 acquisition showed a strong
relationship between vocabulary size and grammar. Bates and Goodman (1999)
argued that this relationship shows that ‘grammar is an inherent part of the lexicon’
(p. 53). Caselli et al. (1999) followed this view and argued that the relationship
between lexicon and grammar ‘provides evidence in favour of lexicalist theories in
57
which the development of vocabulary and grammar are based on common
mechanisms’ (p. 76). This supports the argument proposed in Lexical Functional
Grammar (LFG) (e.g., Bresnan, 2001) that grammar is lexically driven. This finding
of the relationship between vocabulary size and grammar also led to the proposal of a
hypothesis known as the ‘Critical Mass Hypothesis’ (Marchman & Bates, 1994). In
this hypothesis, Marchman and Bates argue that acquisition of morphology is led by
the ‘increase in the size of the lexicon beyond a particular level, i.e., the vocabulary
had achieved a “critical mass”’ (p. 342). Marchman and Bates (1994) suggest there is
continuity between lexical and grammatical development (p. 364).
While the above studies based on a large body of data give a broad quantitative
account of the relationship between lexicon and grammar, Shirai and his colleagues
(Shirai, 1998, 1999; Shirai & Anderson, 1995; Shirai & Kurono, 1998) give a
cognitive account of the relationship. Shirai and his colleagues investigated the
relationship between the inherent meaning of a word and its morphological structures.
Shirai and Andersen (1995) argued that children’s acquisition of progressive and past
tense morphology begins with the prototype for each morpheme. They termed this
phenomenon the Aspect Hypothesis. In this hypothesis, the verbs are categorised into
four different groups according to the inherent meaning of punctuality, telicity and
dynamicity the verbs express. These four groups are: Achievement, Accomplishment,
Activity and State. Shirai’s (1998) description of these categories is presented below.
Table 2.8 Shirai’s (1998) verb categories
Verb category
Description
Achievement
Verb which takes place instantaneously, and is reducible to a
single point in time
Accomplishment Verb which has some duration, but has a necessary endpoint
Activity
Verb which has duration, but without a necessary endpoint
State
Verb which has no dynamics, and continues without additional
effort/energy being applied
Shirai and Anderson (1995) reported that with monolingual English-speaking
children, the acquisition of past tense morphemes (-ed) begins with achievement
verbs and the acquisition of progressive morphemes (-ing) begins with activity verbs.
58
They found that aspect (realised by -ing) was acquired earlier than tense (realised by
-ed). In their Aspect Hypothesis, Shirai and Anderson (1995) proposed that aspect is
acquired earlier than tense.
However, in his study of the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology by Japanese
children, Shirai (1998) found the data from Japanese children did not necessarily
support the Aspect Hypothesis. While a strong association between achievement
verbs and past tense was found, Japanese children also showed that they use the past
tense morpheme -ta with state verbs from a very early age. From these results, Shirai
(1998) concluded that the Japanese morpheme -ta initially marked the ‘perfect’
aspect rather than the ‘past’ tense. The findings from these studies suggest that there
is a relationship between the inherent meaning and the acquisition of a particular
morpheme. Furthermore, such relationships were partly universal and partly
language specific.
To summarise, some L1 acquisition studies found a temporal relationship between
the appearance of grammar and lexicon. The studies that used data collected using
MCDI found a more detailed correlation between the vocabulary size and the
appearance of different types of grammar; word combination, verbal morphology and
sentence complexity. Similar correlations were found in both English-speaking and
Japanese children. These findings suggest there is continuity between lexicon and
grammar, and the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994) was
proposed. Other studies investigated a link between the verbal morphemes and the
inherent meaning of verbs. Shirai and his colleagues found evidence for Aspect
Hypothesis (Shirai, 1998). This link was also found in both English-speaking and
Japanese children.
As reviewed above, the cross-linguistic comparison was largely based on
monolingual data. In recent years, studies have addressed the early relationship
between the lexicon and grammar using bilingual data. Marchman, MartinezSussmann and Dale (2004) and Conby and Thal (2006) investigated the lexical and
grammatical development of English-Spanish bilingual children. Both studies used
data gathered using the MCDI (English and Spanish versions respectively).
Marchman, Martinez-Sussmann and Dale (2004) used speech production
59
samples of some of their informants in addition to their reported data to examine
whether the types of data showed different results.
Both studies found that the pattern of bilingual children’s lexical development was
similar between English and Spanish, and that their patterns of development in each
language were similar to that of monolingual children. Furthermore, the development
of grammar in each separate language was related to the lexical development of the
same language. Marchman, Martinez-Sussmann and Dale (2004) also found that they
obtained similar results from their reported data and production data. These findings
not only further support the cross-linguistic evidence for the early relationship
between the lexicon and grammar but also support the Separate Development
Hypothesis of two languages of bilingual children. More studies using bilingual data
using different language constellations can offer an opportunity for further crosslinguistic comparison in this area.
While these studies found evidence for the relationship between lexical and
grammatical development, none has addressed the way the transition from one to the
other occurs. This is an area that can be addressed in future studies.
2.5.4 Summary
I have reviewed the past studies of bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) and
L1 acquisition above in the areas of lexicon and morphosyntax, and the relationship
between these two. In the review, I identified several issues arising from the earlier
BFLA research. They are as follows.
(16)
•
BFLA research needs to be informed by a linguistic and/or
psycholinguistic theory.
•
The mechanism of language processing has not been addressed in
BFLA.
•
There is a need for a more effective method to compare the development
(both lexical and morphosyntactic) of the two languages of one child.
•
We need a wider range of linguistic structures from a different
combination of languages to further our understanding of BFLA.
•
Research into the relationship between lexicon and grammar has not
60
been conducted using bilingual data.
In my own study, I address the issues listed above. My present study offers a new
approach to BFLA focusing on the language processing mechanism. I use a language
acquisition theory called Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). PT bases
its hypothesis on the architecture of human language processing. Thus, its
explanation is independent of a data driven description. In addition, it allows a direct
comparison between two typologically different languages. In the next section, I
present PT and its explanatory power. Then I address its typological plausibility as
well as its universality to different types of language acquisition by reviewing the
past studies that apply PT to English as a second language (ESL), Japanese as a
second language (JSL), and some L1 acquisition.
2.6
Theoretical framework for the present study
A goal of language acquisition studies is to understand how humans learn languages,
including L1 and L2 acquisition. Many studies observed the phenomena of the
developmental path that learners take. In this section, I present the theory that
explains the phenomena observed. Such explanations need to be able to take into
account different languages and different settings (e.g., L1 or L2). The theory also
needs to be able to propose hypotheses that are testable against data. My present
study uses PT (Pienemann, 1998a) as the theoretical framework.
PT is a language acquisition theory developed to account for the developmental
problem of second language acquisition (SLA). It is well documented in SLA
research that the learner’s language termed ‘inter-language’ (IL) is systematic and
follows a development path from its initial stage towards mastery of the language
(Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). Researchers found that learners acquire the
morphology and syntax of L2 in a certain sequence (e.g., morpheme order studies
conducted by Dulay & Burt 1973, 1974; ZISA Project conducted by Meisel, Clahsen
& Pienemann, 1981). Furthermore, they found that the developmental path for the
same L2 appears to be more or less the same irrespective of the L1 of the learners.
PT deals with the developmental sequence of language learners and explains the
mechanism of language acquisition.
61
PT bases its hypothesis on the architecture of the human language processor. Thus,
its explanation is independent of data driven descriptions. The basic logic underlying
PT is that ‘structural options that may be formally possible will be produced by the
language learner only if the necessary processing procedures are available’
(Pienemann, 1998a, p. 4). There are a number of basic assumptions about language
processing that Pienemann makes and the four listed by Pienemann (1998a, p. 6) are
given in (17).
(17)
The dichotomy of procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge
(Anderson, 1983)
The dichotomy of controlled and automatic processing (Posner &
Snyder1975; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977; Shiffrin & Schneider,1977;
McLaughlin,1987)
The limitation of Immediate Memory as the locus of language processing
(Levelt, 1978, 1989)
The role of automatisation in linguistic skill formation (Levelt, 1978).
Pienemann (1998a) views language acquisition as the acquisition of procedural skills.
The acquisition of procedural skills means the automatisation of these skills. In other
words, when a speech processing procedure becomes automatic, it manifests in the
production of linguistic realisation which is processable by that procedure.
Pienemann (1998a) adapts the speech processing procedures from the language
production model postulated by Levelt (1989). Levelt's language production model
describes the spontaneous language production of a mature speaker of a language
and it is widely accepted by psycholinguists in its broad architecture. Pienemann
(1998a) hypothesises that for learners these procedures become automatic in the
following order.
(18) 1. lemma access
2. the category procedure
3. the phrasal procedure
4. the S-procedure
5. the subordinate clause procedure, if applicable.
62
Similarly to Levelt (1989), Pienemann adapts Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG)
(Bresnan, 1982) as the representation of grammar for PT. LFG is used because of its
typological and psychological plausibility. PT also adapts LFG’s perspective of
sentence generation allowing for grammar to be lexically driven and for it not to
hypothesise transformation or movement of constituents. LFG’s concept of feature
unification is utilised in PT.
Before I describe PT, it is necessary to present Levelt’s language production model.
Following a description of PT’s proposed hypothesis, I discuss PT’s universality to
different languages and types of language acquisition, by reviewing previous studies
that applied PT to JSL, ESL and two L1’s.
2.6.1 A brief description of Levelt's language production model
As mentioned above, PT adapts the speech processing procedures postulated by
Levelt (1989). Figure 2.4 presents Levelt’s model. It consists of three processing
components and two knowledge stores. The component of Levelt’s language
production model, which relates to PT is called the Formulator, in particular a
component called Grammatical Encoder. However, I briefly describe all the
components below.
The three language processing components in Levelt’s model are the Conceptualizer,
Formulator and Articulator. The first of the two knowledge stores is the storage of
declarative knowledge, which includes world knowledge and situational discourse
knowledge. The second knowledge store is the ‘mental lexicon’, where information
is stored about the lexical items, i.e., words, in a speaker's language.
In his original model (Levelt, 1989), Levelt uses the notion that lexical items consist
of two parts (Kempen and Huijbers, 1983, mentioned in Levelt 1989), namely its
lemma and its form information. A lemma presents a lexical entry's meaning and
syntax, while a form information presents the morphological and phonological
properties of the lexical entry. What is included in the syntactic information of a
lemma are the item's syntactic category, its assignment of grammatical functions, and
a set of diacritic features (Levelt, 1989, p.190). However, later, Levelt, Roelofs and
Meyer (1999) reviewed the components of mental lexicon. The 1999 model proposes
63
the addition of a conceptual stratum making the lexical entry have three parts:
conceptual stratum, lemma and form.
CONCEPTUALIZER
discourse model
situation knowledge
encyclopedia
etc.
message
generation
monitoring
parsed speech
preverbal message
FORMULATOR
SPEECHCOMPREHENSION
SYSTEM
grammatical
encoding
surface
structure
LEXICON
lemmas
forms
phonological
encoding
phonetic plan
(internal speech)
phonetic string
ARTICULATOR
AUDITION
overt speech
Figure 2.4 Levelt’s model of language generation (Levelt, 1989, p. 9)
The Conceptualizer, the first processing component, forms a preverbal message.
This is an intention that the speaker wishes to convey. It is not yet in a linguistic
form. A preverbal message contains the necessary information about the interactional
situation in which the message is to be delivered. Such information is fed from the
first knowledge store. In forming a preverbal message, two types of planning are
involved. One is ‘macro-planning’ (Levelt, 1989, p. 5) which plans for the
64
realisation of communicative goals. The other is ‘micro-planning’ (Levelt, 1989, p. 5)
which involves planning an informational perspective for an utterance such as its
topic, its focus or the way to attract the listener's attention.
The Formulator, the second processing component, receives a preverbal message
formed in the Conceptualizer and converts it into a phonetic plan, comprising a
linguistic structure, through two processes. These processes are grammatical
encoding and phonological encoding. The Grammatical Encoder contains
‘procedures for lemma access and syntactic building procedures’ (Pienemann, 1998a,
p. 62).
The procedure for lemma access activates a lexical item by matching the meaning
part of a lemma with the semantic information of the preverbal message. The
activation of the meaning part of the lemma makes the syntactic information of the
lemma available to the syntactic procedures. For the syntactic procedures, Levelt
refers to Kempen and Hoenkamp’s (1987) Incremental Procedural Grammar (IPG).
The syntactic procedures are assumed to be ‘syntactic specialists’ (Levelt, 1989,
p. 249) and, for example, if the lemma contains syntactic category N, it calls upon
the categorical procedure NP and this procedure does its work only on nouns. There
will be a different procedure to do the work on verbs and yet another for adjectives
etc. Once the categorical procedure for N is called by the category information N
contained in the lemma, it will call upon a phrasal procedure.
The phrasal procedure builds a phrase in which, in this case, the N is the head. This
procedure builds a phrase by adding a modifier or determiner to the head N by
matching the values of the diacritic features to those of the head N. An example is,
the matching of the value for number being ‘single’ for a determiner ‘a’ and the
value for number being ‘single’ for a noun dog. This matching by the phrasal
procedure allows a NP a dog to be built and not two dog or a dogs. There is another
procedure called S-procedure which does similar matching of the values of diacritic
features between phrases. An example is ‘a man walks’. In this sentence the NP a
man holds the value of ‘singular’ for number and ‘3rd’ for person. S-procedure
matches those values assigned to the VP walks. Thus, a man walks is built - not a
man walk or men walks. Then the Phonological Encoder accesses the form
65
information of the lexical item and produces a phonetic plan. A phonetic plan is not
yet speech and it is fed to the third component, the Articulator, to be changed into
actual speech.
This model, widely accepted by psycholinguistics in its broad architecture, sees
language production to be incremental, parallel and automatised in order to account
for the speed of language production. This means that when a processing component
feeds the output to the next component it starts to work on the next job (next part of
the sentence) without waiting for the original output to be processed completely by
the remaining processors. Therefore, the different components are at work
simultaneously working on different parts of a sentence, in other words, different
parts of a sentence are processed independently from each other and they are at
different processing stages at a given time. These processes are automatic, i.e., not
controlled by the speaker. Levelt's model can explain various types of speech errors
(or language production problems) in terms of disorders of the language production
mechanism.
Levelt’s model originally only concerned mature monolingual speakers and it did not
include bilingual language production. Levelt's model was adapted to bilingual
language production by de Bot (1992). First, de Bot (1992, p. 7) sees that there is one
knowledge store. Levelt assumes that the Conceptualizer is language-specific, but de
Bot sees that the first part of the Conceptualizer, ‘macro-planning’, is not languagespecific, and that therefore only the ‘micro-planning’ part of the Conceptualizer is
language-specific.
As far as the processing components are concerned, de Bot (1992) postulates
separate language-specific formulators for every language while suggesting one
articulator and one mental lexicon. He bases his suggestion of one articulator on the
nature of foreign accents even in highly proficient second language speakers.
However, de Bot (1992) adds that the articulator for bilingual speakers would include
‘an extensive set of sounds and pitch patterns from both languages’ (p. 17). For the
mental lexicon, de Bot (1992) writes ‘lexical items are selected from one common
lexicon in which items are connected in networks which enable subsets of items to be
activated’ (p. 14).
66
2.6.2 Processability Theory
Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a) is a transition theory that explains
the developmental sequences in learning L2 morphosyntax. This theory originates
from the Multidimensional Model (Meisel et al., 1981; Pienemann, 1980) proposed
by a group of researchers based on their findings from the ZISA (Zweitspracherwerb
Italienischer und Spanischer Arbeiter) study. The ZISA study was one of the first
studies to explain the developmental sequence of acquisition of word order of
German as L2 (GSL), conducting a series of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.
They found a universal developmental path of GSL, irrespective of the learners’ first
languages. The researchers of ZISA focused on the learners’ ‘processing’ strategies
to explain the acquisition of GSL. They hypothesised that a learner used a
combination of three speech-processing strategies: Canonical Order strategy (COS),
Initialisation-Finalisation Strategy (IFS), and Subordinate Clause Strategy (SCS)
(Clahsen, 1984). These strategies involve movements of elements within a sentence
to different positions.
Pienemann and Johnston (1987) further developed the Multidimentional Model by
applying it to ESL. Pienemann and Johnston identified the developmental stages for
ESL word order and morphemes according to the speech processing strategies. They
proposed that a learner acquires apparently unrelated structures around the same time
if they belong to the same stage constrained by the strategies. This framework
developed by Pienemann and Johnston (1987) is referred to as the PienemannJohnston Model by some researchers such as Doi and Yoshioka (1987). The
Pienemann-Johnston Model was a predecessor of PT.
These two models were an advance in the field of SLA on several acounts: that they
offered cognitive explanation for the developmental stages; that their explanation
was derived from another source, experimental psycholinguistics, and not datadriven descriptions; and therefore their explanation was potentially universal to other
languages (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1990). However, some shortcomings of the
speech processing approach were pointed out. Two major points discussed by
Larsen-Freeman and Long (1990) were the fact that the model still did not ‘itself
specify how it is that learners learn whatever they manage to produce despite the
67
constraints’ (p. 285) and the problems concerning ‘the falsifiability of certain aspects
of the model and predictive framework’ (p. 285). Two shortcomings of the speech
processing approach that Pienemann (1998a) pointed out were that ‘the status of
grammar in language acquisition remains unclear’ (p. 49) and that ‘transformations
are psychologically implausible concepts’ (p. 51).
Pienemann further developed the Pienemann-Johnston model by rejecting the
processing strategy approach but incorporating Levelt’s language processing model,
the Grammatical Encoder of the Formulator, and the LFG as the grammatical
representation. As a result, Pienemann (1998a) proposed Processability Theory (PT).
As mentioned above, Levelt’s model applies to mature speakers of L1. When one
learns an L2, different language-specific procedures need to be developed for that L2
in order to handle the language-specific grammatical information, as postulated by de
Bot (1992). Examples of language-specific grammatical information may be word
order, or diacritic features in the lexicon and so on.
L2 learners, including children, are initially unable to construct morphological or
syntactic structures. This may happen ‘because (1) the lexicon is not fully annotated,
and, more importantly, (2) because even if the L1 annotation was transferred, the
syntactic procedures have not specialised to hold the specific L2 syntactic
information’ (Pienemann, 1998b, p. 6). In other words, when L2 learners develop the
procedural skills to automatically exchange the necessary grammatical information,
they are able to produce the L2 structure. This exchange of information is what LFG
calls ‘feature unification’. Procedural skills develop sequentially: and each skill
achieved is a prerequisite for the next. The sequence, then, forms a hierarchy. The
automatisation of these skills accelerates the production of a target language. In other
words, in PT, language acquisition is the cumulative acquisition of procedural skills.
Different types of information exchange require different procedural skills which
relate to different types of storage of the grammatical information. For example, the
verbal morpheme to indicate past tense (e.g., -ed in English) does not need temporal
storage of the information. The information about tense is annotated within the verb
lemma with the value of ‘past’ for the feature ‘tense’. In order to produce the past
68
tense morphology, the information of ‘past’ does not need to be exchanged with any
other information within the sentence. Therefore, the information does not need to be
stored and it is called up by the category procedure. This type of morphology is
defined as ‘lexical’ morphology in PT. On the other hand morphology that requires
phrasal-level unification is called ‘phrasal’ morphology, while unification of
information required at the S- node is (the S-procedure) is called ‘inter-phrasal’
morphology (Pienemann, 1998a, 1998b). I will give examples of each type of
morphology later in this section with English examples.
Pienemann (1998a) hypothesises that a language learner will follow the
developmental sequence of lemma or word > category procedure > phrasal
procedure > S-procedure > subordinate clause procedure. Thus, the sequence of
these procedures determines the developmental sequence of language acquisition.
Pienemann cautions that PT does not predict that all of the structures processable at
any one stage must be acquired before moving on to the next stage. What the theory
predicts is that ‘what cannot be processed will not be acquired’ (Pienemann, 1998b, p.
14).
The significant aspect of PT is that the type of information exchange required for
each processing procedure, and their hierarchy is universal and therefore applicable
to any language. However, the structural realisation of each type of information
exchange is language specific. Table 2.9 presents the information exchange required
for each stage of processing procedures with examples of structure for each stage
taken from predicted English structures. I briefly describe each stage below.
69
Table 2.9 Hierarchy of processing procedures and structural outcome of English L2
(from Pienemann, 1998a, p. 9) (presented with the highest level being Stage 5)
Processing
Information
English
Example
procedures
exchange
morphosyntax
Cancel inversion
- I wonder whether he had
5. Subordinate- Interclausal
information
Tag question
lunch yesterday.
clause
exchange
procedure
Interphrasal
Yes/no inversion
- Has he seen you?
4. S-procedure
information
WH-AUX question
- What is she eating?
exchange
SV agreement
- He walks
Phrasal
ADV/Do/WH-fronting - Where you have been?
3. Phrasal
information
NP agreement
- two dogs
procedure
exchange
Lexical
Canonical order
- SVO
2. Category
morphemes
Lexical morphology
- dogs
procedure
(Plural, Tense, etc)
- walked
none
words/formulaic
1. Word or
expression
lemma access
Stage 1
Stage 1 is the access of lemma. A language learner can produce words but is not yet
able to process the syntactic information of the lemma. Pienemann (1998a) predicts
that a learner has not yet developed any language specific procedure. During this
stage, a learner produces formulaic expressions or unanalysed chunks.
Stage 2
In Stage 2, the category procedure is available to the learner. Learners are now able
to process the lexical category and the diacritic feature listed in the lemma. The
structural outcome of this stage is lexical morphology. At this stage, no information
exchange between any words is operational. Morphemes in this stage are directly
instigated from the concept. For example, the past tense marker in English, -ed, can
be suffixed to a verb without any exchange of information with any other parts of a
sentence. The plural marker -s in a single noun phrase without a determiner, e.g.,
dogs, cats, is another such structure. For the syntax, it is predicted that learners will
produce canonical word order during this stage. According to Pinker (1984), in the
canonical word order, there is a direct one-to-one mapping between the semantic
functions and grammatical functions. There is no cross over between the two sets of
functions. This does not require the exchange of information between any parts of a
70
sentence. This direct mapping is illustrated in Figure 2.5. In English, this direct
mapping results in the SVO word order.
SUBJ
|
OBJ
|
OBLIQUE
|
(grammatical functions)
agent
theme/patient goal/source/location
(semantic functions)
Figure 2.5 Direct mapping (Pinker, 1984, pp. 298–307)
Stage 3
In Stage 3, the phrasal procedure is available to the learner and this procedure
exchanges the information of the diacritic features of the head and its modifier within
a phrase. As a result, feature unification occurs within the phrase level. The structural
outcome in this stage is phrasal morphology. An example of a phrasal morpheme in
English is the suffixation of a plural marker -s in a NP many dogs. Figure 2.6
presents the lexical entries of many and dogs, and Figure 2.7 shows its c-structure
(constituent structure). In order to form the NP many dogs, the value PL(ural) of the
feature NUM(ber) in the two lexical items must agree at the NP node.
many:
DET,
SPEC =
‘many’
NUM =
PL
dogs:
N,
PRED =
‘dog’
NUM =
PL
Figure 2.6 Lexical entries of many dogs
NP
det
many
SPEC = ‘many’
✆✝✞✟ ✠ ✡☛
(☎
N
✂
=✄
dogs✠ ✎✏✑✒✓✔
✡☞✌✍✟
(☎
✆✝✞✟ ✠ ✡☛
(☎
Figure 2.7 c-structure of many dogs19
19
LFG uses the up- and down-arrows ( and
✁ ) to show the flow of grammatical information. The
points to the mother node and the ✁ points to the self. In this example, ‘ = ✁‘ carried by NP, indicates
71
For the syntax, learners still use the canonical word order at this stage; however, they
are now able to add an adverb (ADV), WH-question word, or auxiliary (AUX) DO
for question in initial position of sentences. Pienemann (1998a) describes this
operation as (19) where ADV, WH-words and DO are derived from the c-structure
by allowing them to appear in focused positions (i.e., in XP position).
(19)
S'
(XP)
S
(Pienemann, 1998a, p. 173)
Example sentences illustrating these types of fronting are shown in (20a) and (20b).
They are ungrammatical from the target language point of view (indicated by *);
however, this type of utterance is common among learners of ESL.
(20) a.
b.
* Do he have lunch yesterday?
* Where you have been?
Stage 4
In Stage 4, the S-procedure becomes available, allowing the exchange of
information across phrases. In this stage, the necessary syntactic information across
phrases will be unified at the S-node. The structural outcome for this stage is interphrasal morphology. An English example of inter-phrasal morpheme is SV
agreement, as in Peter owns a dog. The SV agreement is the agreement between the
third person singular subject and the suffixation of -s on the finite verb in a present
indicative sentence. The information ‘NUM=SG (singular)’ and ‘PERSON=3’ of the
subject Peter and the verb owns are unified across two phrases at the S-node. Figure
2.8 presents the c-structure of the sentence.
that features of self (i.e., the daughter of its mother node) are passed on to be features of its mother
node.
72
S
(PERSON)= 3
(NUM)= SG
(
NPSUBJ
✁✂✄☎✆✝✞
VP
✝✞
N
✝✞
V
✝✞
(
NPOBJ
✫✄☎✆✝✞
N
✝✞
det
Peter ✠✏ ✏
✠✡☛☞✌
✍ ✎ ✑ ✒✓
(✟✠☛✡✔✕✖
(✟✖✗✘✌ ✔✙
)=3
✍
(✟
owns ✔✗✤✥✌ ✕✤✥✌
✠✡☛☞✌
✢ ✣✟
✣✟
(✟✦☛✖✔☛✌✍✎✚✛✜✓
✍ ✧✒ ✏★✏✜✑
(✟✔✗✤✥☛✩✦
✠☛✡✔✕✖✌ ✍ ✪
(✟
✔✗✤✥☛✩✦ ✖✗✘✌ ✍ ✔✙
(✟
a
dog
Figure 2.8 c-structure of Peter owns a dog
For syntax, in the S-procedure stage, learners can now invert the subject of the
sentence and the AUX in a yes/no question, namely yes/no inversion, and therefore
place do and AUX in the second position in WH-questions. However, these
operations occur only within the main clause and only on the positional facts of
yes/no inversion, not the morphological form of AUX and V. Examples are given in
(21a) and (21b), taken from Pienemann (1998a, p. 170).
(21)
a.
Has he seen you?
b.
What is she eating?
Stage 5
The subordinate clause procedure stage applies to a language, such as English, in
which different word order rules are used for each of main and subordinate clauses.
In this stage, a learner learns the ‘word order phenomena observed in direct questions
do not apply in the context of indirect questions’ (Pienemann, 1998a, p.170).
Therefore, a learner is able to cancel the inversion for the subordinate clause. An
example is shown in (22).
73
(22) I wonder whether he had lunch yesterday.
As PT is based on the acquisition of a cognitive processing procedure, Pienemann
(1998a) claims its hypothesis to be universal across languages. This typological
plausibility is one of the strengths of PT. This universal applicability also applies to
different types of language acquisition. Pienemann (1998b) argues, ‘the fundamental
principles of language processing apply to native and non-native language use’ (p. 12)
and that ‘the architecture of human language processing will have a bearing on any
type of language acquisition’ (p. 12). This strength of PT is relevant in my present
study, as I examine the acquisition of Japanese and English, two typologically distant
languages, in the context of BFLA.
A further strength of PT is its predictive power. An a priori prediction of linguistic
structures is possible for each processing procedure because PT utilises the LFG’s
concept of feature unification. Therefore, the theory’s hypothesis is testable against
data. Furthermore, prediction can be made for different languages. Selected
structures in different languages can be compared in terms of stages because they
will have an independent reference point – that of being processable at one of the
stages of the developmental hierarchy. In addition, having an independent reference
point allows the determination of relative complexity of different linguistic forms in
different languages which is not judged by the subjective researchers’ intuition. This
predictive power makes a direct comparison of acquisition between different
languages possible. Thus, it is an ideal tool for the direct comparison between the
development of two languages of a bilingual child.
While PT provides a powerful tool for the development of morphosyntax, the theory
has not addressed the development of lexicon explicitly. PT predicts a language
specific developmental path in the category procedure stage, manifesting the
acquisition of the canonical word order and the lexical morphemes. However, prior
to this stage, that is, during the word or lemma stage, PT does not predict the
language acquisition to be language specific. My thesis addresses the lexical
development of a bilingual child; therefore, I hope to contribute in this area in the
framework of PT.
74
PT’s universal plausibility has been tested and supported for various L2s, including
Arabic (Mansouri, 1995, 1997, 2002), Chinese (Zhang, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2004),
English (Pienemann, 1998a), Italian (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Di Biase, 2002),
Japanese (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b), and Swedish
(Pienemann & Håkansson, 1999). In sub-section 2.6.3, I review the empirical
application of PT to ESL and JSL. For ESL, I review Pienemann (1998a) for both
adult and child ESL. As for JSL, Kawaguchi (2000) was the first empirical study that
applied PT to JSL corpus. Kawaguchi’s original attempt was reviewed and improved
in Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) and Kawaguchi (2005a, 2005b). I also briefly
review a few earlier studies that did not use PT per se, but applied the predecessor of
PT in the context of adult JSL. Doi and Yoshioka (1987) was the first to apply
Pienemann’s hypothesis to JSL using the Pienemann-Johnston Model. Huter (1996,
1997) used Pienemann’s cognitive approach to JSL. Following Di Biase and
Kawaguchi (2002), Iwasaki (2003, 2004a, 2004b) applied PT to child JSL corpus.
Pienemann (1998b) also claims PT’s universality across different types of language
acquisition. In Section 2.6.4, I discuss the issues of the comparison between L1 and
L2 acquisition and review two studies Pienemann (1998b) and Håkansson (2001)
which applied PT to L1 acquisition.
2.6.3 Review of empirical studies on application of PT to SLA
Application of PT to ESL
Pienemann (1998a, pp. 169–181) proposed a hypothesis for the linguistic structures
of English for each processing stage. I presented these English structures in Table 2.9
above. Pienemann (1998a) tested his hypothesis using an existing adult ESL and a
child ESL database. The adult ESL database he used was from a project called the
Syntactic and Morphological Progressions in Learner English (SAMPLE project)
(Johnston, 1985). The SAMPLE project contained data from 24 informants (12
Vietnamese speaking and 12 Polish speaking) who were adult migrants to Australia.
The informants were each interviewed for about forty minutes. This cross-sectional
study was supplemented by a longitudinal study of eight informants (of the original
24), with each being interviewed three more times over the course of a year. The
database used for a child ESL was from Pienemann and Mackey (1993) (mentioned
75
in Pienemann, 1998a, p. 179). This database contained the data from 13 children
aged 8 to 10 years old, doing various communicative tasks.
Pienemann’s (1998a) analysis on both corpora confirmed that the structures tested
were acquired in the sequence that was predicted by PT. The results found that the
predicted structures for each stage formed an implicational scale from the earliest
stage (e.g., SVO word order, plural -s) to the latest stage (e.g., cancel inversion).
Hence, the structures in one stage were found to be acquired only after the structures
in the previous stage were acquired. In other words, no stage was skipped before
proceeding to the stage above. The acquisition of both adult and child ESL followed
the sequence of word or lemma > category procedure > phrasal procedure > Sprocedure > subordinate clause procedure. Thus, the PT’s hypothesis holds for both
adult and child ESL. Pienemann (1998a) wrote that Johnston’s corpus provided
‘strong evidence in support of the ESL Processability hierarchy. Taken with this, the
child ESL study (Pienemann and Mackey, 1993) strengthens and supports this
position’ (p. 180).
Application of PT to JSL
Doi and Yoshioka’s (1987) applied the Pienemann-Johnston model, the predecessor
of PT, in the context of JSL. They examined the order of acquisition of three
particles: the topic marker -wa (TOP) and two case markers -ga (NOM) and -o
(ACC). Based on the Pienemann-Johnston model, Doi and Yoshioka (1987)
hypothesised that -wa is acquired prior to -ga and -o. They hypothesised this because
in order to topicalise a NP or any other parts of speech, a learner need not know the
internal structure of the sentence; whereas, in order to use -ga or -o, a learner needs
to know the relation of the NP to the predicate.
Their data were the collection of repetition tests conducted on 23 students learning
Japanese at different levels, namely first year, second year and fourth year at the
University of Hawaii. They found that the first year students scored a higher
accuracy rate for -wa than -ga and -o. The difference in the accuracy rates between
-wa and the other two became smaller in the second year students and the fourth year
students scored almost 90% accuracy rate for all three particles. They concluded that
the data supported their hypothesis. While the contribution made by their study has
76
been acknowledged, Kawaguchi (2005a, 2005b) discussed shortcomings in Doi and
Yoshioka (1987). They are: the use of accuracy rate as the acquisition criterion, and
the lack of grammar theory behind the test structures. Another shortcoming pointed
out by Kawaguchi (2005a, 2005b) was the fact that Doi and Yoshioka (1987) did not
discuss different functions -wa marks. Kawaguchi (2005a. 2005b) explained that the
particle -wa marks the topic of a sentence, and any NP such as SUBJ, OBJ or
ADJUNCT can be topicalised. However, SUBJ being the default topic (Bresnan,
2001) -wa marking the SUBJ may be acquired at an early stage.
Huter (1996, 1997) investigated the developmental sequence of JSL. The corpus used
in her studies was speech of Japanese language students of Australian universities up
to third year level, obtained by picture description tasks. Huter described the
developmental sequence of sentence structures and NPs and found that new
grammatical structures were first acquired at the NP level and later extended to the
sentence level. Huter (1997) used Pienemann’s cognitive approach to explain JSL
acquisition ‘up to a certain point’ (p. 36) of sentence structure, but did not explain the
NP development sequence. Kawaguchi’s (2005a, 2005b) criticism was based on a
weakness in Huter’s (1996, 1997) studies stemming from the lack of a formal
representation of grammar as well as the mixed use of the strategy approach and
cognitive approach.
The first empirical study of JSL acquisition in which PT was applied was by
Kawaguchi (2000). Building on the prediction for JSL made by Pienemann (1998a),
Kawaguchi conducted a study of the development of verbal morphology through
three longitudinal and two cross-sectional studies. Informants were Japanese
language students at various Australian universities. Kawaguchi hypothesised the
structural outcome of Japanese verbal morphology for PT’s stages, shown in Table
2.10.
77
Table 2.10 Kawaguchi’s (2000) original hypothesised structures of Japanese
Processing procedures
L2 processes
Kawaguchi’s
hypothesised structures
Inter-phrasal
information
adverbial clause and
4. S-procedure
exchange
passive construction
Phrasal
information
the formation of VP that
3. Phrasal procedure
exchange
involves agglutination of
AUX to Verb stem
Lexical morphemes
verbal ending alternation
2. Category procedure
(e.g., past or negative
forms of the same verb
stem)
basic form of verbs (e.g.,
1. Word or lemma access ‘words’
present tense polite form)
Kawaguchi (2000) hypothesised that, at the word or lemma access stage, JSL
learners would produce the basic form of verbs. She predicted the basic verb form for
JSL to be the present-tense polite form, e.g., tabe-masu ‘eat-POL-NONPAST’ (= eat),
and this will be produced as unanalysed formulae. In the next category procedure
stage, the learners were predicted to produce verbal ending alternation, such as PAST
and NEG, of the same verbal stem. The next stage, the phrasal procedure stage,
requires information exchange within phrases. Kawaguchi (2000) hypothesised this
type of information occurred between the verb stem and the agglutinative verb
morphemes. Therefore, she predicted that the JSL learners would be able to produce
various combinations of verb stems and verb morphemes at this stage. At the final
stage, the S-procedure stage, production of the adverbial clause was predicted.
Kawaguchi’s (2000) results showed that the above structures were acquired in the
hypothesised order and she claimed that this supported PT’s universality. Despite the
seemingly successful application of PT to the acquisition of JSL, she later criticised
this study herself (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a) because some
of the test structures were not compatible with LFG. This could cast some doubt on
the validity of the test structures.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, Kawaguchi’s (2000) work presents an interesting point.
From the LFG point of view, the formation of VP involving the agglutination of
AUX to Vstem belongs to the Category procedure (Stage 2). Kawaguchi (2000) split
this stage into two separate stages. Therefore, in reality Kawaguchi (2000) actually
78
investigated the acquisition of JSL for the morphological structures that belonged to
the Category procedure and S-procedure stages, and found that structures of the
Category procedure were acquired prior to those of the S-procedure. Furthermore,
her result suggests that, within one stage, different morphological operations may be
acquired at different times.
Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) revised her
previous work and re-hypothesised the Japanese morphological and syntactic
structures using LFG. Kawaguchi’s revised hypothesis is presented in Table 2.11. I
review these structures below, with a focus on the Japanese verbal morphology.
Table 2.11 Revised hypothesised structures of Japanese morphology and syntax
(from Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi 2005a, 2005b)
Processing
procedures
Stage 4:
S-procedure
or WO Rules
L2 processes
Stage 3:
phrasal
procedure
Stage 2:
category
procedure
phrasal
information
Stage 1:
word or
lemma access
Japanese verbal
morphology
- Agreement of
morpholgical operation
and NP marking
(PASS, CAUSE, BENE)
- V-te V
(V-COMP V)
Japanese syntax
lexical
morphology
- Verbal inflection
‘words’,
formulaic
expression
- Invariant form
- Canonical word order SOV
(i.e., Nominal marking of
semantic roles, V-Final)
- Topic=Subject (i.e., TOPsubj
OV)
- Single constituents
- Formulaic expressions
inter-phrasal
information
- Topicalisation of Non-SUBJ
argument
(i.e., TOPOBJ + SV)
- Non-argument topic
(i.e., TOPAdjunct + SOV)
In the word or lemma stage, Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi,
2005a, 2005b) hypothesised that learners would produce invariant forms or formulaic
expressions. In the category procedure stage, verbal inflection is predicted to be
acquired. Japanese verbs inflect for tense, aspect, level (i.e., politeness) or polarity.
In LFG agglutinating morphology is viewed as a lexical operation (Sells 1995,
mentioned in Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002, p. 291). Diacritic features such as ‘past’
and ‘progressive’ are listed in the lexical entries of words, i.e., lemmas. These
features are instigated directly from the conceptual structure. They require no
grammatical information exchange when marked in one constituent only. When two
79
or more morphemes agglutinate and suffix a verb stem, no grammatical information
is required to be exchanged among the morphemes, thus it is a lexical operation.
In the next phrasal procedure stage, Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002;
Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) predicted that the V-te V (V-COMP V) construction is a
structural outcome. Kawaguchi hypothesised this structure for Stage 2 based on a
notion called ‘combinatoric TYPE’ in LFG. Sells (1995) introduced this notion of
‘combinatoric TYPE’ to explain Japanese and Korean agglutinative morphology in
LFG. Sells (1995) argued that the initial and final members of a word carry the
crucial grammatical information for the word. The former carries the categorical
information which determines the category of the whole word and the latter carries
the combinatoric information which determines the TYPE as described in (23).
(23)
(S)yntactic category and combinatoric types are independent parameters of
specification. The categorical information is ... anything that can be selected
for by some other head, in particular syntactic category. The combinatoric
information augments the very general rules for phrasal syntax to predict the
correct distribution of phrases...The rest of the information is primarily
semantic in nature and is directly inherited from either side of a morphological
combination. For instance, with a verb this information might concern the
meaning of the verb itself, tense, aspect, mood, and speech-level information.
(Sells, 1995, p 309)
Figure 2.9 illustrates the information flow in inflectional structures, where X0 denotes
a word.
X0
Categorial
information
(what heads
select for)
Root
Combinatoric
information
(what can be X’s
right sister)
Suffix
Information concerning semantics, case, etc. is inherited from all morphemes.
Figure 2.9 Information flow in inflectional structures (Sells, 1995, p. 308)
For a Japanese inflected verb, the verb stem (i.e., the initial member of the whole
word) and the right-most morphemes (i.e., the final member of the whole word) carry
80
the crucial grammatical information. The verb stem carries the categorical
information while the right-most suffix carries the information of the combinatoric
TYPE. Other morphemes in between, in cases where more than one morpheme is
agglutinated, carry semantic information. According to Sells (1995) the combinatoric
TYPE determines the category the word can have as its sister. The three different
TYPES are summarised in Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002, p. 293) and are
duplicated here in (24) below.
(24) TYPE: V-sis means that the suffix licenses the host word to have V as a sister.
TYPE: N-sis means that the suffix licenses the host word to have N as a sister.
TYPE: ROOT means that the verb which the suffix is attached to has no sister,
i.e., the word should appear at the end of the sentence. (Di Biase &
Kawaguchi, 2002, p. 293)
In Japanese, the only verbal suffix which has the value of TYPE: V-sis is -te
(COMP). When the V-te V structure is constructed, the information of TYPE needs
to be unified between the two verbs within a VP. Therefore, Di Biase and Kawaguchi
(2002) and Kawaguchi (2005a) argued that for the V-te V to be constructed, the
information of ‘combinatoric TYPE’ carried by the verbal suffix would need to be
exchanged between the two verbs.
Following Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002), the c-structure of an example kat-te taberu ‘buy-COMP eat-NONPAST’ (= buy (something) and eat (it)) is presented in
Figure 2.10 . The V-sis TYPE of kat-te licenses the second verb tabe-ru to be its
sister.
81
V1
V0
PRED = ‘buy’
TYPE = V-sis
V0
PRED = ‘eat’
TENSE = NONPAST
TYPE = ROOT
kat-te
tabe-ru
buy-COMP (TYPE: V-sis)
eat-NONPAST
Figure 2.10 The c-structure of the verb phrase kat-te tabe-ru
For a structural outcome for the S-procedure stage, Kawaguchi (Di Biase &
Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) predicted the agreement of the noun
marking and the verbal morphemes in the predicate. A realisation of such agreement
is the suffixation of -ni (DAT) in the oblique argument in the passive, causative and
benefactive constructions. Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) argued that passivisation,
causativisation and benefactivisation involve ‘interphrasal operations because these
structures require information exchange across phrases in the grammatical encoding
process’ (p. 294).
In Japanese, the passive voice is expressed by the passive verbal morphemes, rare20.
Further, the patient, not the agent, is mapped onto the grammatical SUBJ. The
correspondence between the f- and c-structures for an active and passive sentence
pair are duplicated in Figure 2.11 and Figure 2.12 from Kawaguchi (2005b, pp. 274–
275). The active sentence is neko-ga sakana-o tabeta ‘cat-NOM fish-ACC eatPAST’ (= The cat ate a fish) and its passive equivalent is sakana-ga neko-ni
taberareta ‘fish-NOM cat-DAT eat-PASS-PAST’ (= the fish was eaten by a cat).
20
When the verb ends with a consonant, the passive morpheme phonologically changes to are, e.g.,
kak-are-ru ‘write-Passive-NONPAST’ (= (It) is written).
82
PRED
TENSE
SUBJ
'eat ' , <(f SUBJ)(f OBJ)>
PAST
PRED 'cat'
CASE NOM
OBJ
PRED 'fish'
CASE ACC
f:
S
VP
NP
neko-ga
cat-SUBJ
' The cat ate a fish.'
NP
V
sakana-o
fish -ACC
tabe-ta
eat-PAST
Figure 2.11 f-structure – c-structure correspondence for active neko-ga sakana-o
tabeta. (Kawaguchi, 2005b, p. 274)
PRED
TENSE
SUBJ
eaten' , <(f SUBJ)>
PAST
PRED 'fish'
CASE NOM
OBJ
PRED 'cat'
CASE DAT
f:
S
VP
NP
sakana-ga
fish-SUBJ
' The fish was eaten by a cat.'
NP
V
neko-ni
cat-DAT
tabe-rare-ta
eat-PASS-PAST
Figure 2.12 f-structure – c-structure correspondence for passive sakana-ga neko-ni
tabe-rare-ta. (Kawaguchi, 2005b, p. 275)
83
The causative is expressed by the causative verbal morpheme (CAUSE), sase21, e.g.,
tabe-sase-ru ‘eat-CAUSE-NONPAST’ (= make (someone) eat). (25) shows an
example. The agent (i.e., the causer of the event) is marked as SUBJ with -ga (NOM),
the theme is OBJ marked with -o (ACC) and the recipient is marked as OBL with –ni
(DAT).
(25)
okaasan-ga
kodomo-ni
ninjin-o
tabe-sase-ta.
mother-NOM
child-DAT
carrot-ACC
eat-CAUSE-PAST
‘Mother made the child eat carrots.’
I have explained the benefactive (BENE) structure in the early section (Section 2.2.3)
of this chapter. This structure involves the verbs of giving and receiving kureru (=
give (me)), ageru (= give (somebody)) or morau (= (I) receive). These verbs can be
used as a single verb to indicate the giving and receiving of objects. However, they
can also be used as the second verb in the concatenated verb structure V-te V to
express the giving or receiving of an action expressed by the first verb, e.g., kat-te
ageru ‘buy-COMP give’ (= (someone) buy (something for someone else)).
The BENE structure not only has the morphological operation on the verb but also
has the repercussion to the encoding of the grammatical relations of NPs.
When the verb of giving is used, the agent is marked as S with -ga (NOM), the
theme/patient is marked as O with -o (ACC) and the beneficiary/recipient is marked
as OBL with -ni (DAT). However when the verb of receiving is used, the
beneficiary/recipient becomes S marked with -ga (NOM) and the agent becomes
OBL marked with -ni (DAT). Examples (26a) and (26b) illustrate the change of
grammatical relations.
21
This morpheme phonologically changes to ase when it is to be suffixed to a consonant-ending verb
stem, e.g., kak-ase-ru ‘write-CAUSE-NONPAST’ (= make (someone) write).
84
(26)
a. Hanako-ga
Hanako-NOM
Yoshiko-ni
ringo-o
kat-te
age-ta
Yoshiko-DAT
apple-ACC
buy-COMP
give-PAST
‘Hanako bought an apple and gave it to Yoshiko.’
b. Yoshiko-ga
Yoshiko-NOM
Hanako-ni
ringo-o
kat-te
morat-ta
Hanako-DAT
apple-ACC
buy-COMP
receive-PAST
‘Yoshiko received an apple bought by Hanako.’
Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002, p. 295) explained the case alteration for
passivisation below. According to them, the same argument should apply in the case
of causative and benefactive structures.
(27)
The word order of an active sentence is directly mapped from argument
structure (canonical order). In constructing the passive equivalent, however,
the functional destination of the NPs is determined by both the semantic
content of the N itself and by the lexical entry of the passive verb, which in
turn is reflected in the morphosyntax of the sentence, as in Norlinger’s
(1998) ‘constructive case’ model. The identification of the phrase’ function
and their functional destination assignment in passive constructions requires,
then, that the learner unify information from different sources: the V and the
N phrases, which calls for an interphrasal process. The presence of NP OBL,
appropriately case marked as –ni, is necessary in order to claim that Sprocedure is acquired. (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002, p. 295)
Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) tested the
above hypothesis using a corpus from a three-year longitudinal study and one crosssectional study consisting of nine Japanese language students at university. Their
findings confirmed that the students acquired the hypothesised Japanese structures in
the predicted implicational order in both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.
That is, V-inflection was acquired first, followed by the V-te V structure. The dative
marking -ni in passive, causative and benefactive structures were acquired last. Their
findings indicated, ‘learners who have acquired the interphrasal procedure also
acquired the phrasal and lexical procedures’ (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002, p. 300).
Thus, Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) and Kawaguchi, (2005a, 2005b) provide
evidence in support of the JSL Processability hierarchy. Furthermore, these studies
support the typological validity of PT.
Following Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002), Iwasaki (2003, 2004a, 2004b) applied
PT to child JSL. Iwasaki (2003, 2004a, 2004b) examined the morphosyntactic
85
development of a seven-year-old Australian boy acquiring Japanese in a naturalistic
second language learning environment. Iwasaki collected the boy’s speech for a
period of one year and nine months using a task-based elicitation method and natural
conversation. Iwasaki focused on the development of verbal inflection, the V-te V
structure and the passive/causative structure and found that her data showed these
structures develop in a sequence predicted by Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi,
2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b). In other words, the boy acquired these structures
in the order of verbal inflection > V-te V structure > passive/causative structure.
Iwasaki concluded that child JSL developed in the sequence predicted in PT.
