Comparative Spatial Semantics and Language

Journal of Semantics 11: 253-287

© N.I.S. Foundation (1994)

Comparative Spatial Semantics and Language Acquisition: Evidence from Danish, English, and Japanese1 CHRIS SINHA,* LIS A. THORSENG,* MAR1KO HAYASHI,' and KIM PLUNKETTf *University ofAarhus tUniversity of Oxford

Spatial relational meaning is typically predominantly expressed in English and related languages by the locative particle system. Even between closely related languages such as Danish and English, there are substantial differences with respect to both the semantics and the morphology of locative particles. Other languages (including Japanese), although they may use locative particles in spatial relational expression, distribute spatial relational meaning quite differently between and within form classes. We investigate the consequences of these differences for the acquisition of spatial relational expressions in these three languages. Although the structure of the target language affects the specific strategies employed by the language acquiring child, the acquisition strategies for all three languages appear to be instances of a general class of conservative learning strategies. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of the relationship between linguistic and cognitive determinants of spatial language acquisition.

1 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTED SPATIAL RELATIONAL MEANING Spatial relational meaning is typically expressed in English by means of the locative particle system, and the most common way that this is achieved is by means of preposing the locative particle to a noun phrase. Thus, it is common to refer to spatial relational meaning as being expressed in English by the class of spatial prepositions, such as in, on, up, down, in front of, etc. English spatial prepositions (as is also the case for locative particles in most, if not all languages) also express non-spatial meanings (such as temporal and abstract meanings), and may occur in grammaticalized structures such as the progressive aspect construction, again similarly with other languages (Kuteva & Sinha, in press); and when expressing spatial relational meaning they may occur elsewhere than in prepositional phrases (i.e. as adverbs or verbal particles.) Our chief concern here is with the comparative semantics and morphology, rather than the syntax, of forms expressing spatial relational meaning, and we shall refer to one of the main relevant form classes in what follows as the locative particle system. It is important to define precisely what we mean by spatial relational meaning, and to indicate the terminology which we shall employ in referring to various

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Abstract

254 Comparative Spatial Semantics and Language Acquisition


aspects of this. We are concerned with the characterization of a referential situation in terms of the static or dynamic relation obtaining between one object (variously referred to in the literature as Ground, Landmark, Reference Object, Relatum) whose location is usually assumed by the speaker to be known to the hearer, and another object (variously referred to as Figure, Trajector, Target, Referent), usually smaller than the other object, whose location or change of location is specified in relation to the location of the other object or its parts and regions. In this paper we adopt the terminology of Landmark (LM) and Trajector (TR) (Langacker 1987, 1991). Thus, we are concerned only with spatial meaning, and for the most part only with that aspect of spatial meaning which encodes spatial relations. Our definition of spatial relational meaning does not cover other (non-relational) aspects of spatial meaning, such as information about the size, shape, configuration, disposition, or manner of movement of single referents, such as might be conveyed by English adjectives (e.g. long), or verbs of motion (e.g. walk, slip). As we shall see, however, when considering languages other than English it will also frequently be necessary to take into account the way in which spatial relational meaning is integrated in expression both with non-relational spatial meaning, and with non-spatial meaning. If the spatial relational meanings with which we are mostly concerned are those which are most commonly conveyed in English by prepositions, it would nevertheless be wrong to assume that spatial relational meaning is uniquely conveyed in English by the form class of locative particles. Some verbs of motion (e.g. enter) and dispositional manner (e.g. straddle) convey spatial relational information such that a spatial relationship between a Landmark and a Trajector is necessitated and specified. However, there is a strong tendency in English for spatial relational meaning, within any given syntagmatic string, to be uniquely expressed by a selection from within a single form class: e.g. 'The bridge straddles the road' vs. '*The bridge straddles ACROSS the road'. Many English locative particles (as is also the case for other languages) are polysemous, notjust in that they convey both spatial and non-spatial meanings, but also in that they convey a variety of different but related spatial meanings (Brugman 1981; Lakoff 1987; Geeraerts 1992). In such cases, it is frequently the case that the information carried by the verb or the LM-NP will determine the appropriate contextual reading of the locative particle. Therefore, in a certain 'implicit' sense English does distribute spatial relational information within single syntagmatic strings non-uniquely over more than one form class, but the 'explicit' bearer of the spatial relational information is almost always a single selection from within a single form class, usually the locative particle system. We can therefore characterize English as having a covertly distributed spatial semantics. This characterization does not apply to many other languages. Some languages (for example, Bulgarian and Hungarian)2 employ verbal prefixes together with locative particles or case markers to express spatial relational

Chris Sinha, Lis A. Thorseng, Mariko Hayashi, and Kim Plunkett 255


information, making simultaneous selections from different form classes to profile the spatial relational meaning intended to be conveyed. In both these languages, the explicit distribution across the syntagmatic string of the spatial relational information may be either differential (that is, simultaneous selections from different form classes may express different aspects of the spatial relation) or redundant (that is, simultaneous selections from different form classes may express the same aspect of the spatial relation.) In the case of Bulgarian verbal prefixes and preposed locative particles, redundant simultaneous selections may involve a repetition or parallelism of expression in which the same morpheme appears twice in two different positions. In short, we may say that (in comparison with English) such languages may be characterized as having an overtly distributed spatial semantics, in which spatial relational meaning is frequendy distributed across different form classes in single syntagmatic expressions. Such a characterization can also be applied to Japanese, which permits both differential and redundant overt distribution of spatial relational meaning over single syntagmatic expressions, although the morphemic expression is quite different for the different form classes in the Japanese case. Turning again to the more familiar 'prepositional' languages, these vary quite considerably in the degree to which the locative particle system is internally productive and in the corresponding morphological complexity of the system. Although English does permit compound expressions such as up to, there is a strong tendency in English for such compounds to be lexicalized (e.g. into, infront of), and such 'concatenated' prepositions will then usually occur as single selections. This is not the case in Danish, which has a more internally productive and morphologically complex locative particle system, and which frequently employs simultaneous selections from within the system, expressing spatial relational information both differentially and redundantly. Danish can therefore also be characterized (relative to English) as having an overtly distributed spatial semantics, expressed in this case within a single form class rather than between different form classes. Afinalconsideration in the comparative analysis of the distributed semantics of spatial relational meaning concerns the different extent in different languages to which spatial relational meaning is integrated in expression with other semantic systems, and the different ways in which such integration is accomplished in different languages. We have already noted that spatial relational meaning is not uniquely expressed in English with die locative particle system: it is also systemically distributed (at the level odangue, or the language system as a whole), and 'covertly' distributed (at die level of parole, or actually occurring syntagmatic strings) over other form classes. However, when English locative particles are used spatially, they do express spatial meaning exclusively: that is, they do not express other dian spatial meanings. This is not the case for other languages. Injapanese, the locative particle system both under-specifies (in


comparison with English) spatial relational meaning, and simultaneously expresses meaning distinctions which are orthogonal to spatial relational meaning. Spatial relational meaning is also integrated into other meaning systems through expression in other Japanese form classes, in a manner which is quite different from that in English. A systematic exploration of the crosslinguistic variation in the integration of spatial relational meaning with other semantic sysstems is beyond the scope of this paper (see Talmy 198 5,1991; Slobin 1992); but we shall return to this issue in our description below ofjapanese spatial semantics.

Having set up the analytical apparatus which we shall employ in our comparative descriptions of English, Danish, and Japanese, we shall now address the theoretical question which our empirical analysis below is intended to answer what, if any, consequences do cross-linguistic differences in spatial relational semantics and its linguistic expression have for language acquisition? We can follow Bowerman (in press) in noting that a great deal of research has been devoted in the last 20 years or so to demonstrating the reliance of early language acquisition upon children's pre- and non-linguistic cognitive development. The domain of spatial relational meaning has been an obvious and popular one for attempting to demonstrate the dependence of linguistic upon cognitive development. This is partly because of the existence of fairly tightly specified accounts, such as that of Piaget & Inhelder (1956), of infant spatial cognition, in which it is hypothesized that topological relations such as containment are conceptualized earlier than projective relations such as linear order, and that 'egocentric' specifications of spatial relations precede 'decentered' or 'allocentric' ones. Despite the fact that there have been many challenges to, and revisions of, Piaget's account of infant cognitive (including spatial) development, there seems to be broad support in the literature for some degree of parallelism between cognitive and linguistic development (for example, the English preposition in is acquired before in front of). Studies of the development of comprehension of spatial prepositions in English (e.g. E. Clark 1973) have also demonstrated that children rely heavily, for a long period, upon 'non-linguistic strategies' in making sense of locative instructions. Since we take up some of the specific issues involved in these findings in more detail elsewhere in this paper, we shall not review the literature here. Piagetian theory has not been the only source of universalist hypotheses concerning children's spatial language acquisition. Other accounts such as that of E. Clark (197 3) and H. Clark (197 3) have emphasized the role ofinnate perceptual