I have reviewed the application of PT to ESL and JSL above and showed that the
predicted developmental path in each language has been established by Pienemann
(1998a), Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) and Kawaguchi (2005a, 2005b) (Table 2.9
for ESL and Table 2.11 for JSL). The results from their studies support the PT’s
universality for typologically different L2 acquisition. Language acquisition theory
also needs to account for different types of language acquisitions such as L1
acquisition. Language acquisition researchers have debated if L1 and L2 develop
similarly and compared the two types of language acquisitions. Pienemann (1998b)
claims PT’s universality across different types of language acquisition. In Section
2.6.4 below, I discuss the issues of the comparison between L1 and L2 acquisition
and review two studies Pienemann (1998b) and Håkansson (2001) which applied PT
to L1 acquisition.
2.6.4 Comparison between L1 and L2 acquisitions: Application of PT to
L1 acquisition
Clahsen (1990) pointed out that ‘the idea that L1 and L2 development might be
similar in nature was one of the starting points for the systematic investigation of L2
acquisition in the 1970s’ (p. 137). A major goal of L1 and L2 comparative studies
was to find whether the same kind of language processing mechanisms is available
for different types of language acquisition, and to determine what such mechanisms
86
might be. There are fundamental differences22 (Bley-Vroman, 1989), differences in
previous state of organism23, and rate of acquisition (Bley-Vroman, 1989; White,
1989) between adult L2 acquisition and L1 acquisition. One of the approaches24 used
in the comparison of L1 and L2 acquisition is the ‘UG (Universal Grammar)
approach’ (Clahsen, 1990, p. 139). This approach was based on the thesis that ‘[t]he
acquisition of grammatical structure in child L1 development is guided by a taskspecific and innate learning mechanism, sometimes called Universal Grammar (UG);
the ways in which UG is available to (adult) L2 learners are still under debate (cf.
Flynn & O’Neill, 1988)’ (Clahsen, 1990, p. 137).
There are two main opposing positions within the UG approach. One is that L1
acquisition is like L2 acquisition (i.e., L1= L2) and the other that L1 acquisition is
not like L2 acquisition (i.e., L1 L2). The former position is based on the assumption
that UG is available or accessible by both L1 and L2 learners. This position sees the
process of parameter setting to be the cause of the difference between L1 and L2
acquisition. As the applicable parameters have already been set for L1 they need to
be reset for L2. Reasons some parameters may not be reset include that L2 ‘learners
know a language already (Flynn, 1987); or linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive
structures compete with one another (Felix, 1987)’ (Clahsen, 1990, p. 140) and that
the subset principle25 is not available to L2 learners (White, 1989, pp. 148–169).
22
They are: lack of success; general failure; variation in success, course and strategy; variation in
goals (this is often called ultimate attainment); fossilisation; intuition; importance of instruction;
availability of negative evidence; and, role of affective factors (Bley-Vroman, 1989).
23
For example, L2 learners already have L1 but L1 learners do not, and L2 learners are often
cognitively more developed as they are often older.
24
Two other approaches are (Clahsen, 1990, p. 137):
a. General language processing/acquisition strategies determine L1 and L2 development (cf.
Wode, 1981).
b. Like children learning their mother tongue, L2 learners make use of operating principles
(Slobin, 1985) to perceive, process, and produce second language structures (cf. Andersen, 1984,
1988; Pfaff, 1987).
25
The Subset Principle is a hypothesis proposed for L1 acquisition in order to overcome the
learnability problem that results from the availability of positive evidence only. Consider two (or
more) sets of grammars which meet the ‘Subset Condition’ (White, 1989, p.145), and the language a
child is acquiring is one of them. The Subset Principle allows ‘the most restrictive grammar
87
The position L1
✁
2 based its assumption on the premise that UG operates as a
language acquisition device (LAD) in L1 but not in L2. This position maintains the
view that once a parameter has been set it cannot be reset. Bley-Vroman (1989)
suggests that L2 acquisition resembles the general adult learning process and
hypothesises that L2 learners use their native language knowledge and ‘general
cognitive ability to deal with abstract formal systems’ (p. 54) as the underlying
mechanism for L2 acquisition. Clahsen (1984, cited in Pienemann, 1998b) developed
three processing strategies that he assumes are used in processing L2: the canonical
order strategy, initialisation-finalisation strategy and the subordinate clause strategy.
Meisel (1991, p. 242) assumes that there exists a language specific learning device
which is distinct from UG but is directly related to UG. He hypothesises that this
learning system together with UG makes up what Slobin (1985) called the ‘language
making capacity’, and that L2 learners also make use of the learning system but they
do not have direct access to UG. Meisel (1991) also makes a distinction between
triggering of grammatical development and learning of grammatical rules. Citing
Carroll (1989), Meisel explains that triggering is possible based on arbitrary data and
the progress of triggering (i.e., parameter setting) is instantaneous, whereas learning
requires frequently available simple and necessary data. Learning may also depend
on ‘prior learning of other phenomena and on the acquisition of skills’ (Meisel, 1991,
p. 248).
Pienemann (1998b) takes a different approach in the comparison of L1 and L2
acquisition. He focuses on the issue of the process of language acquisition and
explores if the same processing constraints apply to both L1 and L2 acquisition.
Pienemann (1998b) examined whether the developmental path of word order in
German L1 (GL1) acquisition can be explained in the same way as GSL within PT’s
processing procedural hierarchy.
consistent with the input to be adopted’ (White 1989, p. 146). For example, the grammar Y is a subset
of the grammar X, and the positive evidence the child hears is the grammar Y. Then the child acquires
the grammar Y only as that is what the input consists of. However, if the child is given positive
evidence of the grammar X, then the grammar X will be adopted (see Chapter 6 of White, 1989).
88
The sequence of German L1 development documented by Clahsen (1984), is shown
in Table 2.12. At the beginning, children use variable word order indicated as ‘1’ on
the bottom of the table, and this is followed by the acquisition of the SOV word order.
Then children acquire the verb second (V-2nd) rule and SV agreement marking
around the same time. In the UG approach the acquisition of the seemingly unrelated
structures, V-2nd and SV agreement, is explained by a parameter for subject-verb
agreement triggering V-2nd rule and finiteness of verbs. Lastly, children use the
correct verb position in the subordinate clause; in the case of GL1, it is in the final
position of the sentence.
Table 2.12 Clahsen’s (1984) German L1 development sequence (after Pienemann,
1998b, p. 13)
Order of
Description
development
4
Subordinate clauses (without any mistakes in the positioning of
the verb)
3
V-2nd and SV agreement marking
2
SOV
1
Variable word order
Pienemann translates the above structures in LFG terms (for details of LFG
representation, see Pienemann, 1998b, p. 14). Then, according to the information
exchange necessary for the production of each structure, he determines at which
processing stage each structure can be predicted to be acquired. Variable word order
belongs to the word or lemma stage of processing hierarchy. SOV is a canonical
word order that does not require any information exchange; therefore, SOV is placed
in the category procedure stage. The V-2nd rule and SV-agreement both require
inter-phrasal information exchange, placing these two structures in the S-procedure
stage. In PT, these seemingly unrelated structures are predicted to be acquired around
the same time because they both require inter-phrasal information exchange. The
verb-final positioning in subordinate clauses is predicted to be acquired in the
subordinate clause stage. To summarise, Pienemann predicts the above structures to
be acquired in the order of: variable word order > SOV > V-2nd and SV agreement
marking > subordinate clauses, reflecting the order of processing procedures required
89
for each of the structures. This sequence matches the sequence of GL1 acquisition
documented by Clahsen (1984) and shown in Table 2.12.
Table 2.13 shows the sequences of acquisition of GL1 and GSL. The two
developmental paths show some differences. In GSL the initial word order is SVO
whereas that of GL1 is SOV. There are some ‘steps’ which occur with GSL that do
not occur with GL1. Despite these differences, the same hierarchy of processability
can explain both sequences. Pienemann (1998b) concludes that between L1 and L2
acquisition ‘there are no differences in the temporal order in which processing
resources are activated. All grammars are processable at the time they develop, each
grammar builds upon the processing resources acquired at the previous stages in a
cumulative fashion’ (p. 14). He states that what differentiates the L1 from the L2
acquisition sequence is the initial hypothesis of the learners’ word order. The initial
hypothesis of SOV by GL1 learners allows them to skip the ‘moves’ that L2 learners
need to take to get to the same end (and fewer L2 learners achieve the same end as
L1 learners, as discussed above). Therefore, L1 acquisition is more economical. Why
one type of learner makes a particular initial hypothesis and another type of learner a
different hypothesis is not within the scope of a transition theory such as PT.
Nonetheless as part of PT, Pienemann (1998a) looks at how the choices learners
make can affect their later choices and leads them to a different path of acquisition.
Pienemann (1998a) termed this ‘generative entrenchment’ (pp. 308-330).
Table 2.13 Overview of grammatical development in German L1 and L2 (from
Pienemann 1998b, p. 15)
Processing
procedures
Exchange of
information
German as L2
German as L1
6. Subord.
clause
5. S-procedure/
-saliency
4. S-procedure/
+saliency
3. Phrasal
procedure
2. Category
procedure
1. Lemma or
Word
within sub.
clause
inter-phrasal
V-End
V-End (no errors)
phrasal
INV
±agr
PART
V-2nd
+agr
-
none
ADV
-
none
SVO
none
words
b. SOV
a. variable word order
words
90
Another empirical study that applied PT to the L1 acquisition is that of Håkansson
(2001). In her study, Håkansson examined the acquisition of Swedish by L2 children
(SSL) and L1 children. For the Swedish as L1 children, she included the acquisition
of Swedish by normally developing children (SL1) and by children with Specific
Language Impairment (SLI). The aim of her study was to investigate whether PT can
explain the developmental paths of SSL and Swedish by L1 children (SL1 and SLI).
Håkansson focused on the acquisition of tense morphology and the verb second (V2nd) rule. Tense morphology in Swedish needs no information exchange between
words or phrases, therefore Håkansson predicted it to belong to the category
procedure stage in the PT hierarchy. The V-2nd rule is the word order rule that
requires placement of the verb in the second position of a sentence. This rule needs
exchange of information between NP and VP. Therefore, it is the inter-phrasal
morphology and it belongs to the S-procedure stage. Håkansson hypothesised that
tense morphology would be acquired before the V-2nd rule (i.e., tense morphology >
V-2nd rule). The results revealed that SSL and L1 acquisition by children with
Specific Language Impairment supported her hypothesis but L1 acquisition by
normally developing children did not.
Håkansson’s data of Swedish by normally developing children showed that they used
the V-2nd rule more successfully than the tense morphology from very early on. She
confirmed that her result agreed with earlier findings of Swedish as first language
(Santelmann, 1995), that children placed the verb correctly in the second position as
soon as they can use multi-word utterances. In other words, these children can use
structure assigned at S-procedure level very early. Håkansson referred to
Pienemann’s (1998b) claim that, compared with L2 learners, L1 learners take a more
economical and successful path with a different initial hypothesis. However,
Håkansson’s (2001) results showed that not all the L1 learners take a more
economical and successful developmental path. This was evidenced by the
developmental path taken by the children with Specific Language Impairment, which
was identical to the L2 learners’ path. Håkansson referred to the continuity between
the lexicon and grammar (e.g., Bates and Goodman, 1999) as a possible explanation
of normally developing children’s more successful developmental sequence.
Håkansson (2001) considered that normally developing children reach the S-
91
procedure stage and ‘leave the phrase level as soon as the lexicon has expanded and
adverbs can be preposed in the clauses’ (p. 96).
Pienemann (1998b) and Håkansson (2001) applied PT to the language acquisition of
monolingual children. What makes the two types of language acquisition different is
the initial hypothesis made by each type of learner. L1 learners’ hypotheses or
choices are found to lead to a more economical and successful path compared with
L2 learners. However, some L1 learners go through less economic and successful
paths, namely children with Specific Language Impairment . Håkansson (2001)
found that the interface between the lexicon and grammar may explain some aspects
of the L1 developmental path.
2.6.5 Summary
In Section 2.6, I presented the language acquisition theory, Processability Theory
(PT) (Pienemann, 1998a) which I use as a framework for my present study. I chose
PT because of its typological and psychological plausibility and predictive power. As
PT is based on the acquisition of cognitive processing procedure, Pienemann (1998a)
claims its hypothesis to be universal across languages. PT hypothesises that language
learners go through a development path in the order of: word or lemma > category
procedure > phrasal procedure > S-procedure.
PT has been applied to various SLA and L1 acquisitions. The predicted
developmental path within the PT’s constraint has been established and empirically
supported for ESL and JSL (Pienemann, 1998a; Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002;
Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005). Pienemann (1998b) found that PT can explain both L1
and L2 developmental paths. However, PT has not been applied to the Bilingual First
Language Acquisition (BFLA) context where two languages are acquired
simultaneously from birth. This thesis reports the study in which PT is applied to
BFLA context.
PT’s predictive power comes from the fact it utilises the concept of information
exchange described in LFG and Levelt’s language production model. Its prediction is
independent from the data driven description, and therefore, it is testable. Due to its
typological universality, PT can predict the structures to be acquired at any given
92
processing procedural stage in any language. In other words, structures in different
languages can be compared in terms of processing procedure skills. This allows a
direct comparison of acquisition between different languages. Thus, it is an ideal tool
for the direct comparison between the morphosyntactic development of two
typologically different languages, English and Japanese, of a bilingual child.
As reviewed in the early section of this chapter (Section 2.5.3), more and more
evidence is found supporting relationships between lexicon and grammar in L1
acquisition. In addition to the morphosyntactic development of Japanese and English
of a bilingual child, the present study will investigate the development of lexicon and
the relationship between lexicon and grammar in the two languages. The next chapter
presents the current study of the bilingual first language acquisition in Japanese and
English.
93
3 Research methodology
3.1 Introduction
The previous chapter outlined some remaining gaps observed in research in the field
of Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) as well as in Processability Theory
(PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). The current study aims to investigate the development of
lexicon, morphology and syntax of Japanese and English by a Japanese-English
bilingual child. I conduct this research within the framework of PT and intend to fill
the gaps observed in previous research.
PT’s universal applicability has been empirically supported for Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) of several typologically different languages and first language (L1)
acquisition. This thesis presents what is believed to be the first application of PT in
the context of BFLA. The application of PT to bilingual context also benefits the
field of BFLA. PT provides a psycholinguistic measure that is not language specific;
thus, allowing a direct comparison between the development of two different
languages with a single point of reference.
This study also investigates the bilingual child’s lexical development of two
languages. Its focus is to determine whether the lexicons of the two languages
develop in the language specific ways of each language. The study further
investigates the relationship between lexical development and grammatical
development using the bilingual data. To my knowledge, this kind of research has
been limited to the field of L1 acquisition. It will be interesting to see if we find the
same relationship in BFLA as in L1 acquisition. This study offers a good setting for a
cross-linguistic comparison.
This chapter presents the research methods used in the current study. Section 3.2
introduces the research questions asked in this empirical study. Section 3.3 describes
the informant of the study. Section 3.3 presents the data and includes the design of
94
the study, the method employed for data collection and transcription. Section 3.4
presents the description of metadata26. Section 3.6 describes the method employed
for linguistic analysis.
3.2 Research questions
The goal of this thesis is to investigate lexical, morphological and syntactic
development of Japanese and English in one child and further to investigate the
relationship between the lexical development and grammatical development. In order
to achieve this goal, I conducted a longitudinal study of a child who was raised
bilingually from birth. This section presents eight research questions asked in the
study. The first four questions (from Q1 to Q4) relate to the acquisition of
morphology and syntax. The next three (Q5 to Q7) relate to lexical development, and
the last (Q8) to the relationship between lexical development and the grammatical
development. A brief explanation is presented for some of the questions where
necessary.
(Q1) Does the development of morphology of Japanese and English follow the
sequence predicted by PT?
I examined the developmental sequence of the morphosyntactic structures for
Japanese and English respectively. The selection of the morphological structures for
examination for my study was based on the hypothesised linguistic outcomes for
different stages of PT already established by Pienemann (1998a) for English and by
Kawaguchi (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) for Japanese.
Table 3.1 presents the structures investigated in this study for each language. I
briefly summarise the structure presented in the table for each stage.
26
Metadata are ‘data about data’ which describe the content, quality, condition, and other
characteristics of data. (This definition can be found in www.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata.html and
ww.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata)
95
Table 3.1 Morphological structure predicted for each stage in each language (based
on Pienemann, 1998a: Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b)
Processing
L2
procedures
processes
Inter4. S-procedure
phrasal
morphemes
English
SV agreement
(e.g., Peter owns a
dog.)
Japanese
Agreement between noun
marking and the
morphology in the
predicate (BENE, CAUSE,
PASS)
V-te V
(V-COMP V)
3. Phrasal
procedure
Phrasal
morphemes
NP agreement
(e.g., many dogs)
2. Category
procedure
Lexical
morphemes
Plural -s (dogs)
Verbal morphology:
-ed (PAST),
-ing (PROG)
Verbal morphology:
-te (REQ) , -ta (PAST),
-nai (NEG), -teru (PROG),
-ru (NONPAST),
-chatta (COMPLETE)
1. Word or
lemma access
words
words
words
Stage 1
When a child can utter single words, it can be considered that the child has reached
this stage. Therefore, the word or lemma stage is defined when the informant’s MLU
becomes greater than one.
Stage 2
For the acquisition of English lexical morphology, I followed Pienemann (1998a)
and selected three morphemes from the category procedural stage: they are two
verbal morphemes and one nominal morpheme. The two verbal morphemes are the
progressive marker -ing (e.g., walking), and the past tense marker -ed (e.g., walked).
The nominal morpheme selected is the plural marker -s, (e.g., cats). The
investigation of the plural marker -s concerns the suffixation of the plural marker -s
to a single noun without a plural determiner, e.g., dogs, cats. As these morphemes
have been investigated in past monolingual first language acquisition studies (e.g.,
Brown, 1973; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1985), investigating them in this study gives
an opportunity to compare their results with bilingual first language acquisition as
well as second language acquisition.
96
As for Japanese, Kawaguchi proposed verbal morphology to be lexical. She
investigated polite forms of verbal morphemes for her study (Di Biase & Kawaguchi,
2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b) as her informants received the polite-form verbs as
their input in classroom instruction. However, Japanese first language acquisition
studies show that Japanese children are exposed to and use the plain form of verbs.
Therefore, I selected six verbal morphemes in the plain form shown in Table 3.2.
They were -te (REQ), -ta (PAST), -nai (NEG), -teru (PROG), -ru (NONPAST) and chatta (COMPLETE) all of which were previously investigated in JL1 studies
(Clancy, 1985). This, again, affords an opportunity to compare the results from
monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition studies.
Table 3.2 The six Japanese verbal morphemes selected
Morpheme
-te
(REQ)
-ta
(PAST)
-nai
(NEG)
-teru
(PROG)
-ru
(NONPAST)
-chatta
(COMPLETE)
Example
tabe-te
tabe-ta
tabe-nai
tabe-teru
tabe-ru
tabe-chatta
(= Please eat.)
(= (I) ate (it).)
(= (I will) not eat.)
(= (I) am eating.)
(= (I will) eat.)
(= (I) have eaten.)
Stage 3
The structure for English for this stage is the NP agreement. It is the agreement
between the plural determiner and the suffixation of plural marker -s within a NP,
e.g., two dogs. The Japanese structure selected for this stage is the V-te V structure,
where two verbs are joined. The first V must be in the V-te (V-COMP) form to be
connected to the second V. These two structures in English and Japanese both
require feature unification across words within a phrase. In the case of NP agreement,
the value PL for the feature NUM needs to be unified between the plural determiner
and the head noun. As for Japanese V-te V structure, the value of V-sis for the
combinatoric type of V-te needs to be unified with the category V of the second verb.
Stage 4
The English structure for this stage is SV agreement. It is the agreement between the
SUBJ that is singular third person (3sg) and the verb morpheme -s in a present tense
indicative sentence, e.g., Peter owns a dog. For the SV agreement to be realised, the
97
values for the features NUM (=SG) and PERSON (=3) need to be unified between
the S and V across phrases. The Japanese structure for this stage is the agreement
between the correct noun marking, (i.e., -ni (DAT) marking of the OBL argument)
and the morphological operation in verbs in the predicate of the passive (PASS),
causative (CAUSE) and benefactive (BENE) sentences. An example of this
agreement was illustrated in the previous chapter, by contrasting the active and the
passive sentences of an event in which a cat ate a fish (see Figures 2.11 and 2.12).
In order to answer the question (Q1), I first determine the timing of acquisition of
these structures in my data for each language. Secondly, by comparing the timing of
acquisition of each structure within a language, I determine the sequence of
acquisition of these structures in each language. Finally, I examine whether the
sequence of the acquisition of the above morphological structures of a bilingual’s
Japanese and English correspond to the developmental sequence predicted by PT in
terms of the processing procedures.
PT proposes that the processing procedural skills required for the acquisition of
morphology are acquired in the following sequence: word or lemma access >
category procedure > phrasal procedure > S-procedure. If the Japanese corpus of
this study shows that it was acquired following the predicted sequence, then it is
considered that PT holds for bilingual child Japanese. By the same token if the
English corpus of this study shows that it was acquired following the predicted
sequence, then it is considered that PT holds for bilingual child English. Such results
support the applicability of PT to BFLA. This would add further support to the
universal applicability of PT to different types of language acquisition. In addition, if
the results from this study show that PT can account for BFLA of Japanese and
English, then it would be considered to be additional support for PT’s typological
universality.
Furthermore, the predicted structural outcomes for each processing stage in Japanese
and English were worked out on the basis of adult L2 learners (Di Biase &
Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b; Pienemann, 1998a). This study will
examine whether there are any differences between SLA and BFLA.
98
(Q2) Does the attainment of these stages happen at the same time in both languages?
The benefit of using PT lies in the ability to compare typologically different
languages with a single measuring stick, namely the processing procedure. If both
Japanese and English in this study show that they develop in the sequence predicted
in PT, then we can compare the two languages in terms of the stage of the processing
procedure. When one language reaches a certain processing stage, it is considered
that the child has developed the procedural skills necessary for the processing of that
stage. If the two languages of a bilingual child arrive at the same stage
simultaneously, it cannot be determined if processing of the two languages is linked,
or the languages are processed separately but arrive at the same stage at the same
time coincidentally. If, however, the two languages of a bilingual child do not arrive
at the same stage simultaneously, it could be inferred that the languages are
processed separately. This would add further support to De Houwer’s (1990)
Separate Development Hypothesis (SDH) of BFLA.
(Q3) Is the initial word order of Japanese and English the same as the canonical
word order of the respective languages?
There are two theoretical views on the learning of word order. In his Initial
Hypothesis of Syntax (IHS), Platzack (1996) claims that there is a universal default
word order of SVO for both L1 and L2 learning. On the other hand, Pienemann et al.
(2005), in the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis, claim that language learners begin
with the canonical word order of the target language. Japanese canonical word order
is SOV, whereas that of English is SVO. This study examines the initial word order
of each language of the Japanese-English bilingual child. If the bilingual child in this
study began both languages with the SVO word order, then it would support
Platzack’s (1996) HIS. On the other hand, if the bilingual child in this study used the
canonical word order of each language from the beginning, then not only would such
results support the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis (Pienemann et al., 2005) but it
would also be further evidence in support of the separate development of the two
languages in one child.
99
(Q4) Is the morphological and syntactic development of each language in BFLA the
same as L1 acquisition of that language?
This is the last question to be asked in the area of morphosyntactic development. I
compared the bilingual child’s developmental sequence and the timing of the
acquisition of the structures examined as well as her initial word order of Japanese
and English with the findings from the previous L1 studies of the respective
languages. If the findings from this study agree with those from the L1 acquisition
studies, then it can be concluded that the findings from L1 acquisition studies also
apply in the BFLA context.
The next three questions concern the lexical development of the bilingual child. In
this study I examine whether the Japanese-English bilingual child of this study
developed the lexicon of each language in language-specific ways. Specific questions
asked follow.
(Q5) Given the differences in the relative weightings of N and V categories in
Japanese and English, do nominals develop before verbs in both languages?
Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) classify Japanese to be verb-friendly and English
noun-friendly. Therefore, there is a different relative weighting of N and V in the
input of each language a Japanese-English bilingual child receives. In this study, I
examined whether the noun-advantage (Gentner and Boroditsky, 2001) is detected in
the two languages of the child. Further, I examined when verb categories developed
in the two languages.
(Q6) Does the bilingual child acquire personal pronouns in the same way in both
languages?
The acquisition of personal pronouns is another area that shows language specific
patterns between Japanese and English-speaking children. I briefly examined when
personal pronouns entered the child’s lexicon and how frequently they are used.
(Q7) Is the lexical development of BFLA the same as L1 acquisition of that language?
This is the last question to be asked in the area of lexical development. I compared
the bilingual child’s development of noun and verb categories, and her acquisition
and usage of personal pronouns in Japanese and English, with the findings from the
100
previous L1 studies of the respective languages. If the findings from this study agree
with those from the L1 acquisition studies, then it can be concluded that the findings
from L1 acquisition studies also apply in the BFLA context.
The last question concerns the relationship between lexical development and the
development of grammar.
(Q8) Does the lexicon need to reach a specific critical mass before grammatical
development such as verb morphology emerges?
I consider the connection between the vocabulary size and the emergence of
morphology. The vocabulary size at the time of emergence of verbal morphology in
each language is determined. If the vocabulary size at the time of emergence of
verbal morphology was less than 400, then such result would not support the Critical
Mass Hypothesis (Marchmann & Bates, 1994). On the other hand, if the verbal
morphology emerged when the vocabulary ranged between 400 and 600, then such a
result would support the Critical Mass Hypothesis. Further, if such a result was
obtained for both Japanese and English in this study, it would give strong support for
the cross-linguistic account of the Critical Mass Hypothesis. This also would mean
that the findings based on the L1 comprehension data are also applicable to the
bilingual production data.
The remaining section of this chapter presents the methods of the empirical study,
beginning with the description of the informant.
3.3 Informant
The informant for this study is a girl called Hannah27. Hannah has been exposed to
Japanese and English in the one-parent one-language environment, where her mother
spoke Japanese and her father spoke English to her from birth. Hannah’s parents are
coded as Mother and Father respectively28. The study investigates Hannah’s
acquisition of the two languages for three years between the age 1;11 (one year and
27
The name ‘Hannah’ is a pseudonym.
28
‘Hannah’, ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ are used to describe participants in text. Transcribed data uses ‘H’,
‘M’ and ‘F’ respectively.
101
eleven months) and 4;10. Below I will briefly describe her family background and
Hannah’s linguistic environment.
3.3.1 Family background
Hannah was a first born female child. She was born and raised in a town in one of the
Eastern states of Australia. Father was born in Australia, and brought up in an
English speaking environment. Mother was born and raised in Japan. Mother’s first
language is Japanese. Hannah’s parents practised the ‘one-parent one-language’
principle in order to raise Hannah bilingually from birth. Father spoke English and
Mother spoke Japanese to Hannah. The variety of Japanese Mother spoke to Hannah
was generally regarded as Standard Japanese, and did not reflect strong regional
characteristics. Between Mother and Father, English was the language of
communication. When the data collection commenced, Hannah was the only child,
with her sibling born when Hannah was 3;7.
Both parents completed education to a postgraduate tertiary level. Father completed
all his education in Australia, whereas Mother studied partly in Japan and partly in
Australia. Father was an engineer and Mother worked as a part-time university
lecturer. Their self assessment of language usage in four different domains (Pauwels,
1985): home (nuclear), home (extended) 29, friends, and work are as follows. For
Father, English was the sole language used in all the domains described above,
including with in-laws. Mother used English to her spouse (i.e., Father), and
Japanese to Hannah; Japanese to her own extended family, and English to her inlaws; Japanese to her Japanese friends and English to her non-Japanese-speaking
friends; and both Japanese and English in the work environment.
29
Here nuclear family means Hannah and her parents and extended family means Hannah’s father’s
or mother’s own parents, siblings and other near relations. In-laws means the spouse’s extended
family.
102
3.3.2 Hannah’s linguistic environment
This section characterises the history of Hannah’s linguistic environment, by
describing her typical sociolinguistic settings at various ages. Her linguistic
environment at any time, i.e., a Japanese environment or an English environment,
was determined by the language that dominated a particular setting. While such
description does not determine the quality and quantity of Japanese and English
Hannah received, it can give us qualitative indications of relative proportion of
exposure to each language she had.
To illustrate the application of this criterion, when Mother visited English-speaking
friends with Hannah, Mother and her friends used English, while Mother used
Japanese speaking to Hannah. More English would have been spoken in this setting
between Mother and her friends than Japanese from Mother to Hannah. The
possibility cannot be excluded that despite more English being spoken in this setting,
the Japanese spoken directly to Hannah may have had the greater impact on Hannah.
However, as discussed above, the linguistic environment is defined in terms of the
language dominating the setting – in this case English. A straightforward case is
Australian child-care and kindergarten, where the environment was clearly an
English environment as English, with no Japanese, was used in these settings.
Hannah’s linguistic environment changed from time to time. Such changes were
caused, for example, by her trips to Japan, and the commencement of kindergarten.
These changes affected the amount and/or type of exposure Hannah received in each
language. An estimate was made of the proportion of time Hannah was in either a
Japanese or an English environment. This was calculated from the number of hours
Hannah spent in each particular linguistic environment as a proportion of her typical
waking hours at a given age. The time spent in each environment was estimated
retrospectively based on diary records. Figure 3.1 provides the ratio of time spent in
each linguistic environment.
103
%Japanese
%English
100%
90%
80%
per centage
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0;0
1;0
2;0
3;0
Age in years;months
4;0
Figure 3.1 Proportion of Japanese and English environments
As Figure 3.1 shows, the proportion of time Hannah was in each linguistic
environment varied from time to time. Although Hannah was born and raised in an
Australian town that was essentially an English speaking community, the main
language in her environment was not always English. Initially, up until she was 0;10,
Hannah spent more time in a Japanese environment, i.e., more time spent with
Mother than English speaking people. During the first ten moths, Hannah was
estimated to be in the Japanese environment for 45 hours during a typical week, and
in the English environment for 25 hours. Hence 65% of waking hours were in the
Japanese environment and 35% in the English environment.
She later began to spend more time in the English environment by attending Englishspeaking child care, kindergarten and primary school. Hannah attended a child carer
from the time she was 0;10 until 4;9. The first carer was not a native speaker of
English. However she spoke English, her second language, to the children in her care.
When Hannah turned 2;9, the carer changed to a native English-speaking person. The
hours Hannah spent in child care ranged between 13 hours and 24 hours per week
during the four years she attended. The child care provided essentially an English
linguistic environment. Hannah also commenced a local kindergarten when she was
2;9. English was the language of instruction there. Hannah attended kindergarten for
104
two years – 6 hours per week during the first year which increased to 12 hours per
week in the second year. As the weekly hours at kindergarten increased, these in
child care decreased, the result being that the combined number of hours Hannah
attended child care and kindergarten did not exceed 24 hours per week.
At 4;9 Hannah commenced primary school. Once Hannah started primary school, she
no longer attended day care. At school English was the language used for instruction
and communication among the teachers and students. Therefore, school was an
English linguistic environment for Hannah. After Hannah started school her hours in
the Japanese environment were estimated typically to be 30 (30%) and in the English
environment 68 (70%). This was the situation prior to the cessation of data recording
for this study.
Hannah’s English environment provided varied types and participants of interaction
involving home, school, social situations, shopping etc. The Japanese environment
provided within Australia was predominantly with Mother in a home environment.
There were contacts with Mother’s Japanese-speaking friends but these were much
less frequent than that of English counterparts. Varied Japanese environment was
essentially only provided on visits to her Japanese relatives.
The family visited the Japanese relatives on various occasions. Hannah was 0;5 when
she first went to Japan and stayed with her Japanese grandparents for approximately
a month. When she was 1;9, she again went to Japan with the family and stayed with
her Japanese grandparents for two weeks. When Hannah was 2;3 the family visited
her Japanese relatives, who resided in a third Asian country, for one week. During
this visit, Hannah played with her Japanese-speaking cousins who were a few years
older. When Hannah was 4;6 the family went to Japan for one month. During this
stay, Hannah attended a local kindergarten for 24 hours each week. Hannah’s contact
with Japanese this trip included more formal linguistic situations (i.e., kindergarten)
and broader types of interactions with kindergarten teachers and other Japanese
children of her own age.
Some other events affected Hannah’s linguistic environment. One example is when
Hannah was about 2;10 until 3;7, Father was frequently absent from home due to
105
business trips. During this period, Hannah’s home environment again became
Japanese dominant even though Father spoke to Hannah nightly on the telephone.
The ratio of Hannah’s linguistic environment during this period was estimated to be
70% for the Japanese environment and 30% for the English environment.
3.4 Data
3.4.1 Study design
This study was designed as a longitudinal study to investigate the development of the
two languages in BFLA. A longitudinal study involves a continuous observation of
the acquisition of language over time. Continuous observation enables the
researcher(s) to capture any changes and/or any patterns that may appear over time.
It also allows the collection, transcription and analysis of a corpus covering a larger
span of time.
Alternative contexts of speech were considered for recording the corpus for this
study, including experimental, such as interview and hypothesis-testing, and
naturally occurring interactions. For informants of a very young age (in this case less
than 2;0) selection of effective experiment content would be unpredictable, as it
would be difficult to ensure overlap between an informant’s knowledge and
understanding, and unbiased experiment questions. Also, because interviews would
need to explore language ability beyond that which an informant has at any point in
time, the young informant would find the process frustrating, which would
compromise future interview sessions. Therefore, this study uses a corpus composed
of informant utterances in naturally occurring interactions between the informant and
adult interlocutors.
Hannah’s speech was recorded using audio and video recorders simultaneously.
Hannah was already 1;11 when I started regular recording for data collection. As
with the DUFDE (Deutsch und Franzosisch – Doppelter Erstspracherwerb/German
and French – Simultaneous First Language Acquisition) project (Meisel, 1990a), it
was planned to record Hannah fortnightly, and to transcribe recordings at monthly
intervals. It was also planned that monthly recordings from 1;11 to 2;10, and trimonthly recordings from 2;10 to 4;10 were to be used for analysis in the appropriate
106
languages. Hannah’s utterances from the selected transcribed sessions formed the
data for the study. Data were analysed monthly during the first year of the
investigation in order to obtain a detailed description of the language development
during the period in which monolingual children are reported to show rapid linguistic
development.
3.4.2 Data collection
The corpus was recorded using audio and video recorders30 simultaneously. A diary
was also used to record her sociolinguistic settings. Video recording was used to
ensure the context was captured as well as speech. The video audio track, which was
acquired with a differently positioned microphone, was also used to validate and
support the data collected using the audio recorder31.
30
The equipment used for this study was:
- VHSC video recorders – Hitachi VM-C30E and Orion VMC-1 (which was modified to use
extension microphones)
- portable, wearable audio cassette tape recorders – Sony recording walkman WM-BF608 and Aiwa
HS-JS245
- extension microphones – radio microphone Realistic 32-1221A, extension microphone Vivitar
TVM-1 (used with video recorders).
31
Various technical difficulties were incurred during collection of the corpus. One recurring problem
was declining rechargeable battery life, in particular for the video recorders. This meant not only
purchasing new batteries but also, as batteries aged, needing multiple batteries to record a 45 minute
session if remote from mains power. In such cases the adult participant or other person needed to
check and change the video camera battery during the session. On occasion only part of a session was
video recorded when the battery failed. Much effort was spent ensuring satisfactory quality of audio
recordings. The audio track of video recordings recorded using the video camera internal microphones
was generally found to be unsuitable. A radio microphone was initially used to transmit the speech of
participants to the video cameras. While the speech was successfully transmitted to the camera, radio
interference made transcribing of the recorded speech difficult. An extension powered microphone
was later used to overcome this problem. Mechanical noise of the first (Sony) recording walkman also
corrupted audio recordings, making transcribing of the resulting recordings difficult. There have
recently been significant improvements in the quality and affordability of audio-visual technology.
Now (at the time of writing this thesis) light weight, high quality equipment that allows images and
high quality sound to be recorded digitally are relatively affordable. Data collection for future studies
will be more effective, cheaper and more convenient than for this study. Computer speech recognition
107
One set of recordings consists of two sessions – one of approximately 45 minutes of
interaction with a Japanese-speaking adult (most of the time Mother) and one of
approximately 45 minutes of interaction with an English-speaking adult (mostly
Father). The recording was conducted to capture ‘naturally occurring interaction’
between the participants. The target interval between sets of recordings was two
weeks. Recording generally took place at Hannah’s home. On occasion, it was
conducted in other familiar surroundings, such as at a park near her home. There was
no planning of activities for the recording sessions.
When recording the sessions, Hannah wore either a radio microphone with the
receiver connected to the microphone input of the video camera or another audio tape
recorder microphone. The adult participant carried the audio tape recorder with its
microphone attached to him/her. In addition, a powered extension microphone was
connected to the video recorder. During the recording sessions the video camera was
either mounted on a tripod or carried by the other parent.
The target interval between sets of recordings was two weeks. The actual interval
between sets of recordings varied for various reasons, such as illness of one of the
participants, the unavailability of a parent, or too many other commitments. For
example, between the time Hannah was about 2;10 and 3;7, Father was often away
on business trips. During these months, recording for data collection has taken place
when Father was home so that the intervals of the recordings was not as regular as
planned.
Some sessions did not capture much verbal interaction. This is a problem with
recording naturally occurring interaction, as some activities do not elicit much verbal
interaction. It was also found that the mood of participants, or external factors (such
as radio or TV broadcasts), could influence the amount of verbal interaction. In such
cases the recording session was either postponed to, or repeated at, a later date.
Whenever possible the rescheduled session was held no more than a week later than
software is also improving, and may prove useful in the future. Commercial and experimental speech
recognition software were tested in this study, but found to be unsuitable for non-TL like speech.
108
the originally scheduled date. This caused the two sessions of recordings within one
set to be recorded a few days apart.
Between the time Hannah was 1;11 and 4;10, approximately 9000 minutes of audio
tape recordings and 6840 minutes of video recordings were made for both Japanese
and English recording sessions combined. Amongst these, the recordings at monthly
intervals were transcribed. Altogether 38 sets of recordings consisting of 72
recording sessions, comprising 38 Japanese sessions and 38 English sessions, were
transcribed. Transcribed data sets were identified by a sequential number, 1 to 38,
followed by the letter J or E for Japanese or English respectively. Appendix C
provides the coding for each transcribed session and Hannah’s age at each session.
Among these 38 sets of recordings, monthly sets of sessions covering Hannah’s age
from 1;11 to 2;10, and at tri-monthly intervals from 2;10 to 4;10, were further
selected for analysis in the appropriate languages (sessions 1 to 13 followed by 16,
19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, and 38). This totalled 21 sets of recordings consisting of 42
recordings sessions, i.e., 21 Japanese sessions and 21 English sessions were selected
for analysis. The total duration of recording of these sessions was 925 minutes for
Japanese data and 1120 minutes for English data. Hannah’s utterances from the
selected transcribed sessions formed the data for the study. The recording sessions
selected for analysis are characterised in terms of Hannah’s age, main interlocutor(s),
the duration of recording and the activities in Table 3.3 and Table 3.4. Some of the
sessions indicate more than one age. This was when the initial recording session was
truncated and another one conducted within a few days. The tables show two
additional interlocutors. An interlocutor coded B in session 19J, shown in Table 3.3,
is Hannah’s Japanese grandmother. The extent of B’s English knowledge was
enough to interact with G (Hannah’s father) on basic daily routine matters. The
language used between B, Hannah and M was always Japanese. The other coded J in
session 25E, shown in Table 3.4, is an English-speaking friend of Hannah’s parents.
J does not have knowledge of Japanese. In these tables, Hannah’s ages are shown in
the format of ‘year; month, day’. For example, in session 1J, her age is 1;1,12 and
this reads as one year one month and 12 days.
109
Japanese sessions
Japanese Hannah's Intersession
age
locutors
Duration
(minutes)
Activities
Free play (outside with snails and at the
sandpit).
Reading books. Free conversation.
Cooking. Free conversation (talking about
daycare, planning shopping and a possible
visit from friends on the following
weekend)
Selecting a music CD to listen to. Talking
about CD covers and listening to CD.
Cooking.
Playing with Duplo and dolls.
Planting vegetable seeds in the garden.
Cooking a cake. Reading books. Free
conversation.
Free conversation. Free play and singing.
1J
1;11,12
M
45
2J
3J
1;11,27
2;1,12
M
M
50
45
4J
2;2,13
M
45
5J
6J
7J
2;3,16
2;4,14
2;5,11
M
M
M
90
40
60
8J
2;6,18
M
45
9J
2;6,26
M
10J
2;7,6
M
11J
2;7,24
M
12J
2;9,15
M
13J
2;10,5
M
16J
3;0,22 &
3;0,24
M
19J
3;3,3
22J
3;6,14 &
3;6,15
3;9,15
4;0,21
4;3,23
4;7,26
M
Looking at and talking about some family
photographs.
45 Free conversation. Free play in the lounge
room
45 Making a fishing game with cardboard fish.
Reading books. Pretend play (going for a
drive using a sofa as a car).
45 Going for a walk to the hills behind the
house.
50 Free play (making a house using a sleeping
bag and the sofa in the lounge room). Doing
a puzzle.
40 Pretend play (swimming in the sea using a
blue blanket on the floor as the sea). Playing
with a doll's house.
45 Pretend play (cooking, shopping and
gardening).
45 Free conversation.
M
M
M
M
45
15
45
35
M
25
925
25J
28J
31J
34J
4;10,26
Total duration
* Japanese grandmother
38J
M, B*
25
Playing with play dough.
Pretend play (restaurant) in the garden.
Talking about some drawings.
Free conversation. Pretend play (going on a
picnic).
Writing a book and reading it.
110
English sessions
English
session
Hannah’s
age
Interlocutors
1E
1;11,12
F
2E
1;11,29
F
3E
2;1,9
F
4E
5E
6E
2;2,17
2;3,16
2;4,15
F
F
F
7E
2;5,10
F
8E
2;6,19
F
9E
2;6,26
F
10E
2;7,6
F
11E
2;7,28
F
12E
13E
2;9,9
2;10,5
F
F
16E
19E
3;0,21
3;3,0
F
F
22E
3;6,15 &
3;6,17
3;9,12
F
25E
F, J*
31E
4;0,15 &
4;0,20
4;3,23
F
34E
4;7,25
F
28E
4;10,25 &
4;10,27
Total duration
*An English-speaking friend
38E
F
F
Duration
(minutes)
Activities
Gardening, making sand castles in the
sandpit.
55 Opening a parcel of birthday presents
from grandparents. Playing catch ball
55 Looking at photos, playing with toys
and picture cards.
53 Playing on a swing and gardening.
90 Playing with Duplo and puzzle
67 Looking at the chooks in the garden.
Putting dishes away in the kitchen.
90 Looking at a picture book. Feeding hens
and looking at plants in the garden.
45 Free conversation on the way home
from daycare. Looking at old photos
from daycare. Looking at photos.
Checking the garden.
45 Free conversation at dinner table.
Feeding the chooks.
from daycare.
45 Doing a jigsaw puzzle
45 Looking at a book, playing with toys
and a puzzle.
70 Making a doll's house.
65 Jigsaw puzzles. Putting toy fish in a fish
bowl and making peanut butter
sandwiches.
45 Opening a parcel from grandparents and
checking the garden in the evening
45 Pretend play (car and cubby house in
the lounge room).
45 Free conversation at the dinner table.
Playing chess.
65 Looking at some photos and discussing
them. Drawing pictures.
20 Looking at and talking about the
collection of work Hannah did at
preschool.
65 Reading a book. Covering the school
reading folder with clear contact.
1120
45
111
3.4.3 Transcription
I transcribed all of the selected 11 sets of recordings in both languages. The
advantage of having the one person do all the transcribing is that consistency of
transcribing for both linguistic contexts, for the duration of the study, is ensured.
Orthographic transcription was the primary transcription method used in this study.
Phonetic transcription was used to support the orthographic transcription for non-TL
like pronunciation or idiosyncratic words. While phonetic transcription has
advantages, such as the accurate representation of recorded speech, I chose
orthographic transcription for the following reasons:
•
accessibility of transcribed data to researchers and readers (see Lanza,
1997,
•
p. 102)
to avoid making the task of transcribing children’s partially developed
sound systems unnecessarily complicated (see Iwatate, 1980, p. 194)
•
to avoid the necessity of mapping the sound to the syntactic forms of the
language concerned.
For English, orthographic transcription was used in cases of phonetic similarity with
forms in the adult lexicon, as with Lanza (1997, p.103). Non-adult like pronunciation
or idiosyncratic words were transcribed phonetically using the Roman alphabet. For
example, if ‘sheep’ was pronounced as / ipi/ , the word was transcribed as shipi not
sheep. Word division followed that of English convention.
I transcribed recordings in Japanese using the standard system of Japanese
romanisation, also known as the Hepburn system, with a minor modification for the
representation of long vowels. Appendix A presents the description of Japanese
romanisation. I chose to use romanisation and not the Japanese scripts for the
following reasons:
•
Ability of data entry and analysis using computer software and operating
systems readily obtainable in Australia
•
Accessibility to transcribed data by the reviewers without knowledge of
Japanese scripts.
112
I used MS Word for transcribing the recorded interactions using only the Standard
English character set. A set of transcription conventions described by Di Biase (2000)
(see Appendix D) was adopted, with some additional conventions to suit my data.
Recorded data was transcribed with one turn occupying one record32. In this format
all transcription are written on a linear basis from left to right, with one speaker for
each horizontal line. In this format each record started with the turn number followed
by a ‘tab’33 character. This was then followed by the speaker’s code and another ‘tab’
character, then by the speaker's speech. The turn was defined as streams of speech
bounded by speech of an interlocutor (Crookes, 1990; Richards, Platt & Weber,
1985). Turn number within each session was coded in sequence starting from 1. The
speaker codes were H for Hannah, M for Mother and F for Father. If there were any
other interlocutors present then the person’s initial was used as a speaker code. No
sign to indicate the end of an utterance or a turn such as a full stop mark was used.
Below (1) is a short example of transcribed interactions between Hannah and Father
from session 16E. This example illustrates the speaker’s codes, turn number coded at
the beginning of each turn, the use of square brackets ‘[ ]’ to show overlapping
speech, double brackets for contextual information ‘(( ))’, and the full stop sign ‘.’
for pause. In this session, Hannah and Father were making a doll’s house together.
(1) (F= Father, H=Hannah)
32
506
F
it’s much better now for the doll [wow]
507
H
[ah] cos cos it’s big isn’t it?
508
F
yeah it is
509
H
yeah ((F washes his hands)) .. whati put it? [in floor?]
510
F
[do you know how to put it in?]
511
H
floor? . [floor?]
512
F
[do you know how to put it in?]
513
H
I don’t know
Records are delineated by the computer keyboard’s ‘enter’ key, i.e., a single turn may need to
occupy more than one line because of its length. The next speaker’s turn begins after the ‘enter’ key
is pressed, and will be on a new line. This format facilitated data transfer between computer programs.
33
Use of the TAB character also facilitated data transfer between computer programs.
113
A part of the transcription of this study was reviewed by native speakers. Lanza
(1997, p. 102) argued that an ideal piece of transcription represents precisely what
was recorded. However, she also pointed out the difficulties in producing such
transcriptions, by presenting an example of Wells’s (1985) informal experiment. In
this experiment, six child language researchers transcribed an identical five minutes
of recorded speech. Only 30 per cent of the recorded utterances were transcribed
identically among the six transcriptions. Wells (1985) states that when transcribing,
as well as hearing the actual speech signal from the recording, one's own past
experience affects how one transcribes it. Therefore it seems there would be as many
versions of a transcription of recorded speech as the number of people who transcribe
it. This may be particularly the case when the recorded speech involves a young child.
The child’s under-developed phonological system, and possible use of idiosyncratic
words, could make transcribing difficult for a person not familiar with the child’s
speech. Wells’s view is again quoted in Lanza (1997) that it is not possible to
determine ‘the “correct” version of any particular utterance’ (p. 102).
Notwithstanding the difficulty defining a single ‘correct’ transcription of recorded
interactions, it is still considered necessary to review the efficacy of the
transcriptions for this study.
De Houwer (1990, p. 81), while regretting the lack of review of the transcriptions in
her study, indicated the need for any person verifying a transcription to be a person
with sufficient proficiency in the language involved, and to also be a trained linguist,
preferably with training in phonetics. Juan-Garau and Pérez-Vidal (2000, p. 177)
refer to the agreement rate between the original transcription and the review as the
‘inter-rater reliability’. I simply refer to it as the ‘agreement rate’. Juan-Garau and
Pérez-Vidal (2000, p. 177) recorded an ‘inter-rater reliability’ of 96.4%, which they
deemed to be satisfactory.
Three native speakers reviewed samples of the transcriptions. They were one
Japanese native speaker to review the Japanese transcriptions and two English native
speakers to review the English transcriptions. The Japanese reviewer was a friend of
Hannah’s family. She lectured in Japanese as a second language at a university in
Australia and was sufficiently familiar with the Japanese romanisation. The English
114
reviewers were Hannah’s father, F, and a family friend who had frequent contact
with the family.
Although not trained linguists, all the reviewers’ familiarity with Hannah was looked
upon as a positive attribute in the manner discussed by Lanza (1997). It was
considered that my reviewers’ familiarity with Hannah would result in insights to her
idiosyncratic words and sounds, and their familiarity with family routines and
background would fill contextual gaps that unconnected reviewers may have had
difficulties with. Father had a particular advantage reviewing transcriptions, as, being
a participant, he could check that the transcription reflected what actually happened.
For the review of transcription, samples of transcription were selected. The sample
included the full transcriptions of some early sessions (from 1J to 8J, and 10J for
Japanese and 1E and 2E for English) and ten minutes from every third session of the
remaining transcribed data34. Altogether, 34% of the Japanese transcribed data and
11.5 % of the English transcribed data were reviewed (see Table 3.5 and
Table 3.6) . The samples of the transcription were reviewed against the
corresponding audio recording. The agreement rate (as a percentage) was determined
using the following equation:
✆
✄
✄
☎
✂
Number
of agreed
Words
Total Number
of Words
✁
* 100
Table 3.5 and Table 3.6 summarise the results of the review of the Japanese and
English transcriptions respectively. For the Japanese transcriptions, the agreement
rate for the individual transcriptions reviewed varied from 91.4% to 99.1%. The
overall agreement rate was 97.2%35. For the English transcriptions Father’s
agreement rate ranged between 94.6% and 99.7%, with an overall agreement rate of
98.2%. Friend’s agreement rate scored 100% for seven of the sessions and 99.6% for
one, with an overall agreement rate of 99.9%. Following Juan-Garau and Pérez-Vidal
34
This length and frequency of transcription to be reviewed was suggested by Bruno Di Biase and
Gisela Håkansson (both personal communication).
35
This is the arithmetic mean of all data reviewed, not the average of the different agreement rates
calculated for individual sessions).
115
(2000, p. 177), agreement rates obtained for both the Japanese and the English
transcriptions should be considered a satisfactory indication that the both Japanese
and English transcriptions are of acceptable quality.
Table 3.5 Agreement rate for Japanese transcription
Japanese
session
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
12J
15J
18J
21J
24J
27J
30J
33J
36J
Total
Duration
reviewed (mins)
45
50
45
45
90
40
60
45
10
45
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
565
Agreement
rate (%)
99.1
98.9
96.2
97.7
97.4
98.7
97.8
96.8
97.3
98.1
97.8
94.1
93.5
96.9
91.4
96.8
95.0
94.3
94.5
97.2
Table 3.6 Agreement rate for English transcription
English
session
1E
2E
3E
6E
9E
12E
15E
18E
21E
24E
27E
30E
33E
36E
Total
Duration
reviewed (mins)
45
55
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
220
Agreement rate
(%) by Father
99.6
99.7
96.6
98.4
94.6
96.8
99.6
98.3
96.0
97.3
96.4
–
–
–
98.2
116
Agreement rate
(%) by reviewer
–
–
–
–
–
100.0
100.0
99.6
100.0
–
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
99.9
3.4.4 Coding of computer data
In order to process and analyse Hannah’s transcribed utterances I used MS Excel36. It
was chosen because of its compatibility with MS Word documents, and its ability for
sorting, filtering, graphing, mathematical calculations, and presentation of results.
Processed data for each separate session was stored as a separate MS Excel file
(‘workbook’ in Excel’s terminology). In each worksheet of the workbook, each turn
was allocated one row. The corpus of speech was coded for general categories. They
were: speaker, turn number, language, and interlocutor.
I described the speaker codes and turn number in Section 3.4.3 above. During data
analysis, the speaker code and turn number were always attached to the individual
line of data in order to keep track of the source of any particular word.
For the ‘interlocutor’ category, the same codes as the speaker’s code (e.g., H, M, F,
the initial of the name of other person(s) present) were used. An additional code
‘R(ecorder)’ was used for any comment made by an adult participant to the tape
recorder to describe the situation. When different utterances within a turn were
directed to different interlocutors, this category was coded for each utterance within
the turn.
The category ‘language’ was coded for the language used in each utterance. Crookes’
(1990, p. 187) definition of an utterance, ‘a stream of speech with at least one of the
following characteristics: (1) under one intonation contour, (2) bounded by pauses,
and (3) constituting a single semantic unit’, was used. When a turn consisted of a
number of utterances, this category was coded for each utterance within the turn.
Following De Houwer’s (1998, p. 255) description of the six categories of a
bilingual’s utterances, the categories of language considered in this study were:
(2) •
unilingual Japanese utterances, coded as J
•
unilingual English utterances, coded as E
•
mixed utterances, coded as MU
36
As discussed in section 4.4 custom written software was used for more complex linguistic analysis.
The results obtained from the custom written software were also further processed in MS Excel.
117
•
utterances that can be categorised as either Japanese or English, coded as
JE
•
utterances whose linguistic membership is unclear, coded as N
•
utterances that are not relatable to any languages, coded as X.
Mixed utterance was defined on a formal criterion of containing lexical or
morphological material from both Japanese and English within an utterance. If an
entire turn was in the language of the session, the language code for the turn was left
blank as the ‘default’. The fourth category ‘JE’ did not occur in the corpus for this
study. De Houwer (1998) notes ‘that the more closely related languages are, the more
chance there will be for the occurrence of utterances’ (p. 255) in this category. It is
possible that this category did not occur because of the typological distance of
Japanese and English in this study. Some idiosyncratic words, if they regularly
appear in either language, are coded according to the language used in the
surrounding interaction.
Sections of the transcribed data that belonged to the following categories were not
included in the data for analysis because they did not represent communication
between Hannah and a nominated interlocutor for the session:
(3) •
description of context (not part of speech therefore not part of the data for
the current study)
•
adult-to-adult interaction
•
adult’s comments to the recorder
•
Hannah’s Japanese utterances to a Japanese speaking person during an
English session37
37
I recognise that this type of data (and similarly English utterances to an English speaking person
during a Japanese session) could be used for analysis. The quantity of these utterances was, in any
case, negligible. Nevertheless I considered this issue during the analysis process. It is possible to
include this type of data into a body of data which was collected on a different day. However, this
raises the question as to how long a time difference (e.g., how many days) can we claim that speech
samples from one day represent the informant’s language behaviour of another day? I wished to avoid
corrupting the time basis of my data by including utterances taken on different days. There were,
however, some sessions for which I needed to record more speech samples on a closely following day.
I did this only if the amount of samples during the original session appeared to be very limited.
118
•
Hannah’s English utterances to an English speaking person during a
Japanese session38
•
songs (because of its likely echoed nature)
•
utterances that are not relatable to any language
•
unintelligible utterances marked with X.
Following the coding of data for the general codes, the analysable coded data were
duplicated onto separate worksheets, and coded for the specific structures to be
analysed. They included an indication of the presence of grammatical structures in
the speech, echoed utterances, or repeated utterances in separate columns. Specific
structures of the speech being analysed, such as the root forms of verbs used,
morphemes used etc. would also be marked in separate columns. When the
transcribed data was coded for specific linguistic structures, then it was ready to be
analysed. Before describing the procedure for the linguistic analyses, I will describe
the metadata of the corpora.
3.5 Description of metadata of the analysed corpora
3.5.1
Word counts
The size of the corpus for analysis was quantified by the number of word types, word
tokens and turns. These parameters were separately quantified for the speech of
Hannah and her interlocutors within each session and for Hannah’s speech within
each session.
Different forms of a lexeme, caused by bound morphemes, such as talk and talked or
cat and cats were treated as different types. English contracted forms (e.g., they’re,
I’ve) are counted separately from non-contracted forms of the same words (e.g., they,
are, I, have). In the case of contracted forms, an effort was made to distinguish the
original words from the contracted word. An effort was also made to distinguish, and
separately count, homonyms (e.g., itta ‘say-PAST’ (= said) and itta ‘go-PAST’ (=
went)) and homographs (e.g., lead /li:d/ and lead /led/).
38
See Footnote 37 above.
119
Variations of the same word pronounced differently were counted separately. For
example, in session 4E, Hannah refers to garlic in three different forms and they are
‘gar’, ‘garli’ and ‘garlic’. These three realisations of the word ‘garlic’ were counted
as three separate types. Such variations of the same word occurred more often during
the early recordings.
120
Table 3.7 Summary of type, token, turn numbers in Japanese corpus
Session
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
16J
19J
22J
25J
28J
31J
34J
38J
Total
Duration
(minute)
45
50
45
45
90
40
60
45
25
45
45
45
50
40
45
45
45
15
45
35
25
925
Total
number
of types
487
531
468
542
733
444
551
459
478
558
674
448
635
483
575
602
450
296
587
571
490
Total
number
of tokens
3253
3193
2679
3482
5598
2067
3307
2352
2312
3573
4043
2868
4617
2937
3584
3618
2597
1039
3938
3157
2884
Total
number
of turns
914
1210
837
938
1374
506
910
604
564
860
1012
731
1265
724
864
706
440
245
903
605
463
16675
Hannah's
total
number of
types
137
213
149
195
275
152
187
171
157
195
257
180
304
155
220
225
125
87
276
287
275
Hannah’s
total
number of
tokens
467
641
497
674
1076
400
648
506
494
670
1005
699
1484
722
910
1019
512
183
1150
1079
1160
Hannah’s
total
number of
turns
449
614
414
470
688
253
455
300
280
428
506
354
631
362
419
351
220
121
448
290
231
8284
Table 3.8 Summary of type, token, turn numbers in English corpus
Session
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
25E
28E
31E
34E
38E
Total
Duration
(minutes)
45
55
55
53
90
67
90
45
20
45
45
45
45
70
65
45
45
45
65
20
65
1120
Total
number
of types
520
455
678
559
770
658
603
412
294
535
529
556
463
630
682
569
535
530
626
419
795
Total
number
of
tokens
3513
2715
3917
3960
6748
4833
3312
1959
1005
2885
3369
3875
2848
5557
5563
3913
3430
4114
5328
1687
6155
Total
number
of turns
671
496
773
775
1739
1214
738
575
243
675
1011
1005
758
1091
1177
611
723
641
872
359
1108
17255
121
Hannah's
total
number of
types
105
65
166
175
302
237
154
156
68
116
188
247
175
194
221
183
276
248
301
137
391
Hannah’s
total
number of
tokens
268
214
393
576
1098
1047
430
527
176
384
804
1010
753
1122
1176
864
1415
1015
1560
566
2235
Hannah’s
total
number of
turns
329
218
386
379
869
606
358
287
109
314
503
504
375
541
583
300
350
319
435
178
552
8495
Table 3.7 and Table 3.8 provide the number of word types, word tokens and turns for
the analysed corpora and Hannah’s speech in the analysed corpora for each Japanese
and English session. As can be seen, the number of types and tokens varied across
the sessions, including sessions with a similar recording length.
The total lengths of recordings for the sessions analysed were 925 minutes for the 21
Japanese sessions and 1120 minutes for the 21 English sessions. While the duration
of recordings of English sessions exceeded that of Japanese sessions, Mother was
often present during the recording of English sessions, occasionally interacting with
Hannah (in Japanese) or Father (in English). Having both parents together with her
was a common occurrence in Hannah’s everyday life, where Japanese was used
between Hannah and Mother, English between Hannah and Father. However, such
situation reduced the effective time for English interaction in the English sessions.
The total number of Hannah’s turns for the analysed corpora in the respective
languages was similar, varying by only 2.5% – indicating a similar number of speech
interactions in the recordings of the two languages. It is therefore concluded that the
Japanese and English corpora were derived from comparable amounts of interaction,
which facilitates comparisons of the linguistic development of the two languages.
3.5.2 Mixed utterances
As discussed in Chapter 2, previous studies showed that in bilingual children mixed
utterances occupied a small portion of their utterances (see Mishina, 1997). The
occurrence of mixed utterances is investigated in this study in order to confirm the
pragmatic use of different languages by Hannah. The number of occurrences and the
relative proportion of mixed utterances in each session were examined. The three
different types of utterances considered were: mixed utterances, unilingual utterances
in the language of context (e.g., Japanese during a Japanese session), and unilingual
utterances in the other language (e.g., English during a Japanese session). The raw
number of occurrences and relative percentage of these utterances in brackets are
provided in the following two tables.
122
Table 3.9 Mixed utterance in Japanese corpus
Japanese
session
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
16J
19J
22J
25J
28J
31J
34J
38J
Total
Mixed utterance
(%)
0
0
14
3
0
0
2
0
0
5
2
0
0
1
0
4
2
1
7
0
3
44
(0%)
(0%)
(4%)
(1%)
(0%)
(0%)
(1%)
(0%)
(0%)
(1%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(1%)
(1%)
(1%)
(2%)
(0%)
(1%)
(1%)
Unilingual English
utterance (%)
2
13
11
4
2
3
2
0
0
1
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
3
1
0
3
48
(1%)
(3%)
(3%)
(1%)
(0%)
(1%)
(1%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(1%)
(0%)
(0%)
(0%)
(4%)
(0%)
(0%)
(1%)
(1%)
Unilingual Japanese
utterance (%)
327
375
306
431
609
205
345
262
272
353
484
320
673
294
373
292
200
79
321
283
250
7054
Total number
of utterances
(99%)
(97%)
(92%)
(98%)
(100%)
(99%)
(98%)
(100%)
(100%)
(98%)
(100%)
(100%)
(100%)
(99%)
(100%)
(99%)
(99%)
(95%)
(98%)
(100%)
(98%)
(98%)
329
388
331
438
611
208
349
262
272
359
486
320
673
298
373
296
202
83
329
283
256
7146
Unilingual English
utterance (% )
203 (85%)
137 (89%)
288 (100%)
370 (98%)
579 (100%)
548 (100%)
213 (98%)
310 (100%)
96 (97%)
251 (100%)
407 (99%)
432 (98%)
324 (100%)
482 (100%)
527 (100%)
301 (99%)
427 (100%)
292 (100%)
489 (100%)
179 (99%)
576 (100%)
7431 (99%)
Total number
of utterances
238
154
289
379
581
548
217
310
99
251
413
440
324
482
527
304
427
292
489
180
576
7520
(Number in ( ) is percentage of total utterances)
Table 3.10 Mixed utterance in English corpus
English
session
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
25E
28E
31E
34E
38E
Total
Mixed utterances
(%)
2 (1%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
2 (0%)
0 (0%)
2 (1%)
0 (0%)
2 (2%)
0 (0%)
4 (1%)
0 0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
1 (1%)
0 (0%)
13 (0%)
Unilingual Japanese
utterance (%)
33 (14%)
17 (11%)
1 (0%)
9 (2%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
2 (1%)
0 (0%)
1 (1%)
0 (0%)
2 (0%)
8 (2%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
3 (1%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
76 (1%)
(Number in ( ) is percentage of total utterances)
123
In total, Hannah’s mixed utterances took up a small proportion, up to one per cent, of
her entire speech in each language. A small proportion of mixed utterances in
bilingual children was found in bilingual children in other BFLA studies (see
Mishina, 1997). Hannah’s unilingual utterances in the other language also took up
one per cent of her total speech in each language.
A very high proportion of her utterances (98% for Japanese and 99% for English)
were unilingual utterances in the language in context. The lowest rates of unilingual
utterances in the language in context occurred in the earliest sessions, and did not fall
below 85% (in 1E) of her total utterances in any session. From these figures, it can
be concluded that Hannah showed pragmatic differentiation of the two languages.
For individual sessions, in the analysed Japanese corpus, neither the mixed nor
unilingual English utterances exceeded four per cent of the total utterances. In the
analysed English corpus, the mixed and unilingual Japanese utterances were up to
2% and 14% respectively of total utterances of an individual session. The relatively
high proportions of unilingual Japanese utterances were limited to the first two
sessions. These did not exceed two per cent of total utterances in subsequent sessions.
For example, the Japanese words Hannah used during the first English session, 1E,
were nani (= what), yaya (= rabbit; Hannah’s idiosyncratic word in Japanese), doozo
(= please) and mama (= mummy). During the same session, i.e., 1E, Hannah also
used the English words mummy, rabi for rabbit, and wha which was thought to be a
truncated form of what. Therefore, it appears that Hannah’s usage of the above
Japanese words was not motivated by the lack of the equivalent words in English.
The corresponding phenomenon of a high proportion of unilingual English utterances
during the early Japanese sessions did not occur. One explanation for this may be a
relative dominance of Japanese up until age 2;1. While in the months preceding age
2;1, Hannah’s exposure to each linguistic environment was assessed as being of
similar duration, it is possible that the Japanese language environment in the home
provided a richer language acquisition environment than that available in English, as
a substantial proportion (approximately half) of the English environment was
provided by an ESL child care provider. However, it is also possible that other
124
factors may have affected the production of the utterances in discussion; for example,
the language behaviour of the interlocutor in these sessions.
Two types of mixed utterances were found. One type is the insertion of a lexical item
from the other language within an utterance of the language of the context. The other
type was the use of quotes of a person speaking the other language. Insertion of a
lexical item from the other language includes the use of common nouns and proper
nouns without alteration of pronunciation, such as the names of pop groups and TV
characters. An example from the Japanese corpus is provided in (4) below. The
speaker code M is Mother and H is Hannah. Underneath Hannah’s Japanese
utterance there is an English gloss, followed by an English translation. The three sets
of numbers after the English translation are: Hannah’s age at the time of producing
the utterance, session number and the turn number within the session.
(4)
M
hanachan oso= aa moo osoto samui hanahchan
‘Hannah, it’s already cold outside, Hannah.’
H
/outside/
samui
cold-NONPAST
‘(it’s) cold outside.’
2;1,12 (3J, 741)
Another example form the English corpus is shown in (5). The Japanese word nai
means ‘not’.
(5)
H
mummy /nai/
F
where is mummy?
2;7,28 (11E, 190)
The other type of mixed utterance was the use by Hannah of quotes of a person
speaking the other language. An example from the Japanese corpus is shown in (6).
This utterance occurred when Mother and Hannah were testing the microphone.
Hannah referred to the fact that Father often sound-tested the recording equipment by
saying ‘testing, testing, one two three’.
(6) H
M
papa /testing/ /testing/
2;7,24 (11J, 942)
so papa suru ne . mama nan te iu ka shitteru?
‘Yes, daddy does that. Do you know what mummy says?’
125
An example from the English corpus is in (7). The Japanese word kingyo means
‘goldfish’.
(7) F
what’s that?
H
mummy talking /kingyo/
F
mummy calls it /kingyo/?
(2;7,28, 11E, 530)
The unilingual English utterances in Japanese analysed corpus were all either single
words such as ‘car’ and ‘kangaroo’ or set phrases such as ‘no more’, ‘see ya’ or
‘testing testing one two three’. The unilingual Japanese utterances in English
analysed corpus were almost all single words such as nani (= what), nai (= not),
choocho (= butterfly) and mite (= look).
3.6 Linguistic Analysis
Hannah’s language development was analysed for both lexicon and morphosyntax.
An initial set of analyses in each area was conducted in order to place Hannah’s
language development in a more general context. These were: the development of
MLU, vocabulary size and type-token ratio (TTR). A further series of analyses were
conducted in each area to address specific questions: composition of lexical
categories in lexicon, Hannah’s usage of personal pronouns, the word order and the
acquisition of specific morphosyntactic structures in each of the two languages. I
used the emergence criteria (Pienemann, 1998a) as the criterion for the acquisition of
morphology. Only unilingual utterances in the language in context were included in
the linguistic analyses.
Analyses for different linguistic structures required different approaches. I examined
MLU through the quantification of word types and utterance number. I examined the
lexical development through the additional quantification of word tokens, and the
proportions of different grammatical categories within the lexicon. I examined the
emergence of specific morphosyntactic structures through frequency count and
distributional analysis.
126
Two PC computer programs39 were written to assist processing the corpus of this
study. The first program sorted, indexed, and counted tokens from any specified
range of transcribed sessions. This program was used for the word count presented in
section 4.3.1, the calculation of MLU and vocabulary size for both languages. The
second computer program was written in order to assist with the frequency count and
distributional analysis of data for words with different inflections. This program
counted and tabulated the type and occurrence of different structures of a (base) word
for a specified set of sessions.
3.6.1 Mean length of utterance (MLU)
The MLU is a measure of syntactic development in terms of length of utterances.
MLU was determined for each session analysed. In this study, MLU is used as an
indication of progress of Hannah’s languages as discussed in Section 2.5.2. The
comparison of the MLU between the two languages can also show a relative shift of
dominance between the two languages.
MLU was calculated calculated by counting words for both English and Japanese.
The verbal morphemes were not separated from the verb stem, and in the case of
Japanese, the agglutinated morphemes were not separated from each other. Japanese
nominal particles were counted separately from the head nouns. Following Ogura et
al. (1997) I excluded the utterances that belonged to the following categories from
the MLU calculation.
(8)
39
•
onomatopoeias
•
counting numbers, (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, ...)
•
reading word to word (verbatim) from written material such as books
•
backchanelling and fillers (e.g., hhm, mhm)
•
exclamation (e.g., ah, wow)
•
repeated word and/or particles within an utterance
The programs were written to my specifications. The programs read raw data from files exported
from MS-Excel, and wrote results in a format suitable for importing to, and subsequent further
analysis by MS-Excel.
127
•
unfinished words (such as arising from a false start).
Onomatopoeias were excluded because it can be repeated as many times as the
informant wants to – it is rather a mechanical repetition, for example, when
pretending to be a dog and making a dog noise ‘woof woof woof woof woof’
repeatedly. However, if onomatopoeia was used as the answer to a question in the
previous turn (e.g., ‘What does a dog say?’ ‘woof woof’) it was included in the
counting and counted as one. In addition, an onomatopoeia used as a noun to refer to
a certain entity was included, e.g., Japanese baby talk buu buu (= car), which
originates from the sound of a car. Numbers were excluded for the same reason as
that for onomatopoeia. However, when a number is used as the answer to a question
in the previous turn, e.g., ‘how many dogs are there?’ ‘four’, it was included in the
MLU calculation.
Hannah’s MLU was compared in each language with the MLU found in the past
studies of Japanese as a first language (JL1) and English as a first language (EL1).
Where possible, the different methods for calculating MLU used in the previous
studies were considered.
3.6.2 Lexical development
Hannah’s lexicons in Japanese and English were analysed quantitatively as well as
qualitatively. The quantitative analyses included the vocabulary size and the type–
token ratio (TTR). The qualitative analysis investigated the composition of
grammatical categories and the use of personal pronouns in the two languages.
In order to characterise Hannah’s lexical development, the entire corpus was
analysed in six-monthly periods. The duration of investigation, which is from the
time Hannah was 1;11 until she was 4;10, was divided into six periods of six months,
as shown in Table 3.11. The table also shows sessions included in each period. As
discussed above, sessions were analysed at monthly intervals to age 2;10, then threemonthly intervals from that time on. In this thesis the term ‘period’ is used only to
refer to the time span specified here. Table 3.12 shows the code used for each of six
128
monthly periods. The analyses using the corpus divided into the six periods would
reveal changes in Hannah’s language over time.
Table 3.11 Hannah’s age and sessions for each period
Period Age range
1
1;11 to 2;4
2
2;5 to 2;10
3
4
5
6
2;11 to 3;4
3;5 to 3;10
3;11 to 4;4
4;5 to 4;10
Hannah’s actual
age in the
analysed corpus
monthly from 1;11
to 2;4
monthly from 2;5
to 2;10
3;0 and 3;3
3;6 and 3;9
4;0 and 4;3
4;7 and 4;10
Japanese session
number
English session
number
1J, 2J, 3J 4J,
5J, 6J
7J, 8J, 9J, 10J,
11J, 12J, 13J
16J, 19J
22J, 25J
28J, 31J
34J, 38J
1E, 2E, 3E, 4E,
5E, 6E
7E, 8E, 9E, 10E,
11E, 12E, 13E
16E, 19E
22E, 25E
28E, 31E
34E, 38E
Table 3.12 Coding for each period
Period
1
2
3
4
5
6
Hannah’s starting age
1;11
2;5
3;0
3;6
4;0
4;7
Japanese corpus
1J–6J
7J–13J
16J–19J
22J–25J
28J–31J
34J–38J
English corpus
1E–6E
7E–13E
16E–19E
22E–25E
28E–31E
34E–38E
Hannah’s vocabulary size in Japanese and English were measured by the cumulative
number of word types. Hannah’s lexicon at a particular point in time is comprised of
a set of new words and a set of pre-existing words. New words are the words that
appear for the first time in the corpus in a particular period. Pre-existing words are
the words that had appeared in the corpus previous to the current period.
The analysis for lexical size was based on the corpus of the cumulative periods in the
respective language. Coding for cumulative periods is presented in Table 3.13.
129
Table 3.13 Coding for cumulative period
Period(s)
1
1+2
1+2+3
1+2+3+4
1+2+3+4+5
1+2+3+4+5+6
Hannah’s Age
1;11
2;5
3;0
3;6
4;0
4;7
Japanese corpus
1J–6J
1J–13J
1J–19J
1J–25J
1J–31J
1J–38J
English corpus
1E–6E
1E–13E
1E–19E
1E–25E
1E–31E
1E–38E
The pattern of lexical growth was determined from the number of new words.
Hannah’s linguistic diversity was examined roughly by calculating the TTR (Johnson,
1944; mentioned in Yukawa, 1997, p. 116). The TTR was indicated by the ratio of
different word types to the total word tokens. In general the TTR value is expected to
be lower if lexical variation is small, i.e., a smaller variety of word types is used
frequently to make up the total tokens. Conversely, if a greater variety of word types
is used to make up the total tokens, the TTR value goes up.
While this measure has been widely used in studies of language acquisition, its
problems have been much debated among researchers and different ways to adjust
the method of calculating the TTR have been promoted. Yukawa (1997, p. 117)
summarises the main criticism of TTR to be: ‘(1) TTRs are not comparable among
different sample sizes; (2) and small sample sizes (below 200 words) are insufficient
to obtain reliable TTR values’. The argument regarding the first criticism is that ‘as
the sample size increases, other things being equal (e.g., topic), there will be fewer
new words (Yukawa 1997, p. 116)’ and this decreases the TTR. Yukawa (1997, p.
117) also mentions Richards’s (1987) argument regarding the effects of open and
closed class items.
It is expected that at the beginning a child uses the same words such as mummy and
daddy very frequently. Then as more words enter his/her vocabulary, each word gets
used less frequently, thus, causing the TTR to increase. During the next
developmental phase when relational words enter his/her vocabulary, as such words
are repeated frequently, the TTR decreases again. (Gisela Håkansson, personal
communication December 2003). In this study, the TTR in each period was
calculated in order to see the shift in linguistic diversity over time. The size of the
130
sample in each segment was considered to be large enough as each segment had
more than 200 tokens.
For qualitative analysis, I investigated the composition of different categories of
Hannah’s lexicon and the use of personal pronouns in two languages.
The lexical categories investigated were nominals, verbs and other relational words
such as determiners and particles. I used the term ‘word’ following past studies of
lexical development such as Caselli et al. (1995) Caselli, Casadio and Bates (1999)
and Ogura (1998). Dromi (1987, p. 125) found that target language (TL)
classification of lexical category highly correlated with the type of reference the
children’s words intended to denote, such as the action or object,. Therefore,
following Dromi (1987), I used the TL classification in order to group Hannah’s
words into different lexical categories.
The nominals include proper nouns, common nouns, kinship terms and pronouns (see
Gentner & Boroditsky (2001) for the inclusion of proper nouns, kinship terms and
pronouns in this category). The verbs include both lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs.
With regard to the other relational terms, for English, I followed Gentner and
Boroditsky’s (2001) classifications, and they are spatial prepositions, determiners
and conjunctions. For Japanese, the other relational terms analysed are nine nominal
particles. I followed Morikawa’s (1997) selection of nominal particles with an
addition of the topic marker (-wa). I included -wa (TOP) in the analysis of this study,
because this is the first particle that is reported to be used by Japanese children. Thus,
the particles examined in this study are four case markers -ga (NOM), -o (ACC) , -ni
(DAT), -no (GEN) and four semantic markers -de (instrumental),-e (goal) , -kara
(source), -to (comitative) and the topic marker -wa (TOP). I analysed the proportion
of these categories in Hannah’s lexicon in each period in her Japanese and English. I
examined a pattern in the composition of grammatical categories in each language
over six periods, and compared them between the two languages.
With respect to the personal pronouns, the timing of their acquisition was analysed,
that is, the first time they entered Hannah’s lexicon, in each language. I also
examined the frequency of their usage. I examined the 20 most frequently used
131
lexical items40 in Hannah’s lexicon in each period in each language and examined
whether personal pronouns appeared among them.
The findings of Hannah’s lexical development was compared with the findings from
past JL1 and EL1 studies.
3.6.3 Word order
In order to determine Hannah’s initial word order in the two languages, I examined
the semantic functions of the argument of her speech. I then determined the
grammatical functions of the arguments based on Pinker’s (1984) direct one-to-one
mapping between these functions. Only the real argument (i.e., not including the
expletive argument) with lexical verbs in spontaneous utterances were considered.
Spontaneous utterances exclude echoes and repeats. Echo is a token that occurred
when Hannah imitated what her interlocutor had said in the previous turn. Repeat is a
token that occurred when Hannah repeated what she had previously said within the
same turn. I conducted the analysis with the corpus from the first period, from the
age 1;11 to 2;4, for both languages.
I examined whether Hannah used the same or different word order for Japanese and
English, and whether Hannah’s initial word order in each language reflected the
canonical word order of the input language. In addition, I compared Hannah’s initial
word order with the findings from past JL1 and EL1 studies.
3.6.4 Acquisition of morphology
The corpora were analysed for the acquisition of different morphological structures
in each language. The emergence criterion was applied to determine the acquisition
of the morphology. I selected the morphological structures for the analysis based on
Pienemann (1998a) for English, and on Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) and
40
The number 20 here was suggested by Gisela Håkansson (personal communication, December
2003). Okubo (1984) used the criterion of ‘more than 40 occurrences’ for the selection of examination
of individual lexical items. It turned out in some of the periods the two criteria of top 20 and more
than 40 occurrences coincided.
132
Kawaguchi (2005a, 2005b) for Japanese (see Table 3.1). The Japanese
morphological structures analysed were verbal inflectional morphemes, V-te V
structure and the marking of OBL argument with -ni (DAT) in passive, causative and
benefactive structures. The English morphological structures analysed are verbal
morphemes (-ing and -ed), plural -s without agreement (e.g., dogs), NP agreement
(e.g., two dogs) and SV agreement (e.g., He walks). The analyses for the emergence
of morphological structures were conducted for individual sessions of the analysed
corpora. For the analysis of morphological structures, the unit of speech used was
utterance.
Data analysis for the acquisition of morphology was conducted in two steps. The first
step was a quantitative analysis of the data. Within this first step, frequency of
morphological structures in context was counted and a distributional analysis
performed. In the second step the ‘quantitative data are interpreted on a qualitative
basis’ (Pienemann 1998a, p. 148). The qualitative analysis was achieved by the
application of the emergence criterion to the results of distributional analysis.
Only spontaneous utterances were considered for the analysis, excluding echoes and
repeats. Note that being spontaneous is different from being productive. Spontaneous
means purely ‘not copying a model’ so it may include unanalysed chunks. On the
other hand, for a linguistic form to be productive, the linguistic rule needs to be
analysed by the speaker and then applied in the context which requires that particular
rule. Rule application refers to productive use of a linguistic rule. Below I will
describe the emergence criterion followed by the procedures of frequency count and
distributional analysis.
Acquisition criteria: Emergence criterion
The first study to identify the need for acquisition criteria was the study of
acquisition of L1 English morphemes by three children, reported in Cazden41 (1968,
41
This project was called the Harvard study, and my understanding is that Cazden was one of the
members who worked on this project. As this study is extensively reported in Brown (1973), I will
133
mentioned in Jansen, 2002, p. 79) and Brown (1973). They saw acquisition to be the
mastery of TL like usage. Therefore, the accuracy rate of children’s use of
morphemes against the TL was measured. In order to calculate the accuracy rate,
Brown (1973) introduced the notion of ‘obligatory contexts’ (see Section 2.5.2) and
measured the proportion of obligatory contexts in which the required morphemes
were supplied. Brown noticed that supply of TL-like usage of morphemes showed
erratic patterns of accuracy rate until a 90% accuracy rate was achieved, following
which the children consistently scored accuracy rates of 90% to 100%. Accordingly,
Brown (1973, pp. 254-259) adopted an accuracy rate of 90% as one of the criteria for
acquisition42. Since Brown’s study, many researchers used the accuracy rate criteria
to measure the acquisition in both L1 and L2, in both longitudinal and cross-sectional
studies.
The use of the obligatory contexts and distributional analyses in order to determine
the actual production of morphemes is beneficial. However, using the mastery of TLlike usage of language as a criterion for acquisition has been challenged on two
grounds. One is that this approach is TL oriented. Zhang (2002b) pointed out that
from the SLA point of view ‘[t]he accuracy-based approach ... did not demonstrate
the process of how the learner goes about learning a particular form. The step-bystep progression of a grammatical item from its earliest and most immature form to
fully target language-like use is not revealed’(p. 81). The same can be said for the L1
acquisition.
The second point is that the accuracy rate approach assumes that accuracy and
acquisition are equal. Pienemann (1998a) notes that ‘accuracy rates develop with
highly variable gradients in relation to grammatical items and individual learners’ (p.
137). This point had also been noted by Brown (1973) with regard to child language.
refer to Brown (1973) on any issues raised in the Harvard study. But in his book, Brown often refers
to Cazden’s work for raising and/or solving issues.
42
In Brown (1973), there were three conditions that needed to be satisfied in order to determine the
accuracy rate. They were (1) a set of samples scored the specified 90% accuracy rate in the obligatory
contexts, (2) the 90% accuracy rate was sustained in three consecutive sets of samples, and (3) the
productive use of morphemes was detected through a distributional analysis. In Brown (1973) a set of
samples consisted of 2-hour-long speech samples from a child collected approximately bi-weekly.
134
Pienemann provided a hypothetical illustration of this point in Figure 3.2 below
showing the development of three hypothetical linguistic rules, a, b, and c. He shows
that the acquisition order determined for these three rules would change for different
accuracy rate criteria.
Accuracy Rate Criterion
1%
50%
90%
Accuracy Rate
a
c
100%
c
50%
0%
Rule Acquisition Order
a-b-c
c-b-a
c-a-b
a
b
b
b
a
c
Time
Figure 3.2 Accuracy rate and development (after Pienemann 1998a, p. 137)
Pienemann (1998a) considers the acquisition of a linguistic structure is dependant of
a certain procedural skill that processes the particular structure. PT measures the
acquisition of such skills by determining the first productive usage of the linguistic
form in question, namely the emergence of a linguistic rule. The emergence criterion
is applied in order to determine the emergence of the application of a rule, thus,
allows us to determine the point at which a linguistic rule becomes productive. PT
defines this point to be when the skill to process the particular linguistic rule has
been acquired. All studies conducted within the PT framework (e.g., Di Biase &
Kawaguchi 2002; Håkansson, 2001, 2002; Zhang, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2004) used
the emergence criterion to determine the point of acquisition. In order to determine
the emergence, Pienemann (1998a, p. 148) states that the raw data from the interlanguage (IL) corpus undergoes several stages of both quantitative and qualitative
interpretation.
135
Pienemann (1998a, p. 146) presents four categories into which quantitative
observation of rule application falls. They are:
(9)
•
no evidence; i.e. no linguistic contexts
•
insufficient evidence; i.e. very small number of contexts
•
evidence for non-application; i.e. non-application in the presence of
contexts for a specific rule X
•
evidence for rule application ; i.e. examples of rule application in the
presence of contexts.
In PT the emergence of form is determined by ‘the presence of alternate forms and
linguistic environments’ (Pienemann, 1998a, p. 150). This is achieved by two steps:
frequency count and distributional analysis. I describe these steps below. At least one
rule application in a sufficient number of contexts was regarded as sufficient
evidence for emergence of the particular morphology. Exactly what constitutes a
sufficient number of contexts is a debatable issue. Pienemann (1998a, p. 145)
regarded four or more contexts as a sufficient number of contexts for his empirical
studies.
Frequency count
In the process of frequency count, occurrence of Hannah’s spontaneous tokens of a
particular linguistic structure being investigated in obligatory context was identified.
Occurrence of particular morphosyntactic structures in Hannah’s speech were
categorised into three groups: supply, non-supply and over-supply. Supply is when a
morpheme is supplied in the obligatory context and is indicated by a number
showing the number of occurrences. Non-supply is when a morpheme is not supplied
in the obligatory context and it is denoted by a minus sign (-) in front of the number
showing the number of occurrence. Over-supply is when a morpheme is supplied
when it is not required and it is denoted by a ‘greater than’ sign (>) in front of the
number showing the number of occurrences.
In order to determine the obligatory context, the linguistic context as well as the
functional context was examined. Brown’s (1973) three criteria in determining the
136
functional context: nonlinguistic context, linguistic prior context and linguistic
subsequent context were used (see Section 2.5.2 for the details).
I illustrate the procedure of frequency count, using the SV agreement structure as an
example. When investigating SV agreement in Hannah’s speech, firstly, all words
ending with -s were searched in each session. These filtered tokens were then
examined for meaning, spontaneity and context. The tokens that did not convey the
meaning specific to the linguistic structure investigated were not included in the
analysis. Hence in this example, words ending with -s meaning plural, or
contractions of auxiliary verbs were excluded. The tokens that were not spontaneous
were also excluded. The remaining tokens were examined to see if they were supply
or over-supply according to the context. Instances of non-supply also need to be
considered. Therefore, Hannah’s present tense indicative utterances with a third
person singular subject in her spontaneous speech were identified. These instances
were again filtered for spontaneity. Then, the spontaneous instances were examined
to see whether their finite verbs were suffixed with -s. The ones that did not have -s
suffixation were identified as non-supply of -s.
Distributional analysis
The quantitative examination of the productivity of any particular structure was
carried out through a distributional analysis. Productivity of a structure in question
was determined by the presence of alternate forms (form variation) and linguistic
environments (linguistic variation). For example, if the form -te occurs with only one
lexical item tabe-te (= (please) eat), even if tabe-te occurs 50 times, one cannot
determine whether it is a productive usage. However if -te occurs with another
lexical item e.g., mi-te (= (please) see) and if at least one of these lexical items also
occurs in different forms such as tabe-ta (= ate) or mi-ta (= saw), then it can be
considered that -te is an analysed form and therefore the linguistic rule of -te is
applied. The same morpheme occurring with varying lexical items, e.g., tabe-te and
mi-te is termed linguistic variation. The same lexical item occurring with different
morphemes, i.e., different forms, is termed form variation.
137
(10)
Linguistic variation
tabe-te
mi-te
✁
mi-ta
✁
tabe-ta
Form variation
Rule application was examined by determining whether a morpheme in question
occurred in a varying linguistic environment (linguistic variation) and also whether
the linguistic item occurred with different morphemes (form variation).
The result of the distributional analysis was qualitatively applied to the emergence
criteria to examine the emergence of the morphosyntactic structure. The two criteria
to be satisfied in order for a morphosyntactic structure to be classified as emerged
were:
•
for the structure to occur in more than one lexical variation, i.e., with at least
two different lexical items
•
for at least one of the lexical items to occur in a different form within the same
set of data.
Detailed analyses of each of the morphosyntactic structures are presented in Chapter
4, with a discussion of the issues concerning the individual structures and illustrative
examples. The acquisition of morphological structures is then compared to the
findings from previous L1 studies to determine whether each of Hannah’s languages
develop in the same way as L1 of each language. Then PT was applied to the results
of the acquisition of each morphosyntactic structure in each language. This
application determined whether these BFLA corpora support the universality of PT
across different types of language acquisition as well as De Houwer’s (1990)
Separate Development Hypothesis.
This chapter presented the research questions asked in the current empirical study. I
then described the informant of this study, Hannah, and presented the methods used
for various linguistic analyses. In the next chapter I present and discuss the results
obtained from Hannah’s corpora.
138
4 Results and Discussion
4.1
Introduction
This chapter reports and discusses the results of the present longitudinal study of
bilingual acquisition of Japanese and English from birth within the framework of
Pienemann’s (1998a) Processability Theory (PT). The previous chapter presented the
research questions to be answered through this study and the methods employed in
conducting the study. I conducted the analyses using the corpus in both Japanese and
English of a bilingual child, Hannah, for the acquisition of lexicon and morphology.
I carried out two sets of analyses. The first set of analyses was conducted to measure
the development of Hannah’s language in a general context. Section 4.2 presents
Hannah’s mean length of utterances (MLU) in the two languages. Section 4.3
presents the general development of Hannah’s lexicon in the two languages. The
number of word types and the type-token ratio (TTR) are used as measures that
indicate the development of lexicon.
The second set of analyses was conducted in order to describe a more specific
account of the development of Hannah’s languages. Section 4.4 presents results of her
lexical development looking at the composition of lexicon and the acquisition of
personal pronouns in the two languages. Section 4.5 presents results of Hannah’s
morphological development, examining the emergence of various morphological
structures of each language. Section 4.6 presents Hannah’s word order in the two
languages and Section 4.7 summarises the connection between the lexical
development, the acquisition of morphology and word order found in her data.
139
4.2
MLU
As discussed in Chapter 2, while the inadequacies of MLU have been pointed out by
researchers (e.g., Schlyter, 1990a, Ogura et al., 1997; Yip & Matthews, 2000), it is
still used widely as a measurement of syntactic development. In the bilingual context,
a growth in MLU in the two languages indicates progress in children’s abilities in
both languages (Döpke, 1998a). Hannah’s MLU development in Japanese and
English is presented below. It is followed by a comparison of Hannah’s MLU
development with monolingual Japanese and English MLU cited in previous research.
4.2.1 Hannah’s Japanese and English MLU
Hannah’s MLU development in both Japanese and English is presented in Figure 4.1.
The corresponding data for each session for each language can be found in Appendix
E. The MLU for both Japanese and English increased over the period of investigation.
This indicates Hannah’s progressing ability to express herself in either language.
Japanese MLU increased from 1.12 at age 1;11,12 (1J) to 4.14 at age 4;10,26 (38J).
For the English corpus, the MLU increased from 1.19 at age 1;11,12 (1E) to 3.60 at
age 4;10,25 (38E). As we can see from the graph, Japanese and English’s MLU grew
in a similar pattern, in particular up to age 2;9 (sessions 12J and 12E). A prominent
increase was seen at 3;6 for both Japanese and English, that is from 2.19 (19J) to 3.07
(22J) and from 1.99 (19E) to 2.62 (22E).
140
4.50
Hannah's Japanese MLU
Hannah's English MLU
4.00
38J
38E
MLU
3.50
22J
3.00
2.50
12J,
12E
2.00
25J
28J
19E
1.50
1.00
1;0
2;0
3;0
Age in years;months
4;0
5;0
Figure 4.1 Mean length of utterance (MLU) of Hannah
For Japanese, at the beginning of the period of investigation in 1J, Hannah (1;11,12)
was mostly using one-word utterances, such as nani (= what), han43 (= Hannah),
mama (= mummy). By the end of the period of investigation in 38J, Hannah (4;10,26)
was able to produce a more complex utterance such as below.
(1) H
ohana o ne ano oheya noko ni ne kirei ni jibun de kazatte ageteru aa kureteru n da
‘(I) decorate a flower in that room beautifully by myself (for someone).’ 4;10,26 (38J, 202)
For English, just like in Japanese, the majority of utterances were one-word at 1;11,12
in 1E. Examples of one-word utterance in 1E are daddy, dere (there), here, han44 (=
Hannah) with some nouns such as ock (rock) or chook. By age 4;10,25 (38E) Hannah
was speaking more complex utterances such as below.
(2)
H
ok because because because if we ever got this we are going to touch the
books daddy?
43
4;10,25 (38E, 456)
The name Hannah is a pseudonym. In reality the informant used the first syllable only of her own
name to refer to herself. Here I use the first syllable of the name Hannah to portray it.
44
The name Hannah is a pseudonym. In reality the informant used the first syllable only of her own
name to refer to herself. Here I use the first syllable of the name Hannah to portray it.
141
Appendix F shows examples of utterances of different length available in each
session for Japanese and Appendix G shows that of her English.
MLU did not always increase steadily. It showed a sudden increase, such as shown in
22J. MLU also decreased sometimes. For example, subsequent to having reached
3.07 in 22J, the MLU fell to 2.47 in 25J and further to 2.14 in 28J. In order to gain a
better understanding of the rise and fall of Hannah’s MLU, I examined the
distribution of length of utterance and type of interaction for two Japanese sessions,
22J and 25J.
In 22J there were 290 analysable utterances. During this session, Hannah and Mother
were talking during breakfast. The conversation during this session included Hannah
describing her friends’ houses and a fête to which she went recently with her friends.
The number of words per utterance in session 22J varied from one to 16. Figure 4.2
shows the distribution of the utterance according to its length. There were 89 oneword utterances and that is 31% of the total analysable utterances of this session.
There were 54 two-word (19%) and 57 three-word (20%) utterances. The one-, twoand three-word utterances took up 70% of the total utterances in this session.
100
90
89
Number of utterances
80
70
60
54
50
57
40
30
29
24
20
14
10
9
3
0
0
2
4
6
8
3
5
10
2
0
12
0
0
14
1
0
16
Number of words
Figure 4.2 Distribution of number of words of utterances in 22J (N=290)
142
18
In order to compare with 22J, I conducted a similar analysis for 25J where a sudden
decrease in MLU occurred. There were 200 analysable utterances. The number of
words per utterance varied from one to ten. During this session Hannah was playing
with play-dough with Mother. Mother asked Hannah about her friends and food in
general; however, while playing with the play-dough Hannah did not seem to answer
Mother’s questions attentively. Nor did she elaborately describe what she was making
with the play-dough. Much of Hannah’s speech during this session was of ‘here and
now’ type utterances about the play-dough, such as, kore mo (= this too), kono naka
(= inside this), koo shite (= do this), kore mite (= look at this). Many of her responses
to Mother were one word utterances with the purpose of naming an object such as
supagetii (= spaghetti) and michi (= road) when asked what she was making with the
play-dough, and question words such as nani (= what?) and dooshite (= why?).
Figure 4.3 shows the distribution of the utterances according to their length. There
were 75 one-word utterances and this took up 38% of the total number of utterances
of this session. There were 54 two-word (27%) and 29 (15%) three-word utterances.
This means that 80% of the total utterances were one-, two- or three-word utterances.
80
75
70
Number of utterances
60
54
50
40
30
29
20
17
10
10
7
3
0
0
2
4
6
2
8
1
2
10
Number of words
Figure 4.3 Distribution of number of words in utterances for 25J (N=200)
143
12
The majority of utterances in both 22J and 25J were one-, two- and three- word
utterances. However, 25J showed a larger proportion in these categories, especially
the one-and two-word utterances, than 22J. 25J also had a smaller spread of utterance
length, that is 25J’s longest utterance was 10 whereas in 22J there were some
utterances that were longer than 10 words. It appears that the larger proportion of
short utterances as well as the non-availability of long utterances led to the
calculation of a low MLU in 25J. The different proportion of short utterances in these
two sessions may be a result of the type of interactions – a more descriptive nature of
interaction in 22J. This illustrates one of the shortcomings of MLU, in that MLU is
affected by the circumstances of each individual session.