2 C O G N I T I V E AND LINGUISTIC DETERMINANTS OF SPATIAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT


3 M E T H O D AND SUBJECTS The acquisition data are based upon the recorded speech of two English-, two Danish-, and one Japanese-acquiring children. The English data are based upon transcripts from two out of 128 subjects participating in the Bristol Language


processing mechanisms, or of the neurophysiological bases of spatial perception and cognition (Landau & JackendofF 1993), while yet others have drawn attention to the role of functional knowledge of objects and canonical functionform relations (Freeman etal. 1980; Sinha 1982). All such accounts, however, can be criticized for failing to take account of the wide diversity (which we have only very abstractly characterized above) in natural language spatial semantics and its linguistic expression. Crudely speaking, the universalist position (and the concomitant determination of linguistic by cognitive development) has been assumed rather than demonstrated—although we should note that there have been comparative acquisitional analyses such as the early one by Johnston & Slobin(i979). Recendy, however, Bowerman (in press; see also Choi & Bowerman 1991) has argued, against the 'priority of cognition' assumption, that the cross-linguistic diversity of spatial semantics imposes the requirement upon children diat they employ language-specific acquisition strategies. Bowerman presents compelling evidence that (a) children's spatial semantic categories are, from an early age onwards, language-specific: that is, they are consistent with the semantic categorizations imposed by the target language upon spatial relations; (b) children's spatial language acquisition strategies are also remarkably consistent with the semantics of the target language: children simply do not make, she claims, the kind of errors in production which would be expected if they were following a universal developmental sequence—rather, they follow closely the semantic and expression structure of the target language in acquiring new forms and new meanings. It is clear, therefore, both that the 'priority of cognition' hypothesis can no longer be viewed as an unchallenged assmption, and that the domain of spatial language acquisition is an important source ofempirical evidence for the investigation of the developmental relations beween (non-linguistic) cognition and language. Below we present a preliminary analysis of the data we have been using in our research into spatial relational semantics and spatial language acquisition in English, Danish, and Japanese. We have not devoted separate sections to the semantic analyses of these languages; instead, descriptions of the semantics of spatial relations and its expression in Danish and Japanese are presented (contrasrively with English) at the beginning of the respective sections describing the acquisition data.



Development Project (Wells 1985), archived in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney 1991). The speech production of the two girls, Abigail and Elspeth, was recorded every three months between the ages of 18 and 40 months. One additional session was recorded when the children were almost 5 years of age. Both children were from middle-class families and the parents were native speakers of English. The childen wore a radio-microphone throughout the day, which switched on at random intervals and recorded 90second samples of speech produced by the child and by those near the child. This procedure ensured that neither the child nor the adults knew when their speech was being recorded. After each recording day the child's mother was asked to give some details about the events that took place during the recordings. The Danish data are based upon transcripts from the two subjects of a longitudinal study conducted by Plunkett (1986, 1993). The boy Jens was from a working-class family and the girl Anne was from a middle-class family. Both children's parents were native speakers of Danish. The children were videoand audio-recorded every fortnight from the age of 13 to 32 months. Each recording session was divided into three subsessions: a test, an eating situation, and free play. The Japanese data are based upon transcripts of monthly recordings of the speech production of a boy, Adam, in the age range 11—35 months (Hayashi 1994). Adam was from a middle-class family in which the father was Danish and the mother was Japanese. Although his language development was bilingual, Japanese was very dominant over Danish in his speech production during the period with which we are here concerned. The overall pattern of his language development in Japanese was similar to that reported for monolingual Japanese language acquisition. We are dealing therefore with small samples (as is not unusual in child language research) and we cannot control for individual differences.3 However, the acquisition patterns we analyse below for the English children are very similar to each other, and this is also the case for the Danish children. A more serious problem is posed by the different recording methods and frequencies. In particular, the total frequency of spatial locatives in the English corpus is much lower than in the Danish corpus. This is to be expected, given the fact that there were more recording sessions for the Danish children. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that the original English data collection methodology, which was motivated by considerations of both total sample size and observational neutrality, has led to an undersampling of the children's repertoires. It would be difficult to unconfound in such small populations effects of sampling methods from individual differences between children and we shall assume that the English, Danish, and Japanese data-sets are broadly comparable and equally representative. We shall indicate wherever specific interpretations of the data may be problematic because of sampling differences.