Despite these falls in some sessions, overall Hannah’s Japanese and English both
continued to develop in terms of MLU.
4.2.2 Comparison of Hannah’s Japanese and English MLU
I compared Hannah’s Japanese and English MLUs. Following Yip and Matthews
(2000), as discussed in Chapter 2, the comparison of the MLU of two typologically
different languages does not aim to determine the language dominance in the absolute
sense. In this study I applied the ranges of MLU values defined in Brown’s stages I to
V (Brown, 1973), also discussed in Chapter 2, to Hannah’s two MLUs. Figure 4.4
shows Hannah’s MLU in relation to Brown’s stages. The horizontal lines with
numbers I, II, III, IV and V indicate the onset of each of Brown’s stages.
144
MLU
4.50
4.25
4.00
3.75
3.50
3.25
3.00
2.75
2.50
2.25
2.00
1.75
1.50
1.25
1.00
1;0
Japanese
English
38J
V
31J
38E
22J
IV
III
12J,
12E
II
1J,
1E
I
2;0
3;0
Age in years;months
4;0
5;0
Figure 4.4 Hannah’s MLU and Brown’s stages
Both Japanese and English MLU had reached 1.00 at the beginning of the
investigation, in other words at the time of commencement of this study Hannah had
reached Brown’s stage I in both languages. Hannah’s Japanese MLU reached 2.03 in
12J (2;9,15). Once it reached 2.03 her Japanese MLU remained above 2.00. Hannah’s
English MLU reached 2.03 in 12E (2;9,9) as well. Unlike Japanese, her English MLU
oscillated reaching no less than 1.9. I considered that Hannah reached Brown’s stage
II in 12J and 12E respectively. This means that both Japanese and English reached
Stage II at the same time.
After reaching Brown’s stage II, Japanese appeared to reach a given MLU earlier than
English. For example, Japanese MLU reached 2.50 at approximately 3;4. English
reached MLU 2.50 at 3;6. This suggests that Japanese reached Stage III earlier than
English. For Stage IV Japanese MLU became constantly above 3.00 from about 4;2
and English from about 4;8. After reaching Stage IV, Japanese MLU became above
4.00 at approximately 4;10. Her English did not reach Stage V during the period of
investigation.
In summary, Japanese and English MLU showed a similar pattern of development to
Brown’s stages I and II. After that, Japanese reached Brown’s subsequent stages
145
earlier than English did. Furthermore, Japanese reached Stage V while English did
not reach that stage during the period of investigation.
4.2.3 Comparison of Hannah’s MLU to that of L1 MLU in the literature
In this section I compare Hannah’s MLU with that of Japanese and English-speaking
children reported in past L1 acquisition researches.
I first compare Hannah’s Japanese MLU with that of Japanese children. The sources
for MLU of Japanese children are Miyata (1992, cited in Okada & Grinstead, 2003)
and Nishino and Watamaki (1997). These data are plotted in Figure 4.5 for
comparison with Hannah’s MLU.
3.50
3.00
Hannah's Japanese MLU
Nishino&Watamaki (1997) MLUw
Nishino&Watamaki (1997) MLU
Aki's MLU (from Miyata, 1992)
MLU
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00 1;6
2;0
Age in years;months
2;6
3;0
Figure 4.5 Comparison of Hannah’s Japanese MLU with L1 Japanese MLU
Miyata’s data used for the comparison here are the MLU of her informant, Aki, from
age 2;0 to 2;11. The method used to calculate Aki’s MLU was not discussed in Okada
and Grinstead (2003). Nishino and Watamaki (1997) presented a graph of two MLU
values, MLUw and MLU, of one female child from age 1;8 to 2;9. MLUw was
calculated by counting words (no particles) and MLU was determined by counting
words as well as particles and verb morphemes. They did not discuss their definition
of word or how they separated agglutinated verb morphemes. As I explained in
Chapter 4, Hannah’s Japanese MLU was calculated by counting words. Nominal
146
particles were counted separately from the head nouns but verb stem and morphemes
were counted together. Therefore, Nishino and Watamaki’s (1997) MLUw may be
more comparable to Hannah’s MLU. The actual figures were not given in their paper,
so I extracted the data from their graph in order to reproduce them in Figure 4.5. Only
Hannah’s MLU between the comparable ages were plotted in the same chart.
Hannah’s MLU shows a similarity to Aki’s MLU and Nishino and Watamaki’s
MLUw. Aki’s and Hannah’s MLU show a similarity in the range of values, the timing
of reaching a certain MLU and the pattern of increase. In comparison with Nishino
and Watamaki’s MLUw, Hannah seems to have reached the same MLU at a slightly
later time, although the values stayed in the same range. Thus, it can be concluded
that Hannah’s MLU was comparable to that of Japanese children.
I then compared Hannah’s English MLU with that of English-speaking children. The
data on MLU of English-speaking children was extracted from Miller and Chapman
(1981). Miller and Chapman gathered the MLU of 123 English-speaking children
aged between 17 months and five years. They calculated the sample mean MLU for
different age groups. They also developed a model for MLU based on the correlation
between age and sample MLU. They further showed the lower to upper range of
sample MLU as a scatter plot. Miller and Chapman based MLU on the number of
morphemes, whereas Hannah’s MLU was based on the number of words. So it is to
be expected that Miller and Chapman’s MLUs will be higher.
In Figure 4.6, modelled MLU, sample mean and lower end of sample MLU are
presented along with Hannah’s English MLU. As expected Hannah’s MLU is lower
than Miller and Chapman’s sample mean or the modelled MLU. However it is similar
to the lower end of the sample MLU calculated by morpheme, both in value and its
pattern of increase up until just after 4;0. It cannot be determined if the difference
between Hannah’s MLU and Miller and Chapman’s (1981) lower end of MLU was
due to the different rate in the linguistic development or to the different method of
calculation. However up to 4;0, the similarity these two MLUs show indicates that
Hannah’s MLU was within the range shown by English-speaking children.
147
6
Hannah's English MLU
modeled MLU (Miller & Chapman, 1981)
sample mean MLU (Miller & Chapman, 1981)
lower end of MLU (Miller & Chapman, 1981)
5
MLU
4
3
2
1
0
1;0
2;0
3;0
4;0
5;0
Age in years;months
Figure 4.6 Comparison of Hannah’s English MLU with L1 English MLU
In summary, Hannah’s Japanese MLU, at least until she was 3;0, developed in a
similar manner to that of Japanese children in value and the pattern of increase.
Hannah’s English MLU also developed in a similar manner to that reported in
English-speaking children until Hannah was 4;0.
4.2.4 Summary
From the analyses of Hannah’s MLU the following facts were observed. Both
Japanese and English MLU continued to increase, which implies the syntax of both
languages continued to develop. Hannah’s MLU in Japanese and English developed
at a similar rate until 2;9. After that Japanese appeared to reach a given MLU at an
earlier age than English. Hannah’s Japanese and English MLU were comparable to
the MLU of L1 children in the respective language until at least the age 3;0 for
Japanese and 4;0 for English.
4.3
Lexical development in a general context
This section presents the general view of Hannah’s Japanese and English lexical
development. They are indicated by the number of word types in Hannah’s lexicon,
148
pattern of lexical learning and the linguistic diversity measured by type-token ratio
(TTR) of Japanese and English respectively.
4.3.1 Lexicon
The number of word types in Hannah’s lexicon in Japanese and English was
measured by the cumulative number of word types to the final session in each sixmonthly period. Figure 4.7 shows the results. The graph indicates the continuous
growth in her vocabulary of both Japanese and English, that is, new words
continuously entered Hannah’s lexicon in each language. At 4;10 Hannah had 1886
different words in Japanese and 1638 in English. The number of words of each
language grew bigger in a similar manner indicated by a similar gradient of the graph,
with Japanese always having slightly more words than English.
2000
1886
1800
1708
Japanese
1600
1490
1480
English
1400
1638
1590
1381
number
1309
1200
1185
1070
1000
800
759
704
600
400
200
137
105
0
1;0
2;0
3;0
4;0
age in years;months
5;0
6;0
Figure 4.7 Number of word types in Hannah’s lexicon of Japanese and English
Hannah’s lexicon at a particular point in time is comprised of a set of new words and
a set of pre-existing words. New words are the words that appeared for the first time
in the corpus in a particular period. Pre-existing words are the words that had
appeared in the corpus before the current period. The difference in the lexicon
between any two points in time is the number of Hannah’s newly acquired words.
Newly acquired words includes the pre-existing words in new forms.
149
It needs to be considered that there were more sessions analysed for the first year of
the investigation than the subsequent two years. Therefore it is not immediately
apparent if the sharp increase in vocabulary up to age 2;10 (i.e., 13J and 13E) was
caused by the sample rate or by a higher rate of acquisition of lexical items. In order
to compare the rate of lexical learning unbiased by the sampling rate, the number of
new words per minute in each segment was calculated. Table 4.1 and Table 4.2, on
the following page, show the rate of lexical learning indicated by the number of new
words per minute in the two languages respectively. In these tables, a row shows
information about a six-monthly period, and the columns show: the code for the
period, Hannah’s age, total number of words, the number of pre-existing words, the
number of new words, duration of recording, the number of new words per minute
and MLU. The highest MLU from the sessions within a six-month period was
adopted as the MLU for the segment, as this was assumed to be the indicator of
highest language attainment for the period.
From these tables, I observed that there were language-general patterns of lexical
learning, i.e., patterns shared in both languages. That is, Hannah did not acquire new
words in a linear pattern, but in a U shaped pattern for both Japanese and English.
The rate of lexical learning was high during the first period (1J–6J and 1E–6E) and
was followed by a deceleration in both languages. It started to increase again at 4;0
for Japanese and 3;6 for English. This increase continued until the final period for
both languages (34J–38J and 34E–38E). In addition, the MLU indicates that Hannah
was at the end of the one-word stage during the first period when the rate of lexical
learning was high in both languages.
Hannah’s non-linear pattern of lexical learning agrees with the findings from L1
studies (see Dromi, 1987; Barrett, 1995; Veneziano, 1999). The timing of the first
high rate of lexical learning and the subsequent decline also agrees with the findings
from L1 studies. It was found in L1 studies that children experience a high rate of
lexical learning towards the end of the one-word stage and the rate slows as children’s
MLU exceeds 2. With Hannah, the first high rate of lexical learning was during the
end of the one-word stage, and the rate slowed down as Hannah’s MLU reached 2.
150
Table 4.1 Rate of lexical learning (Japanese)
Period
Starting Total
PreNew
Age for number existing words
the
of
words
period
words
1;11
759
0
759
1J–6J
883
261
622
7J–13J 2;5
99
307
208
16J–19J 3;0
110
292
182
22J–25J 3;6
118
319
201
28J–31J 4;0
178
450
272
34J–38J 4;7
Table 4.2 Rate of lexical learning (English)
New
PrePeriod
Starting Total
Age for number existing words
words
of
the
words
period
1;11
704
0
704
1E–6E
366
626
260
7E–13E 2;5
3;0
16E–
333
218
115
19E
3;6
22E–
367
243
124
25E
4;0
28E–
436
255
181
31E
4;7
34E–
442
294
148
38E
Duration
of
recording
(mins)
315
315
85
90
60
60
Duration
of
recording
(mins)
365
335
New
words
per
minute
2.4
2.0
1.2
1.2
2.0
3.0
MLU
1.50
2.07
2.19
3.07
3.39
4.14
MLU
New
words
per
minute
1.93
1.58
1.09
2.03
135
0.85
2.14
90
1.38
2.85
110
1.65
3.08
85
1.74
3.60
Hannah’s Japanese experienced a sudden jump in the rate of lexical learning towards
the end of the period of investigation. The number of new words per minute increased
to 3 during the final period, 34J–38J, which was greater than the 2.4 found in the first
period, 1J–6J. This indicates that there was a second high lexical learning period
during 34J–38J. The MLU in 34J–38J exceeded 4. This period immediately followed
the month of stay in Japan, during which Hannah attended a local kindergarten
described in Section 3.3.2. By comparison, Hannah’s English did not show a clear
second high growth during the period of investigation. After 22E–25E, the rate
increased steadily but did not exceed the rate during 1E–6E. The data do not indicate
if English would have experienced another growth spurt when MLU reached 4 as the
investigation ended prior to English reaching that stage. Hannah’s learning for
different types of lexicon, such as nominal and verbs, will be discussed in a later
section.
151
In summary, Hannah continued to learn new words in both Japanese and English,
with her Japanese always having more lexical items than English. There was a
language-general pattern found in Hannah’s rate of lexical learning. For both
languages, she acquired new words in a non-linear manner. A high rate of learning
was detected during the first period, towards the end of the one-word stage, and then
slowed down as MLU reached 2. These characteristics agree with the findings from
L1 studies. Hannah’s Japanese showed a second high rate of lexical learning that was
more vigorous than the first one, when MLU exceeded 4. This may relate to her
experience in Japan. It is not known if her English lexicon behaved in the same
manner as the investigation finished before the English MLU reached 4.
4.3.2 Type-token ratio
The type-token ratio (TTR) of Hannah’s lexicon in each period was calculated in
order to see the shift in linguistic diversity over time. The results are presented in
Figure 4.8. The Japanese TTR ranged between 0.16 and 0.24. The English TTR
ranged from 0.14 to 0.20. Both Japanese and English showed a decrease in TTR at
2;5 (7J–13J, 7E–13E) indicating a decrease in linguistic diversity. For Japanese the
TTR increased again at 3;0 (16J–19J) but for English this did not happen until 3;6
(22E–25E).
0.30
Japanese
English
0.25
28J-31J
TTR ratio
0.20
16J-19J
1J-6J
22J-25J
7J-13J
0.15
34J-38J
28E-31E
1E-6E
7E-13E
22E-25E
34E-38E
16E-19E
0.10
0.05
0.00
2;0
3;0
Age in years;months
Figure 4.8 Type-token ratio and age
152
4;0
In general Japanese showed a higher TTR than English. This may be related to the
fact she always had more words in her Japanese lexicon than in her English lexicon.
This may have allowed Hannah to use more varied Japanese words during her
interaction with Mother than she did with Father. On the other hand, the higher
Japanese TTR may be as a result of a greater rate of repetition in English than
Japanese. If it is so, the cause of it is not determined. It could be due to Hannah’s
development of the two languages, or due to the topological difference of the two
languages. For example, in English the subject (SUBJ) of the predicate, e.g., I, you,
and some relational words, e.g., the determiners, and copula, are obligatory. The
characteristic of these words, i.e., the members of the closed word class, is of high
frequency. Therefore, it is possible that Hannah, as she grew older, was using these
kinds of words more repetitively than any words in Japanese, allowing the TTR to be
lower than Japanese.
4.3.3 Summary
Through the observation of the number of word types in Hannah’s lexicon, her rate of
lexical learning and TTR in the two languages, I have shown that Hannah continued
to learn and use words from the two languages. Hannah had 1886 words in Japanese
lexicon and 1638 in English at the age of 4;10. Hannah always had slightly more
words in Japanese than in English. Her lexical learning occurred in a non-linear
manner for both Japanese and English. A high rate of lexical learning was detected
during the first period, at the end of the one-word stage in both languages. This rate
slowed down as MLU reached 2.00. The non-linear manner and the timing of the high
rate of lexical learning prior to MLU reaching 2.0 were also found in L1 studies.
Therefore, Hannah’s lexical development in a general context was comparable to that
of Japanese and English-speaking children. In the next section, I present the results
from a quantitative analysis of Hannah’s lexical development.
4.4
Lexical development in a specific context
I examined Hannah’s usage of different word categories and her use of personal
pronouns. I conducted these analyses in order to determine whether Hannah’s lexicon
in the two languages was developing in language-specific ways.
153
4.4.1 Composition of lexicon45
I examined the composition of nominal, verb and other relational words in Hannah’s
Japanese lexicon and in her English lexicon. Other relational words for Japanese are
nine nominal particles: -ga (NOM), -o (ACC), -ni (DAT), -no (GEN), -wa (TOP), -de
(instrumental), -e (goal) , -kara(source) and -to (comitative). For English, I selected
spatial prepositions, determiners and conjunctions following Gentner and Boroditsky
(2001). Examples of the categories of words I did not examine (i.e., did not belong to
nominal, verb and other relational words) were interjections (e.g., yes, no, hello),
question words (e.g., what, how, why), adjectives (e.g., pretty, hot, cold), Japanese
adjectival nouns (e.g., genki (= being well)) as well as words that could not be
categorised into any of the target language (TL) categories. The composition of
grammatical categories was examined for Hannah’s lexicon in each six-monthly
period. Figure 4.9 and Figure 4.10 present the results.
English nominal
English verb
English relational words
45
40
35
Percentage
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1;11
2;5
3;0
3;6
4;0
4;7
Age
Figure 4.9 Hannah’s use of different grammatical categories in English
45
The results from this part of the analysis are also presented in Itani-Adams (2003c, 2005, 2007).
154
Japanese nominal
Japanese verb
Japanese particle
45
40
Percentage
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1;11
2;5
3;0
3;6
4;0
4;7
Age
Figure 4.10 Hannah’s use of different grammatical categories in Japanese
These two Figures show different patterns in Hannah’s use of different word
categories. In English Hannah always used nominal more than the other two
categories examined – approximately 40% of the words Hannah used at any given
period belonged to nominals. Verb usage showed an increase in proportion until it
reached 26% at 3;6. The other relational words also increased to 5% at 3;6 and they
stayed on a plateau. Therefore, it can be said that Hannah’s English experienced
nominal dominance throughout the investigation.
Appendix H is a list of new English nominals that entered Hannah’s lexicon in each
period. Appendix I is a similar list for English verbs. I listed the new English
relational words found in Hannah’s lexicon in each period in Table 4.3.
155
Table 4.3 English preposition, determiner and conjugation appeared in each segment
Period
Hannah’s Relational words acquired
age
1;11
a, and, anda, but, cos, da (the), for, in, on, out, over, some,
1E–6E
the, to , up
2;5
after, any, at, from , of, off
7E–13E
because
16E–19E 3;0
an, ina, ini
22E–25E 3;6
4;0
by,
under
28E–31E
before
34E–38E 4;7
With Japanese lexicon, the pattern was somewhat different. Initially nominal
dominated Hannah’s lexicon, but from 3;0 her speech continually used fewer
nominals and more verbs. At 4;7, the relative proportion of the verbs became larger
than the nominals (32% verbs vs. 25% nominals). As for the particles, their relative
proportion was constantly one to two per cent in each period. It can be concluded that
Hannah’s Japanese usage was initially nominal-dominant. However, this dominance
shifted gradually over time and at 4;7 Hannah’s Japanese changed to verb-dominant.
The nine nominal particles examined all appeared before she turned 4;0. Appendix J
is a list of new Japanese nominals that entered Hannah’s lexicon in each period.
Appendix K is a similar list for Japanese verbs. I list the particles according to the
period of their first appearance in Table 4.4. The first set of nominal particles that
appeared in Hannah’s corpus were two case markers -ni (DAT), -no (GEN), and the
topic marker -wa (TOP) at age 1;11. During the next period, at age 2;5, Hannah used
one case marker -ga (NOM), and three semantic particles, -de (instrumental), -e (goal)
and -to (comitative). Another semantic particle -kara (source) appeared when Hannah
was 3;0. The last to be apper in the corpus was an accusative case marker -o (ACC) at
3;6. The relative order of appearance of these particles is similar to that found in JL1
studies (see Clancy, 1985). Subsequently Nakamura (1993) pointed out that while
young Japanese children, aged 3 and 4, use the particles -wa (TOP) and -ga (NOM),
the adult like usage of these particles within a discourse develops some years later. In
this thesis, I examined the availability of the particles in Hannah’s lexicon rather than
Hannah’s usage of these particles within a discourse.
156
Table 4.4 Order of appearance of the nine nominal particles
Period
Hannah’s age new case marking particles
1;11
ni, no, wa
1J–6J
2;5
ga, de, e, to
7J–13J
kara
16J–19J 3;0
o
22J–25J 3;6
From the results presented above, I summarise that Hannah showed a languagegeneral pattern of using more nouns than verbs in both Japanese and English at the
beginning. In other words, despite the differences in the input languages, Hannah
began the learning of these languages with nominals. This characteristic found in
Hannah’s two languages is consistent with the universal ‘noun-advantage’ (Gentner
and Boroditsky, 2001) found among monolingual children of different languages.
Hannah did not begin learning them through words that were frequent in the input
languages, such as preposition and determiners for English, and verbs or particles for
Japanese. As Gentner and Boroditsky’s (2001) explained in the Natural Partitions
Hypothesis and the Relational Relatively Hypothesis (pp. 216-218), the referent of
nouns is easier to grasp conceptually, whereas the assignment of relational words
(including verbs) is linguistically variable; therefore, more challenging. Their
explanation also applies to Hannah’s lexical development.
While Hannah showed a noun-advantage for both Japanese and English, I also
detected a different pattern in the use of verbs. In English, the use of nominals
remained greater than that of verbs throughout the investigation. However, in
Japanese, while nominals were initially used more than verbs, usage of verbs
progressively increased. From the time Hannah was 4;7, the proportion of verbs
became greater than that of nominals. In other words, the dominant category was
reversed for Japanese. Hannah began to show separate patterns between the two
languages after the age of 3;6.
In cross-linguistic studies of L1 children acquiring English and a verb-friendly
language, such as Japanese and Korean, it was found that children who are learning
verb-friendly languages acquire verbs at an earlier age than the English counterparts
(Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001; Kim, McGregor & Thompson, 2000; Ogura et al.,
1997). The behaviour of Hannah’s use of the two languages supports the findings of
157
respective L1 patterns. It can be suggested that Hannah’s Japanese and English
lexicons followed a separate development pattern, both resembling that of L1.
4.4.2 Personal pronouns
The personal pronouns are used differently in Japanese and English input languages.
JL1 and EL1 acquisition studies document different patterns of acquisition of these
pronouns between Japanese and English children. I first examined the timing of
appearance and the type of personal pronouns in Hannah’s corpora in the two
languages using the list of new nominals (Appendices H and J). For Japanese, there
was only one item in the entire corpus and it was watashi (= I). This word entered
Hannah’s lexicon at 3;6 (22J–25J).
English personal pronouns, on the other hand, appeared in Hannah’s lexicon from an
earlier time and greater in number than her Japanese, shown in Table 4.5. Hannah
used I, I’m, I’ve, me, my, you, and your during the first period. The pronoun I
appeared in three different forms: I, I’m and I’ve. Brown (1973) also found in his
study that the three English L1 children were using the pronouns I, you and my during
Brown’s Stage I (1;6~2;3). At 2;5, he’s, she’s, you’re and yours appeared as well as
two new variations of I’m. At 3;0, I appeared in a new form I’ll. At 3;6, we appeared
for the first time in the form of we’re. During 28E–31E, five more personal pronouns
including some reflexive, and they were him, his, myself, us and yourself. No new
personal pronouns found during the final period.
Table 4.5 English personal pronouns
Period
Hannah’s age
Personal pronouns
1E–6E
1;11
I, I’m, I’ve, me, my, you, your
7E–13E
2;5
he’s, I’ma, I’mi, she’s, you’re, yours
16E–19E
3;0
I’ll
22E–25E
3;6
d’you, we’re
28E–31E
4;0
him, his, myself, us, yourself
158
I also examined how these personal pronouns were represented in Hannah’s language
use in terms of frequency. I selected the 20 most frequently used lexical items46 in
each language, and they are listed in Appendix L for English and Appendix M for
Japanese.
The English first person pronoun I appeared among the most frequently used words in
every period from the beginning. The other forms of English first person pronoun my
and me were also among the frequently used words from the time she was 3;0 (16E–
19E). The second person pronoun you appears among this group of words from the
time Hannah was 2;5. As Father was the interlocutor in the English sessions, it can be
assumed that you referred to Father.
On the other hand, in Japanese, although the word watashi entered Hannah’s lexicon
at 3;6 (22J–25J), Hannah did not use it frequently until 4;0 (28J–31J). Until then,
Hannah used her name, hanahchan ‘Hannah + diminutive suffix’ (= Hannah) for self
addressing. During the first period, she also used the shortened form of her name by
using the first syllable. Clancy (1985) refers to the observations made by Ide (1977)
and Horiguchi (1979) that in general Japanese children refer to themselves by (name
/nickname) + chan47 and that they use this form of self addressing until the age of 6
years. It was only during the children’s third year that the overt usage of the first
person pronoun was detected. Hannah’s use of her own name for self addressing and
the timing of her acquisition of watashi agrees with what was reported in the previous
JL1 studies.
4.4.3 Summary
I observed both the language-general patterns and language-specific patterns in
Hannah’s lexical development of two languages. Despite the differences in the input
languages, Hannah began the learning of both languages with nominals. In other
46
The number 20 here was suggested by Gisela Håkansson (personal communication, December 2003).
Okubo (1984) used the criterion of ‘more than 40 occurrences’ for the selection for examination of
individual lexical items. It turned out in some of the segments the two criteria of top 20 and more than
40 occurrences coincided.
47
Chan is a diminutive suffix.
159
words, nominals facilitated Hannah’s acquisition of both languages. The words that
were frequent in the input languages, such as preposition and determiners for English,
and verbs or particles for Japanese, did not play this role. This suggests that the
language learning mechanisms for both languages must be able to extract nouns from
the input languages. Hannah’s results are consistent with the universal nounadvantage (Gentner & Boroditsky 2001) found among monolingual children of
different languages. Gentner and Boroditsky’s (2001) Natural Partitions Hypothesis
and the Relational Relatively Hypothesis also apply in the bilingual context of my
study.
The language specific patterns of lexical development was indicated by the learning
of verbs and personal pronouns. While Hannah’s English remained nominal-dominant,
her Japanese experienced a reverse in the dominant category of lexicon. Her Japanese
changed from being nominal-dominant to becoming verb-dominant at the end of the
duration of the investigation. This different development pattern of verbs in Hannah’s
Japanese and English are consistent with the findings from cross-linguistic
comparison between children acquiring Japanese and Korean and children acquiring
English as their first language (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001; Kim et al., 2000; Ogura
et al., 1997; Oshima-Takane et al., 1997). The cross-linguistic comparisons based on
monolingual data gathered by parent checklist data were found to be applicable in the
context of production data obtained from a bilingual child. The similarity between L1
findings and the results from Hannah’s corpus suggest that Hannah’s separate lexical
developmental patterns in Japanese and English followed language-specific patterns.
With respect to the acquisition and use of personal pronouns, Hannah also exhibited
language-specific patterns. While she acquired many English personal pronouns early
and used some of them frequently from the beginning, she only acquired one personal
pronoun watashi (= I) and did not use it frequently until she was 4;0. Her behaviour is
consistent with the findings of the acquisition and use of personal pronouns by
English-speaking and Japanese monolingual children.
These findings indicate that Hannah developed the lexicon of Japanese and English in
parallel but in a different manner. The next section presents the results of Hannah’s
acquisition of morphological structures in Japanese and English.
160
4.5
Acquisition of morphology48
In Chapter 3, I described the linguistic structures selected for analysis in this study
based on Pienemann (1998a), Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) and Kawaguchi
(2005a, 2005b). Each structure belongs to a stage defined in Processability Theory
(PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). Table 3.1 in Chapter 3 presents these structures.
Firstly, I determined the acquisition of each structure by applying the emergence
criterion. I conducted a frequency count and distributional analysis for each structure.
By comparing the timing of acquisition of structures within a language, I established
Hannah’s developmental sequence.
Secondly, I compared Hannah’s timing of and the developmental sequence of these
structures in Japanese and English with the finding from the previous L1 acquisition
studies of the respective languages. This comparison allows one to see whether each
language of BFLA is acquired in a similar manner to L1, and therefore, whether the
same language processing mechanism is at work for monolingual and bilingual first
language acquisitions.
Thirdly, I applied PT’s framework to Hannah’s developmental sequence. Pienemann
(1998a) claims that language learners go through the universal developmental
sequence of word or lemma access > category procedure > phrasal procedure > Sprocedure. If Hannah’s developmental sequence in Japanese and English follow the
predicted sequence respectively, then it would support the applicability of PT in the
bilingual context. It would provide further evidence for the universality of PT across
different types of language acquisition. In addition, it would also further support the
typological universality of PT, as the two languages involved in this study are
typologically different.
48
The results from this part of the analysis are also presented in Itani-Adams (2001, 2003a, 2003b,
2004).
161
Further, if PT proves to be applicable in the bilingual context, then the development
of two languages can be compared directly with each other. This can be done by
comparing the timing of arrival at a particular processing procedural stage in the two
languages.
I begin this section by presenting the results of Hannah’s acquisition of Japanese
structures in Section 4.5.1. I then present the results of her acquisition of English
structures in Section 4.5.2. Then I compare the results from Hannah’s corpora with
previous L1 findings in Section 4.5.3. Finally, I present and discuss the application of
PT to Hannah’s results in Section 4.5.4.
4.5.1 Acquisition of Japanese morphology
Japanese verbal morphology
I examined Hannah’s acquisition of six Japanese verbal morphemes: -te (REQ), -ta
(PAST), -chatta (COMPLETE), -u (NONPAST), -teru (PROG), and -nai (NEG).
When the same verb appears with different morphemes I categorise them as different
word forms. I use the term ‘-te form’ for verbs ending with the -te morpheme, ‘-ta
form’ for verbs ending with the -ta morpheme etc. Firstly I describe the process of the
frequency count and distributional analysis, then present the results.
The first step was to identify Hannah’s utterances in the data from each session for
lexical items that end with any of these morphemes. The phonological alteration of
the same morphemes was included. One such example is -de, a phonologically altered
form of -te. Some verbs, e.g., yomu (= read) undergo a phonological process and
receive the -de ending, e.g., yon-de (= please read), rather than the -te ending.
Morphemes altered due to Hannah’s developing phonological system were also
included for the analysis. For example, in the first few sessions, care was taken to
include words that end with -e as well. This was because preliminary observation of
these sessions revealed that Hannah added -e rather than -te in these sessions.
Non adult-like lexical items or word forms ending in any of the six morphemes,
conveying meaning of designated action, were included in the data. Examples from
162
Hannah’s sppech are: *yome-te49 (= please read) instead of yon-de in the adult form,
*ki-nai (= not come) instead of ko-nai, *nugi-ta (= took off (clothes)) instead of nuida and *yot-teru (= have) instead of mot-teru.
There were words Hannah used which conveyed different meanings from their
meanings in the input language. Such words were included in the analysis as long as
they were suffixed by one of the six morphemes and their meaning was clear. (3)
shows an example.
(3)
H Hanachan
*hake-ter-u?
Hannah-suffix
wear-PROG-NONPAST
‘Am I wearing (it)? A hat’
booshi
hat
2;9,15 (12J, 186)
In this example, Hannah asked Mother if she (Hannah) had her hat on by using a verb
*hake-ter-u ‘wear-PROG-NONPAST’ (= wearing). In the input language the stem of
this verb haku (= wear) is used for wearing clothing for lower part of a body such as
skirts, trousers, socks and shoes. In addition, in the input language the -teru form of
this verb would have been hai-ter-u not *hake-ter-u as Hannah said. The verb for
wearing something on one’s head is kaburu (= wear (a hat)) and the -teru form,
kabut-ter-u ‘wear-PROG-NONPAST’ (= wearing (a hat)) would have been used
instead. While Hannah’s choice of the verb *hake-ter-u does not reflect the input
language usage, she chose a verb expressing an action of putting something on a body.
Therefore, this token was included in the analysis.
The following categories were not included in the frequency count:
•
Words apparently ending in one of the target morphemes that were clearly not a
verb from the context , e.g., tete (= hand) in infant language
•
Words whose meaning is not clear
•
Formulaic expressions: e.g., itadakimasu (= I’m going to receive (a meal),
greeting said before eating food, equivalent to Bon Apétit in French)
•
Nai - negation of aru, where used as a lexical item50
49
The sign ‘*’ indicates that the utterance marked with this sign is not target like use.
50
In the analysis of the morpheme -nai, instances of the lexical item nai, which is the negative of a
verb aru (= exist), were omitted from the sample. Aru is used for inanimate objects. Both McNeill and
McNeill (1973) and Ito (1981) documented the use of nai as a lexical item where the TL meaning of
163
Interestingly, in the data for the current study, all words with the morphemes being
analysed resembled target language (TL) verbs. This is to say that no TL nouns were
used by Hannah with verbal morphemes. Therefore, I denote all lexemes that appear
with the six morphemes under investigation as ‘verbs’.
In Hannah’s corpus, the total of 400 tokens of -te form, 187 tokens of -ta form, 32
tokens of -chatta form, 342 tokens of -u form, 141 tokens of -teru form and 110
tokens of -nai form were found. The dominance of the function of request realised by
-te (REQ) may reflect the general behaviour of young children that they frequently
ask for things.
I listed the tokens of verbs with the six morphemes from corpus from 1J to 6J, i.e., the
first period of the duration of investigation. Table 4.6 (next page) presents the tokens
during the first period. The number in ( ) after each verb indicates the number of
occurrences within the session.
non-existence of inanimate objects was extended to also mean non-existence of animate objects,
rejection, and prohibition during the early stage of child language.
164
Table 4.6 Tokens of verbs with the morphemes investigate during the first period (1J-6J)
Session -te (REQ)
1J
3J
4J
5J
6J
-ta (PAST)
suwat-te(1)
(= sit down)
tat-te (1)
(= stand up)
ake-te (5)
mi-te (1)
ake-te (1)
ki-te (1)
nai-te (3)
oki-te (1)
oi-te (1)
suwat-te (1)
tabe-te (1)
tot-te (2)
(= open)
(= look!)
(= open)
(= come)
(= cry)
(= get up)
(= put (it there))
(= sit down)
(= eat)
(= pass (it to
me))
(= stay)
(= wait)
(= look!)
(= show me)
(= hold (this))
(= sit down)
(= stand up)
(= pass (it to
me))
i-te (1)
mat-te (1)
mi-te (1)
mise-te (1)
mot-te (2)
suwat-te (5)
tat-te (1)
tot-te (2)
-u (NONPAST)
shu-u (2)
(= do)
at-ta (1)
(= was there) ar-u (1)
(= is
there)
ake-ta (1)
it-ta (1)
at-ta (2)
koware-ta (1)
okkochi-ta (1)
yogore-ta (1)
(= opened)
shu-u (3)
(= went)
(= was there) nor-u (1)
(= broke it)
(= fell)
(= got dirty)
(= do)
deki-ta (3)
tabe-ta (1)
(= done it)
(= ate)
165
(= ride)
-teru (PROG)
oboe-teru
(= r
(1)
I examined the supply of the morpheme against the obligatory context. The main
functional context for each morpheme is as follows: -te: request; -ta: past tense; chatta: complete past; -u: nonpast; -teru: progressive, and; -nai: negative. Two
morphemes -ta and -chatta denote the past tense. Although -chatta carries a sense of
completion, the choice between these two morphemes can depend upon the style of
speech and it is not possible to determine which form would likely be uttered in a
particular interaction. Therefore if either -ta or -chatta is suffixed to a verb in the
context of past tense it is considered that the past tense marker is supplied in the
obligatory context.
Table 4.7 on page 168 provides the results of the frequency count of the Japanese
verbal morphemes. It shows the non-supply, supply and over-supply of each
morpheme of the spontaneous tokens for each session analysed. (4) illustrates the
over-supply of the morpheme -te and non-supply of the morpheme -teru. In this
example, Hannah was playing with her teddy bear and placed it in a cardboard box.
Mother asked Hannah if the teddy bear was sleeping inside the box, using a present
progressive morpheme -teru of the verb. To respond to Mother’s question, Hannah
used the -te form of a verb naku (= cry). The function of the morpheme -te is to
request, so her answer nai-te conveys the meaning of ‘please cry’. Instead, the
-teru form of the verb, nai-teru (= crying) would have been required to be used in this
context. Therefore, this token was counted as an over-supply of the -te morpheme,
and at the same time, a non-supply of -teru morpheme.
(4) M
hako no naka? . kumasan hako no naka de onenne shiteru no?
‘Inside the box? Is the teddy bear sleeping inside the box?’
H
nai-te
‘please cry’
2;3,16 (5J, 652)
As can be seen from Table 4.7, generally speaking, there were not many instances of
non- or over-supply. In 1J and 2J there were not very many verbs. In 3J four
morphemes (-te, -ta, -u, -nai) appeared. In session 4J there are six tokens of the -te
form (five occurrences of ake-te (= please open) and one occurrence of mi-te
(= look!), two in -ta (one ake-ta (= opened) and two it-ta (= went)), no token ending
in -chatta, three in the -u form, none in the -teru form and three in the -nai form.
Where there is no occurrence the cell is left blank. Not all the morphemes were used
166
during a session. The morpheme -teru came to be used regularly from 8J, followed by
the appearance of -chatta in 11J.
In order to examine the productivity of the morphemes, I conducted a distributional
analysis. In this analysis I first examined whether morpheme occurred with different
lexical items (lexical variation). Table 4.8 on page 168 shows the lexical variation.
The number indicates the number of verb types used with particular morphemes. For
example, in session 4J there were two verb types used in the -te form: ake-te (= please
open) and mi-te (= look!); two in -ta: ake-ta (= opened) and it-ta (= went); one in -u:
shu-u51 (= do); and one in -nai: kika-nai (= not listen). Where there is no occurrence
the cell is left blank. As a part of determining its productivity, a morpheme must be
used with at least two linguistic environments. The shaded cells show where a
morpheme was used with at least two different verbs within the session.
Then I examined whether the lexical items that occurred with one morpheme also
occurred with different morpheme(s) (form variation). Table 4.9 on page 168 shows
form variation. The number indicates the number of verbs that occurred with other
morphemes. For example, one verb that occurred with -te also occurred with other
morphemes: ake-te (= please open) and ake-ta (= opened).
It can be seen that by session 3J a set of contrastive morphemes was established from
lexical (Table 4.8) and form (Table 4.9) variation; however, there was not yet any
evidence of productive rule application. In 4J the morpheme -te is productively
applied for the first time. The remaining morphemes progressively emerged over the
next nine sessions, with -nai in 5J, -u in 7J and -ta and -teru in 8J, and -chatta in 13J.
The six morphemes emerged over five months. The productivity of Japanese verbal
morphemes is indicated by a ‘+’ in Table 4.10 on page 169. As 4J was the first
session in which Hannah productively used a Japanese verbal morpheme, I conclude
that the Japanese verbal morpheme emerged in this session. Hannah commenced her
acquisition of Japanese verbal morphology with -te (REQ) to mark request.
51
In the input language this verb is su-ru, however Hannah pronounced it as shu-u.
167
Table 4.7 Supply* of morphemes for each session
Session
te
ta
chatta
u
teru
nai
1J 2J
-1
-2
2
1
-1
3J
4J
5J
6J
2
1
6 8 >3
2 5
1
3 1
7J
14
4
8J
3 2
10J
15
11
15
6
12
6
29
6
7
14
6
7
6
6
18
10
4
-3
5
9J
2
11J
12J
25
8
1
20
19
1
13J
32
11
1
31
17
15
16J
60
11
5
42
26
11
19J
20
13
2
16
3
9
22J
24 >3
21 -1
1
31 -1
14 -1
12
23
21
4
19
11
5
*Non-supply is denoted by a leading minus sign ‘-’,over-supply is denoted by a leading ‘>‘, supply has no specific symbol.
Table 4.8 Number of verb types for each session by morpheme type (lexical variation)
Session
te
ta
chatta
u
teru
nai
1J
2J
3J
1
1
4J
5J
6J
2
1
2
2
8
4
1
1
3
1
7J
8
2
8J
9J
10J
11J
6
4
4
5
5
5
8
5
1
3
4
5
2
1
4
3
5
5
6
4
12J
10
6
1
6
5
1
13J
7
8
1
6
7
4
16
13
5
4
14
8
8
19
7
7
2
5
2
3
22J
11
10
1
7
6
4
11
8
3
9
5
3
Table 4.9 Summary of verb types that also appear with different morpheme (form variation)
Session
te
ta
chatta
u
teru
nai
1J
2J
0
1
3J
4J
5J
6J
0
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
7J
0
0
8J
9J
10J
11J
1
0
2
2
1
2
2
1
0
1
3
1
1
0
1
1
0
2
1
2
12J
3
2
0
5
2
0
168
13J
2
2
1
3
2
0
16J
7
3
3
8
5
4
19J
3
2
0
2
1
1
22J
5
9
1
6
4
2
Table 4.10 Emergence of Japanese verbal morphology
Session
1 2 3 4
J J J J
Verbal
morphology
5
J
+ +
6 7
J J
8 9 10 11 12 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 38
J J J J J J J J J J J J J J
+ + + + +
+ +
+ +
+
+
+ + +
In the above section I described the emergence of verbal morphology in Hannah’s
Japanese. I established that she commenced her acquisition of verb morphology with the
morpheme -te to mark request at the age of 2;2,13 (4J). Below, I shall present the results
from the analysis examining the course of Hannah’s acquisition of verbal morphology. I
conducted this analysis to determine whether there was any relationship between the verb
stem and the morphemes, and whether Hannah acquired verbal morphology in a
systematic way.
I followed Shirai and Anderson (1995) and Shirai (1998) in order to investigate the
relationship between the inherent meaning of a word and its morphological structures.
In order to conduct a detailed analysis around the time of her acquisition of the
morphemes, I used the corpus from the first period (1J–6J) of the duration of
investigation. The combination of verb stem and morphemes was analysed.
Each of the verb stems used by Hannah was categorised into four different groups using
Shirai’s (1998) four categories. These four groups are: Achievement, Accomplishment,
Activity and State. I presented the description of these categories in Table 2.8 in Chapter
2.
The results of the analysis are tabulated in Table 4.11 on page 170. For each verb stem,
the table shows the actual verb stem, the English meaning, Shirai’s four categories of
verbs (achievement (ach), accomplishment (acc), activity (act) and state), the number of
different morphemes suffixed to the verb stem, and the actual forms in which the verb
appeared in the data. Hannah’s age when the actual item appeared for the first time in the
data is indicated next to each item in ( ).
169
Table 4.11 Summary of Japanese Verbs and Their Suffixation (* = for inanimate objects. # = for animate
Verb stem
akeru
taberu
aru*
naku
iku
suwaru
tatsu
miru
kuru
oku
okiru
toru
matsu
miseru
iru#
motsu
kowareru
okkochiru
yogoreru
dekiru
iru
shiru
kiku
suru
noru
oboeru
(= open)
(= eat)
(= be (exist))
(= cry)
(= go)
(= sit)
(= stand)
(= look)
(= come)
(= place/put)
(= get up)
(= take)
(= wait)
(= show)
(= be (exist))
(= hold)
(= be broken)
(= fall)
(= get dirty)
(= can do)
(= need)
(= know)
(= hear)
(= do)
(= ride)
(= remember)
Shirai’s
category
ach
act
state
act
ach
ach
ach
act
ach
ach
act
ach
act
act
state
ach
ach
ach
ach
state
state
state
act
ach
ach
ach
No of
morph
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
-te
(request)
ake-te (2;2)
tabe-te (2;3)
-ta
(past)
ake-ta (2;2)
tabe-ta (2;4)
at-ta (2;1)
-u
(nonpast)
-teru
(pro
ar-u (2;1)
nai-te (2;3)
it-ta (2;2)
suwat-te (2;1)
tat-te (2;1)
mi-te (2;2)
ki-te (2;3)
oi-te (2;3)
oki-te (2;3)
tot-te (2;3)
mat-te (2;4)
mise-te (2;4)
i-te (2;4)
yot-te (2;4)
koware-ta (2;3)
okkochi-ta (2;3)
yoware-ta (2;3)
deki-ta (2;4)
shu-u (1;11)
nor-u (2;3)
obo
170
As already established above, Hannah used five verbal morphemes during these six
months: -te (REQ), -ta (PAST), -u (NONPAST), -teru (PROG), -nai (NEG). Of these
five morphemes, during this period, Hannah used the four, -te (REQ), -ta (PAST), -u
(NONPAST) and -nai (NEG), productively with both lexical and form variations. The
verb that was most productive in terms of suffixation was akeru (= open), which
occurred with three different morphemes: ake-te ‘open-REQ’, ake-ta ‘open-PAST’
and ake-nai ‘open-NEG’. Two verbs, taberu (= eat) and aru52 (= exist) occurred with
two different single morphemes. Taberu (= eat) appeared as tabe-te ‘eat-REQ’ and
tabe-ta ‘eat-PAST’. Aru (= exist) appeared as at-ta ‘exist-PAST’ and ar-u ‘existNONPAST’. The remaining verbs appearing in the six sessions did not have form
variation. Of the verbs Hannah used during these six months (not necessarily
productively), she used the request form with -te most dominantly.
The results indicate that a few verbs facilitate (or act as the model for) verbal feature
markings for later morpheme acquisition. These few verbs are the first ones to have
the feature annotated in their lexical entries. In Hannah’s case, these verbs were akeru
(= open), taberu (= eat), aru (= exist). The features marked were request, tense and
polarity. It is assumed that the verbs not yet showing form variation, such as kika-nai
‘listen-NEG’ and nor-u ‘ride-NONPAST’, would later follow the pattern of the model
verbs.
As for the association between the inherent meaning of verbs and the past tense
morpheme -ta (PAST), eight verbs occurred with this morpheme. Of these eight verbs,
five were achievement type verbs (it-ta, koware-ta, okkochi-ta, yoware-ta, ake-ta),
one was an activity (tabe-ta) and two were state verbs (at-ta, deki-ta). Hannah’s data
showed that while more achievement verbs appeared with -ta morpheme, state verbs
also occurred with it. This is in agreement with the findings of Shirai’s (1998) study,
and suggests Hannah also used the past tense morpheme -ta to denote ‘perfect’ aspect
during this period. While Shirai (1998) discusses the relationship between verbs and
-u (NONPAST) and -teru (PROG) morphemes, there were insufficient samples found
in Hannah’s data to draw any conclusions or comparison with Shirai’s (1998) study.
52
This verb is used for inanimate objects.
171
V-te V structure
The next Japanese structure I investigated was V-te V. I first describe the process of
frequency count and distributional analysis, then present the results of Hannah’s
acquisition of V-te V structure. Firstly, data were searched for instances of V-te
followed by another word X, i.e., V-te X, in each session. There were 68 instances of
V-te X in all the sessions analysed. All followed the V-te V structure, with the
exception of two instances in 34J where the X was a word not categorised as V in the
input language. These were tot-te goran (= try taking (it)) and itte choodai (= please
go). In the input language, both goran and choodai are categorised as N but act like
AUX. Both of these were excluded from the analysis, even thought they are adult-like
usage. Fifteen instances had the form V-te kudasai ‘V-COMP give’ (= please V).
Kudasai is an imperative form of a verb kudasaru ‘give’. V-te kudasai is used for
asking someone to do an action V, e.g., tabete kudasai (eat-COMP give ‘please eat’),
kite kudasai ‘come-COMP give’ (= please come). With V-te kudasai, the second V,
kudasai, is fixed. This means that a speaker needs to select only the first V in V-te
kudasai, unlike the V-te V structure in which a speaker needs to select both of the two
Vs. For this reason, I classified V-te kudasai as formulaic; therefore, I did not include
it for further analysis 53 in this thesis.
In total, 21 different types of V-te V were found. All the samples are listed in Table
4.12 . Some of them occurred more than once during a session resulting altogether in
25 tokens. It is interesting to note the change in the function Hannah expresses using
the V-te V structure. Until 22J, Hannah’s V-te V samples carry the function of
movement expressed by various forms of the second verbs iku (= go) and kuru (=
come), e.g., yot-te ik-u (= take), mot-te kur-u (= bring). Then in 25J, Hannah began to
express the potential, followed by benefactive seen by the usage of the second verb
kureru (= give me) and ageru (=give) in 34J. In 38J, another function, desire, is
expressed by the use of desiderative (DES) morpheme -tai with the second verb.
53
This is similar to the separate treatment by Di Biase and Kawaguchi (2002, p. 297) of V-te imasu ‘V-
COMP V-PROG’, e.g., tabe-te imas-u ‘eat-COMP PROG’ ((someone) is eating) from the V-te V. The
reason Di Biase and Kawaguchi gave was that imasu in this structure is no longer treated as V but has
become AUX. In my data there were no instances of V-te imasu.
172
Session
Table 4.12 Samples of Hannah’s V-te V
7J
12J
13J
19J
22J
25J
34J
38J
Samples
First V
Second V
suwat-te
yot-te54
mot-te
ugoi-te
ugoi-te
yot-te54
mise-te
yot-te
kit-te
shi-te
dashi-te
suru
ikia-shoo
kur-u
kir-u55
ki-ta
ik-u
sur-u
ik-u
dekir-u
dekir-u
kurer-u
mat-te
arui-te
de-te
kat-te
kit-te
kurer-u
ikerer-u56
kur-u
ki-ta
ager-u
modot-te
kazat-te
kazat-te
ki-te
age-ta
ageter-u
yon-de
it-te
kak-u
mi-tai
Gloss
‘sit-COMP do-NONPAST’
‘have-COMP go-POLITE-COH’
‘have-COMP come-NONPAST’
‘move-COMP come-NONPAST’
‘move-COMP come-PAST’
‘have-COMP go-NOPAST’
‘show-COMP do-NONPAST’
‘have-COMP go-NONPAST’
‘cut-COMP can do-NONPAST’
‘do-COMP can do-NONPAST’
‘take out-COMP) give meNONPAST’
‘wait-COMP give me-NONPAST’
‘walk-COMP can go-NONPAST’
‘exit-COMP come-NONPAST’
‘buy-COMP come-PAST’
‘cut-COMP give-NONPAST’
‘return-COMP come-REQ’
‘decorate-COMP give-PAST’
‘decorate-COMP give-PROGNONPAST’
‘read-COMP write-NONPAST’
‘go-COMP see-DES-NONPAST’
Meaning
(= please sit)
(= let’s take (it))
(= bring (something))
(= move (towards me))
(= moved (towards me))
(= take (something))
(= show)
(= take (something))
(= can cut)
(= can do)
(= take (something) out
for me)
(= wait for me)
(= can go by walking)
(= come out)
(= bought)
(= cut (something for
someone))
(= please return)
(= decorated for someone)
(= decorating for
someone)
(= read and write)
(= want to go)
The supply of Hannah’s V-te V structures were examined against the context. Table
4.13 shows the results. From the table, we can see that the regular output of V-te V
began in 12J, the same session in which Hannah’s Japanese MLU reached 2. It was
also during the period (7J–13J) in which Hannah’s Japanese experienced a high rate
of increase in V.
54
It is Hannah’s idiosyncratic pronunciation of a word mot-te ‘have-COMP’.
55
It is Hannah’s idiosyncratic pronunciation of a word kur-u ‘come-NONPAST’
56
In the input language this verb would have been ik-e-ru ‘go-POT-NONPAST’
173
Table 4.13 Supply* of V1-te V2
Session
V-te V
MLU
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
16J
19J
1.12
1.14
1.23
1.36
1.43
1.50
>1
1.61
1.73
1.73
1.54
1.79
2
2.03
2
2.07
2.11
1
2.19
Table 4.14 Lexical variety of V1-te V2
Session 1J
number
of V1
number
of V2
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
1
2
16J
19J
22
1
1
1
2
1
1
Table 4.15 Emergence of V-te V
Session 1J 2J 3J 4J 5J 6J 7J 8J 9J 10J 11J 12J 13J 16J 19J 22J 25J 28J 31J 34J 38J
V-te V
+
+
+
+
+
174
Of the 21 different types of V-te V structures used, four were categorised as oversupply. They are shown in (5) below.
(5)
a.
Hannah’s utterance
Meaning
Verb expected to be used
suwat-te sur-u
please sit
suwat-te
sit-COMP do-NONPAST
b.
mise-te sur-u
site-REQ
show
show-COMP do-NONPAST
c.
kit-te dekir-u
show-NONPAST
can cut
cut-COMP can do-NONPAST
d.
shi-te dekir-u
miser-u
kirer-u
cut-POT-NONPAST
can do
do-COMP can do-NONPAST
dekir-u
can do-NONPAST
The first instance of over-supply occurred in 7J, shown in (5a). In this example,
Hannah was asking Mother to sit next to her on the bench. As suwat-te alone would
have conveyed the function of the request, the use of sur-u was not required.
Therefore, this instance was categorised as over-supply of V-te V. Misete suru in (5b)
occurred in 22J and, from the context, the meaning it tries to convey was to ‘show’.
However in the input language, a single verb miseru (show-NONPAST) would have
been used. Therefore this token of V-te V was categorised as over-supply.
(5c) and (5d) occurred in 25J. (5d) occurred twice during this session. They both
convey the meaning of ‘able’ to do something. Hannah concatenated verbs to indicate
the action of kit-te ‘cut-COMP’ and shi-te ‘do-COMP’ respectively with a potential
verb, dekir-u (= can do), to convey the ability. In the input language, the potential
form (POT) of the two verbs would have been used e.g., kirer-u ‘cut-POTNONPAST’ (= can cut) and dekir-u ‘do-POT-NONPAST’ (= able to do (something)).
These tokens show Hannah’s creative use of language, as they would not have been
in the input.
After the frequency count, I conducted a distributional analysis in order to determine
the productivity. This involved the examination of the lexical variation of two verbs
of V-te V structure and their form variation. For convenience, in this section I call the
first verb V1 and the second verb V2, namely, V1-te V2. Table 4.14 on page 174
175
shows the result of the lexical variation. It provides the number of verb types of V1
and V2. For example, in 12J, there was one verb for V1, and two different verbs for
V2. From the table we can see evidence of lexical variation in sessions 12J, 13J, 25J,
34J and 38J. For the form variation, I examined whether V1 appearing as V1-te had
appeared in a different form within or prior to the session. This would demonstrate
the productive use of V1-te. The analysis of the form variation revealed that in all
samples of V1-te, V1 had appeared in the form of V1-te alone or with other verbal
morpheme(s) in previous session(s). This means that none of the V1-te were the
default form of the V1.
From the analyses of the lexical and form variations, it can be concluded that the V1te V2 structure was productive in 12J, 13J, 25J, 34J and 38J. It is indicated by a plus
‘+’ sign in Table 4.15 on page 174. As 12J was the first session to evidence the
productivity of V-te V, it is concluded that the V-te V structure emerged in 12J. The
emergence of V-te V occurred shortly after MLU reached 2 and during the period of
accelerated increase of V.
Agreement between noun marking and the morphology in the predicate
A realisation of agreement of the noun marking and the verbal morphemes in the
predicate is the suffixation of -ni (DAT) in the oblique (OBL) argument in the passive,
causative and benefactive constructions (Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi,
2005a, 2005b). I examined the suffixation of dative marker -ni to the OBL argument
in the passive (PASS), causative (CAUSE) and benefactive (BENE) structures in
Hannah’s data.
Passive and causative structures were determined by a verb that is agglutinated by
passive or causative morphemes, e.g., tabe-rare-ru ‘eat-PASS-NONPAST’ (= (be)
eaten), tabe-sare-ru ‘eat-CAUSE-NONPAST’ (= (be made to) eat). As described in
Section 2.2.3, benefactive structure is expressed by the lexical verbs of giving and
receiving: kureru (= give), ageru (= give), morau (= receive). Kureru is used when
the speaker is the receiver of goods or a favour. For other cases of giving, the verb
ageru is used. When these three verbs are used as a single verb, it is to indicate the
giving and receiving of objects. However, they can also be used as the second verb in
the concatenated verb structure V-te V to express the giving or receiving of an action
176
expressed by the first verb, e.g., kat-te ageru ‘buy-COMP give; (= (someone) buy
(something for someone else)).
The meaning of giving and receiving can also be expressed by the use of the word
choodai (= give (me)). Strictly speaking, choodai is not a verb. However, it is a
predicate conveying the same semantics and requiring the same linguistic structural
frame of the argument assignment. Ogura et al., (1997) included choodai in the
benefactive structures57.
I determined BENE structure in Hannah’s data by selecting the three verbs kureru (=
give), ageru (= give), morau (= receive) in any forms either as single verb or in the
V-te V structure. In addition, following Ogura et al., (1997), I included Hannah’s
utterances involving choodai (= give (me)) in the analysis.
It should be noted that when V-te ageru is contracted (e.g., when mite-ageru (lookCOMP give-NONPAST) is contracted to mitageru) it is still included in the data
provided it acts as a benefactive. The reason for this is that in this section of analysis,
the focus is in the information exchange between the verb morphology and the
arguments and not the verb formation per se. Contraction was demonstrated in 38J
where misete ageru ‘show-COMP give-NONPAST’ (= show) became misetageru.
In order to count the frequency of token, I first selected Hannah’s utterances with the
specific verbs described above for passive, causative and benefactive structures. In
Hannah’s corpus there was no instance of passive or causative structures – only
benefactive structures were available. I examined these utterances for the availability
of oblique argument (OBL). Only the utterances with an OBL were included in the
sample to be further analysed. There were seven benefactive utterances with OBL in
Hannah’s corpus and they are listed in Table 4.16.
57
Ogura et al. (1997) refer to the structure as yari-morai which translates as ‘giving and receiving’.
177
Table 4.16 Hannah’s benefactive utterances with oblique argument
Session Hannah’s utterance
(= give to Hannah)
2;5,11 (7J, 336 & 364)
hanachan no choodai
7J
(=
(I
will)
give
(a)
plum
(to)
2;6,18 (9J, 625)
puramu jon ageru
9J
john)
25J
hoka no hito ni agechau
(= (I’ll) give (it to)
somebody else.)
3;9,15 (25J, 277)
31J
papa ni watashi ni ni ageta
no
watashi wa dare kore agetai
(= Daddy gave (it) to me.)
4;3,23 (31J, 553)
(= Whom do I want to give
this (to)?)
4;7,26 (34J, 480)
hm ... shitara osara wa
zenbu watashi ni choodai
de sono ato watashi watashi
moo takeshichan ni moo ne
gohon no misetagenai yo
mama dake da yo
(= hm … then for the plates 4;7,26 (34J, 502)
(you) give (them) all to me.)
34J
38J
(= and after that, I, I will not 4;10,26 (38J, 380)
show you (Takashi) the
book any more. Only
mummy’)
I then examined the marking on the OBL in these seven utterances. Following Di
Biase and Kawaguchi (2002) the samples were categorised into three groups: OBL
overtly marked with -ni (DAT), OBL not case marked as DAT, and OBL marked
with another particle. The samples were also examined for the number of arguments
supplied (one, two or three). The number of arguments encoded explicitly can vary
because Japanese allows the ellipsis of argument if it is retrievable from the context.
However once an OBL is inserted it needs to be marked with -ni.
The first sample occurred in 7J, shown in (6), and this utterance occurred twice
during the session. This example had one overt argument and it used choodai to
indicate the benefactive. The OBL hanachan (= Hannah) had a case marking;
however, it was marked with the genitive marker -no (GEN), not with the dative
marker.
(6) H
hanachan-no
choodai
Hannah-GEN
give me
‘Give to me (Hannah)’
2;5,11, 7J (336 & 364)
The next sample in 9J had two arguments, shown in (7). In this instance, Hannah was
telling Mother that she would give the plum to her friend John. The subject, Hannah
herself, was omitted. The two arguments were an OBJ (puramu) and an OBL (jon).
178
The OBL in this utterance had a null marking. Therefore, we can not determine the
grammatical function of jon due to the lack of case marking.
(7) H
puramu
jon
ager-u
Plum
John
give-NONPAST
‘(I) will give (a) plum (to) John.’
2;6,26 (9J, 625)
After 9E there was no occurrence of the benefactive structures with OBL until 25J,
when Hannah was 3:9,15. The sample from 25J was an utterance with one overt
argument and it is shown in (8). In this sample, the OBL was marked with -ni (DAT).
This is the first appearance of -ni in benefactive utterance in Hannah’s corpus.
However, as it was the sole argument in the utterance, while -ni was correctly placed,
it is difficult to know whether it was done by chance.
(8)
H
dareka
hoka-no
hito-ni
age-chau
someone
other-GEN
person-DAT
give-NONPAST
‘I’ll give (it) to someone else.’
3;6,15 (25J, 277)
In 31J there was a two-argument benefactive utterance as shown in (9). From the
context, it is understood that it was Father who gave Hannah the picture which she
talked about here. Therefore, the two arguments were SUBJ (papa) and OBL
(watashi). Both SUBJ and OBL were suffixed with the dative marking -ni. However,
the SUBJ (papa) should have been marked with the nominative marker -ga (NOM) or
the topic marker -wa (TOP). Therefore, while OBL-ni was produced, the distinction
between SUBJ and OBL is not evident in this sample. In other words, the productivity
of OBL-ni was not proved. This sample shows some evidence that Hannah was
developing benefactive structure; however, her functional assignment of the
arguments was not yet fully developed.
(9)
H
papa ni
watashi ni
ni
age-ta
no
daddy-DAT
I-DAT
-DAT
give-PAST
P
‘Daddy gave (it) to me.’
4;3,23 (31J, 553)
In 34J there were two instances of benefactive utterances: one with the verb of giving
age-tai ‘give-DES’ (= want to give) and the other with the predicate choodai. Both
are shown in (10a) and (10b). (10a) was an utterance with three arguments: SUBJ
(watashi), OBJ (kore) and OBL (dare). The SUBJ was marked with -wa (TOP).
179
While -wa (TOP) topicalises any core argument, it marks SUBJ by default (Bresnan,
2001), therefore Hannah’s usage of -wa for SUBJ is appropriate. The other two
arguments were null marked. (10b) occurred during a pretend picnic and Hannah
asked Mother to give all the plates to her. The SUBJ which would be mama was
omitted. There were two arguments in this utterance: OBJ (osara) and OBL (watashi).
These two arguments were marked with different particles. The OBL was marked
with -ni (DAT) and the OBJ was marked with -wa (TOP). We can see evidence that
Hannah topicalised OBJ by the use of -wa (TOP). Further, as the two arguments were
appropriately marked, the grammatical functions of the arguments were distinguished
from each other. This distinction is sufficient evidence for Hannah’s productive use
of OBL-ni in this instance.
(10) a. H watashi-wa
I-NOM
dare
kore
agetai?
who
this
give-DES
‘Whom do I want to give this (to)?’
b. H hm ... shitara
hm then
4;7,26 (34J, 480)
osara- wa
zenbu
watashi- ni
choodai
plate-TOP
all
I-DAT
give
‘hm…then for the plates (you) give (them) all to me.’ 4;7,26 (34J, 502)
In 38J there was one utterance of the benefactive structure with an OBL, shown in
(11). This utterance occurred with a contracted verbal structure of V-te V:
misetagenai, contracted from misete agenai ‘show-COMP give-NEG’ (= not show).
It had three arguments all encoded explicitly: SUBJ (watashi), OBJ (gohon) and OBL
(takashichan). The OBL was appropriately marked with -ni (DAT). The OBJ was
inappropriately marked with -no (GEN). The SUBJ had a null marking, which occurs
in the input language. Although one of the arguments (OBJ) had an inappropriate
marking, in this instance, it was clear that OBL was distinguished from the other two
arguments. This is evidence that -ni (DAT) was productively applied to the OBL.
180
(11)
H
de
sono
ato
watashi watashi
moo
and
that
after
I
more
misetagenai
ESP
gohon *no
book-GEN
dake
only
da
COP
yo
takashichan ni
moo
ne
Takashi-DAT
more
yo .
P
mama
mummy
I
see-give-NEG
P
‘and after that, I, I will not show you (Takashi) the book any more. Only mummy’
4;10,26 (38J, 380)
The supply of the dative marker with OBL in Hannah’s benefactive utterances is
tabulated in Table 4.17. I present the supply in the utterances with the verb of giving
and receiving separately from the utterances with choodai. These two groups were
given names ‘benefactive’ and ‘choodai’ respectively. To summarise, Hannah began
to use -ni (DAT) with OBL in 25J; however, no evidence of the productive
application was found at this stage. Evidence for the productive application of -ni
(DAT) with OBL in benefactive utterance was found in 34J and 38J. This is indicated
by a plus sign in Table 4.18. In both cases, Hannah distinguished OBL from other
arguments such as SUBJ and OBJ and marked the OBL with the appropriate marker.
As the first productive application occurred in 34J, I conclude that the marking of
OBL with -in (DAT) in benefactive structure emerged in 34J.
181
Table 4.17 Number of tokens of dative marker
The three numbers separated by slashes (/) mean IO with -ni marking/IO without any marking/IO with marking other than -ni
No of
Session
8J 9J
10J 11J 12J 13J
argument 1J 2J 3J 4J 5J 6J 7J
16J 19J
Benefactive 1
Choodai
2
3
1
2
3
0/1/0
0/0/2
Table 4.18 Emergence of dative marker in benefactive structure
Session
1J 2J 3J 4J 5J 6J 7J 8J 9J 10J 11J
Suffixation of
-ni in
benefactive
structure
12J
13J
16J
19J
22J
25
13J 16J
19
+
+
+
Table 4.19 Summary of point of emergence in Japanese
Session
IO-ni in
benefactive
V-te V
Verbal
morphology
MLU
Hannah’s age
Lexical size
1J
2J
3J
4J
+
5J
+
6J
7J
+
8J
+
9J
+
10J 11J 12J
+
+
+
+
+
1.12 1.14 1.23 1.36
1.43 1.50 1.61 1.73 1.73 1.54 1.79 2.03
2.07 2.11 2.1
2;9,15
2;2,13
510
1267
182
Summary of acquisition of Japanese morphology
The emergence of different Japanese structures analysed is summarised in Table 4.19
on page 182. The verbal morphology emerged in 4J, V-te V structure emerged in 12J
and the dative marking on OBL in benefactive structure emerged in 34J. The
Japanese morphological structures analysed emerged in the following order:
verbal morphology > V-te V > -ni (DAT) of OBL in benefactive structure.
The emergence of verbal morphology was determined by the first emergence point of
the six verbal morphemes examined. The six verbal morphemes did not emerge
within the same session. The order of emergence of the verbal morphemes was: -te
(REQ) in 4J, -nai (NEG) in 5J, -u (NONPAST) in 7J, -teru (PROG) and -ta (PAST)
in 8J and -chatta (COMPLETE) in 13J. Hannah’s age spanned from 2;2 to 2;10
during this period. Verbal morphology emerged when the MLU was 1.36. It emerged
during the period when the total lexical size was approximately 51058 and when
Hannah was experiencing the first accelerated increase of the total lexicon. Hannah
commenced her acquisition of verbal morphology with -te to mark request.
Hannah also commenced her acquisition of verbal morphology with a few verbs.
These few verbs are the first ones to have the feature annotated in their lexical entries
and facilitate (or act as the model for) verbal feature markings for later morpheme
acquisition. In Hannah’s case, they were akeru (= open), taberu (= eat), aru (= exist),
and the features to be annotated were: request, tense and polarity. There was an
association between the inherent meaning of verbs and the past tense morpheme -ta
(see Shirai, 1998). In Hannah’s case, while more achievement verbs appeared with
the -ta (PAST) morpheme, state verbs also occurred with it.
The V-te V structure emerged in 12J when Hannah was 2;9. Her MLU had reached 2
and her total lexical size was 1267. This was one of the periods (7J–13J) when
Hannah experienced an accelerated increase in the use of verbs. The dative marking
of OBL in benefactive structure emerged in 34J when Hannah was 4;7. Her MLU was
3.55 then and her total size of lexicon was approximately 179859. Her lexical
58
Number of lexical items interpolated from Hannah’s lexicon in cumulative data (see Figure 4.7)
59
Number of lexical items interpolated from Hannah’s lexicon in cumulative data (see Figure 4.7)
183
development of Japanese in this segment showed a few characteristics. Her Japanese
experienced the second accelerated increase of the lexicon. Her use of verbs also
showed an accelerated increase resulting in her Japanese becoming verb-dominant.
4.5.2 Acquisition of English morphology
The morphological structures of English that were analysed in this study are: English
verbal morphology (-ing and -ed), plural marker -s without agreement, NP agreement
and SV agreement. In the following section, I present the results of the analysis for
each structure and summarise the findings at the end.
English verbal morphology
I conducted a frequency count and distributional analysis to determine the emergence
of -ed and -ing in Hannah’s English corpus. With -ing, as in Brown’s (1973) study,
when there was any doubt V-ing might have been used like a noun, i.e., gerund, or
used as a modifier, such instances were not included for the analysis. For the
morpheme -ed, if the V-ed form was as an adjective such as in I’m tired, it was
excluded from the analysis. Further, if the V-ed was used as a past participle in
passive or present perfect tense with the appropriate AUX, they were not included in
further analysis. The number of analysable tokens in Hannah’s corpus for each
morpheme was eight for -ed and 107 for -ing. The supply of the morphemes was
examined against the context. Table 4.20 on page 185 presents the result of the
frequency count.
184
Table 4.20 Supply* of verbal morphemes in each session
Session 1E 2E 3E 4E 5E 6E 7E 8E 9E 10E 11E 12E 13E 16E 19E 22E 25E 28E 31E 34E 38
-ed
2
3 -2 2
1
-ing
1
6
7
1
4
2
4
19
14
4
9
8
2
11
7
3
1
4
*Non-supply is denoted by a leading minus sign ‘-’, over-supply is denoted by a leading ‘>’, supply has no specific symbol.
Table 4.21 Verb stems used with -ed
Session Verb stem
saw, pick
22E
kill, finish, call
25E
go, change
28E
push
38E
185
With the morpheme -ed, all the eight tokens were supplied in the past tense context.
The first session in which -ed appeared was 22E, when Hannah was 3;6. No context
for -ed marking was observed in the corpus prior to 22E. This is not to say there was
no past tense context. The past tense context was available prior to 22E; however,
they were all realised by the irregular past tense form e.g., got, broke, or the past
tense of the copula and AUX such as was, but -ed was not observed. In Hannah’s
corpus, there was no past tense context with a regular lexical verb until 22E. The
eight samples of -ed in Hannah’s corpus are shown below.
(12) a.
H
I sawed it
3;6,15 (22E, 397)
b.
H
mike picked that today
3;6,15 (22E, 427)
c.
H
sailormoon hannah . it killed it
3;9,12 (25E, 185)
d.
H
we finished the game
3;9,12 (25E, 473)
e.
H
I called that hasamiya
3;9,12 (25E, 397)
f.
H
yeah . is he better goed gone to my school now 4;0,15 (28E, 70)
g.
H
yeah she changed she changed
h.
H
yeah . he never pushed me . he never do something to me . but he
4;0,15 (28E, 74)
just was doing silly things at the (next=)
4;10,25 (38E, 132)
(12a) occurred in 22E, when Father and Hannah were looking at some trees in the
garden. In (13) below we can see Father’s response to Hannah’s utterance.
(13)
H
I sawed it
3;6,15 (22E, 397)
F
yeah you saw it?
By considering ‘I sawed it’ out of context, it is difficult to determine if it is the -ed
suffixed form of the verb saw (to cut something), or the past tense of see. From
Father’s response, it can be determined that saw here was the past tense of a word
meaning see. In 22E, there is no instance of saw used by Hannah meaning SEE but
there are three tokens of see meaning SEE. It seems that in 22E, Hannah used see
meaning SEE but to mean the past tense of SEE she suffixed the past tense marker
-ed to saw which, from the input language perspective, is already the past tense form
of SEE. This is an example of ‘developmental error’ discussed by Brown (1973).
Saw-ed meaning the past tense of SEE would not have occurred in the input language;
therefore, her output of sawed is evidence of Hannah’s creative use of language. (12f)
presents another example of developmental error, go-ed.
186
There was not an instance of over-supply but there were two non-supply of -ed in the
past tense context with a regular lexical verb. They both occurred in 25E with a verb
finish. The instances are presented in (14a) and (14b)
(14) a.
H
h h u::m u:m I finish
3;9,12 (25E, 421)
b.
H
u:m u:m I finish it up
3;9,12 (25E, 441)
The verb stems to which Hannah suffixed -ed in each session are presented in Table
4.21 on page 185. All the tokens of -ed in Hannah’s corpus were used with different
verb types.
With the morpheme -ing, there were 107 tokens. The use of the -ing marking began
more than one year earlier than the -ed marking. The first token of -ing appeared in
3E, shown in (15).
(15)
H
ah . teddy jumping
2;1,9 (3E, 547)
Hannah consistently used -ing from 5E when she was 2;3,16. A sample of -ing from
the final session, 38E, is given in (16).
(16)
H
he e trying to eat a shoe
4;10, 25 (38E, 92)
With the morpheme -ing, the verb stems to which Hannah suffixed -ing in each
session are presented in Table 4.22.
187
Table 4.22 Verb stems used with -ing
Session Verb stem
jump
3E
check, play, sleep
5E
come, cry, jump, sleep
6E
go
7E
come, cry, sleep
8E
eat
9E
come
10E
come, do, go, make, paint, talk, work
11E
come, do, eat, fight, go, help, rain, swim
12E
come, cook, do, pick
13E
come, cut, do, hop, sit
16E
come, cry, cut, eat, hold, jump, stay, swim
19E
look
22E
come, catch, get, go, hurt, rain, talk, wait
25E
do, fall, get, go, put, speak
28E
do, sleep, write
31E
drive
34E
do, try
38E
In order to determine the productivity of the morphemes, I conducted a distributional
analysis by examining the lexical and form variations. Table 4.23 on page 190
presents the lexical variation. It shows the number of verb types that occurred with
either -ing or -ed per session. For -ed, the lexical variation was detected in 22E, 25E
and 28E. The lexical variation for -ing was detected in 5E, 6E, 11E, 12E, 13E, 16E,
19E, 25E, 28E 31E and 38E.
I then examined the form variation. Table 4.24 on page 190 presents the results of
form variation. Form variation shows the number of verb types that occurred with
either -ing or -ed that also occurred in a different form60 during the same session. For
example, in 5E two of the three verbs with -ing also occurred in another form: play
occurred as playing and play; sleep occurred as sleeping and sleep. As discussed in
Chapter 3, two or more lexical variations together with one or more form variation
within a session was considered evidence for the productive application of a
morphology. The sessions where evidence of rule application were found are
indicated by a plus sign inTable 4.25 on page 190. For the -ed morpheme, the
60
Verbs suffixed with either -ing or -ed were examined if they also appeared in the bare form during
the same session. Here bare form includes the present tense form and infinitive form.
188
productive application was detected in 22E and 28E. The productive application of ing were in 5E, 6E, 11E, 12E, 13E, 16E, 19E, 25E, 28E 31E and 38E.
The morpheme -ing emerged in 5E, when Hannah was 2;3, and -ed emerged in 22E,
when she was 3;6. The time of emergence of these two morphemes was more than
one year apart. For each morpheme, once the rule application emerged, the morpheme
was productively and continuously used. As for the emergence of verbal morphology,
I consider 5E to be the point of emergence. Therefore, Hannah’s English verb
morphology emerged in 5E at age 2;3 and it began with -ing to mark progressive.
The acquisition of -ing being earlier than that of -ed was also documented in EL1
acquisition studies (Brown, 1973). This order of -ing being acquired before -ed may
be explained by the concepts that are realised by these linguistic means, namely
aspect (-ing) and tense (-ed). Shirai and Anderson (1995) discussed that aspect is
acquired earlier than tense in their Aspect Hypothesis. Hannah’s data also support this
hypothesis.
189
Table 4.23 Summary of verb types for each session by verb forms (lexical variation)
Session
1E
2E
-ed
-ing
3E
4E
1
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
3
4
1
3
1
1
7
8
4
5
8
2
1
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
3
3
1
2
3
1
1
10E
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22
+
+
+
+
+
+
Table 4.24 Number of verbs that appear in other form(s) (form variation)
Session
1E
2E
3E
4E
-ed
-ing
5E
6E
7E
2
2
1
8E
9E
10E
Table 4.25 Emergence of English verbal morphology
Session
Verbal
morphology
Hannah’s
age
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
+
+
7E
8E
9E
2;3,16
190
As with the Japanese data, I analysed Hannah’s verbs during the first period (1E–6E)
in order to determine whether there is a relationship between verb stem and verbal
morphology. Thirty-one verb stems were identified during this period. These verbs
appeared in the bare form (infinitive and present tense), progressive form (-ing),
irregular past tense (e.g., broke), and past participle (e.g., broken, gone, done). The
progressive morpheme -ing was the only suffixation used during this period, and it
was used productively. Six verb stems play, sleep, come, check, jump and cry
appeared with -ing. Of these six verb stems, four of them, play, sleep, come, and
check, had form variation. The form variation in each case was the bare form and -ing.
Table 4.26 shows the verbs, Shirai’s four categories of verbs (achievement (ach),
accomplishment (acc), activity (act) and state), the number of different forms, and the
actual forms in which they appeared. For English, the four verbs play, sleep, come,
and check facilitated the acquisition of verbal morphemes. The first feature to be
annotated in the lexicon was progressive. It is interesting to see that the verbs play,
sleep, and check, which can occur as nouns as well as verbs, are the items that
initiated the feature marking for verbs.
Shirai (1998) noted that English children began using -ing with activity verbs. With
Hannah, four of the six verbs with -ing were activity verbs but the remaining two
were categorised as achievement verbs.
191
Table 4.26 Summary of English verbs and their suffixation
Verb
Shirai’s No of
Bare form
Category forms
play
act
2
play (2;3)
sleep
act
2
sleep (2;3)
come
ach
2
come (2;3)
check
ach
2
check (2;4)
jump
act
1
cry
act
1
see
act
1
see (1;11)
catch
ach
1
catch (2;0)
open
ach
1
open (2;0)
know
state
1
know (2;1)
look
act
1
look (2;1)
shut
ach
1
shut (2;1)
do
ach
1
do (2;2)
go
ach
1
go (2;2)
hold
act
1
hold (2;2)
say
act
1
say (2;2)
try
act
1
try (2;2)
get
ach
1
get (2;3)
help
ach
1
help (2;3)
like
state
1
like (2;3)
make
ach
1
make (2;3)
press
act
1
press (2;3)
put
ach
1
put (2;3)
ride
ach
1
ride (2;3)
set
ach
1
set (2;3)
show
act
1
show (2;3)
sit
act
1
sit (2;3)
wake
act
1
wake (2;3)
want
state
1
want (2;3)
eat
act
1
eat (2;4)
wait
act
1
wait (2;4)
* The final e is dropped when followed by -ing.
-ing form
play-ing (2;3)
sleep-ing (2;4)
com(e)*-ing (2;4)
check-ing (2;3)
jump-ing (2;1)
cry-ing (2;4)
English plural marker -s (without agreement)
The next English morphological structure analysed is the plural marker -s. I present
the results of Hannah’s acquisition of plural marker -s on single nouns without
agreement (as opposed to full NPs). The first step of analysis was to code Hannah’s
data for nouns. Following Brown’s (1973, p. 262) method for plural marking,
pronouns were not included in the analysis. Also excluded from the analysis were
nouns in formulaic expressions, e.g., a look in have a look. Nouns apparently used as
a modifier for another noun were also excluded.
192
Of the nouns found in Hannah’s corpus, the ones ending with -s (i.e., N-s) , were
selected. Then I examined the function of the -s according to the context. The English
nominal morpheme -s marks multiple features such as plural (e.g., books), possessive
(e.g., Mary’s pen) and contracted verb (e.g., Mary’s = Mary is/has). I excluded the
tokens of possessive, contracted verbs, and the ones whose functions were not clearly
determined from the analysis. I also examined the context for plural in Hanna’s
corpus. Supply and non-supply of -s in the plural context and over-supply of -s in a
non-plural context were also analysed.
There were 70 tokens of supply, one non-supply and one over-supply of plural -s in
Hannah’s corpus. The first Ns occurred in 4E, when Hannah was 2;2. Hannah’s
supply in each session are given in Table 4.27. The number in brackets indicates the
token number.
Table 4.27 Samples of N-s
Session Samples
banas (1), boots (9)
4E
ants (1), CDs (2), shoes (3)
5E
chooks (1), news (3)
6E
gumboots (4)
8E
kids (1)
11E
gumboots (1)
16E
games (1) , pieces (2), scissors (1), shoes (2), toes (5), toys (1)
19E
ants (3)
22E
colours (1)
25E
dolls (1), elephants (1), friends (1), schools (1), shapes (2), turtles (1)
28E
branches (1), colours (1), hands (1), legs (2), photos (1), rabbits (1) tables
31E
(1), things (1)
shells
(1), snakes (1)
34E
animals (2), books (1), peoples (1), scissors (2), snakes (2) things (2)
38E
The instance of over-supply of -s occurred in 13E and it is shown in (17). Hannah
said apples when there was one apple.
(17)
F
hm . oh what’s this?
H
apples
F
yes how many
H
one
2;10,5 (13E, 674)
193
The instance of non-supply also occurred in 13E, and it is given in (18). Hannah said
cherry when there were two cherries.
(18) H
cherry
F
how many?
H
one two yeah
F
two that's [right]
2;10,5 (13E, 667)
The frequency count of supply, non- and over-supply of plural -s is presented in
Table 4.28 on page 195.
I then conducted a distributional analysis to examine the productivity of the plural
marker -s. Lexical variation, i.e., the number of different nouns appearing as N-s in
each session was examined first. Table 4.29 presents the lexical variation. For
example, 10 tokens of N-s in 4E occurred with two different nouns: banas61 and boots.
Form variation was also examined by analysing how many N-s in each session also
appeared in the form of N (N without -s ending) within the same session. Table 4.30
presents the results. The form variation was detected in sessions 6E, 22E, 25E, 28E,
31E and 38E. The tokens of form variation are tabulated in Table 4.31.
The sessions in which two or more lexical variations and one or more form variations
occurred were 6E, 28E, 31E, and 38E. In these sessions the plural marker -s was
considered to be productively applied. This is indicated by a plus sign in Table 4.32.
As 6E was the first session in which the plural marker -s was detected, it can be
concluded that the plural marker -s without agreement emerged in 6E at age 2;4.
In the next section I shall present the results of Hannah’s plural marking in full NPs
where agreement between the determiner and the noun is required.
61
Banas was used to mean bananas.
194
Table 4.28 Supply of N-s
Session
N-s
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
10
6
4
7E
8E
9E
10E
4
11E
12E
1
13E
16E
19E
22E
0-1>1
1
12
3
13E
16E
19E
22E
1
1
6
1
16E
19E
22E
Table 4.29 Number of noun types (lexical variation)
Session
N-s
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
2
3
2
7E
8E
9E
10E
1
11E
12E
1
Table 4.30 Number of nouns that appeared in both N-s and N forms (form variation)
Session
N-s
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
1
1
Table 4.31 Nouns that appear both as N and N-s
Session Nouns (N/N-s)
6E
chook/chooks
22E
ant/ants
25E
colour/colours
28E
elephant/elephants, school/schools
31E
colour/colours, hand/hands, photo/photos,
rabbit/rabbits
38E
thing/things, snake/snakes, book/books
Table 4.32 Emergence of plural marker
Session
1E
Ns
Hannah’s
age
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
+
2;4,15
195
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
NP agreement (plural)
I examined when Hannah began to use the plural marker -s with the head noun within
a full NP with a plural determiner. NP agreement is achieved by a unification of the
value PL(ural) for the feature NUM(ber) between the determiner and the head noun,
as discussed in Section 2.6.2.
I focused on NPs with plural determiners; however, I did not include NPs with
pronouns such as ‘one’ as the head noun. The plural determiners are the number in a
number reference such as two in two dogs, many, some, those and these. This is
because NP agreement can only become a requirement if the linguistic context exists
that necessitates the information unification between determiner and noun. When
Hannah uttered a plural NP with its head noun suffixed with -s, such as in two dogs,
we need to know that the noun with -s (dogs) had also occurred as a singular form
(dog) either prior to or during the same session. This is to prove that the plural form
of the noun was not the default form of that noun in Hannah’s lexicon, that is, that
Hannah productively applied the rule of plural.
There seem to be two distinct categories of NPs with regard to types of determiner 62.
One category involves a number reference. An example of this type is two dogs. It is
assumed that the information processing required for this type of NP agreement is
conceptual. In this thesis, I called this category ‘conceptual NP’. The other category
of NP involves plural determiners such as some, many, or those. NPs of this type
requires information exchange that is purely grammatical between the determiner and
the noun. I called this category ‘grammatical NP’ in this thesis. In the analysis of
acquisition of NP agreement I also investigated if there is any relationship between
the two categories of NP and order of acquisition.
I counted the frequency of NPs with a plural determiner. The two categories of NPs
mentioned above were counted separately. For both types of NP the non-supply was
defined to be when the plural determiner was available but the plural form of the
62
I would like to thank Manfred Pienemann and Bruno Di Biase for drawing my attention to the
different types of information exchange required for the NP agreement depending upon the plural
determiner involved.
196
noun (N-s) was not supplied within the NP. Supply is when the N-s was supplied
within a plural NP. There is no over-supply category in this analysis as all the NPs
analysed had a plural determiner. Tokens were then examined for productivity. I have
already established that the plural marker -s (without agreement) on single nouns
emerged in Hannah’s corpus in 6E at age 2;4 in the section above. Therefore, there
was no need to re-determine the productivity of the plural marker. However, the
corpus needed to be examined to establish the default form of each noun by
ascertaining if a particular noun appearing as N-s had appeared as N prior to the
session.
There were three tokens each of conceptual NPs and grammatical NPs. The first
token was a grammatical NP occurring in 19E at age 3;3. No context for NP
agreement was found prior to 19E in the corpus. The next token occurred in 28E at
age 4;0 and it was a conceptual NP. This was followed by two tokens (one of each
category of NP) in 31E at age 4;3 and again in 38E at age 4;10. Table 4.33 shows
Hannah’s utterances with NP-s tokens. The number in ( ) after each utterance
indicates the turn number within the session.
Table 4.33 Hannah’s tokens of N-s in Plural NP
Session Hannah’s Grammatical NP
age
19E
3;3,0
the angela got these rabbits?
(755)
28E
4;0,15
(no token)
31E
4;3,23
38E
4;10,25
no I want I want to make some
photos (178)
don’t wreck these stickers
because that that that so we
know it (364)
Conceptual NP
(no token)
ha ha ha I gota three knights .
on here (480)
we saw two tongues daddy
(673)
two naughty boys there .
sometimes= (124)
There were nine months between the first and the second tokens. Hannah actually
produced a number of NPs with a plural determiner such as ‘some juice’ and ‘more
milk’ during these nine months. However, in these NPs the nouns were not suffixed
with the -s marking and were not expected to be, because these nouns were
uncountable nouns. Such instances of NPs were not recorded in the frequency count
for this study, because they were not categorised as either non-supply of N-s or
supply of N-s.
197
The supply of the plural marker -s was examined against the context. All the tokens
of NPs with plural determiner contained N-s. There was no instance of non-supply in
the corpus. In 28E, the token three knights occurred when Hannah and Father were
playing a game of chess. In 31E, Hannah said the grammatical NP, some photos,
when she was drawing pictures on several sheets of small rectangular paper,
pretending they were photographs. The other token from 31E is a conceptual NP and
two tongues occurred when Hannah and Father were talking about lizards. The
grammatical NP from 38E, these stickers, occurred when Hannah and Father were
looking at a book. The conceptual NP from the same session, two naughty boys,
occurred when Hannah was telling Father about her school.
Next I examined the productivity of N-s within plural NPs. For each N-s the corpus
was examined to determine if the noun appearing as N-s also appeared in form N in
the same or a previous session. The analysis revealed that for all sessions in which a
plural NP occurred, at least one noun appeared as form N during or prior to the
particular session.
The first noun which occurred in a plural NP was rabbits in 19E. Two spontaneous
tokens of its single form rabbit were found in session 16E. These two tokens are
provided in (19a) and (19b) below, and they establish that rabbits in 19E was not the
default form of the noun. Note that rabbit in (19b) occurred in the singular linguistic
environment. It was Hannah’s response when Father asked her ‘ah what do you get at
school? What prize at school?’. The contrast of rabbit/rabbits in conjunction with the
linguistic environment, i.e., singular and plural, shows that Hannah marked the plural
function with the morphology -s.
(19)
a. H
put rabbit in it
3;0,21 (16E, 931)
b. H
ah ume er . a rabbit
3;0,21 (16E, 1087)
For the other nouns which appeared in the form of N-s in plural NP, the contrasting
single N form was found in the previous sessions for the following nouns: knight,
photo, and boy. No contrasting single N form was found for nouns tongue and sticker.
198
Knights occurred during 28E. There were two tokens of the single form, knight, found
in 28E, shown in (20a) and (20b). X in (20a) represent indistinguishable speech (see
Appendix D).
(20)
a. H
you got none hor XX one two three four I got four h h you got none
none horsey none knight . if you take black X . XX . see? . I got two
b. H
h
4;0,15 (28E, 484)
(nota) I like knight
4;0,15 (28E 588)
Photos occurred in 31E. There were also two tokens of single form of the noun photo
in 31E, shown in (21a) and (21b).
(21)
a. H
I gonna make the photo
4;3,23 ( 31E, 392)
b. H
daddy I want to make a photo now
4;3,23 (31E, 420)
In 38E, boys occurred in a plural NP two naughty boys. The single form of the noun
boy appeared during the same session, shown in (22).
(22)
H
is that bad boy?
4;10,25 (38E, 40)
The productive application of NP agreement was established for the sessions 19E,
28E, 31E and 38E. This is indicated by a plus sign in Table 4.34. 19E was the first
session in which productive NP agreement was detected. Therefore it can be
concluded that NP agreement emerged in 19E when Hannah was 3;3,0.
Table 4.34 Productivity of NP agreement
Session
NP agreement
Hannah’s age
19E
28E
31E
38E
+
3;3,0
+
4;0,15
+
4;3,23
+
4;10,25
The NP in 19E was a grammatical NP. Agreement in a conceptual NP was realised
for the first time in 28E. The analysis showed that NP agreement emerged for the
grammatical NP prior to that for the conceptual NP. However, as there was no context
requiring a conceptual NP until 28E, no conclusion can be drawn as to the existence
of any general order of emergence of the two types of NP agreement.
199
SV agreement
The last morphological structure in English I analysed was the SV agreement. This is
the suffixation of -s to the finite verb, in a present tense indicative sentence where the
SUBJ of the sentence is a third person singular (3sg). According to LFG (Lexical
Functional Grammar), SV agreement requires unification between NPSUBJ and VP for
features NUM(ber), PERSON and TENSE. Third person singular -s is sensitive to the
following features listed in (23) (Zhang 2002b, p. 81; adopted from Pienemann,
1998a, p.138). Pienemann (1998a, p.138) suggested that the early child language may
initially be limited to a subset of these categories and features.
(23)
tense:
present
subject:
+
subject number:
singular
subject person:
third
verb:
+
modal:
-
Brown (1973, p. 261) discussed the difficulties in defining the obligatory context for
the study of development of SV agreement in early child language. He explained that
the pure linguistic context alone, i.e., third person singular present indicative, is not
sufficient to define the obligatory context. An example given by Brown (1973)
Mummy use it has several possibilities: (a) third person singular -s is missing (uses),
(b) a modal such as ‘can’ is missing (Mummy can use it), (c) AUX and a verbal
suffixation of -ing are both missing (Mummy is using it). Situational or functional
context is necessary for determining what is missing. For example, if mummy uses it
habitually, or if the child is trying to convey the mother’s ability to use it, or if
mummy is allowed to use it. A simple binary system (does a verb have -s or not) is not
enough to define the obligatory contexts and will not reveal the complexity of SV
agreement development. Brown (1973) noted that the analysis of acquisition of SV
agreement was possible only when obligatory contexts for SV agreement were clearly
determined by reference to both linguistic and situational/functional contexts.
Therefore, in the analysis of acquisition of SV agreement, the first task was to define
the obligatory contexts in the corpus. Then a frequency count and a distributional
200
analysis was conducted. The data were initially selected according to the linguistic
context then re-examined according to the situational/functional context. The results
of determining the obligatory contexts and frequency count are presented with
explanation of samples session by session. Then the results of the distributional
analysis is presented, followed by discussion of the emergence of SV agreement of
Hannah’s English.
For SV agreement to be required an utterance must have 3sg subject and a main verb.
Therefore, the corpus was firstly filtered for two independent linguistic structures:
availability of a subject and availability of a verb. The utterances with a subject were
further categorised depending upon the type of subject: third person singular (3sg) or
other. The utterances with a verb were further categorised according to the verb form:
verb with -s suffixation (coded as V-s) and other. Other verbs included past tense or
past participle forms (including irregular verbs) (coded as V-ed), verb in bare form
(coded as V) and verb with -ing suffix (coded as V-ing). The utterances that had
either 3sg subject and/or V-s63 were examined for the availability of AUX/modal,
sentence type (indicative, question or negation) and situational/functional context.
The context of each sample with a 3sg subject and a verb was examined for
requirement for SV agreement. Then the supply of -s was examined against the
context. Table 4.35 presents the result of the supply of third person singular 3sg-s in
Hannah’s corpus.
Table 4.35 Supply of third person singular -s (3sg-s)
Session 1E~10E 11E 12E 13E 16E 19E 22E 25E 28E 31E
34E 38E
4
-3>1
1
-1
>2
>1
11 -3 >2
-5
-2
-1
-2
-1
2
-2
V-s
*Non-supply is denoted by a leading minus sign ‘-’, over-supply is denoted by a leading ‘>‘, supply has no specific
symbol.
There was no context for SV agreement or a token of V-s between 1E and 10E. This
is indicated by the blank cell for ‘1E~10E’. The first session to include obligatory
context for SV agreement was 11E. However, it was not until 25E, the 3sg-s was first
supplied in the obligatory context. Over-supply began to occur from 28E. Altogether,
there were 20 non-supply, 18 supply and six over-supply of 3sg-s in the corpus. An
63
These included utterances which had 3sg subject with any form of verb, and utterances which had
V-s with any other subject.
201
example each of non-supply, supply, and over-supply is shown below in (24), (25)
and (26) respectively.
The example of non-supply(24) occurred when Hannah explained to Father that her
mother called tortoise kamesan (= tortoise) in Japanese. This sample qualified as
obligatory contexts for 3sg-s as it was about what Mother did habitually. However, as
the verb was not suffixed with -s, this sample was categorised as non-supply.
(24) H
mummy say kamesan
2;10,5 (13E, 552)
The example of supply (25) occurred when Hannah was talking about a friend who
went to the same school as herself. The S of the utterance was he, third person
singular, and the verb go was suffixed with -s.
(25) H
he goes to my school too
4;0,15 (28E, 136)
The example of over-supply (26) occurred when Hannah and Father were playing a
game of chess. Hannah remembered that while her father’s pieces had magnets so that
they stick to the chess board, her friend Tom’s chess pieces did not have magnets on
the bottom. Without the magnets, Tom’s chess pieces cannot stick to the board. This
utterance was categorised as not requiring the 3sg-s suffixation due to the insertion of
AUX, can’t, in the preverbal position. However, Hannah suffixed the verb stick with s forming sticks. Therefore, this token of -s was categorised as over-supply.
(26) H
but you= but Tom can’t sticks
4;0,15 (28E, 444)
As mentioned above there were 18 supply of 3sg-s. One sample each from different
sessions is listed below. In order to highlight the supply, the 3sg-s in these sample are
written in bold. (27a) occurred in 25E when Hannah referred to a drink. The situation
for (27b) is already described in (25) above. The one token from 31E is (27c) and
Totoro is the name of a cartoon character, which is a good monster. One of the 11
tokens from 38E is shown in (27d). In this sample, Hannah and Father were talking
about a girl in the picture of a story book.
202
(27) a.
H
h .. this looks like a milk
3;9,12 (25E, 301)
b.
H
he goes to my school too
4;0,15 (28E, 136)
c.
H
Totoro means that is the good monster
4;3,23 (31E, 567)
d.
H
daddy this girl looks like she’s got . my my um school school um
u:m uniform on see?
4;10,25 (38E, 76)
Over-supply began to occur from 28E. All six tokens of over-supply are listed below.
(28a) occurred in 28E. (28b) and (28c) occurred in 31E. (28d) is the token from 34E.
(28e) and (29f) are from 38E. Apart from (29c), they all had AUX such as can’t, was
and is. This may indicate that of the features to which 3sg-s is sensitive to, shown in
(23) above, the availability of modal was the feature Hannah’s SV agreement was
not yet sensitive to.
(28) a. H
but you= but Tom can’t sticks
4;0,15 (28E, 444)
b. H
it was gets to our roof and break our house 4;3,23 (31E, 707)
c. H
. I looks like e u:m tired .
d. H
you have= you can’t go there because that is goes like that do you
know?
e
H
4;3,23 (31E, 707)
4;7,25 (34E, 192)
I know that daddy because space girl is goes in the moon
4;10,25 (38E, 764)
f.
H
why did h why did the . why this is looks like um . um the seaweed?
4;10,25 (38E, 988)
Following the frequency count, I conducted a distributional analysis to determine the
productive application of SV agreement. The distributional analysis concerns only
tokens where -s is supplied in obligatory context, such as in 25E, 28E, 31E and 38E. I
examined lexical variation and form variation. The result of lexical variation is
provided in Table 4.36.
203
Table 4.36 Number of different types of verb that appear with -s in the obligatory
context (lexical variation)
Session
1E ~22E
25E
28E
31E
34E 38E
2
3
1
9
Number of
verb types
goes,
goes,
means
gives, hurts, looks,
Actual verbs
looks
looks,
means, needs, says,
sticks
stings, tells, wants
The first row of the table indicates the number of verb types that were suffixed with -s
in a session and the second row shows the list of actual verbs. Two or more lexical
variations were detected in 25E, 28E and 38E. In 25E, two different verbs are
suffixed with -s: goes and looks. In 28E three different verbs are suffixed with -s:
goes, looks and sticks. In 38E nine different verbs were found to be suffixed with -s:
gives, hurts, looks, means, needs, says, stings, tells, and wants.
Table 4.37 presents the results from an examination of form variation. The first row
of the table indicates the number of verbs that appeared with -s as well as in a
different form within the session. The second row presents the different forms in
which the verbs appeared in each session. Form variation was detected in 25E, 28E
and 38E. In 25E both goes and looks also appeared as go and look respectively. In
28E goes also appeared as go, goed and going. In 38E, seven out of nine verbs
suffixed with -s also appeared in the bare form.
Table 4.37 Number of verbs that are suffixed with -s and also appear in different
form(s) within the same session (form variation)
Session
1E~22E 25E
28E
31E 34E 38E
2
1
7
Number of
verb types
go/goed/going/
give/gives,
go/goes
Contrasting
look/looks,
look/looks goes
verb forms
mean/means,
needs/need,
say/says,
tell/tells,
want/wants
From the results of the distributional analysis, evidence of rule application of SV
agreement was found in 25E, 28E and 38E. There were more than two lexical
204
variations and more than one form variation found in these sessions. This is indicated
by a plus sign in Table 4.38. The minus signs in 11E, 13E, 16E and 19E in the table
indicate negative evidence for SV agreement, in which there was no application in the
obligatory context. As 25E was the first session to detect the productive application of
SV agreement, it was concluded that the SV agreement emerged in 25E.
Table 4.38 Emergence of SV agreement rule application
session
1E~10E 11E 12E 13E 16E 19E 22E 25E 28E 31E 34E 38E
+
+
+
SV agreement
Summary of acquisition of English morphology
The emergence of the various English structures analysed is summarised in Table
4.39. The verbal morphology emerged in 5E. The plural marker -s without agreement
emerged in 6E. NP agreement emerged in 19E and SV agreement emerged in 25E.
The English morphological structures analysed emerged in the following order:
verbal morphology > plural -s without agreement > NP agreement > SV agreement.
I examined the emergence of two verbal morphemes: -ing and -ed. The results
showed that these two morphemes merged at widely separated times. The morpheme
-ing emerged earlier in 5E when Hannah was 2;3. The other morpheme -ed emerged
in 22E when Hannah was 3;6, some 15 months later. The morpheme -ed emerged
after the emergence of NP agreement. No context was found of past tense with
lexical regular verbs prior to 22E. However, past tense context existed prior to the
first usage of -ed; however, they were realised by irregular past tense form of verbs or
AUX.
Hannah commenced her acquisition of verbal morphology with -ing to mark
progressive. Hannah’s earlier acquisition of -ing agrees with the findings from EL1
acquisition studies (Brown, 1973; Shirai, 1998). In addition, Hannah began the
feature marking of the verbs with a few ‘model’ verbs. In Hannah’s case they were
the four verbs: play, sleep, come, and check.
205
Table 4.39 Summary of points of emergence in English
session
SV agreement
NP agreement
Plural -s
without
agreement
Verbal
morphology
MLU
Hannah’s age
Lexical size
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
-
13E
16E
19E
-
-
+
+
1.92
+
2.14
+
1.99
3;3,0
1185
+
1.19
1.22
1.22
1.45
+
+
1.58
1.57
2;3,16
584
1.60
1.65
1.67
1.49
206
+
1.72
+
2.03
The plual marker -s without agreement emerged in session 6E at age 2;4. Both -ing
and the plural marker -s emerged when her MLU was just below 1.60 (1.58 for -ing
and 1.57 for plural marker). Hannah’s English lexicon contained approximately 58464
items. Similar to Japanese, this was the period in which Hannah’s English
experienced an accelerated increase in the number of lexical items. When -ed
emerged Hannah’s MLU was 2.62 and the she had approximately 1250 items in her
lexicon.
NP agreement emerged in 19E when Hannah was 3;3. Her MLU had reached 2 and
her vocabulary size was 1185. This was one of the periods in which Hannah’s English
verbs experienced an increase in usage. The results of the NP agreement analysis
showed that Hannah began NP agreement with grammatical NP, these rabbits.
However, as discussed above, there was no context of conceptual NP prior to the
emergence of grammatical NP agreement; therefore. no conclusion can be drawn as
to the existence of any general order of emergence of the two types of NP agreement.
SV agreement emerged in 25E when Hannah was 3;9. Her MLU was 2.85 and her
vocabulary was 1309. Her English verb usage continued to increase during this period.
Hannah’s SV agreement during the investigation did not appear to mark ‘no modal’
feature. In other words, Hannah used SV agreement in a present tense utterance
where the subject was 3sg even when modal was present. It is possible that ‘no
modal’ feature is the last feature to be learned by Hannah in the application of SV
agreement.
Prior to the emergence of SV agreement, Hannah went through a period where
obligatory context of SV agreement was available but not realised linguistically. This
was between 11E and 22E. On the other hand, with other morphological structures,
she did not go through such a period. With structures -ing, -ed, plural -s and NP
agreement, while there were some non- and over- supply, Hannah used the
appropriate linguistic device from the first instance of obligatory context.
64
Number of lexicons interpolated from the size of lexicons in cumulative data (see Figure 4.7)
207
In the next section I shall compare Hannah’s development of morphology in Japanese
and English with the findings from L1 acquisition studies of the respective languages.
4.5.3 Comparison with other L1 findings
The comparison between Hannah’s morphological development with the findings
from L1 acquisition studies will determine if the findings from L1 acquisition studies
are applicable in Hannah’s bilingual context. De Houwer (1995) pointed out that if
one can establish that BFLA develops like L1, it is a further evidence for the
hypothesis of separate acquisition of the two languages. Further, such comparison can
reveal whether the same language processing mechanism is at work for children
growing up with one language only or with two languages.
The comparison was conducted utilising the already available findings from previous
studies of JL1 and EL1 studies. In Chapter 2, I summarised the order and the timing
of acquisition of relevant morphological structures of Japanese and English children.
It should be noted that the methodology used in the previous studies varied and for
some of the studies the methodology was not explicitly described. It should also be
remembered that, in L1 studies, the acquisition criterion was not necessarily the
emergence of rule application. For example, Brown’s criterion for acquisition was
90% accuracy.
Japanese morphology
In the above section I established that Hannah acquired Japanese morphology in the
following order: verbal morphology > V-te V > dative marking of OBL in the
benefactive structure. The summary of JL1 acquisition studies (e.g., Clancy, 1985;
Hakuta, 1977, 1982) was presented in Section 2.5.2. Japanese children acquired
single verbal morphology before the V-te V structure. In addition, the suffixation of
dative marker -ni (DAT) to mark a change of grammatical functions of NPs in passive
and benefactive was expected to occur after the acquisition of V-te V structure. The
order of acquisition by Hannah and by Japanese children is shown in (29).
208
(29)
Hannah:
verbal morphology > V-te V > -ni (DAT) marking of OBL in the
benefactive structure
JL1:
verbal morphology > V-te V >-ni (DAT) marking in the passive
and benefactive structures (e.g., Clancy, 1985; Hakuta, 1977, 1982)
The comparison of these two orders suggests that Hannah and Japanese children
follow the same order of acquisition of these morphological structures. Therefore, the
findings from JL1 acquisition studies apply in Hannah’s bilingual context.
According to Clancy (1985), the first verbal morphology the Japnese children acquire
is reported to be -te (REQ). Hannah’s first verbal morphology to be acquired was also
the -te (REQ) for request. The timing of acquisition of Hannah’s Japanese and that of
JL1 in terms of age and MLU is presented in Table 4.40. Where the information was
not available, it was left blank. The timing of acquisition of the first verbal
morphology by L1 children was reported to be before MLU 1.5 at about the age of
1;6. In Hannah’s case the first verbal morphology emerged when MLU was 1.36 and
she was 2;2. Although her verbal morphology emerged when she was older than the
JL1 finding, her MLU was similar to that reported in JL1.
At the time of emergence of Japanese verbal morphology, Hannah’s lexicon had 510
items. This was within the range of lexicon (400-600) which was found to be
associated with the onset of verbal morphology found in L1 acquisition studies (e.g.,
Bates et al., 1995). Hannah’s results from Japanese support the Critical Mass
Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994).
Hannah’s V-te V structure emerged at 2;10. In JL1 V-te V was reported to be used
after 2;0 and before 3;0. Hannah’s timing for the acquisition of V-te V is not
dissimilar to that of Japanese children. For Japanese children the timing of acquisition
of dative marking in the passive and benefactive structure was assumed to be after 4;0.
Hannah’s dative marking in the benefactive structure emerged at 4;7. The comparison
shows that for the order and the timing of the acquisition of the structures analysed,
the findings from Hannah’s Japanese did not differ from L1 findings.
209
Table 4.40 Comparison of timing of acquisition between Hannah’s Japanese and JL1
Hannah
JL1*
Age
MLU
Age
MLU
Verbal
morphology
V-te V
2;2
1.36
1;6
2;10
2.07
between 2;0
and 3;0
after 4;0
before
reaching 1.5
4;7
3.55
Dative -ni in
benefactive
strucutre
* (Sources: Clancy, 1985; Hakuta, 1977, 1982; Harada, 1977; Hayashibe, 1975; Iwatate,
1980; Sano, 1977; Uyeno et al. , 1978; Watamaki, 1997)
In summary, from the available findings of previous JL1 studies, Hannah’s Japanese
was comparable to them in terms of the order and timing of acquisition.
English morphology
Brown (1973) found that the average order of acquisition of the relevant structures of
the three children he studied was: -ing marking > plural > -ed marking > SV
agreement. The two contexts of plural (without and with agreement with a plural
determiner) were analysed together in Brown’s (1973) study. In this study these two
contexts for plural marking were analysed separately. The order of acquisition of the
structures -ing marking, -ed marking, plural marking -s without agreement, NP
agreement and SV agreement of Hannah’s English and EL1 (Brown, 1973) is
presented below:
(30)
Hannah -ing and plural -s without agreement > NP agreement > -ed > SV
agreement
EL1
-ing > plural > -ed > SV agreement (Brown, 1973)
The comparison of the two sets of acquisition order shows that Hannah and English
children follow the same acquisition order. Therefore, the findings from EL1
acquisition studies also apply in the BFLA context.
At the time of emergence of English verbal morphology, Hannah’s lexicon had 584
items. This was within the range of lexicon (400-600) which was found to be
associated with the onset of verbal morphology found in L1 acquisition studies (e.g.,
210
Bates et al., 1995). Hannah’s results from English also support the Critical Mass
Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994). Further, Hannah’s earlier emergence of -ing
(PROG) than -ed (PAST) also supports the Aspect Hypothesis (Shirai & Anderson,
1995).
The timing of acquisition was also compared. The comparison between English
children65 and Hannah is tabulated. Table 4.41 uses Brown’s stages as a reference
point and Table 4.42 shows the age of the acquisition of these structures by the
children. Hannah acquired Brown’s stages -ed and SV agreement at an earlier stage
than Brown’s subjects. This may be influenced by the different acquisition criteria
used in the different studies. Hannah’s results showed that she acquired most of the
structures within or near the age range exhibited by Brown’s L1 children, apart from
NP agreement which was included as plural in Brown’s (1973) study.
Table 4.41 Timing of acquisition (MLU) of Hannah and Brown’s (1973) children
child(ren)
Adam
Sarah
Eve
Hannah
plural
V-ing, plural
Stage I
(1.75)
V-ing
V-ing
NP agreement
V-ing;
Stage II
plural
(Plural)
(2.25)
plural;
V-ed
StageIII
V-ed
SVagreement
(2.75)
SVagreement
Stage IV
(3.50)
SVagreement
V-ed
SVagreement
Stage V
V-ed
(4.00)
Table 4.42 Timing of acquisition (age) by the four children
Child
Adam
Sarah
Eve
2;6
2;10
1;9
-ing
2;6
2;3
1;11
plural
NP agreement
3;6
4;0
1;11
-ed
3;8
2;3
SV agreement 3;6
Hannah
2;3
2;3
3;3
3;6
3;9
To summarise the above discussion, Hannah appeared to have acquired all structures
earlier than Brown’s children referenced against MLU; however, referenced against
age, Hannah’s timing of acquisition was comparable to Brown’s children.
65
As mentioned in the Background chapter Adam, Sarah and Eve are from Brown’s (1973) study.
211
Summary
A comparison with L1 characteristics revealed that Hannah’s order of acquisition
agreed with that of L1 for both Japanese and English. The timing of acquisition for
each structure was also similar for Hannah and L1 for both Japanese and English. It
can be concluded that the order and timing of Hannah’s acquisition did not differ
from that of L1. Previous BFLA studies (De Houwer, 1990; Meisel, 1990a; Mishina,
1997; Paradis & Genesee, 1996) also found that the acquisition of bilingual children
was similar to that of monolingual children in the respective languages. This study
supports the claim and found that the findings of L1 acquisition studies are applicable
in the BFLA context. Further, this also supports De Houwer’s (2005) view that the
nature of language acquisition is not affected by whether a child is acquiring just one
language or two languages. It can be concluded that the same language processing
mechanism is at work for both monolingual and bilingual children.
The Critical Mass Hypothesis was supported by both Hannah’s Japanese and her
English. Hannah’s verbal morphology emerged when her lexical size was between
400 and 600 in both languages. The Critical Mass Hypothesis was based on the
reported data of monolingual children. This study showed that the hypothesis also
holds cross-linguistically with production data of a bilingual child.
4.5.4 Application of PT to Hannah’s morphological development
PT predicts that a language learner acquires a language in the following order: word
and lemma > category procedure > phrasal procedure > S-procedure. In this study I
analysed the order of acquisition of two languages using a corpus of a JapaneseEnglish bilingual child, Hannah. Each of the morphological structures analysed in this
study belong to a particular procedural stage in terms of PT. For Japanese, verbal
morphology belongs to the lexical procedure, V-te V structure belongs to the phrasal
procedure, and dative marking of OBL in the benefactive structure belongs to the Sprocedure. For English, verbal morphology and the plural marking -s without
agreement belong to the lexical procedure, NP agreement to the phrasal procedure
and SV agreement to the S-procedure.
We can examine whether Hannah acquired Japanese and English in the sequence
predicted by PT. If we find that Hannah acquired the two languages in the predicted
212
sequence, then the acquisition of the two languages can be directly compared in terms
of PT’s processing procedure stage.
Order of acquisition
PT’s processing procedure stages were applied to the results of emergence of each
morphological structure of Hannah’s Japanese and English. When more than one
syntactic structure belonging to one procedural stage was analysed, their earliest
emergence point was regarded as the evidence for the emergence for that particular
procedural stage. For example, of two different English morphological structures,
verbal morphology and plural marker -s without agreement, the emergence of the
verbal morpheme -ing in 5J was regarded as the emergence point of the lexical
procedure stage for English. The word and lemma access stage is reached when MLU
exceeds 1.0; therefore, for Japanese and English Hannah reached the word and lemma
access stage in 1J and 1E respectively.
Table 4.43 on page 215 summarises the emergence of each procedural stage for
Japanese and Table 4.44 for English. From Table 4.43 we can see that, for Hannah’s
Japanese, the lexical procedure emerged in 4J, the phrasal procedure in 13J and the Sprocedure in 34J. Hannah’s Japanese was acquired in the sequence: word and lemma
> category procedure > phrasal procedure > S-procedure. Hannah acquired
Japanese in the sequence predicted by PT.
For Hannah’s English, we can see from Table 4.44, that the lexical procedure
emerged in 5E, the phrasal procedure in 19J, and the S-procedure in 25E. Hannah’s
English was acquired in the sequence: word and lemma > category procedure >
phrasal procedure > S-procedure. Hannah also acquired English in the sequence
predicted by PT.
The results of application of PT to Hannah’s acquisition of the two languages showed
that Hannah’s Japanese and English were both acquired in the sequence predicted by
PT. In other words, evidence was found that PT’s prediction holds for BFLA. Further
evidence was found that PT holds for the two typologically different languages,
Japanese and English. These are additional to other findings supporting the
213
universality of PT across different types of language acquisition and different
typology of languages.
214
Table 4.43 Point of emergence of each processing procedure in Japanese
Session
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J 11J 12J 13J 16J 19J
SProcedure
Phrasal
+
procedure
Lexical
+
procedure
Word and
+
lemma
1.12 1.14 1.23 1.36 1.43 1.50 1.61 1.73 1.73 1.54 1.79 2.03 2.07 2.11 2.19
MLU
Table 4.44 Point of emergence of each processing procedure in English
Session
1E 2E 3E 4E 5E 6E 7E 8E 9E 10E 11E 12E 13E 16E 19E
Sprocedure
Phrasal
+
procedure
Lexical
+
procedure
Word and
+
lemma
1.19 1.22 1.22 1.45 1.58 1.57 1.60 1.65 1.67 1.49 1.72 2.03 1.92 2.14 1.99
MLU
215
Comparison of Japanese and English
In the above section PT’s applicability in the context of BFLA was established. The
acquisition of two languages can be compared in terms of timing of emergence of
each procedural stage. PT allows such a comparison to be conducted independently
from other measures that are linguistically based. The emergence of each stage of the
two languages is presented in Table 4.45 in terms of session number, Hannah’s age,
MLU and lexicon.
Table 4.45 Comparison of the emergence point of different stages in Japanese and
English
Procedural Word/
Lexical
Phrasal
S-procedure
Stage
Lemma
procedure
procedure
1J
4J
12J
34J
Japanese Session
Age
1;11,12
2;2,13
2;9,15
4;7,26
MLU
1.12
1.36
2.03
3.55
Lexicon
137
510*
1267*
1798*
Session
1E
5E
19E
25E
English
Age
1;11,12
2;3,16
3;3,0
3;9,12
MLU
1.19
1.58
1.99
2.85
Lexicon
105
584*
1185
1309
*Number of lexical items interpolated from lexicon in cumulative data (see Figure 4.7)
From the table above, I find that the timing of emergence of stages was not identical
between the two languages. Furthermore, the language that first reached a particular
stage did not necessarily reach all stages earlier. These points are further discussed
below.
In both Japanese and English the lexical procedure stage emerged around the same
time. There was only one month difference in terms of age; 2;2 for Japanese and 2;3
for English. Hannah was producing mainly one-word utterances indicated by her
MLU of 1.36 for Japanese and 1.58 for English. The number of lexical items in her
lexicon was in the 500s for both languages. As discussed previously, Hannah’s data
supported the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994) for the emergence
of verbal morphology. Therefore, for the lexical category to emerge, a language
learner needs to have reached a critical mass in his or her lexicon.
216
The difference in timing of emergence was prominent for the phrasal and S-procedure
stages. Hannah reached the phrasal procedure stage at 2;10 in Japanese but in English
she reached the same stage 5 months later. Despite the difference in the age, the
phrasal procedure emerged when MLU had reached 2 in both languages. The phrasal
morphology requires at least two words within a phrase, because it is the linguistic
realisation of information exchange between words within a phrase. Therefore, the
ability to put two words together (within a phrase) must be a prerequisite for this
stage to emerge.
Hannah reached the S-procedure stage in English when she was 3;9. She did not
reach the same stage in Japanese for another ten months. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the same stage is not necessarily reached in each language at the same
age. From the language processing point of view, it can be inferred that the two
languages are processed separately.
What caused such a long delay in acquiring the S-procedure in Japanese compared
with English? One explanation I can offer relates to the complexity of the structures
examined66. The Japanese structures selected for the S-procedure were the agreement
of NP marking and the verb morphology in the passive, causative or benefactive
sentences. In theory, in Japanese, S-procedure can be activated by SOV word order.
The difficulty with choosing SOV as the test structure for S-procedure was that there
would be no means of telling if the SOV was produced using the direct mapping
(Pinker, 1984), which belongs to Stage 2, or using the S-procedure. One needs to
examine a structure that can clearly prove the feature unification of a particular
procedure, thus, the agreement of NP marking and the verb morphology in the
passive, causative or benefactive sentences in this case. It is possible that such a
criterion may result in selecting a structure that is way past the beginning of a
particular stage. In the case of Hannah’s acquisition of S-procedure, it would be
interesting to find out whether she produced complex predicates in English, and
compare the production and the timing with her Japanese.
66
I thank Bruno Di Biase for drawing my attention to this issue.
217
For the phrasal and S-procedure stages, no strong mutual relationship exist between
Japanese and English in terms of lexicon and emergence of these stages. However,
from the results of the analysis of her lexical development, I observed that the phrasal
and S-procedure stages emerged during the periods that recorded a greater rate of
verb usage for both Japanese and English. The periods concerned are 7J–13J and 34J–
38J for Japanese and 1E to 25E for English. Some L1 acquisition studies (e.g.,
Bassano et al., 2004) also found a temporal relationship between the emergence of
morphology and the verb usage.
The other point arising from consideration of Table 4.45 is the consistency with
which the different languages first reached different stages. Japanese reached the
lexical and phrasal stages earlier than English; however, its arrival at the S-procedure
stage was later than English. This means that the language that was apparently
developing earlier does not always stay that way. Hannah’s Japanese was seen to
develop earlier than English after 2;9 in terms of MLU. Hannah possessed more
lexical items in Japanese than in English. However, the comparison of the
morphological acquisition of the two languages seems to suggest that the early
development of MLU and lexicon may not have a direct effect on the acquisition of
the S-procedure stage. These two points show that Hannah’s Japanese and English
were acquired independently.
The hypothesis that the two languages of BFLA are acquired independently has been
proposed by previous researchers, such as De Houwer’s (1990) Separate
Development Hypothesis (SDH). SDH is based on the notion of autonomy of
language acquisition, and compares each language of BFLA with L1 acquisition. This
study took a different approach to examine the issue of the separate acquisition of the
two languages of BFLA. This study utilised PT and determined that the two
languages were processed separately from each other.
Summary
The results of the analysis of acquisition of morphological structures of Hannah’s
Japanese and English showed that they were both acquired in the universal sequence
predicted by PT. Both languages were acquired in the sequence of Word and lemma
> Category procedure > Phrasal procedure > S-procedure. This result indicates that
218
PT is applicable in the context of BFLA of Japanese and English. Therefore, the
results of this study support the universality of PT across different languages as well
as different types of language acquisition.
A relationship between the acquisition of lexicon and the emergence of procedural
stages was detected. The acquisition of lexicon precedes the acquisition of
morphology. When the lexicon number reached above 500 the categorical procedure
emerged in both languages. There was a temporal relation between the emergence of
phrasal and S- procedures and the accelerated increase of verb usage.
Finally, an application of PT showed that Hannah’s Japanese and English were
acquired separately. This was evidenced by the different timing of emergence of
procedural stages of the two languages, and the inconsistency in the order in which
the languages first arrived at each particular stage. Using PT, this study showed that
when one processing procedure becomes available in one language, it is not yet
necessarily available in the other language.
In this section I presented the results and discussion of Hannah’s morphological
development. In the next section I present her initial word order in the two languages.
4.6
Word order
There are two theoretical views concerning the initial word order of language learners.
In his Initial Hypothesis of Syntax (IHS), Platzack (1996) claims that there is a
universal default word order of SVO for both L1 and L2 learning. On the other hand,
Pienemann et al. (2005), in the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis, claim that
language learners begin with the canonical word order of the target language.
Pienemann (1998a) predicts that the canonical word order emerges in the category
procedure stage. The two languages investigated in this study have different canonical
word orders: SOV (i.e., V-final) for Japanese and SVO for English.
I examined whether Hannah used the same word order for Japanese and English. If
different, then I examined whether her word order in each language reflects the
canonical word order of the language. The analysis was conducted with the corpus
219
during the first period (1J–6J, 1E–6E) from the ages 1;11 to 2;4 for both languages. In
order to characterise Hannah’s word order, I first selected non-echoic utterances with
the argument(s) that are agent and patient. I did not include the expletive argument in
the analysis, or the argument whose function was difficult to determine. An example
is the word daddy followed by a verb, e.g., daddy hold this. In such an utterance, it
was difficult to determine whether the noun was an agent or a vocative. I examined
the position of argument(s) in relation to V within the utterances. I then determined
the word order based on Pinker’s (1984) direct mapping. According to Pinker (1984),
in the canonical word order, there is a direct one-to-one mapping between the
semantic functions and grammatical functions. This direct mapping is illustrated in
Figure 4.11.
SUBJ
|
OBJ
|
OBLIQUE
|
(grammatical functions)
agent
theme/patient goal/source/location
(semantic functions)
Figure 4.11 Direct mapping (Pinker, 1984, pp. 298-307)
4.6.1 Japanese word order
There was one sample in which the semantic function of the argument was agent. The
example (31) occurred with sur-u (do-NONPAST), here pronounced as shuu. The
order of the semantic functions here is ‘agent + action’. Therefore, the word order is
SV.
(31) H hana
shu-u
Hannah do-NONPAST
(= Hannah (I) (will) do (it).)
2;2,13 (4J, 87)
There were four samples in which the argument was the patient. They all occurred
with verbs with the -te morpheme, Hannah requesting her mother to do some action.
Two examples are given in (32a) and (32b). In (32b) the verb for hold is mot-te,
however, here it was pronounced as yaat-te, and sai is an incomplete form of kudasai
(= please). The arguments of all the four samples were placed before the verbs,
forming the pattern of ‘patient + action’. Therefore, the word order of these utterances
is OV.
220
(32) a H dore
which
tot-te
take-REQ
(= Take which one?)
b H mama
mummy
2;3,16 (5J, 888)
kotchi
yaat-te-sai
this
do-please
(= Mummy, please hold this.)
2;4,14 (6J, 22)
In Japanese, there were no instances of utterance where more than one argument
appeared during the six months of the investigation. However in all the one-argument
utterances, Hannah displayed the V-final word order, which reflects the canonical
word order of Japanese. All the arguments preceded the verb (action) without case
marking particles.
4.6.2 English word order
There were seven samples with agentive argument. The verbs appearing with
agentive argument were in the bare or -ing forms. The verb stems appearing in this
condition were: check, go, like, open, coming, jumping, and playing. One example of
each type of verb form is given in (33a) and (33b). In all samples, verbs followed the
argument, forming the order of ‘agent + action’. Therefore, the word order of these
utterances is SV.
(33) a.
H
open . Hannah open
2;1,9 (3E, 339)
b.
H
daddy I coming too
2;4,15 (6E, 1124)
There were 12 samples with patient. For the utterances with patient, two examples are
given in (34a) and (34b). For (34b) Hannah said this when she and Father were going
outside to check their hens. In all samples the argument appears after the verb, i.e.,
‘action + patient’. The word order for these utterances is VO.
(34) a. H
b. H
catch ball . catch ball catch ball
2;2,17 (4E, 206)
checking it . daddy . X XX mhm
2;3,16 (5E, 1514)
As can be seen with one argument English utterances, Hannah used either SV or VO
word order depending upon the type of argument forming ‘agent + action’ or ‘action
+ patient’.
221
There were 14 utterances with two arguments. All of them had the combination of
agent and patient. Two examples are presented in (35a) and (35b). Of these, 13 had
the bare form of the verb (e.g., do, press, see, want, eat), one occurred with the verb
done (I done that), while no verbs occurred with -ing. This may indicate that there is a
trade-off between the complexity of lexical forms and the complexity of sentence
structure. That is, the more complex sentence structure becomes, the less complex
lexical form becomes. The order of semantic functions for all these samples was
‘agent + action + patient’, therefore, SVO word order.
(35) a.
b
H me do it u:m h
2;3,16 (5E, 276)
H daddy? somebody eat dat
2;4,15 (6E, 488)
English data presented utterances with either one or two arguments. Hannah used SV
or VO word order depending upon the semantic function of the argument. These
orders reflect the English canonical word order. In the two argument utterances, the
semantic function was the combination of agent and patient. In such utterances she
used the SVO word order, which is the English canonical word order. With two
argument utterances, a trade-off between the lexical and the sentence complexity was
found. When sentence structure became more complex the lexical complexity was not
maintained.
4.6.3 Summary
Hannah displayed the V-final word order for Japanese and the SVO word order for
English. In other words, Hannah’s word order agreed with the canonical word order
of the input languages.
Between 1:11 and 2:4, Hannah used arguments that express agent, patient in both
Japanese and English. Hannah’s English displayed more instances of utterances with
arguments, including multiple arguments within an utterance, than her Japanese. This
may reflect the input languages. Japanese allows nominal ellipsis while English does
not.
In comparison with the word order use by Japanese and English-speaking children,
Hannah’s word orders in the two languages agree with the findings from L1
acquisition studies in the respective languages. Brown (1973, p. 156) concluded that
222
English-speaking children started with the SVO word order from an early age. Clancy
(1985) summarised that Japanese children used the SOV word order from an early
age. Hannah did not use the case marking particle in Japanese during these six
months. This also agrees with the findings from the JL1 studies. Japanese children are
also reported initially not to use the nominal particles to mark grammatical functions
(Miyahara, 1973). It is assumed that she relied on word order to express the semantic
functions at this stage. This suggests that syntax develops before morphology.
The results from Hannah’s data did not support the IHS proposed by Platzack (1996).
Hannah did not use the SVO word order universally for the two languages. The
results of the analysis support the Unmarked Alignment Hypothesis (Pienemann et al.,
2005) that a language learner begins with the canonical word order. In the BFLA
context, the language-specific word order used by Hannah indicates that she
developed Japanese and English separately. This further supports De Houwer’s (1990)
SDH. In the final section of this chapter, I summarise the connection between early
lexical development and the acquisition of morphology and syntax found in this study.
4.7
Lexical-Grammatical Development Connection
In this section I summarise Hannah’s lexicon, her word order and the acquisition of
verbal morphology in each language. The description of Hannah’s language at the
start of the investigation (age 1;11,12) in each language is shown in Table 4.46.
Table 4.46 Hannah’s lexical and grammatical development at 1;11
Age
Lexicon Morphological development Syntax
137
No lexical form variation
MLU = 1.12
Japanese 1;11,12
1;11,12
105
No lexical form variation
MLU = 1.19
English
At the beginning of the investigation, Hannah’s Japanese lexicon had approximately
137 items and her English lexicon had 105 items. This figure does not indicate the
exhaustive number of lexical items in Hannah’s lexicon at the stage, but indicates the
number of lexical items uttered by Hannah during the first recording session. At the
age of 1;11, no indication of lexical or form variation in terms of morphology, thus no
productive use, was detected. For syntax, she was at the one-word stage. This was
indicated by the mean length of utterance (MLU) at the time being 1.1.
223
The next table, Table 4.47 summarises Hannah’s lexicon and word order in each
language at the time of emergence of verbal morphology.
Table 4.47 Hannah’s lexicon and word order at the time of emergence of verbal
morphology
Age Lexicon Morphology Syntax
development
-te (REQ)
SV
(Agent + action)
Japanese 2;2 510
2;3
OV (Patient + action )
2;1
SV
(Agent + action)
English
2;2
VO (Action + patient)
2;3 584
-ing (PROG) SVO (Agent + action + patient)
For Japanese the first verbal morpheme emerged when Hannah was 2;2. At that time,
Hannah’s Japanese lexicon contained approximately 510 items. As discussed already,
this was within the rage of critical mass (400–600) found to be associated with the
emergence of verbal morphology in L1 acquisition studies (e.g., Bates et al., 1995),
supporting the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994). When verbal
morphology emerged, Hannah used the SV word order. The first occurrences of the
OV word order were found a month later, at age 2;3. As discussed above, Hannah
initially used the word order, not the case marking particles, to express the
grammatical functions of arguments. This suggests that syntax develop before
morphology for the marking of grammatical functions.
For English, the first verbal morpheme -ing (progressive) emerged when Hannah was
2;3. At the time, her lexical size was 584, also supporting the Critical Mass
Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994). At 2;3 Hannah produced SVO utterances for
the first time; however, she had produced SV and VO utterances prior to 2;3.
In PT, Pienemann (1998a) predicts both the canonical word order and verbal
morphology to be acquired in Stage 2, the category procedure. This was indeed what
occurred in Hannah’s Japanese. The onset of V-final word order and emergence of
verbal morphology both occurred at 2;2. The results from the English data showed
that two-argument utterances forming the canonical word order (SVO) also appeared
at the same age as the verbal morphology. However, as discussed above, she had
already produced SV and OV prior to 2;3. Two interpretations are possible. One is
224
that, in English, Hannah reached Stage 2 at the onset of using canonical word order at
2;1, and her verbal morphology emerged later at 2;3. The other is she acquired the
canonical word order prior to arriving at Stage 2. This study did not explore which of
these would be more valid. Nonetheless, this result suggests syntax develops before
morphology, as also indicated by the initial use of word order for marking of the
grammatical functions in Japanese.
In the BFLA context, the results showed Hannah developed Japanese and English
separately. This is consistent with what Marchman, Martinez-Sussmann and Dale
(2004) and Conby and Thal (2006) found with English-Spanish bilingual children.
My results further support De Houwer’s (1990) SDH. This was seen in Hannah’s use
of different word order and by the different timing of emergence of syntax in the two
languages.
In this chapter I presented the results of analyses and discussed Hannah’s language
development with respect to lexicon, morphology and word order of both Japanese
and English . I also discussed the relationship between the early lexical development,
acquisition of morphology and word order. In the next chapter I shall summarise the
findings and conclude this thesis.
225
5 Conclusion
5.1 Overview of the study
The aim of this study was to investigate bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA)
in Japanese and English. In order to achieve this aim, I carried out a longitudinal
study of the language development of Hannah, a Japanese-English bilingual child.
Hannah received regular and continuous exposure to these languages from birth in a
one-parent one-language environment, where her Mother spoke Japanese, and her
Father English, to her. I examined her linguistic development over three years, from
the time she was 1;11 until she reached 4;10.
Section 5.2 summarise the key findings of my research into the eight questions
concerning the development of the two languages of one child presented in Chapter 3.
Section 5.3 discusses and identifies areas for future research.
In the course of investigating Hannah’s acquisition of the two languages, I
concentrated on three areas of Hannah’s linguistic development:
•
lexicon
•
morphology
•
word order
I also examined the relationship between lexical development and the acquisition of
morphology and syntax.
The investigation was guided by eight research questions presented in Chapter 3. The
first four (Q1 to Q4) relate to the area of acquisition of morphology and syntax, the
next three (Q5 to Q7) relate to lexical development, and the final question (Q8) to the
226
relationship between lexical development and the acquisition of morphology and
syntax.
5.2 The findings of the study
5.2.1 The acquisition of morphology and syntax
I examined Hannah’s acquisition of the selected morphological structures in
Japanese and English within the framework of Processability Theory (PT)
(Pienemann, 1998a). One of the questions investigated in this study was whether PT
is also applicable to BFLA (Q1).
The selection of the morphological structures examined in this study was based on
the developmental sequences established for English as a second language (ESL)
(Pienemann, 1998a), and Japanese as a second language (JSL) (Di Biase &
Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b). The morphological structures
examined for each procedural stage for Japanese and English, discussed in Chapter 3,
are presented again in Table 5.1 below.
Table 5.1 Morphological structures predicted for each stage in English and Japanese
(based on Di Biase & Kawaguchi, 2002; Kawaguchi, 2005a, 2005b; Pienemann,
1998a).
Processing
L2
English
Japanese
procedures
processes
Inter-phrasal
SV agreement
Agreement between noun
4. S-procedure
morphemes (e.g., Peter owns a dog.) marking and the
morphology in the predicate
(BENE, CAUSE, PASS)
Phrasal
NP agreement
V-te V
3. Phrasal
morphemes (e.g., many dogs)
(V-COMP V)
procedure
2. Category
procedure
Lexical
morphemes
Plural -s (dogs)
Verbal morphology:
-ed (PAST),
-ing (PROG)
Verbal morphology:
-te (REQ) , -ta (PAST),
-nai (NEG), -teru (PROG),
-ru (NONPAST),
-chatta (COMPLETE)
1. Word or
lemma access
words
words
words
227
A direct comparison of development between the two languages can be approached
by using a single metric, e.g., PT, for both languages. My second research question
(Q2) concerning the timing of attainment of developmental stage in the two
languages relates to the issues of the Separate Development Hypothesis (SDH) (De
Houwer, 1990). I reviewed in Chapter 2 that while the SDH is now widely supported,
there is still a need for a new method to directly compare the development of two
different languages to determine whether they develop separately. PT allows for a
direct comparison of the development of two typologically different languages
against a common benchmark, namely, the acquisition of procedural skills.
In terms of syntax, the investigation looked primarily at the acquisition of the
language specific word order of Japanese and English (Q3). These two languages
have different canonical word orders: SOV (i.e., V-final) for Japanese and SVO for
English.
The fourth question (Q4) concerns the comparison between Hannah’s
morphosyntactic development and findings from past L1 acquisition studies of
Japanese (JL1) and English (EL1). Some previous BFLA studies (e.g., De Houwer,
1990; Meisel, 1990a) found similarities between the morphosyntactic development
of bilingual and monolingual children. De Houwer (2005) concluded that these
similarities exemplify ‘the robust nature of the primary language development
process, which seems immune to whether a child is growing up learning two
languages or just one’ (p. 42). The comparison between bilingual and monolingual
first language acquisition can reveal whether the same language acquisition
processing mechanism is at work for both types of children. I summarise my findings
for research questions Q1 to Q4 below.
(Q1) Does the development of morphology of Japanese and English follow the
sequence predicted by PT?
My results indicate that Hannah’s development of both Japanese and English
morphology followed the universal sequence predicted by PT. This suggests that PT
is applicable in the BFLA context. This further supports PT’s universal applicability
228
to different types of language acquisition as well as across languages of different of
typologies (Pienemann, 1998a).
Hannah acquired the Japanese morphological structures examined in the following
order: verbal morphology > V-te V > the suffixation of -ni (DAT) to OBL in
benefactive structure. She acquired the English morphological structures examined in
the following order: verbal morphology > plural -s (without agreement) > NP
agreement > SV agreement. Hannah was already in the one-word stage in both
languages at the beginning of the investigation.
The application of PT to Hannah’s developmental sequences in the two languages
was discussed in Section 4.5.4. The results reveal that, in terms of processing
procedures, she acquired each of the two languages in the following order: word or
lemma > category procedure > phrasal procedure > S-procedure. In other words,
Hannah’s Japanese and English both developed according to the universal sequence
predicted by PT.
Hannah, a bilingual language learner of English and Japanese from birth, followed
the same developmental path as those taken by the learners of English as a second
language, as described by Pienemann (1998a) and Japanese as a second language, as
described by Di Biase & Kawaguchi (2002) and Kawaguchi (2005a. 2005b) within
the constraints defined by PT. This result indicates that the same processing
mechanism for the acquisition of language is at work for both types of language
learners.
(Q2) Does the attainment of these stages happen at the same time in both languages?
The analysis found that the timing of emergence of stages for Hannah was not
identical for the two languages; that is, Hannah’s Japanese and English did not
develop the procedural skills defined in PT simultaneously. It was also apparent that
the language that reached a particular stage earlier did not necessarily reach all stages
earlier. Hannah’s Japanese reached the phrasal procedure stage earlier than her
English did; however, it reached the S-procedure ten months later than her English. I
have discussed a possible reason for the long delay in the emergence of the S229
procedure in Japanese (Section 4.5.4). It may relate to the complexity of structures
investigated. These results suggest that, while Hannah’s Japanese and English both
developed according to the sequence predicted by PT, they developed independently.
Hence, the results also support the SDH.
Figure 5.1 below shows the different timing of emergence of procedural stages for
each language in terms of Hannah’s age. Hannah acquired the category procedure at
a similar age in both Japanese and English. However, there was a clear difference in
the timing of emergence for the phrasal and S-procedure stages.
Japanese
English
S-procedure
Phrasal
Category
Lemma
2;0
2;6
3;0
3;6
4;0
4;6
5;0
Age in years; months
Figure 5.1 Emergence of procedural stages compared with Hannah’s age
(Q3) Is the initial word order of Japanese and English the same as the canonical
word order of the respective languages?
The analysis revealed that Hannah’s word order in both Japanese and English was
the same as the canonical word order of the respective languages. Her Japanese
displayed the V-final word order, while her English displayed the SVO word order.
The first word order used by Hannah for both Japanese and English was SV. When
she began to use O later in each language, she used OV for Japanese and VO for
English. Subsequently, her three-word English utterances were in the SVO word
order. Hannah’s syntax did not develop at the same rate for the two languages – she
230
began to produce the English canonical word order earlier than the Japanese
equivalents.
In this initial stage, in Japanese, Hannah used word order, rather than particles, to
mark the grammatical relations. In English, Hannah was producing SV and VO
utterances before the emergence of verb morphology. These results, discussed in
Section 4.6, suggest that syntax emerges before morphology.
In relation to the theoretical position of initial word order of language learners, the
results from my study did not support the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax (HIS)
proposed by Platzack (1996). Hannah did not use the SVO word order universally for
the two languages. The results of the analysis support the Unmarked Alignment
Hypothesis (Pienemann et al., 2005) – that a language learner begins with the
canonical word order. In the BFLA context, the results showed that Hannah
developed Japanese and English independently from each other, further supporting
De Houwer’s (1990) SDH. This was seen in Hannah’s use of different word orders
and by the different timing of onset of syntax in the two languages.
(Q4) Is the morphological and syntactic development of each language in BFLA the
same as L1 acquisition of that language?
This study found no fundamental difference between monolingual and bilingual first
language acquisitions. That is, Hannah’s morphological and syntactic development in
each of Japanese and English was comparable with findings from previous L1
acquisition studies of each of those languages. This was found to be the case in terms
of both developmental sequence and the timing of acquisition of morphosyntax. This
suggests that the same language processing mechanism is at work for both
monolingual and bilingual first language acquisitions, and it further implies that PT
is also applicable to the acquisition of first language of differing typologies such as
Japanese and English.
For Japanese, I compared Hannah’s acquisition of nominal particles (Section 4.4.1),
verbal morphemes, V-te V structure, the suffixation of -ni (DAT) to oblique
argument (OBL) in benefactive structure (Section 4.5.3) and word order (Section
231
4.6.3) with the findings from JL1 studies. Among the nominal particles, Japanese
children are reported to acquire the -no (GEN) and -wa (TOP) first, then -ga (NOM)
followed by -o (ACC) (Clancy, 1985). This was the order in which Hannah also
acquired these particles. Hannah acquired the first verbal morpheme -te (REQ) at 2;2,
during the same period she acquired the first set of nominal particles. Her MLU was
less than 1.5 at the time. Japanese children are also reported to acquire -te (REQ) as
the first verbal morpheme before MLU reaches 1.5 (Clancy, 1985).
Hannah continued to acquire other verbal morphemes such as -ta (PAST), -u
(NONPAST), and -nai (NEG) before acquiring the V-te V structure at 2;10. This is
also the path which Japanese children take. They also acquire the V-te V structure
sometime between 2;0 and 3;0 (Clancy, 1985). Finally, Hannah acquired the
suffixation of -ni (DAT) to OBL in benefactive structure when she was 4;7. From
studies such as Hakuta (1977, 1982), Harada (1977) and Uyeno et al. (1978), it can
be seen that Japanese children also acquire the suffixation of -ni in passive and
benefactive structures after the V-te V structure. As for word order, both Japanese
children and Hannah used the V-final word order. Further, Japanese children are
reported to initially use word order rather than particles to encode grammatical
relations (Miyahara, 1974). I also found this with Hannah’s Japanese development.
For English, I compared Hannah’s acquisition of verbal morphemes (-ing (PROG),
-ed (PAST)), plural marker -s, NP agreement, SV agreement (Section 4.5.3) and
word order (Section 4.6.3) with Brown’s (1973) results of the three English-speaking
children. Hannah acquired -ing (PROG) and plural marker -s first when she was 2;3,
followed by NP agreement at 3;3. She then acquired the other verbal morpheme, -ed
(PAST), at 3;6 and finally SV agreement at 3;9. Although Brown (1973) did not
differentiate plural marker -s into two categories, single noun and NP agreement, as I
did, he found the general order of acquisition by the English-speaking children to be
-ing > plural marker -s > -ed > SV agreement. Therefore, Hannah’s order of
acquisition of these structures agrees with Brown’s (1973) results. Hannah’s age of
acquisition of each structure was also within the age range from Brown’s three
children study. As for word order, Brown (1973) found the English-speaking
children used the SVO word order. I also found Hannah used the SVO word order
when communicating in her English.
232
5.2.2 Lexical development
I addressed the issue of the relationship of the lexicons between the two developing
languages of bilingual children. Researchers such as Taeschner (1983) regarded the
existence of translation equivalents in the two languages of bilingual children to be
an indication of language differentiation. However, more recently, the validity of this
approach has been questioned (Deuchar and Quay, 2000). My approach was to
determine whether the bilingual child develops the lexicon of each language in
language-specific patterns.
I first examined the composition of Hannah’s lexicon. Monolingual children are
universally reported to learn nominals before relational words, such as verb. Gentner
& Boroditsky (2001) termed this phenomenon ‘noun-advantage’ and they proposed
two hypotheses, ‘the Natural Partitions Hypothesis’ and ‘the Relational Relativity
Hypothesis’ (pp. 216–218), in order to explain this phenomenon. According to these
hypotheses, nominals are conceptually easier to grasp, therefore to learn. On the
other hand, the relational words are language-specific; therefore, they are more
challenging to learn.
Japanese and English are known to be different in their different relative weighting in
lexical categories, i.e., nominals and verbs. Japanese is known to be a verb-friendly
language and English a noun-friendly language (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001).
Therefore, it is expected that a Japanese-English bilingual child would receive a
different ratio of nominals and verbs in the respective input languages. The fifth
research question here is whether Hannah’s acquisition of two languages also show
noun-advantage, in each language, despite the differences in the input (Q5).
The usage of personal pronouns is another area in which the input of Japanese and
English differs. Compared with English, Japanese uses considerably fewer personal
pronouns. This is due to the characteristic of Japanese that allows nominal ellipsis,
and to the fact that Japanese preferentially uses kinship terms or personal names
rather than pronouns. The sixth question asks whether this different input affects
Hannah’s language acquisition. The seventh question seeks to determine whether the
233
lexical development of BFLA is the same as L1 acquisition of that language. I
summarise the findings for research questions (Q5) to (Q7) below.
(Q5) Given the differences in the relative weightings of N and V categories in
Japanese and English, do nominals develop before verbs in both languages?
The results obtained in this study indicate that Hannah developed nominal categories
before verb categories in both languages; therefore, her lexical development showed
noun-advantage in both Japanese and English (Section 4.4.1). In other words,
Hannah began the learning of both languages through nominals, not through
categories that were more frequent in the input languages, such as preposition or
determiners for English, and verbs or particles for Japanese. This suggests that the
language learning mechanisms for both languages must be able to extract nouns from
the input languages. Hannah’s lexical development is consistent with the Natural
Partitions Hypothesis and the Relational Relativity Hypothesis proposed by Gentner
and Boroditsky (2001).
While Hannah showed noun-advantage in two languages, I detected a difference in
her use of verbs between English and Japanese. Her English remained noundominant throughout the investigation, while her Japanese experienced a reverse
trend in the dominant lexical category, shifting from early noun-dominant to
becoming verb-dominant by the end of the investigation. Therefore, Hannah’s
Japanese and English lexicons followed different developmental paths.
(Q6) Does the bilingual child acquire personal pronouns in the same way in both
languages?
Hannah exhibited different patterns in her learning of personal pronouns. While she
acquired many English personal pronouns early and used some of them frequently
from the beginning, she only acquired one personal pronoun – watashi (= I) in
Japanese, at age 3;6, over the period of investigation. Even after watashi entered
Hannah’s lexicon, she did not use it frequently until she was 4;0. I concluded in
Section 4.4.2, that the pattern Hannah exhibited in the learning of personal pronouns
was language-specific, and that it reflected the characteristics of each input language.
234
(Q7) Is the lexical development of BFLA the same as L1 acquisition of that language?
The comparison between Hannah’s lexical development and that of Japanese- and
English-speaking children revealed that Hannah’s lexical development in each
language was similar to that of monolingual children in the respective languages.
Hannah initially exhibited noun-advantage in both Japanese and English, which is
consistent with the behaviour of Japanese- and English-speaking children. Hannah’s
different development patterns of verbs in the two languages are also consistent with
the findings from cross-linguistic comparison of Japanese- and English-speaking
children. Furthermore, the patterns Hannah showed in the acquisition of personal
pronouns were consistent with both Japanese- and English-speaking children. Based
on these findings, I conclude that Hannah developed the respective lexicons of
Japanese and English in a language-specific manner (Section 4.4.3).
5.2.3 The relationship between lexical development and the acquisition
of grammar
L1 acquisition studies have found that, cross-linguistically, verbal morphology
emerges when the lexicon reaches a critical mass of between 400 and 600 items
(Bates et al., 1995; Ogura, 1998). This phenomenon is termed the Critical Mass
Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994). Looking at this issue from a different, more
qualitative, perspective Shirai and Andersen (1995) proposed the Aspect Hypothesis
in which they claimed that there was a connection between verb morphemes and the
inherent meaning of individual verbs, and that morphemes denoting aspect (e.g., -ing
(PROG)) are acquired before those for tense (e.g., -ed (PAST)). The relationships
established between the lexicon and grammar have so far been based on monolingual
data. My study investigated such relationships using bilingual data.
(Q8) Does the lexicon need to reach a specific critical mass before grammatical
development such as verb morphology emerges?
My results lend support to the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman & Bates, 1994).
At the time of emergence of Japanese verbal morphology, Hannah’s Japanese
235
lexicon consisted of approximately 510 lexical items (types). When the English
verbal morphology emerged, her English lexicon consisted of 584 items (types). This
is within the range of critical mass found in L1 acquisition studies for the emergence
of verbal morphology, that is, Hannah’s verbal morphology emerged when her
lexicon was within the range of critical mass for each language (Section 4.7). In
addition, Hannah’s English data were partly consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis
(Shirai & Anderson, 1995) (Section 4.5.2). That is, she acquired -ing (PROG) earlier
than -ed (PAST). However, while Hannah mainly used -ing with the types of verbs
predicted by Shirai and Anderson (1995), she also overextended this morpheme to
other types of verbs.
This study also shows that the transition from invariant word to morphological
variation occurred in a systematic manner. Hannah commenced her acquisition of
verbal morphology with a few verbs. While Hannah produced only one form (i.e.,
invariant form) for many verbs, she was able to produce a variety of forms for a few
particular verbs (Sections 4.5.1 and 4.5.2). To put it differently, when various verbal
morphemes emerged (i.e., productively applied for the first time) they were suffixed
to these particular verbs. This suggests that annotation of features, such as tense or
negation, begins with particular verbs first, then spreads to other verbs. I would
expect that different verbs take this role for different children depending upon the
input they receive.
The analysis also revealed that there was a temporal relation between the emergence
of PT’s phrasal and S-procedures, and the accelerated increase of verb usage in each
language. This suggests that there is a relationship between verbs-learning an
acceleration of grammatical development.
5.3 Suggestions for further studies and future work
This thesis presented a longitudinal case study of the language development of one
Japanese-English bilingual child. As De Houwer (2005) explains, a large number of
informants and different language combinations are needed to generalise findings of
studies such as this. My study dealt with two typologically distant languages.
However, it would be interesting to examine bilingual children of two typologically
236
proximate languages, such as Japanese and Korean: would Japanese-Korean
bilingual children arrive at the same procedure at the same time?
The interpretation of the different timing of attainment of stages needs to be further
investigated. This study found that the bilingual child arrived at the same procedural
stage at different times. In this thesis, this phenomenon was interpreted to suggest
that the two languages are processed separately. However, one cannot discard a
possibility that there may be some, e.g., temporal, relationships in the attainment of
stages between the two languages. In addition, the timing of the arrival of stages can
be influenced by the linguistic structure chosen for the investigation. For example, in
this study, for the phrasal stage, I investigated NP agreement in English and VP
agreement in Japanese and compared these two. The strength of PT is that it enables
the comparison of different languages and structures in terms of procedural skills.
However, recently it was found that NP agreement emerge before VP agreement
within this stage (Di Biase, personal communication April 2007). This raises the
need for an examination of emergence of Japanese NP agreement in order to
compare with the emergence of English phrasal stage.
Furthermore, a larger amount of production data, particularly in later developmental
stages, would help further analysis of the acquisition of some of the linguistic
structures. For example, in the analysis of S-procedure, there were no data for
passive and causative structures in Hannah’s Japanese. This lack of data may partly
be due to the young age of the informant; that is, she may be cognitively too young
to express passive and causative ideas. It is also possible that Hannah was too young
to produce these structures involving three overt arguments. If so, then one needs to
be more cautious about applying the linguistic structural hypothesis established for
L2 learners to the language of young children. The lack of data may also partly
reflect the context during the recording sessions. I have discussed the effect the
context has on the language behaviour during the recording sessions (Section 4.2.1).
The variety of conversational contexts is a problem that is difficult to avoid when
collecting naturally occurring longitudinal data. It is necessary to keep in mind that
such variety can influence the child’s language behaviour. On a similar note, it is
also necessary to realise that the child’s linguistic experiences influence language
behaviour.
237
Another area that I did not touch upon in my study but will be interesting for further
research is the relationship between the linguistic input Hannah received and her
language acquisition. Was there any connection between Hannah’s linguistic
development and the linguistic environment she was in? For example, Morikawa
(1997) found a correlation between the acquisition of Japanese case marking by a
monolingual Japanese boy and his parents’ usage of these markers. Is there a similar
relationship between the verbs that appeared to facilitate Hannah’s learning of verbal
morphemes and her parents’ verb usage?
While I determined that Hannah used language-specific word order, I did not extend
my research to the assignment of grammatical relations in Japanese. The early data I
examined showed that she relied on the word order and did not use case marking
devices, which was consistent with how monolingual Japanese children learn. As
described earlier in this thesis, Japanese and English use different methods to assign
the grammatical relations. It will be interesting to investigate the developmental path
Hannah follows with regard to the assignment of grammatical relations, especially in
Japanese.
In this study, I observed that there was an order of emergence of different structures
within a stage. One such example was the acquisition of -ed (PAST) and -ing
(PROG). Although these two English verbal morphemes were both predicted to
emerge in the category procedure stage, there was a one-year gap between the times
Hannah acquired -ing and when she acquired -ed. Discussions concerning the intrastage development sequence within a stage of PT have already begun among some
scholars (e.g., Mansouri, 2005). This may be an area for further development of PT.
Another area of interest is the relation between the development of lexicon and
syntax. A relationship between lexicon and the development of morphology has
already been established. Is there also a relationship between the acquisition of
lexicon and syntax? Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) takes the view that lexicon
contains information, such as argument structure (a-structure), necessary for the
building of syntax. What is the temporal relationship between the acquisition of
lexicon and the realisation of the structure annotated within the lexicon?
238
Since the first publication of PT in Pienemann (1998a), more work has been
conducted to advance and extend PT theoretically by various scholars. The extension
of PT includes the interface between syntax and the discourse function, and
Pienemann et al. (2005) proposed the Topic Hypothesis. Bilingual data can also offer
an useful opportunity for cross-linguistic comparison for this extension of the theory.
This study demonstrated that a bilingual child developed the two languages
separately in a parallel manner from birth. Although this was a study of a single child,
I believe that I have extended and broadened our understanding of bilingual
children’s language development, and that this study leads to further research.
239
6 References
Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Press.
Anderson, R. (Ed.). (1984). Second languages: A cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
Anderson, R. (1988). Models, processes, principles, and strategies: second language
acquisition in and out of the classroom. IDEAL, 3, 77–95.
Barrett, M. (1995). Early lexical development. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney
(Eds.), The Handbook of Child Language (pp. 362–392). Oxford: Blackwell.
Bassano, D. (2000). Early development of nouns and verbs in French: exploring the
interface between the lexicon and grammar. Journal of child Language, 27, 521–559.
Bassano, D., Laaha, S., Maillochon, I. & Dressler, W. (2004). Early acquisition of verb
grammar and lexical development: evidence from periphrastic constructions in French
and Austrian German. First Language, 24, 33–70.
Bates, E., Dale, P. S., & Thal, D. (1995). Individual Differences and their implications
for theories of language development. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The
Handbook of Child Language, pp. 96–151. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bates, E. & Goodman, J. (1999). On the emergence of grammar from the lexicon. In B.
MacWhinney (Ed.), The Emergence of Language, (pp. 29–79). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bergman, C.R. (1976). Interference vs. independent development in infant bilinguals.
In G. V. Keller, R. V. Taeschner, & S. Viera (Eds.), Bilingualism in the bicentennial
and beyond, (pp. 86–96). New York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe.
Bever, T. G. (1970). The conginitive basis for linguistic structures. In J. R. Hayes
(Eds), Cognition and the development of language, (pp.279–352). New York: John
Wiley & Sons.
Bley-Vroman, R. (1989) What is the logical problem of foreign language learning? In
M. Gass & J. Schachter (Eds.), Linguistic Perspective on Second Language
Acquisition (pp. 41–68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bresnan, J. (Ed.). (1982). The mental representation of grammatical relations.
Cambridge: The MIT press.
240
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-functional syntax. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Brown, R. (1973). A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Carroll, S. (1989). Language acquisition studies and a feasible theory of grammar.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 34, 399–418.
Caselli, C., Bates, E., Casadio, P., Fenson, J., Fenson, L., Sanderl, L., & Weir, J.
(1995). A cross-linguistic study of early lexical development. Cognitive Development.
10, 159–199.
Caselli, C., Casadio, P., & Bates, E. (1999). A comparison of the transition from first
words to grammar in English and Italian. Journal of Child Language, 26, 69–111.
Cazden, C. B. (1968). The acquisition of nouns and verb inflections. Child
Development 39, 433–448.
Choi, S. (1998). Verbs in early lexical and syntactic development in Korean.
Linguistics, 36, 4, 755–780.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT
press.
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, N. (1993). A minimalist program for linguistic theory. In K. Hale & S.J.
Keyser (Eds.), The view from building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain
Bromberger. (pp. 1-52). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Clahsen, H. (1984). The acquisition of German word order: A test case for cognitive
approaches to second language acquisition. In R. Andersen (Ed.), Second languages
(pp. 219–242). Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
Clahsen, H. (1990). The comparative study of first and second language development.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12, 135–153.
Clancy, P. (1985). The acquisition of Japanese. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The
Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 1: Data, (pp. 373–524). Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Clark, E.V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In
B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, (pp. 1–33). Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Clark, E.V. (1995). Later lexical development and word formation. In P. Fletcher & B.
MacWhinney (Eds.), The Handbook of Child Language, pp. 393–412. Oxford:
Blackwell.
241
Clyne, M. (1991). Community Languages: The Australian experience. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Conboy, B. T. & Thal, D. J. (2006). Ties Between the Lexicon and Grammar:
Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies of Bilingual Toddlers. Child Development
77(3), 712-735
Crookes, G. (1990). The utterance, and other basic units for second language discourse
analysis. Applied Linguistics, 11, 183–199.
Dalrymple, M. (2001). Syntax and Semantics Volume 34: Lexical Functional
Grammar. San Diego: Academic Press.
David, A. & Li Wei (2005). The composition of the bilingual lexicon. In J. Cohen, K.
McAlister, K. Rolstad, J. MacSwain (Eds.), ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th international
symposium on bilingualism (pp. 594-607). Somerville: Cascadilla Press.
de Bot, K. (1992). A bilingual production model: Levelt’s ‘Speaking’ model adapted.
Applied Linguistics, 13, 1–24.
De Houwer, A. (1990). The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: A Case Study.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Houwer, A. (1995). Bilingual language acquisition. In P. Fletcher & B.
MacWhinney (Eds.), The Handbook of Child Language (pp.219–250). Oxford:
Blackwell.
De Houwer, A. (1998). By way of introduction: methods in studies of bilingual first
language acquisition. International journal of bilingualism, 2, 249–264.
De Houwer, A. (2005). Early bilingual acquisition: focus on morphosyntax and the
Separate Development Hypothesis. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. de Groot (Eds.),
Handbook of Bilingualism: Psychological Approaches. (pp. 30–48). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Deuchar, M. & Quay, S. (2000). Bilingual Acquisition: Theoretical Implications of a
Case Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Villliers, J. & de Villiers, P. (1985). The Acquisition of English. In D. I. Slobin
(Ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Vol. 1: Data (pp. 27–139).
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Di Biase, B. (2000). Second language acquisition Notes and Exercises. Sydney:
Language Australia.
Di Biase, B. (2002). Focusing strategies in second language development: a
classroom-based study of Italian in primary school. In B. Di Biase (Ed.), Developing a
second language: Acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English,
Italian, Japanese, Swedish, pp. 95-120. Melbourne: Language Australia.
242
Di Biase, B. & Kawaguchi, S. (2002). Exploring the typological plausibility of
processability theory: Language development in Italian second language and Japanese
second language. Second Language Research, 18, 274–302.
Doi, T. & Yoshioka, K. (1987). Which grammatical structure should be taught when?:
Implications of the Pienemann-Johnston Model to teaching Japanese as a
foreign/second language. Proceeding of the 9th HATJ-UH conference on Japanese
linguistics and language teaching, 10–22.
Döpke, S. (1988). The role of parental teaching techniques in bilingual
German-English families. International Journal of Society and Language, 72,
101–112.
Döpke, S. (1992). One Parent – One Language: An Interactional Approach.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Döpke, S. (1996). The weaker language in simultaneous bilingualism: Why it is not
like L2. Unpublished manuscript. Melbourne: Monash University.
Döpke, S. (1998a). Competing language structures: The acquisition of verb placement
by bilingual German-English children. Journal of Child Language, 25, 555–584.
Döpke, S. (1998b). Can the principle of ‘one-parent one-language’ be disregarded as
unrealistically elitist? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 21, 41–56.
Döpke, S. (Ed.). (2000a). Cross-linguistic structures in simultaneous bilingualism.
Döpke, S. (2000b). Generation of and retraction from cross-linguistically motivated
structures in bilingual first language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 3, 209–226.
Dromi, E. (1987). Early lexical development. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dualy, H. & Burt, M. (1973). Should we teach children syntax? Language Learning 23,
245–258.
Dulay, H. & Burt, M. (1974). Natural sequences in child second language acquisition.
Language Learning 24, 37–53.
Felix, S. (1987). Cognition and language growth. Dordrecht: Foris.
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J.s., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J., Pethick, S., &
Reilly, J. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User’s
guide and technical manual. San Diego, CA: Singular.
Flynn, S. (1987). A parameter-setting model of L2 acquisition: Experimental studies
in anaphora. Dordrecht: Reidel.
243
Flynn, S. & O’Neill, W. (Eds.). (1988). Linguistic theory in second language
acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Genesee, F. (1988). Bilingual language development in preschool children. In D.
Bishop & K. Mogford (Eds.), Language Development in Exceptional Circumstances
(pp.62–79). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
Genesee, F. (1989). Early bilingual development: one language or two? Journal of
Child Language, 16, 161–179.
Genesee, F. (2000). Introduction. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 167–172.
Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E. & Paradis, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early
bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22, 611–631.
Gentner, D. & Boroditsky, L. (2001). Individuation , relativity, and early word
learning. In M. Bowerman & S. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and
conceptual development (pp.215–256). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Håkansson, G. (2001). Tense morphology and verb-second in Swedish L1 children,
L2 children and children with SLI. Bilingualism : Language and Cognition, 4, 85–99.
Håkansson, G. (2002). Learning and teaching of Swedish: a processability perspective.
In B. Di Biase (Ed.), Developing a second language: Acquisition, processing and
pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, Swedish (7–15). Melbourne:
Language Australia.
Hakuta, K. (1977). Word order and particles in the acquisition of Japanese. Paper and
reports on Child Language Development, 13, 110–117.
Hakuta, K. (1982). Interaction between particles and word order in the comprehension
and production of simple sentences in Japanese children. Developmental psychology,
18, 62–75.
Harada, K. I. (1977). The acquisition of passive, causative and te moraw constructions
in Japanese: A case study on a two-year-old. International Christian University
Annual Reports, The Division of Languages, 2, 1–16. Tokyo: International Christian
University.
Harding, E. & Riley, P. (1986). The Bilingual Family: A handbook for parents.
Hart, B. & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful difference in the everyday experiences of
young American children. Baltimore: Brookes.
Hayashibe, H. (1975). Word order and particles: a developmental study in Japanese.
Descriptive and Applied Linguistics, 8, 1–18.
Hinds, J. (1982). Ellipsis in Japanese. Linguistic Research INC.
244
Horiguchi, S. (1979). Nisaiji no hanashikotoba ni mirareru danjo no sa. Paper
presented at the Sixth International Christian University Linguistics Symposium,
August, 1979.
Hulk, A. & Müller, N. (2000). Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface
between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 227–244.
Huter, K. (1996). Atarashii no kuruma and other old friends. Australian Review of
Applied Linguistics, 19, 39–60.
Huter, K. (1997). Developmental stages in Japanese second language acquisition.
Australian Studies in Language Acquisition Series 6. Sydney: NLLIA/LARC
University of Western Sydney.
Hyltenstam, K. & Obler, L. (Eds.). (1989). Bilingualism across the lifespan.
Ide, S. (1977). Sex and personal referents of Japanese children. Proceedings of the
Symposium on Japanese sociolinguistics, Summer Institute of the Linguistic Society
of America. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2001). The early phase of the acquisition of Japanese verbal
morphology by a bilingual child. Paper presented at the 2nd Australian symposium on
second language acquisition and Processability, 4–5 July 2001, Australian National
University.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2003a). The acquisition of Japanese in a (Japanese-English)
bilingual child. Paper presented at the 3rd Australian symposium on second language
acquisition Processability theory, 11–12 February 2003, University of Western
Sydney.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2003b). From word to phrase in Japanese-English bilingual first
language acquisition. Paper presented at the MARCS seminar, 15 September 2003,
University of Western Sydney.
Itani-Adams. Y. (2003c). The development of a bilingual lexicon in Japanese-English
bilingual first language acquisition. Paper presented at the SLA and Processability
PhD seminar, 15 December 2003, University of Western Sydney.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2004). A comparison of the development of Japanese and English in
a bilingual child. Paper presented at the Processability and bilingualism seminar, 1
October 2004, University of Western Sydney,.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2005). Exploring the interface between lexical and morphosyntactic
development in Japanese–English bilingual first language acquisition. In M. Atherton
(Ed.), CAESS Conference: Scholarship & Community (pp.1–15). Sydney: University
of Western Sydney.
Itani-Adams, Y. (2007). Lexical and grammatical development in Japanese-English
bilingual first language acquisition. In F. Mansouri (Ed.), Second language acquisition
245
research: Theory-construction and testing (pp. 165–190). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge
Scholars Press.
Ito, K. (1981). Two aspects of negation in child language. In P. Dale & D. Ingram
(Eds.), Child Language – An International Perspective (pp.105–114). Baltimore:
University Park Press.
Iwasaki, J. (2003). The Acquisition of Verbal Morpho-syntax in JSL by a child learner.
Paper presented at the 13th Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association
of Australia (JSAA), 2-4 July 2003, University of Queensland.
Iwasaki, J. (2004a). The acquisition of Japanese as a second language (JSL) and
Processability Theory: a longitudinal study of a naturalistic child learner. Paper
presented at the 9th Annual Round Table of Centre for Applied language and Literacy
Research (CALLR), September 30, 2004, Edith Cowan University.
Iwasaki, J. (2004b). Child Acquisition of Japanese L2: a Processability Account.
Paper presented at the Processability and bilingualism seminar, 1 October 2004,
University of Western Sydney,.
Iwatate, S. (1980). Ichi nihongoji no dooshikei no hattatsu ni tsuite. Gakushuuin
Daigaku bungakubu kenkyuu nenpoo, 27, 191–205.
Iwatate, S. (1994). Yooji gengo ni okeru gojun no shinrigakuteki kenkyuu. Tokyo:
Hazama Shoboo.
Iwatate S. (1997). Bunpoo no kakutoku 1: dooshi o chuushin ni. In H. Kobayashi & M.
Sasaki (Eds.), Kodomotachi no gengo kakutoku (pp.111–130). Tokyo: Taishuukan.
Jackson-Maldonado, D., & Bates, E. (1988). Inventario del Desarrollo de las
Habilidades Comunicativas. San Diego, California: University of California, Centre
for Research on Languages.
Jansen, L. (2002). Some perspectives on acquisition criteria. In B. Di Biase (Ed.),
Developing a second language: Acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic,
Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, (pp. 45–57). Melbourne: Language
Australia.
Johnson, W. (1944). Studies in language behaviour: A program of research.
Psychological monographs, 56, 1–15.
Johnston, M. (1985). Second language acquisition research in the adult migrant
education program. Prospect: A journal of adult migrant education, 1 (1), 19–46.
Adelaide: Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.
Juan-Garau, M. & Pérez-Vidal, C. (2000). Subject realization in the syntactic
development of a bilingual child. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 173–191.
Kameyama, M. (1982). Development of verb use in Japanese: Early verb frames.
Unpublished manuscript, Department of Linguistics. Stanford: Stanford University.
246
Kawaguchi, S. (2000). Acquisition of Japanese verbal morphology: Applying
Processability Theory to Japanese. Studia Linguistica, 54, 2, 238–248.
Kawaguchi, S. (2005a). Acquisition of Japanese as a second language: A
Processability perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Sydney: University of
Western Sydney.
Kawaguchi, S. (2005b). Argument structure and syntactic development in Japanese. In
M. Pienemann (Ed.), Cross-linguistic aspects of Processability Theory (pp. 254–298).
Kempen, G. and Hoenkamp, E. (1987). An incremental procedural grammar for
sentence formulation. Cognitive Science, 11, 201–258.
Kempen, G. & Huijbers, P. (1983). The lexicalization process in sentence production
and naming: Indirect election of words. Cognition, 14, 185–209.
Kim, M. Y., McGregor, K. K., & Thompson, C. K. (2000). Early lexical development
in English- and Korean-speaking children: language-general and language-specific
patterns. Journal of Child Language, 27, 225–254.
Klinge, S. (1990). Prepositions in bilingual language acquisition. In J. Meisel (Ed.),
Two first languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual children
(pp.123–156). Dordrecht: Foris.
Lanza, E. (1997). Language mixing in infant bilingualism: A sociolinguistic
perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. & Long, M. (1991). An introduction to second language
acquisition research. London: Longman.
Leopold, W. (1939–1949). Speech development of a bilingual child. Vols. 1–4.
Evanston, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Leopold, W. (1978). A child’s learning of two languages. In E. Hatch (Ed.), Second
language acquisition: a book of readings (p. 23–32). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1978). Skill theory and language teaching. Studies in Second
Language acquisition, 1, 53–70.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking: From Intention to Articulation. Cambridge: MIT.
Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A. & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in
speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1-75.
Li Wei & David, A. (2004). Lexical development of bilingual children: Theoretical
implications of a longitudinal group study. Paper presented at MMM seminar,
September 2004, University of Western Sydney.
247
Lindholm. K. & Padilla, A. (1978a). Child bilingualism: report on language mixing,
switching and translations. Linguistics, 211, 23–33.
Lindholm. K. & Padilla, A. (1978b). Language mixing in bilingual children. Journal
of child language, 5, 327–335.
MacWhinney, B. (1987). The competition model. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.),
Mechanisms of language acquisition, (pp. 249–308). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Mansouri, F. (1995). The acquisition of Arabic subject-verb agreement in Arabic as a
second language. The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 65–84.
Mansouri, F. (1997). From emergence to acquisition: Developmental issues in Arabic
interlanguage morphology. The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 20, 83–104.
Mansouri, F. (2002). Exploring the interface between syntax and morphology in
second language development. In B. Di Biase (Ed.), Developing a second language:
Acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese,
Swedish (pp.59–72). Melbourne: Language Australia.
Mansouri, F. (2005). Conceptualising intra-stage sequencing in the learner language.
In F. Mansouri (Ed.), Second language acquisition research: Theory-construction and
testing (pp. 95–110). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press.
Marchman, V. A., & Bates, E. (1994). Continuity in lexical and morphological
development: a test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 21,
339–366.
Marchman, V. A., Martinez-Sussmann, C. & Dale, P. S. (2004). The language-specific
nature of grammatical development: evidence from bilingual language learners.
Developmental Science 7(2), 212-224
Matsumoto, Y. (1996). Complex Predicates in Japanese: A Syntactic and Semantic
Study of the Notion ‘Word’. Tokyo: CSLI Publication & Kuroshio.
McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second Language Acquisition in Childhood: Vol. 1,
Preschool Children. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
McLaughlin, B. (1987). Theories of second language learning. London: Edward
Arnold.
McNeill, D & McNeill, N. (1973). What does a child mean when he says "No"? In C.A.
Ferguson & D.I. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of child language development (pp. 619–627).
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winson.
Meisel, J. (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K.
Hyltenstam & L. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism Across the Lifespan (pp.12–40).
248
Meisel, J. (Ed.). (1990a). Two first languages: Early grammatical development in
bilingual children. Dordrecht: Foris.
Meisel, J. (1990b). INFL-ection: Subjects and subject-verb agreement. In J. Meisel
(Ed.), Two first languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual children
(pp.237–300). Dordrecht: Foris.
Meisel, J. (1991). Principles of universal grammar and strategies of language use: On
some similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition. In L.
Eubank, L. (Ed.), Point – Counterpoint: Universal Grammar in the Second Language
(pp.231–276). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Meisel, J. (Ed.) (1994a). Bilingual first language acquisition: French and German
grammatical development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Meisel, J. (1994b). Code-switching in young bilingual children: the acquisition of
grammatical constraints. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 413–439.
Meisel, J. Clahsen, H. & Pienemann, M. (1981). On determining developmental stages
in natural second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 3,
109–135.
Mishina, S. (1997). Language Separation in Early bilingual Development: A
Longitudinal Study of Japanese/English Bilingual Children. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles.
Mishina-Mori, S. (2002). Language differentiation of the two languages in early
bilingual development: A case study of Japanese. International review of applied
linguistics, 40, 211–233.
Miller, J. F. & Chapman, R. S. (1981). The relation between age and mean length of
utterance in morphemes. Journal of speech and hearing research, 24, 154–161.
Miyahara, K. (1973). Language development in a young Japanese child – acquisition
of particles. Unpublished paper, Kyuushuu Universtiy.
Miyahara, K. (1974). The acquisition of Japanese particles. Journal of Child
Language, 1, 283–286.
Morikawa, H. (1997). Acquisition of case marking and argument structures in
Japanese. Tokyo : Kuroshio.
Morikawa, H. (2006). The acquisition of case markers. In M. Nakayama, R.Mazuka &
Y. Shirai (Eds.), The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics: Vol. 2, Japanese
(pp.76–82). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
249
Müller, N. (1990). Developing two gender assignment systems simultaneously. In J.
Meisel (Ed.), Two first languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual
children (pp.193–236). Dordrecht: Foris.
Nakamura, K. (1993). Referential structures in Japanese childre’s narratives: The
acquisition of wa and ga. Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 3, 84-99.
Neustupný, J.V. (1991). On romanizing Japanese. Melbourne: Japanese Studies
Centre.
Nishino, T & Watamaki, T. (1997). Ichijoji no hatsuwachoo no seichoo kyokusen
(chuukan hookoku). In Hattatsu shinrigakukai dai 8 kai taikai happyoo ronbunshuu (p.
241). Osaka: University of Osaka.
Noji, J. (19741–1977). Yoojiki no gengo seikatsu no jittai, Vols. 1–4. Hiroshima:
Bunka Hyooron.
Nordlinger, R. (1998). Constructive case: Evidence from Australian languages.
Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Ogura, T. (1995). Bunpoo no shutsugen to ninchi hattatsu to no kankei: 4ji no oodann
kansatsu kara. Nihon shinrigakkai dai 59 kai taikai ronbunshuu, 280.
Ogura, T. (1998). Makkaasaa nyuuyouji gengo hattatsu shitsumonshi no kaihatsu to
kenkyuu. Monbu shoo kagaku kenkyuuhi kiban kenkyuu (C) Kenkyuu seika hookoku
sho. Kobe: Kobe University.
Ogura, T., Dale, P., Yamashita, Y., Murase. T., & Mahieu, A. (2006). The use of nouns
and verbs by Japanese children and their caregivers in book-reading and toy-playing
contexts. Journal of Child Language, 33, 1-29.
Ogura, T., Naka, N., Yamashita, Y., Murase. T., & Mahieu, A. (1997). Nihongo
kakutokuji no goi to bunpoo no hattatsu: Clan puroguramu ni yoru bunseki. Koobe
daigaku hattatsu kagakubu kenkyuu kiyoo, 4 (2), 31–57.
Okada, K., & Grinstead, J. (2003). The emergence of CP in child Japanese. In J. M.
Liceras (Ed.), Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language
Acquisition Conference (213–218). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project..
Okubo, A (1984). A study of child language: Syntax and vocabulary. Tokyo: Ayumi
Shuppan.
Oshima-Takane, Y., Naka, N., & Miyata, S. (1997). Early emergence of nouns and
verbs: A crosslinguistic study of Japanese and English. Abstract for paper presented
JCHAT/CHILDES Meeting 97. Retrieved 2 November 2005, from
http://jchat.cyber.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JCHAT /tutorial/meeting97/onm.html.
Paradis, J. & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition, 18, 1–25.
250
Parodi, T. (1990). The acquisition of word order regularities and case morphology. In J.
Meisel (Ed.), Two first languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual
children (pp.157–192). Dordrecht: Foris.
Pauwels, A. F. (1985). The role of mixed marriages in Language shift in the Dutch
community. In M. Clyne (Ed.), Australia, Meeting Place of Languages (pp. 39–55).
Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Pearson, B. Z. (1998). Assessing lexical development in bilingual babies and toddlers.
International journal of bilingualism, 2, 347–372.
Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, S. C., & Oller, D. K. (1993). Lexical development in
bilingual infants and toddlers: comparison to monolingual norms. Language Learning,
43, 93–120.
Pfaff, C. (Ed.). (1987). First and second language acquisition processes. Cambridge,
MA: Newbury House.
Pienemann, M. (1980). The second language acquisition of immigrant children. In S.
Felix (ed.), Second Language Development, pp. 41-56. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Pienemann , M. (1998a). Language Processing and Second Language Development :
Processability Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pienemann, M. (1998b). Developmental dynamics in L1 and L2 acquisition:
Processability Theory and generative entrenchment. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 1, 1–20.
Pienemann, M., Di Biase, B. & Kawaguchi, S. (2005). Extending processability theory.
In M. Pienemann (Ed.), Cross-linguistic aspects of processability theory (pp.
199–253). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pienemann, M. & Johnston, M. (1987). Factors influencing the development of
language proficiency. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Applying Second Language Acquisition
Research (pp.45–141). Adelaide: National Curriculum Research Centre, Adult
Migrant Education Program.
Pienemann, M. & Håkansson, G. (1999). A unified approach towards the development
of Swedish as L2: a processability account. Studies of Second Language Acquisition,
21, 383–420.
Pienemann, M. & Mackey, A. (1993). An empirical study of children’s ESL
development and Rapid Profile. In P. McKay (Ed.), ESL development. Language and
Literacy in schools, Vol. 2 (pp.115–259). Commonwealth of Australia and National
Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia.
Pinker, S. (1984). Language Learnability and Language Development. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
251
Platzack, C. (1996). The initial hypothesis of syntax: A minimalist perspective on
language acquisition and attrition. In H. Clahsen (Ed.), Generative perspectives on
language acquisition (pp.369–414). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Posner, M. I. & Snyder, C. R. R. (1975). Attention and cognitive control. In R.L. Solso
(Ed.), Information processing and cognition: the Loyala symposium (pp. 55–85).
Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Quay, S. (1995). The bilingual lexicon: implications for studies of language choice.
Journal of Child Language, 22, 369–87.
Redlinger, W., & Park, T. Z. (1980). Language mixing in young bilingual. Journal of
child language, 3, 449–455.
Rescorla, L. (1989). The language development survey: a screening tool for delayed
language in toddlers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 587–599.
Richards, B. (1987). Type/token ratios: what do they really tell us? Journal of Child
Language, 14, 201–209.
Richards, J., Platt, J. & Weber, H. (1985). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics.
Essex: Longman.
Romaine, S. (1989). Bilingualism. New York: Blackwell.
Rondal, J. A. & DeFays, D. (1978). Reliability of mean length of utterances as a
function of sample size in early language development. Journal of Genetic Psychology,
133, 305–306.
Ronjat, J. (1913). Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue.
Paris: Champion.
Sano, K. (1977). An experimental study on the acquisition of Japanese simple
sentences and cleft sentences. Descriptive and Applied Linguistics, Vol. X, 213–233.
Santlemann, L. (1995). The acquisition of verb second grammar in child Swedish:
continuity of Universal Grammar in wh-questions, topicalization and verb raising.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University.
Saunders, G. (1988). Bilingual Children: From Birth to Teens. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.
Saunders, G. (1991). The sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism: bilingualism and
society. In A. Liddicoat (Ed.), Bilingualism and Bilingual Education (pp.81–140).
Melbourne: National Languages Institute of Australia.
Schiefelbusch, R. (1989). An introduction to teachability issues. In M. Rice & R.
Schiefelbusch (Eds.), The teachability of language (pp. 1–9). Baltimore: Paul. H.
Brookes.
252
Schlyter, S. (1990a). Introducing the DUFDE project. In J. Meisel (Ed.), Two first
languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual children (pp.73–84).
Dordrecht: Foris.
Schlyter, S. (1990b). The acquisition of tense and aspect. In J. Meisel (Ed.), Two first
languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual children (pp.87–122).
Dordrecht: Foris.
Schlyter, S. (1993). The weaker language in bilingual Swedish-French children. In K.
Hyltenstam & Å, Viberg (Eds.), Progression & Regression in Language:
Sociocultural, Neuropsychological, & Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 289–308).
Schneider, N. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1977). Controlled and automatic processing I:
Detection, search and attention. Psychological Review, 84, 1–64.
Sells, P. (1995). Korean and Japanese morphology from a lexical perspective.
Linguistic Inquiry, 26, 177–325.
Sells, P. (1999). Japanese postposing involves no movement. Paper presented at AILA
1999, Stanford University. Retrieved 10 May 2006 from:
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/ ~sells/jp-www.pdf.
Shibatani, M. (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Shiffrin, R. M. & Scheneider, N. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information
processing II: attending and general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127–190.
Shirai, Y. (1998). The emergence of tense-aspect morphology in Japanese: universal
predisposition? First Language, 18, 281–309.
Shirai, Y. (1999). The prototype hypothesis of tense-aspect acquisition. In P. Robinson
(Ed.), Representation and process: Proceedings of the 3rd Pacific Second Language
Research Forum, Vol. 1 (pp.151–164). Tokyo: PacSLRF.
Shirai, Y. & Anderson, R.W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: a
prototype account. Language, 71, 743–62.
Shirai, Y. & Kurono, A. (1998). The acquisition of tense-aspect marking in Japanese
as a second language. Language Learning, 48, 245–279.
Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C.
Ferguson & D. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of child language development (pp. 175–208).
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Slobin, D.I. (1985). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D. I.
Slobin, (Ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 1: Data (pp.
1157–1256). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
253
Slobin, D.I. (Ed.). (1997a). The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 4.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Slobin, D.I. (Ed.). (1997b). The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol.
5: Expanding the contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Snow, C. (1995). Issues in the study of input: fine tuning, universality, individual and
developmental differences, and necessary causes. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney
(Eds.), The Handbook of Child Language (pp.180–193). Oxford: Blackwell.
Taeschner, T. (1983). The sun is feminine. Berlin: Spinger-Verlag.
Tanoue, E. K. (1980). Language development in two Japanese-speaking children: A
cross-linguistic study. Unpublished qualifying paper, Teacher’s college, Colombia
University.
Uyeno, T., Harada, K.I., Hayashibe, H. & Yamada, H. (1978). Comprehension of
sentences with giving and receiving verbs in Japanese children. Annual Bulletin of the
Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (University of Tokyo), 12, 167–185.
Veneziano, E. (1999). Early lexical, morphological and syntactic development in
French: some complex relations. International Journal of Bilingualism, 3, 183–218.
Volterra, V., & Taeschner, T., (1978). The acquisition and development of language
by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 5, 311–326.
Watamaki, T. (1997). Growth in MLU and the development of grammatical
morphemes in Japanese children. Abstract for paper presented at JCHAT/CHILDES
Meeting 1997. Retrieved 9 June 2004 from
http://jchat.cyber.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JCHAT/tutorial/
meeting97/watamaki.html.
Wells, G. (1985). Language development in the pre-school years. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
White, L. (1989). Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Wode, H. (1981). Learning a second language: an integrated view of language
acquisition. Tübingen:Narr.
Yip, V. & Matthews, S. (2000). Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese-English bilingual
child. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 193–208.
Yukawa, E. (1997). L1 Japanese attrition and regaining: the case study of two early
bilingual children. Stockholm: Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm
University.
254
Zhang, Y. (2001). Second language acquisition of Chinese grammatical morphemes:
a Processability perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Canberra: Australian
National University.
Zhang, Y. (2002a). A processability approach to the L2 acquisition of Chinese
grammatical morphemes. In B. Di Biase (Ed.), Developing a second language:
Acquisition, processing and pedagogy of Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, Japanese,
Swedish (pp. 29–43). Melbourne: Language Australia.
Zhang, Y. (2002b). Describing the L2 acquisition process: the genitive and attributive
markers of Mandarin Chinese. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association,
37 (2), 75–112.
Zhang, Y. (2004). Categorial analysis, processing demands, and the L2 acquisition for
the Chinese adjective suffix -de (ADJ). Language Learning, 54 (3), 437–468.
255
Appendix A Japanese romanisation
In this thesis I gave all Japanese examples in romanisation. Romanization is a system
of representing Japanese sound using the Roman alphabet. I use the Standard system,
also known as the Hepburn system, with a minor modification for the representation
of long vowels. The Standard system indicates long vowels by the use of a 'macron'
on the top of the vowel, however in the this thesis I indicate long vowels by repeating
the vowel symbol, e.g., aa, ee.
Japanese, written using the normal scripts, does not have a device to indicate word
division. Words are written one after another without spaces between them. In
contrast, when writing Japanese using romanisation, words are divided by spaces like
in English. However, three is no uniform rule of how to divide words in Japanese
romanisation. Particularly the division of morphemes is an issue. In this study I based
the spacing rules of Japanese romanisation on what Neustupný (1991) described, with
some additional rules used in this study are as follows:
•
Content words are written separately bound by spaces, e.g., neko (=cat), gakkoo
(=school).
•
Post nominal particles, e.g., -ga (NOM), -o (ACC), -ni (DAT), -no (GEN) and the
topic marker -wa (TOP) are hyphenated to the head noun.
•
Other semantic particles are written separately.
•
Noun suffixes such as ‘chan’, ‘san’ and ‘o-' were attached to the head nouns as
one word, e.g., kumasan ‘bear-suffix’ (= teddy bear), and;
•
Agglutinative morphemes were hyphenated to the stem and other morphemes,
e.g., tabe-nai ‘eat-NEG’ (= not eat), ooki-katta ‘big-PAST’ (= (it) was big).
There is another well-known romanisation system for the Japanese language called
the Kunrei system. While the Standard system places emphasis on the approximation
of the pronunciation using the spelling of English consonants, the Kunrei system
emphasizes the symmetry of representation (Neustupný, 1991). Both systems are
virtually the same except for the spelling rules for the syllables shown below.
Although the way these sounds are represented differ it does not alter the meanings of
the words.
256
Standard system
shi
ji
chi
tsu
fu
sha, shu, sho
ja, ju, jo
ch, chu, cho
Kunrei system
si
zi
ti
tu
hu
sya, syu, syo
zya, zyu, zyo
tya, tyu, tyo
Lexical Functional Grammar, the grammatical representation I use in my study,
utilises the Kunrei system when representing Japanese. When quoting Japanese
examples from other authors who used the Kunrei system, I re-wrote them in the
standard system in order to maintain consistency within this thesis. The source where
such an example was taken from is always noted. As noted above the re-writing in the
standard system does not alter the meaning or grammatical information.
257
Appendix B Format for glosses
In this thesis, I present all Japanese examples in Italics. For English examples, I
present them in Italics if they occur within text. The concept denoted by words is
written in capital letters, e.g., for a concept SEE, the English word is see and the
Japanese word is mi-ru.
The Japanese examples are followed by English glosses and grammatical codes, and
free English translations are given where needed. Capital letters are used for
grammatical codes. For the format for English glosses and grammatical codes, I use
Slobin’s (1997a,1997b) method. That is, in running text, I present English glosses
and grammatical codes in single quotes. Free English translations are presented in ( ),
indicated by an equal sign. Where some information is not given in Japanese
examples but necessary for English translations, such information is provided in ( ) in
free translation. Hyphens are used to indicate the morphological segmentation within
a word. For example:
tabe-nakat-ta ‘eat-NEG-PAST’ (= (I) did not eat (it)).
When an example is given in interlinear format, English glosses and grammatical
codes appear below the Japanese example, if applicable. I present free translation
below the English glosses in single quotes. Fro example:
tabe-nakat-ta
eat-NEG-PAST
‘(I) did not eat (it)’
In Japanese verb stems never occur alone - it is always suffixed by at least one
morpheme. In this thesis I present a verb stem using the nonpast form of the verb
without the hyphenation. Observe the difference below:
taberu (= eat); this indicates the verb stem for the verb which means to EAT.
tabe-ru ‘eat-NONPAST’ (= (I) eat); this indicates the nonpast form of the same verb.
258
Appendix C Session codes, duration and Hannah’s age
Japanese
session
duration Hannah's age
(minutes)
English
session
duration
(minutes)
Hannah’s age
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
14J
15J
16J
17J
18J
19J
20J
21J
22J
45
50
45
45
90
40
60
45
25
45
45
45
50
45
45
40
45
45
45
65
45
45
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
14E
15E
16E
17E
18E
19E
20E
21E
22E
45
55
55
53
90
67
90
45
20
45
45
45
45
45
45
70
55
45
65
65
60
1;11,12
1;11,29
2;1,9
2;2,17
2;3,16
2;4,15
2;5,10
2;6,19
2;6,26
2;7,6
2;7,28
2;9,9
2;10,5
2;11,7
2;11,21
3;0,21
3;1,17
3;2,14
3;3,0
3;4,0 & 3;4,4
3;5,15
3;6,15 &
3;6,17
3;7,25
3;8,13
3;9,12
3;10,19 &
3;10,20
3;11,7
4;0,15 &
4;0,20
4;1,7 & 4;1,9
4;2,29
4;3,23
4;5,1
4;6,9 & 4;6,10
4;7,25
4;8,20
4;9,9
4;9,13
4;10,25 &
4;10,27
23J
24J
25J
26J
40
35
45
45
27J
28J
45
15
29J
30J
31J
32J
33J
34J
35J
36J
37J
38J
40
20
45
40
45
35
55
45
20
25
1;11,12
1;11,27
2;1,12
2;2,13
2;3,16
2;4,14
2;5,11
2;6,18
2;6,26
2;7,6
2;7,24
2;9,15
2;10,5
2;10,27
2;11,21
3;0,22 & 3;0,24
3;1,13
3;2,14
3;3,3
3;4,4
3;5,15 & 3;5,17
3;6,14 & 3;6,15
3;7,26
3;8,16
3;9,15
3;10,19 &
3;10,20
3;11,7
4;0,21
23E
24E
25E
26E
27E
28E
4;1,8
4;2,28
4;3,23
4;5,2
4;6,7 & 4;6,8
4;7,26
4;8,20 & 4;8,25
4;9,6 & 4;9,9
4;9,14
4;10,26
259
29E
30E
31E
32E
33E
34E
35E
36E
37E
38E
45
35
45
45
45
45
45
45
30
65
65
35
20
10
25
90
65
Appendix D Transcription conventions
Below is a reproduction of Di Biase’s (2000, p. 25-26) transcription conventions.
1. Decide first the speaker notation (or code) for each participant in the
conversation, e.g.,
C = facilitator/researcher.
T = your informant (keep confidentiality by giving him/her a fictitious name/code)
Use upper case (capital letters) for the speaker codes which are UNLIKELY to appear
in the actual production text e.g., avoid using 'I' as code for a speaker in an English
text, as it will be confused with the first person pronoun. Avoid 'A' because it may be
confused with articles etc.
2. After typing in the speaker code enter only a tab (i.e. press the <tab> key on the
computer’s keyboard). No other characters (only a tab character) should be written
between the speaker code and the beginning of turn for that speaker. This allows the
computer to identify unambiguously each turn and speaker.
After the first speaker notation and tab are entered, start transcribing what you hear
on the tape player. Continue writing on a linear basis from left to right until the end of
turn of that speaker.
But what is a turn?
Turn here refers to a normally continuous (including pauses) utterance of a speaker,
until the Interlocutor (i.e. the other participant in the interaction) either takes his/her
turn where he/she judges to be the end of the first speaker's utterance or interrupts the
first speaker's utterance in order to take his/her turn.
3. At the end of the turn press the return key. Then, again (new speaker) write
speaker notation, tab key, write turn and hit the return key at the end of the turn,
e.g.,
C
what did you say your name was? I did not hear what you said the first time
T
it's difficult to spell
260
4. There should be no punctuation marks except for question marks when the
speaker appears to indicate a question (e.g. by rising intonation) as in example above.
5. No capital letters except for proper names of people and places and the
pronoun for the first person singular “I” and the expression OK, e.g.,
C
are you OK now?
(notice that there is no capital letter at the beginning of turns and no full stop at the
end)
6. Pauses are indicated by one dot (corresponding roughly to a hesitation pause or a
pause usually represented by a comma in ordinary writing) or two dots if it is a
longish pause (corresponding roughly to a full stop pause in ordinary writing). If there
is a pause longer than those two, just write (long pause) in brackets, e.g.,
T
um . he um want to buy a .. computer but he lost money and . um (long pause) I
don’t know
7. Standardise discourse/feedback sounds marking (i.e. assign the same string of
characters to the same marking) e.g. hesitation (um, uh, er), confirmation and back
channelling cues (mhm), clarification requests (mm?), mild surprise (oh). In general it
is best to use strings of characters that are NOT likely to be part of the text, such as
‘a’.
8. Write numerals in words (not figures).
9. Syllables which cannot be transcribed because the transcriber can not hear or
understand them are placed inside round brackets with an (X) for the unclear syllable
or word and three Xs for longer stretches (XXX).
Also any other comment by the transcriber or any element that does not belong to
the text produced by the informant or the interviewer will be enclosed in brackets,
e.g.,
T
this one? (informant points to a picture on the wall)
261
10. Avoid any special formatting or special characters whatever (e.g. do not use
diacritics, avoid accented vowels) in your transcript and make one copy of it (SAVE
AS) Text Only (for analysis) and one with numbered turns (for reference, after you
paste it on Excel - see the section on 'Processing your transcript' below).
N.B. It is a good idea to make a backup copy of all your research files in a different
disk.
The following is a short example of a transcription.
(T = Informant; C = Researcher)
C
OK so er the first thing we'll do this morning is look at some pictures
T
mhm
C
and I'm going to ask you to tell me a story .. about the pictures here we have uh
some pictures from a store .. with
T
a store ?
C
a shopkeeper
T
oh
C
and we have some things that he does .. everyday and I'd like you to tell me the
story of what he does.. in a day
T
(long pause) first hes . he clean er . her shop his shop er before open .. mm. and
then he . mm look (X) goods or things
C
mhm ...
262
Appendix E Hannah’s MLUs
Hannah’s Japanese MLU
session
MLU
1J
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
7J
8J
9J
10J
11J
12J
13J
16J
19J
22J
1.12
1.14
1.23
1.36
1.43
1.50
1.61
1.73
1.73
1.54
1.79
2.03
2.07
2.11
2.19
3.07
Hannah’s English MLU
session
MLU
1E
2E
3E
4E
5E
6E
7E
8E
9E
10E
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
1.19
1.22
1.22
1.45
1.58
1.57
1.60
1.65
1.67
1.49
1.72
2.03
1.92
2.14
1.99
2.62
263
Appendix F Examples of Hannah’s Japanese utterances
Table F-1 Examples of Japanese utterances (number of words from one to five)
No of
1
2
3
4
words
mama
kore nani
(ki no ko)
(han o kake ouchi)
1J
7J
mummy
nani
what?
chiisai
small
akete
open (please)
ii?
good?
doko?
where?
kowaeta?
8J
(it) broke
hhm mite
what's this?
jeen hon
Jane book
papa wain
daddy wine
papa no
daddy's
kotchi katai
this (is) hard.
inu mo
dog too.
[m] hhm keeki
tsukuru
make cake
nani haitteru?
look
what's inside?
dare?
who?
itsu
when?
ao mo
blue too.
hai doozo
here you are.
2J
3J
4J
5J
6J
9J
10J
(root of tree)
chiisai hana chiisai
small Hannah small
papa no wain
daddy's wine
papa osoi ne
daddy late isn't he
mama kuruma yo
mummy (here's) a car.
hhm mama no mo?
mummy's too?
kotchi nani kana?
this (is) yesterday's potato, isn't
it?
kore papa no?
hanachan . kushami deteta ne
(is) this daddy's?
I sneezed didn't I?
kondo nani suru?
itazura rakugaki nai yo
what (shall we) do next? (it's) not naughty graffiti.
what's this one?
hanachan konchan
kaiteru
I'm drawing konchan.
264
5
(Hannah's snail house)
kotchi mama no yo
this is mummy's.
hanachan no doko ana?
I wonder where mine is.
hanachan no jibun de
I myself
kotchi kino oimosa:n ne
papa ai
(we) w
mam
mum
kotch
this is
chuur
if (we
hanac
I hav
mitts
there
No of
1
2
3
4
words
dotchi?
chiisai osakana
hanachan no mo?
hoka no osakana doko?
11J
12J
13J
16J
19J
22J
25J
28J
31J
34J
which?
herikoputa
helicopter
small fish
heirkoputaa oto
helicopter noise
mine too?
atchi nani aru?
what's there over there?
kore?
this?
soo
so.
hmm ikiashoo ka
let's go shall we?
aa chotto yamete
stop it.
hm .. koo yatte ne
do like this.
koko mizuumi yo
here is a lake.
yukichan
Yuki (dolls’ name)
dooshite?
why?
suru
(I) do.
watashi
dansu shiyo:
let's dance.
tanoshii katta
(it) was fun
dotchi no?
which one?
hm suu yutta
I
Sue said.
futatsu
two (pieces)
miruku
milk
aa honto da
it's true.
takeshichan wa?
how about
Takeshi?
yotteru no yo
(I) have (it).
hanachan wa hayai
I am fast.
koko de akeru .
(I'll) open (it) here.
resutoran tanoshikatta
ne
restaurant (was) fun,
want' it?
papa ni miseru
(I'll) show (it) to daddy.
zenbu wasuretatta wa
(I've) forgotten all.
265
5
hanac
kuma ni
my be
jibun
I am t
where's other fish?
jibun de arukenai yatte
(he) says 'can't walk by
himself'.
atchi no hoo: ni
towards that way.
mama joozu nai ne
mummy, (you're) not good at it,
are you?
hanachan no ouchi de
at my home.
minna issho notta no
(we) rode (on it) together.
kore mo jeen kara?
It this from Jane, too?
budoo pan iranai no
obaac
grandm
sera n
Serah'
hanac
I hav
hanac
(I) don't want rasin bread.
when m
nagaku ka= kaku no yo
(I) draw (this) long.
nani ima tabeta no?
what did (you) eat just now?
issho no do
(we) w
sonna k
(you) don'
ha hanac
I'm he
ne ne
shall w
No of
1
2
3
4
words
wakatta?
kore kore: kore
wasurenai yoo ni
mama mo sakka desho
38J
(did you)
understand?
eimi
this is Amy.
don't forget.
mummy's an authour too, aren't
you?
266
5
demo doo y
but how
Table F-2 Examples of Japanese utterances (number of words from six to ten)
No of
words
11J
12J
13J
6
8
9
hhm papa ne . nap nyaa
nyaa: tte yat= yatteta ne
daddy did 'meao' didn't he?
soko itte ne shingapo
shigapooru shingapooru aru
yatte
(I) heard that (if you) go
there, there is a swimming
pool.
kore mo oningyosan nenne hanachan ookikatta kara
suru yatte
[jibun de shiteru no]
this doll will sleep too.
16J
7
chotto ne ningyosan noko
irete ii?
because I am big I am
doing it by myself.
mama no hako [ne] iru
kara ne?
can I put (it) where the doll
is?
(we) need mummy's box
don't we?
hanachan no
obaachama ne inu i
okashi shita no yo
My grandmother
made/bought dog's
sweets.
267
No of
words
19J
22J
25J
28J
6
7
8
hanachan no bataa aru no
ne
demo fumichan mo ne ne
ne kau no yatte
hanachan chiisai no
sukaato mo shiteru no ne
there is my butter isn't
there?
but Fumi says she'll buy it, I am wearing a small skirt,
too.
too, aren't I?
hanachan atchi no hoo ni
iku
demo hanachan no ouchi
daisuki . no yo
I will go over there.
but I like my house very
much.
kore koo shite mo ii no
mama doo yatte koko naka
ireru no?
with this thing, is it OK to
do like this?
mummy, how do you put
(it) in here?
mama ano nihongo no ne
[ne]
ah ano ano sushi no
resutoran ne atchi
koochiya
that sushi restaurant is
there and here
mummy that Japense
(person).
9
mama kyoo ne hanachan ne mama mearii ne
ne yoochien iku no?
hanachan no oheya
ittesai yutteru no
mummy am I going to the
mummy Mary tell m
kindergarten today?
go to my room.
makku jeen kara ki=
ne purezento ne ne
pinku no doko?
where is the pink
present from Mac a
Jane?
makichan to yoshikochan to de watashi mo watas
shoon piitaa to samu
mo mama to papa m
itta ne
Maki and Yoshiko and
and mummy and
Sean, Peter and Sam
dadday and I went, t
didn't we?
268
No of
words
31J
34J
38J
6
7
8
9
watashi no puuru marui
kara ne
de watashi ubaguruma no
naka datta yo
because my pool is round.
and I was inside the pram.
warui otokonoko mi= koo
yatte tsukamaeyoo to suru
no
bad boys try to catch (us)
like this.
watashi wasureta mono o
shita no
ashita wa [futsuu no hi] na dotchi demo ii kara suki na
no?
no totte
I did what I had forgotten.
is tomorrow an ordinary
day?
it doesn't matter which one
so take the one (you) like.
mearii chiisai kara [
chiisai ohana agete
no yo
because Mary is sm
(I) give (her) a smal
flower.
hm dakedo kotchi w
omocha dakara ii n
yo
but it's OK because
is a toy.
watashi ki= kirei ni kazatte
ageta no
watashi doo yatte suru no
ka shiranai
so kore zuu tto michi na n
da
watashi no soo= soo i
fuu ni shichatta n da
I decorated (it) beautifully.
I don't know how to do
(it).
yes, this is a long road.
I did it like that with
mine (my drawing).
269
Table F-3 Examples of Japanese utterances (number of words greater than ten)
Session No of words Utterance
11
anasan ne ne chairo kara ne anasan no ouchi daisuki nai
22J
16
28J
17
31J
11
12
13
14
17
34J
11
12
16
38J
11
because Ana's house is brown I don't like Ana's house.
sore ne (chii) ne ne han no hanachan ne esuta onenne sera arisu ne nenne no ouchi de nenne sh
that is (when) I slept in the house where Ester, Sarah and Alice were sleeping.
ano nihongo no ne ano otokoto no ne [ne] nihongo de de ne ne motto motto mae ni ne suu ne ne n
that Japanese boy (said) to Sue in Japanese a long time ago
watashi paatii de moo itazura shinaide ne to yakusoku datta no
I promised that no more mischeif at a party.
mama to takeshichan to papa to watashi iku no iru no yo
mummy and Takeshi and daddy and I will go.
uiiza . uiiza ne no hoo no ne kami no ke tottemo nagai no yo
Louisa's hair is very long.
watashi no watashi no [ne] puuru no naka ne iro ne eeto [ne] ao no yo
the colour of inside my pool is blue.
ee otokonoko ne tsukamayoo to suru kara ne de minna ne eeto ne onnanoko nigeru no yo
yeah, because boys tries to catch so everyone the girls run away.
ano ne kuruma ni moo modotte kite ato zenbu dashite kureru?
can you return to the car and take the rest (of the things) out?
kuruma kuruma kara ne ano ne gohon toka pikunikku mono ne dashite kureru?
can you take out picnic things such books from the car?
da to densha chotto yake hayai dakedo chotto yake iku n dakara kuruma ikeru no yo
if so, the train is a bit faster but because we are only going for a short (distance) we can go by car.
minna dokoka ne nanka shinjatta mitai na yoo datta n da
it appeared that everyone seemed have died somewhere.
270
Table F-3 Examples of Japanese utterances (number of words greater than ten)
Session No of words Utterance
12
38J
13
16
28
dakara mama mo watashi to onnaji de kaku hito da yo tto
so, mummy and I are both the same and (we are) writers.
sore sakasama ni natte ne ano ano yane no ue ni tatteru n da
that is stadning on top of the roof up side down.
watashi watashi ne anmari wakaranai kedo mama mama ne honto wa ne ano kaku hito dakara i
I don't really understand, but, it's OK, because you really are a writer, mummy.
ano moo yamenasai to itte moo yasashikute natte ne kotchi mo naita kotchi mo naichatte ne yasas
naiteru n da so sono kanashikunatteru n dakara
well, (we) said to stop and (we) became kinder, this person cried and that person cried so we were
made (us) sad.
271
Appendix G Examples of Hannah’s Egnlish utterances
Table G-1 Examples of English utterances (number of words from one to five)
No of words 1
1E
mummy
2
mummy chook
3
I see it
2E
open
open please
3E
okay
hannah outside
shut da door .
4E
count?
catch ball
are you ready?
5E
chair
see ego(?)
me sit down?
6E
broke
no key
hannah check too
7E
8E
9E
10E
frog
ladder .
what?
chook
ishi daddy?
big one
baby chook
I’mi wet
boots on daddy
I’m good girl
yes ishi mummy
dis one better
11E
naughty
that’s enough
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
25E
everybody
bird
floor? .
toast
why?
why?
daddy helping?
over dere:
what’s mine?
I don't
she’s dead
your wine .
whatis doing
neighbour?
what you doing? ..
dat’s yours daddy
which table daddy? .
she's go home
I want to
it killed it
272
4
oh . where das y
spade
daddy ride my hors
hm daddy I com
too
I see you tomorrow
yeah I’ma good da
you hold a hand
I wan sit down
I did naughty no .
I can reach it .
and show you di
I want dat one .
why got this on?
let’s have a look
daddy . you= yo
Table G-1 Examples of English utterances (number of words from one to five)
28E
31E
34E
38E
king?
myself
ah . octopus
some
I won't
which one?
a . a hand?
I forgot
he’s a boy
most of them?
no it's mine
sometime he did
273
tickle me
you do it too
I can write japan
this is a footprint
because he too bi
Table G-2 Examples of English utterances (number of words from six to ten)
No of words
11E
12E
13E
16E
19E
22E
25E
28E
31E
34E
38E
6
what are you doing
hammer there?
I think so when it's
raining
7
daddy I can’t put it on
daddy
8
dat is aeroplane up in the
and daddy I can’t do dat sky
daddy can you cutting
the hole?
daddy can I have some daddy I could not do this
juice?
puzzle
daddy I want to open
it got baby’s and mine in
present
it
this is where your
I want to play with my
bedroom is
friend
cos they haven't got
green stuff
my colour doesn't work
very well
that= that is whent I
was small
the dog bigger than the
children
I got . elephant hanging
up the there
yeah are you gonna take
this off?
yeah do you know this is
this is this is together?
you not normally do that
at school
9
cos me going sleep in
a my home .
I'm not go in a my
home then
I told you a too small
for you
but you grow a bigger yes cos it got l
in the car
bit white on it
I know . that t
you say check you go black one can
like that ok?
like that
daddy I want to make I want to keep t
a photo now
one all by mys
I don't know why it
was one carriage
this is a very very
I can't see it too but
tricky part isn't it?
we have one
274
Table G-3 Examples of English utterances (number of words greater than 11)
Sessoin
25E
28E
31E
34E
38E
No of
words
11
12
11
12
11
12
15
12
13
20
11
12
13
15
Utterance
I do . I do: do it already and charlotte will do with with me
yes and mummy . and and you drink wine and water . and . that's all
it's new house and we can stay here long . long for ever
there this is a black and this can do like that and=
are you writing in english so= so the postman can read it?
but but I did it last time but now I can't do it
daddy . one day in my bedroom I I saw a bottle tree it was very big
you can't go there because that is goes like that do you know?
this is what hard work so I I said I will do it e= whent I got it in the home
but this is this is what this is what hard work so I I said I will do it e= whent I got it in the hom
daddy I will read this all by myself all of them
daddy this girl looks like she's got . my my um school school um u:m uniform on see?
I can pull out lots like this and and after scissors do you know?
ok because because because if we ever got this we are going to touch the books daddy?
275
Appendix H New English nominals in each period
1E_6E
abiish (rubbish)
aeroplane
ant
ants
apai (aeroplane)
apple
babi
babies
baby
back
backet
backpack
bag
baggymais
ball
banabanai (banana)
banai (banana)
banas (banana)
bar
bark
battery
battii (battery)
beach
bear
bears
camera
capon (grandpop)
car
Carmen
carrot
cat
cataniasta
cds
chair
chimney
chinpit (sandpit)
chook
chooks
claa (cloud)
clo (clock)
cloud
clouds
coconut
computer
compyuteiter
(computer)
corn
cow
cuddle
cup
cupboard
gar (garlic)
garli (garlic)
garlic
gate
geese
Gay
girl
glass
grandma
granpon
grape
gre (grey)
green
grey
ground
gum
Han (Hannah)
hand
Hannah
Hannah's
key
keys
kikin
kitchen
knife
koa
koala
kyara (carrot)
lamb
leaf
lellow (yellow)
lemon
light
lounge
magi
maico (microphone)
mais (bus)
maiyo (Milo)
man
mandarin
Han's (Hannah's)
hat
hau (house)
header
heater
mat
me
men
meter
micronee
(microphone)
276
7E_13E
bed
Bennett
beni
biki (biscuit)
bin
bird
bit
blanket
blue
boat
bock (block)
boot
boots
bowl
bran
bread
bretas (breakfast)
bucke (bucket)
bull
bus
butterfly
button
camel
Alexander
Alice (in Wonderland)
dada
daddy
daddy's
Dan
Darcy
dirt
dog
door
drum
duck
echidna
egg
ego (Lego)
elephant
Ernie
farm
fish
flaa (flower)
floor
flower
fly
food
fork
Christmas
compost
home
horse
horsy
house
house
hunger
I
I'm
it
it's
itsa
I've
Jeanie
jeep
juice
Julia
jumper
jumping
jus
juu
kave
Keb (Ken)
Ken
gold
golf
microphone
miffy
mike
milk
Milo
mine
minute
monkey
moon
morgi (morning)
mummy
music
my
nail
news
nut
ock (rock)
orange
our
outside
paint
pasta
pea
Kouma
ladder
an
anyone
apples
cork
crow
daisies
grandpop
grass
gumboots
lake
lavender
lettuce
277
bafly (butterfly)
baachama (Japanese
grandmother)
banana
basket
bicycle
bike
bis (biscuit)
biscuit
book
bottom
boy
Breona
brother
bucket
Caitlin
Canberra
case
catmint
daisy
day
hammer
hands
Lily
log
doll
dolly
Donaldak
dough
ducky
dumpty
Emma
engine
everybody
fam (farm)
fan
father
fofaa (sofa)
photos
friend
frog
Mac
maicra (microwave oven)
Maki
margi
Meg
Melbourne
mess
microai (microwave oven)
microway (microwave oven)
mint
Mog
motorbike
mouse
neighbour
night
noise
caw
cherry
froth
Galah
he
heart
he's
hole
home's
humpty
ihin
I'ma
I'mi
inside
it
jack
Jane
Jane's
Janet
jiichama
(Japanese grandfather)
kangaroo
kid
garden
crocodile
drill
finger
friends
games
kids
lion
Yoshiko
middle
mum
one's
chik
16E_19E I'll
Andes
Andrea
bath
birthday
278
now
obaachama
(Japanese grandmother)
obasan (Japanese aunt)
pingi
prize
rabbits
restaurant
ruler
black
butter
cake
cornflake
22E_25E d'you
it'll
we're
ankle
baby's
bank
bedroom
bed's
bedtime
beetle
28E_31E Alice
Andrew
Anna
Anna's
Australia
Australian
balloon
Barbie
bishop
boab
boabi
Barooga
bottle
box
branches
Henry
giraffe
hair
horsy
broach
Casuarina
Mary
coca
coffee
colour
colours
dress
face
flowers
Cooper
Corey
Corey's
crayon
dolls
ears
elephants
English
flag
Fumichan
helicopter
highway
him
his
Sam
Peter
peanut
pengi (penguin)
penguin
game
guitar
hay
head
idea
Jessica
lady
Mike
money
monster
Japanese
Justin
king
knight
knights
lavendee
legs
lesson
lizard
monday
mother
myself
number
obaachama's
oil
279
sandwich
scissors
she
shoe
morning
name
nappy
neck
parcel
part
pii
piin
piino
pin
Pan
Pan's
photo
photos
place
postman
preschool
problem
queen
rabbit's
rook
rope
saturday
schools
shape
bubble
bubbles
34E_38E Amy's
Andersen
animal
animals
bananas
Bob
books
boys
brain
budgerigar
bush
carriage
cars
jail
Jamaima
cats
cheetah
children
circle
Clifford
clock
contact
corner
country
crab
pastel
paws
Elizabeth
emu
end
fold
folder
footprint
frogs
goanna
hanky
hermit
dinosaur
dogs
ear
instructions
jangle
Japan
shapes
Stee
jelly
jungle
kingfisher
letter
Lulu
march
matter
mistakes
octopus
ojiichama (Japanese
grandfather)
oysters
page
pyjamas
280
Appendix I New English verbs in each period
1E_6E
7E_13E
am
are
aren't
bring
broke
broken
can
can't
catch
check
checking
come
comin
coming
count
bet
borrow
change
did
didn't
doing
drop
dug
eating
fighting
cover
crying
cut
do
don't
done
eat
fafying
fall
find
fix
get
getting
go
gone
give
going
gonna
had
hada
hava
havea
helping
hit
holding
got
gotta
hanging
happen
hapun
have
help
hidy
hold
hop
hurt
hurts
is
ish
ishi
hopping
isha
ishis
isn't
let
making
mash
need
ook
painting
281
jump
jumping
keep
know
laiki (like)
leave
let's
like
look
make
open
pat
pick
play
playing
picking
raining
reach
read
run
shake
start
stay
stop
stuck
push
put
ride
ringin
said
say
see
set
show
shut
sit
sleep
sleeping
take
thank
talking
tell
testing
think
told
touch
walking
wanna
wanti (
was
16E_19E
22E_25E
28E_31E
34E_38E
bleed
bought
breaking
buy
bend
boiling
called
catching
doesn't
break
call
came
changed
crush
does
allowed
beg
couldn't
dag
digs
driving
chop
clean
cutting
die
finish
finished
found
gave
goes
draw
drawing
falling
fell
forget
forgot
given
gives
hasn't
hides
hope
knows
drink
fishing
left
looking
grow
hide
killed
live
looks
gets
goed
haven't
hear
heard
joking
laugh
makes
needs
pull
pushed
runs
mean
might
saw
sitting
pay
picked
sawed
scare
seen
made
means
move
prakise
putting
remember
says
seek
shouldn't
spotted
stings
tells
282
standi
stayin
tired
wanta
sing
swim
taking
tickle
tip
rip
scared
should
skiing
speak
speaki
throw
trim
trying
unstapl
wants
wash
Appendix J New Japanese nominals in each period
1J_6J
ae
aiai
aiyai
aka
fly
aiai (monkey)
aiai (monkey)
red
isu
janetto
jeen
jiichan
chair
Janet
Jane
gramdfather
onnanoko
oobun
oosu
orenji
akawain
akizumi
ana
ao
appa
ari
asa
ashi
ata
atama
baakyuu
baasa
babi
babiya
bacha
red wine
lake
hole
blue
leaf
ant
morning
leg/foot
head
head
barbeque
teddybear
teddybear
teddybear
grandmother
jini
jishe
juu
juu
kaado
kaasan
kaban
kabe
kachi
kachinyuu
kachiya
kaga
kaimomo
kaisha
kame
Jeanie
magnet
juice
ten
card
mother
bag
wall
snail
snail
snail
snail
shopiing
work office
rice
oriori
oryoori
osarusan
oshare
oshi
oshimaa
oshimai
oshoowa
oto
ouchi
ouma
oumasan
outa
oyasai
panchu
bae
fly
kamotsu
load (of goods train)
pantsu
baiorin
bairin
bana
banana
violin
violin
banana
banana
kata
katachi
katchi
katerina
shoulder
shape
snail
Katerina
papa
pazuru
pin
pinku
283
1J_6J
(cont’d)
bane
banya
banyanya
barearia
bas
basan
basha
banana
banana
banana
ballerina
bus
teddy bear
teddy bear
katicha
keeki
kemi
kemugi
kemuri
ki
kiiro
Katerina
cake
smoke
smoke
smoke
tree
yellow
pittsa
piyo
preeo
puramu
puu
puusa
puusan
bashan
teddy bear
kimi
egg york
puusha
bata
batta
benchi
bentoo
bideo
boo
booru
bori
boru
buke
buutsu
caitin
chairo
chocho
chojo
choocho
choodai
chun
butter
grass hopper
bench
packed lunch
video
ball
ball
ball
ball
bucket
boots
Caitlin
brown
butter fly
butter fly
butter fly
give me
spoon
kin
kiro
kisha
kisu
kitchin
koko
koko
koko
kome
koohii
ksha
kuro
kuroyagisa
kuruma
kusa
kyuu
maaku
maik
chiken
yellow
train
kiss
kitchen
hen
fish
here
rice
coffee
grass
black
black goat
car
grass
nine
microphone
microphone
rajio
rego
remon
renchi
ressha
roku
roozumarii
san
san
sansha
sarusan
satchan
seta
sha
shaishi
shawa
shawaa
shi
284
1J_6J
(cont’d)
chuun
dakkochan
dako
deasha
deashan
denchi
densha
spoon
cuddle
cuddle
train
train
battery
train
maike
mais
maishi
mama
mame
mariya
mariyoo
Michael
bus
bus
mummy
bean
marigold
marigold
shiidii
shiipaa
shiita
shiito
shiitsu
shinbun
shingapooru
denshan
ego
eki
train
lego
station
mashi
masu
masutaado
bus
bus
mustard
shio
shippa
shippo
ema
ento
entotsu
futa
ganji
go
gomi
greeam
ha
hachi
hachi
hae
hai
hako
Emma
chimmney
chimmney
lid
rake
five
rubbish
Greame
tooth
eight
bee
fly
fly
box
menchi
merubo
midori
migi
mikku
minna
minto
miro
momo
moofu
murasaki
mushi
naifu
naka
lunch
Melborune
green
right
milk
everyone
mint
Milo
peach
blanket
purple
insect
knife
inside
shirowain
shishi
shoon
suidoochi
surippa
tade
tane
tanesan
taoru
tapa
te
tee
tenshan
tepurekooda
han
hana
Hannah
Hannah
nami
nana
wave
seven
terebi
tete
285
1J_6J
(cont’d)
7J_13J
hana
hana
hanachan
hanatan
hanbun
hanta
hantai
hantaigao
happa
hihon
hikooki
himaai
hire
hon
hone
hoo
hoosu
hoppe
ichi
inu
ishi
ishu
issho
aisukuriimu
akachan
akirusan
ame
nose
flower
Hannah
Hannah
half
opposite
opposite
opposite side
leaf
aeroplane
aeroplane
sunflower
fin (of fish)
book
bone
side
hose
cheek
one
dog
stone
chair
together
icecream
baby
duck
rain
neesha
nenne
ni
nihon
ningyo
nioi
nioia
niwatorisan
nori
nya
nyanya
obun
ocha
ochi
ojisan
okaasan
okome
okura
omen
one
one
oneesan
onenne
juusu
kachimiri
kachisan
kaerusan
big sister
sleep
two
Japan
doll
smell
smell
hen
nori seaweed
water
water
oven
tea
house
uncle
mother
rice
okra
mask
bone
boat
big sister
sleep
juice
snail
snail
frog
286
toke
koba
toon
tooni
toonyuu
tootaa
tsuchi
uchi
umi
unchi
unia
usagi
ushiro
wain
wawa
wawa
yaiya
yama
yaya
yubi
yuge
zoo
zoosan
oringo
osaka
osakana
osanpo
7J_13J
(cont’d)
anasan
arisa
arisan
baabekyuu
Anna
ant
ant
barbeque
kaimono
kaminoke
kanga
kangaruu
shopping
hair
Kanga
kangaroo
oshigoto
oshikko
oshingoto
oshio
baketsu
bakkyu
bandoeido
bara
beri
beruto
betto
bikkuri
bongo
booshi
budoo
buranko
burena
chakku
chekku
chippu
chokoreeto
chuurippu
daikon
dakko
dan
deesha
bucket
barbeque
Band Aid
rose
berry
belt
bed
surprise
bongo
hat
grape
a swing
Breana
zip
check
potato chips
chocolate
tulip
radish
cuddle
Dan
train
kawa
kaze
keeteran
kega
keiten
ken
ketoran
kimono
kingo
kishikishimu
kishimasu
komiko
komingo
komuigo
konchan
kooji
koori
kouma
kuma
kumasan
kumo
kuriimu
river
wind
Caitlin
injury
Caitlin
Ken
Caitlin
kimono
goldfish
Christmas
Christmas
flour
flour
flour
Kon
roadwork
ice
Kouma
bear
bear
spider
cream
osoto
osushi
otete
otomodachi
otoosan
otooto
oyama
ozubon
paagenja
paatii
painappuru
pan
panda
pasuta
pasuto
pen
penginsan
piano
piitaa
pikuniku
poketsu
pun
287
7J_13J
(cont’d)
deijii
doa
domino
donguri
doosan
doraibu
daisy
door
domino
acorn
elephant
drive
kurippu
kushami
kuuki
kyanbera
magupai
maiku
clip
sneeze
air
Canberra
magpie
microphone
pureedoo
raian
rakugaki
rakuyaki
reezooko
ribon
e
ebi
ekina
epuron
faamu
picture
prawn
echidna
apron
farm
majo
makichan
me
megu
meme
witch
Maki
eye
Meg
eye
ringo
ririsan
ruu
sandoichi
sangurasu
fude
fuusen
fuuto
fuutoo
paint brush
balloon
envelop
envelop
mono
nari
nashi
neko
thing
Nari
pear
cat
sankaku
sanpo
santa
satchichan
gachoo
gaian
gakko
gakkoo
geeam
geeto
Gei
genki
gitaa
gohan
gohon
goose
Ryan
school
school
Greame
gate
Gay
well being
guitar
cooked rice/meal
book
nekochan
niju
ningyosan
ninji
ninjin
noki
noko
nyuusu
obachama
obi
obooshi
cat
twenty
doll
carrot
carrot
time (at the time of~)
place
news
antie
sash for kimono
hat
satoshichan
seetaa
seki
sekken
sense
shashin
shigapooru
shikeeto
shimauma
shingapo
shingapoori
288
7J_13J
(cont’d)
gomigako
gureeamu
hane
hata
hatchi
hebi
hebisan
hei
herikoputaa
hi
hiita
hiitaa
himawari
himo
hito
hitsujisan
hookii
hoshibudoo
ichinogo
ie
ika
itazura
janpu
jibun
jiichama
jinii
jishaku
jon
juria
rubbish bin
Greame
feather
flag
bee
snake
snake
wall
helicopter
fire
heater
heater
sunflower
rope
person/people
sheep
broom
dried grapes
strawberry
house
squid
mischief
jump
one'sself
grandfather
Jeanie
magnet
John
Julia
odeesha
oekaki
ofune
ofuton
ohana
ohana
oheya
ohosama
oimosan
oji
ojiichama
ojisa
ojiya
okaimomo
okane
okashi
okuchi
okuku
omame
omeme
omikan
omizyu
onara
onasu
onbu
onegai
oniisan
oniku
oningyosan
train
drawing
boat
futon bed
flower
nose
room
star
sweet potato
uncle
grandfather
uncle
rice porridge
shopping
money
sweets
mouth
shoe
beans
eye
mandarin
water
fart
eggplant
piggyback
a favour
elder brother
meat
doll
289
shitagi
shokku
shuten
shuuten
sofaa
sooseeji
soosu
sukaato
supuree
supuun
sutoroo
taisoo
taitsu
tako
tamago
tanuki
teeburu
tento
tentou
tetsudai
tokage
tonbo
tori
torisan
uma
yesuteen
yesutoran
yoshichan
7J_13J
16J_19J
22J_25J
jurii
baachama
baree
bataa
chikichikibanban
chippi
dansu
fumi
fumichan
haato
hakshoo
hikoojoo
hokori
jeemu
kaaten
kasa
kirinsan
arisu
amechan
basho
esuta
hamiyaki
hasami
samu
ben
kitiichan
koe
kurakkaa
maru
Julie
grandmother
ballet
butter
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chippy
dance
Fumi
Fumi
heart
swan
air port
dust
James
curtain
umbrella
girraffe
alice
lollies
place
Ester
brushing teeth
scissors
Sam
Ben
Hello Kitty
voice
cracker
circle
onnako
kyanpu
mado
meruborun
mizuumi
obaachama
ofuro
okaimono
okubi
omizu
osara
oshiri
oshooyu
oshuuji
otetsudai
oyoofuku
pechikooto
michi
okatsuo
oniguruma
origuruma
oseki
piinattsu
purezento
renshuu
resutoran
seeraamuun
shiro
sera
girl
camp
window
Melbourne
lake
grandmother
bath
shopping
neck
water
plate
bottom
soysauce
calligraphy
a help
clothes
petticoat
road
bonito flakes
baby pusher
baby pusher
cough
peanuts
present
practice
restaurant
Sailer Moon
white
Sarah
290
pierochan
pikunikku
pikupiku
pikupikunikk
retasu
shibabakari
shikaku
suupaa
toki
ude
wanpiisu
yooguruto
yumi
yumichan
supagetii
supurinkuraa
takechan
takeshichan
tamatagohan
tanjoobi
tokoro
watashi
yoochien
yukisan
28J_31J
34J_38J
bango
cherushii
danbo
doresu
ebun
eda
eigo
geemu
hinichi
iisutaa
iro
jamaima
jasuten
jeribiin
anjera
debii
eimi
jerii
keshigomu
kodomo
konsaato
kurafuto
kurisumasu
mahoo
masshuruumu
miiya
miruku
mitsuami
momotaroo
number
Chelsea
Danbo
dress
Evan
tree branch
English
game
date
Easter
colour
Jamaima
Jasten
jelly bean
Anjela
Debie
Amy
jelly
eraser
child(ren)
concert
craft
Christmas
magic
mashroom
Miiya
milk
plaits
Momotaro
kami
kimochi
koorii
yoshikochan
matsu
nihongo
obasan
ohiza
okisama
okyakusan
onigokko
otanjoobi
otokonoko
otokoto
oishasan
okatazuke
omimi
omise
omocha
onaka
oni
onna
otsukaimono
pai
peke
raion
rokkaa
rokketto
ruru
paper
feeling
Corey
Yoshiko
pine tree
Japanese (language)
aunt
knee/lap
sun
customer
chasy
birthday
boy
boy
doctor
tidy up
ear
shop
toy
stomach
oni (Japanese monster)
woman
shopping
pie
cross
lion
locker
rocket
Lulu
291
puuru
ruiiz
ruiiza
suu
supotsu
sushi
taiko
teepu
ubaguruma
uiiz
uiiza
usagichan
yakusoku
sakuranbo
shinpai
shoogakkoo
taiji
take
tasuke
tenki
tiigen
tome
tonoko
tonokochan
toraianguru
wirii
yane
yatsu
34J_38J
(cont’d)
odenki
ohisama
electricity
sun
sakasama
sakka
upside down
authour
292
yoogan
yooi
Appendix K New Japanese verbs in each period
1J_6J
aagasho
give-POL-COH
ite
be/exist (animate)-COMP
otchat
aite
open-REQ
itta
go-PAST
sette
ake
open-REQ
katta
buy-PAST
shagande
akee
open-REQ
kdashai
kureru-POL-IMP
shaguu
akenai
open-NEG
kikanai
listen-NEG
shim
akesunai
open-NEG
kiku
listen-NONPAST
shinai
aketa
open-PAST
kite
come-REQ
shiranai
akete
open-REQ
kowareta
break-PAST
shiru
aki
open-REQ
matte
wait-REQ
shiyoo
akina
open-NEG
mieta
visible-PAST
siwat
akinai
open-NEG
misete
show-REQ
suru
aru
be/exist-NONPAST
mite
look-REQ
suwar
atta
be-PAST
naite
cry-PROG
suwat
boeteu
remember-PROG
naiteru
cry-PROG
tabenai
dasu
take out-NONPAST
naku
cry-NONPAST
tabes
dekiishita
can do-POL-PAST
nor
ride-NONPAST
tabet
dekita
can do-PAST
noru
ride-NONPAST
tabet
dete
take out-COMP
nou
ride-NONPAST
tatta
293
7J_13J
haru
paste-NONPAST
nugu
tatte
nureryu
take off (clothes)NONPAST
wet-NONPAST
hasamatchatta
jam-COM-PAST
hasanja
jam-PAST
nurete
wet-COMP
totte
hiku
oboeru
remember-NONPAST
ueas
ikiashoo
play (the piano)NONPAST
go-POL-COH
oboete
remember-COMP
wadadas
ikimashoo
go-POL-COH
oita
place-NONPAST
wakannai
ikkimasu
go-POL
oite
place-REQ
warat
ikoo
go-POL
okite
get up-REQ
yaatt
iranai
need-NEG
okkotta
fall-PAST
yaatt
ireru
put in-NONPAST
okotte
get ungrey-COMP
yowa
ita
be/exist (animate)-PAST
okotteru
get ungrey-PROG
ageru
give-NONPAST
kaburu
wear (a hat)-NONPAST
shim
akeede
open-REQ
kaerimashoo
return-POL-COH
shim
akeedesai
open-REQ
kaimashoo
buy-POL-COH
shim
aketai
open-DES
kaiteru
write-PROG
shita
aketau
open-RESULT
kakete
write-REQ
shite
aketeru
open-PROG
katte
buy-REQ
shite
aketesai
open-POL-REQ
katteru
buy-PROG
shitt
aruite
walk-REQ
kawaiteru
dry-PROG
shiuu
294
toret
arukenai
walk-POT-NEG
ketchatta
kick-COM-PAST
shiy
arukimasho
walk-POL-COH
kinai
come-NEG
suru
aruku
walk-NONPAST
kiru
come-NONPAST
sute
asonderu
play-PROG
kita
come-PAST
sute
dekinai
can do-NEG
koketa
fall over-PAST
tabe
dekiru
can do-NONPAST
kowaeta
break-PAST
tabe
dekisoo
can do-CONJEC
kowaretatta
break-RES-PAST
tabe
denai
come out-NEG
kudasai
give (me)-POL-IMP
tatai
desu
COP-POL-NONPAST
kuru
come-NONPAST
todok
deteta
come out-PROG-PAST
mienai
visible-NEG
todok
futteru
fall (rain)-PROG
mieru
visible-NONPAST
tonde
hairanai
enter-NEG
miiru
visible-NONPAST
toranai
hairu
enter-NONPAST
mimashoo
visible-POL-COH
tore
haite
wear-REQ
miru
look-NONPAST
toru
haiteru
wear-PROG
miseteru
show-PROG
tsuic
haitte
enter-REQ
miteru
look-PROG
tsuit
haitteru
enter-PROG
miuu
look-NONPAST
tsuit
haitteta
enter-PROG-PAST
miyoo
look-COH
tsuk
hakanai
wear-NEG
motsu
hold-NONPAST
tsuk
295
haketeru
wear-PROG
hold-REQ
tsuk
hikkakatchatta
get caught-RESULT-PAST motteru
hold-PROG
tsuk
hodokesoo
untie-CONJEC
nagenai
throw-NEG
tsuk
ikanai
go-NEG
nagetessai
throw-POL-REQ
tsuk
ikenai
go-POT-NEG
naitenai
cry-PROG-NEG
tsuk
iketa
go-POT
naitete
cry-PROG-COMP
ugoi
ikimasho
go-POL-COH
nigeta
escape-PAST
ugoi
iku
go-NONPAST
nomeru
drink-POT-NONPAST
way
inai
be/exist (animate)-NEG
nomu
drink-NONPAST
yatte
ireshoo
enter-COH
nonde
drink-REQ
yatte
iretatta
enter-RESULT-PAST
nugita
take off (clothes)-PAST
yoki
irete
enter-REQ
nugite
take off (clothes)-REQ
yom
iru
nuretatta
wet-RES-PAST
yonde
isete
be/exist (animate)NONPAST
show-REQ
oboeteru
remember-PROG
yotte
itchatta
go-RESULT-PAST
oitoku
ittara
go-HYP
okita
leave (an object in a location)- yotte
NONPAST
get up-PAST
yotte
itte
go-REQ
okkotteru
fall-PROG-NONPAST
yutta
ittenai
go-PROG-NEG
oku
place-NONPAST
yutte
iyoo
need-COH
saita
bloom-PAST
yuu
motte
296
16J_19J
22J_25J
kaburanai
wear (a hat)-NEG
saiteru
bloom-PROG
dekiteru
can do-PROG
minai
look-NEG
oshi
desho
COP-COH
minakatta
look-PAST-NEG
shite
ittette
say-REQ
miseta
show-PAST
tore
iyeyu
put in-NONPAST
mita
look-PAST
tore
kaetatta
return-COM-PAST
musunde
tie-REQ
tsuk
kaetta
return-PAST
nakunatta
disappear-PAST
tsuk
kaita
write-PAST
natta
become-PAST
tsuk
kau
buy-NONPAST
nugechatta
yotte
kiteta
wear-PROG-PAST
nureteru
come off (clothes)-POT
COM-PAST
wet-PROG
yame
agechau
give-COM
kireta
wear-POT-PAST
owat
akeru
open-NONPAST
kiru
wear-NONPAST
shite
asobu
play-NONPAST
kitte
cut-REQ
tabe
asonda
play-PAST
kowareteru
break-PROG
tomat
datta
COP-PAST
nattatta
become-COM-PAST
tsuit
haita
wear (shoes)-PAST
nattau
become-COM
wak
haku
wear (shoes)-NONPAST
natteru
become-PROG
wasur
itteru
go-PROG
nokoshita
remain-PAST
yutte
ittesai
go-POL-REQ
notta
ride-PAST
297
28J_31J
34J_38J
kaite
wirte-REQ
notte
ride-REQ
ageta
give-PAST
mieyo
show-COH
shitan
ageteru
give-PROG
miseru
show-NONPAST
sundai
dekinakatta
can do-NEG-PAST
nemutakunatteta become sleepy-PROG-
tsuk
hajimeru
begin(vt)-NONPAST
nigeru
PAST
escape-NONPAST
hashiru
run-NONPAST
nottari
ride-CONJUN
tsuk
hashitte
run-REQ
omootatta
think-COM-PAST
tsuk
ikanakucha
?
omooteta
think-PROG-PAST
tsuk
ikitai
go-DES
sawannai
touch-NEG
utau
iu
say-NONPAST
sawaranai
touch-NEG
wak
kaku
wirte-NONPAST
shinakatta
do-NEG-PAST
yari
kiita
listen-PAST
shinakucha
?
yaru
kiite
listen-REQ
shiranakatta
know-NEG-PAST
yatta
kowakusuru
make scary-NONPAST
shirenai
know-POT-NEG
agetai
give-DES
naichatte
cry-COM-COMP
sutte
asonde
play-REQ
naita
cry-PAST
suu
chigau
different-NONPAST
nakunattatta
disappear-COM-PAST
tabe
dashite
take out-REQ
naru
become-NONPAST
tater
dekimashita
can do-POL-PAST
natchatta
become-COM-PAST
tatte
298
tsuk
deru
come out-NONPAST
nattara
become-PAST-HYP
toranak
deshita
COP-POL-PAST
natte
become-COMP
tsuk
hajimattoo
begin(vi)-COM
noranakucha
ride-COM- OBLIGATION
tsuk
hashitteru
run-PROG
oboetenai
remember-PROG-NEG
tsure
ikereru
go-POT
oiteru
place-PROG
wak
ikeru
go-POT
okimasho
place-POL-COH
wak
itadakimasho
receive-POL-COH
okottau
get angry-COM
wak
itteta
say-PROG-PAST
okuretau
be late-COM
wasur
kakanai
wirte-NEG
omoota
think-PAST
wasur
kakeru
wirte-POT
omotta
think-PAST
wasur
kamanai
bite-NEG
omottara
think-PAST-HYP
wasur
omotteta
think-PROG-PAST
wasur
kanashikunatteru become sad-PROG
kazatte
decorate-REQ
omou
think-NONPAST
yabut
kimete
decide-REQ
otsukareta
become tired-PAST
yabut
kimetenai
decide-PROG-NEG
shichatta
do-COM-PAST
yam
koboresoo
overflow-CONJEC
shinaide
do-NEG-REQ
yasas
kureru
give me-NONPAST
shinjatta
die-COM-PAST
yattar
kureteru
give me-PROG
shitai
do-DES
yom
mattete
wait-REQ
shitara
do-PAST-HYP
yom
299
misetagenai
show-NEG
shiteta
do-PROG-PAST
modotte
return-REQ
suiteru
do-PROG
300
Appendix L English 20 most frequently used words in each
period
Rank
1E_6E
7E_13E
16E_19E
22E_25E
28E_31E
34E_38E
1
daddy
yeah
yeah
I
I
I
2
dere
daddy
I
yeah
yeah
yeah
3
no
I
one
this
it
that
4
yeah
no
no
you
you
it
5
more
dere
daddy
and
daddy
is
6
see
mummy
don’t
here
to
daddy
7
dis
ishi
it
daddy
this
this
8
one
one
know
it
a
you
9
I
dis
want
in
can
the
10
han1 (Hannah)
go
cos
is
one
a
11
a
a
my
one
is
one
12
ishi
yes
you
that
the
do
13
hannah
and
dat
a
want
to
14
da
in
this
no
no
know
15
mummy
what
what
me
but
don’t
16
chook
see
ok
it’s
there
he
17
open
too
to
the
that
got
18
ka
don’t
isn’t
want
what
my
19
whatsii
know
present
for
got
that’s
20
horse
you
a
ok
ok
will
20
two
what’s
Where a number of items had the same frequency of usage as the twentieth most used
item, all such items were included in the list.
1
The informant of this study used the first syllable of her name to refer to herself. As ‘Hannah’ is a
pseudonym I used the first syllable of ‘Hannah’ in order to attempt to portrait what she did with her
real name.
301
Appendix M Japanese 20 most frequently used words in each
period
POSS= possessive marker; EOS=end of sentence particle; LOC=location marker, equivalent of
English preposition ‘at’ or ‘in’; TOP= topic marker; DAT=dative marker.
Rank 1J_6J
7J_13J
16J_19J
22J_25J
28J_31J
34J_38J
1
nani
(what)
mama
(mummy)
kotchi
(this)
han
(Hannah)
nani
(what)
kotchi
(this)
mama
(mummy)
ne
(EOS)
ne
(EOS)
no
(POSS)
no
(EOS)
kore
(this)
ne
(EOS)
watashi
(I)
no
(POSS)
no
(EOS)
ne
(EOS)
ano
(that one)
yo
(EOS)
watashi
(I)
koko
(here)
no
(POSS)
yo
(EOS)
koko
(here)
no
(POSS)
nai
(not/not
exist)
hanachan
(Hannah)
kore
(this)
ne
(EOS)
no
(POSS)
kore
(this)
nai
(no/not
there)
no
(EOS)
nani
(what)
hanachan
(Hannah)
mama
(mummy)
hanachan
(Hannah)
nai
(no/not
there)
akachan
(baby)
dooshite
(why)
kore
(this)
yo
(EOS)
eeto
(interjection)
ni
(DAT)
kore
(this)
wa
(TOP)
mama
(mummy)
to
(and)
da
((it) is ~)
no
(EOS)
hoka
(other)
ii
(good)
yo
(EOS)
yuki
(Yuki)
mo
(too)
nani
(what)
nai
(no/not there)
ni
(DAT)
sore
(that)
mo
(too)
chotto
(a little)
kara
(because)
sore
(that)
no
(POSS)
mo
(too)
moo
(already)
mama
(mummy)
koko
(here)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
ao
(blue)
nai
(no/not
there)
hanachan
(Hannah)
papa
(daddy)
chiisai
(small)
ne
(EOS)
ookii
(big)
kachi
(snail)
mo
(too)
mite
(look!)
doko
(where)
no
(EOS)
yo
(EOS)
suru
(doNONPAST)
basan
papa
(teddybear) (daddy)
itai
oide
(hurt)
(come)
na
(EOS)
hai
(yes)
mama
(mummy)
koko
(here)
yo
(EOS)
suru
((I)do ~.)
soo
(so)
hai
(yes)
keeki
(cake)
shite
(please do
~)
kara
(because)
wakannai
(I don’t
understand)
hoka
(other)
302
ni
de
(DAT)
(LOC)
koo
dooshite
(like this) (why)
takashichan
(Takashi)
ii
(good)
shite
ouchi
kara
(do-REQ) (home/house) (because)
19
hachi
(bee)
shiteru
((I am)
doing ~ )
de
(LOC)
chotto
(a little)
koko
(here)
datta
((it) was ~ )
dame
(no)
20
aka
(red)
mite
(look!)
suru
((I) do ~)
demo
(but)
demo
(but)
20
doko
koo
koko
(where)
(like this)
(here)
yake
20
(only)
For the Japanese list, English equivalents or the description of function for each word
is given in brackets underneath. Where a number of items had the same frequency of
usage as the twentieth most used item, all such items were included in the list.
303

One Child, Two Languages: Bilingual First Language Acquisition in

Transcription

Similar documents

Hannah`s Prayer

HaNNaH`S Prayer - McLean Bible Church

Hannah`s Prayer - McLean Bible Church

ThE RiSE OF JAPANESE GRAPhic DESiGN

Japanese Family Crests (Mon)

Japan`s Traditional Storytelling in the USA

Lisa and Hannah Anderson

Kikyo fact sheet - Missouri Botanical Garden

Hannah Burgé

PDF here