4 A C Q U I S I T I O N OF ENGLISH LOCATIVE PARTICLES

Table 1 Total frequency for each of the eight most frequent and five related spatial locatives during the period of study (English data) Abigal

Elspeth

Item

No. of tokens

Item tokens

No. of

in on

39 30 U 13

in on

27 26

to

down

23 15

11

at

'5

off up

14

up down to at out

8

over

5 5

off

4

into under onto outside

2

1

out

over into onto under outside

n 11 1 0 0 0 0


All instances of spatial usage oflocative particles by the children were identified from transcript. The range of types produced was quite restricted, and the overall frequency of spatial locative usage was also low. Eight particles, IN, ON, AT, TO, UP, DOWN, OFF, and OUT (OF), were produced with the highest combined frequency by the two children during the period of study. Table 1 lists these eight most frequent types, as well as five other morphologically and/ or semantically related types, with their total frequencies of occurrence for each child. All of the eight most frequent, morphologically simple particles canonically mark spatial relations which can be considered as being cognitively 'basic', although their semantic complexity is variable. Derived particles based upon IN, ON, TO, and OUT, i.e. OUTSIDE, INTO, and ONTO, were used on only one occasion each by Abigail, and not at all by Elspeth. A separate analysis (not tabulated here) revealed that the same eight locative particles were also the most frequent in adult speech to the children. The high frequency with which these eight locative particles are represented in language input, their morphological simplicity, and the cognitive simplicity of the spatial relations which they canonically mark, may together account for the fact that they are also the most frequently produced spatial locatives. We can then go on to ask whether frequency and simplicity are also reflected (as we


Table 2 Acquisition order of spatial locatives for each child weighted for freuency of production (English data) Elspeth

Abigal Age (years, months)

Item

Age (years, months)

Item

2,3

in

2,2

on

2,3

on

2,6

2,3

up

2,6

in down

2,9

down

2,6

to

3,3 3,6 3,6 3.6

to

2,8

up

off

3,6

out at

2,6

out at

3,2

off

Table 2 shows that the eight morphologically and cognitively simple locative particles which are most frequently produced by both children and adults over the entire period of the study are also those which are earliest acquired by each child. That IN and ON are thefirstlocative particles to be acquired in English is well known (E. Clark 1972, 1973; Johnston & Slobin 1979; Wilcox & Palermo J 975)- Perhaps more surprising is the finding here that AT is a relatively late acquisition compared with IN and ON. According to many authors (e.g. H. Clark 1973; Herskovits 1986), IN, ON, and AT are the three basic topological spatial prepositions, of which AT is semantically the simplest. We shall argue below, however, that AT is in some relevant respects both cognitively and semantically more complex than IN and ON, and that this accounts for its later acquisition.


would expect) in order of acquisition. Establishing order of acquisition is not, however, a straightforward matter. Many early usages are non-productive, occurring in formulaic or imitative and repetitive contexts. Furthermore, early usage may be unstable, that is the item may occur in an early session but drop out in subsequent sessions. We have tried to determine the time at which a given item becomes a part of the child's stable and productive repertoire. In Table 2, the eight first acquired locative particles are listed for each child, together with the age at which they become fully productive. We have taken frequency of production into account, so that an item which is productive and stable with a high frequency of use is rated as being acquired earlier than an item which occurs with only low frequency, this explains why some items in Table 2 are rated as being later acquired than others in spite of an earlier productive use.


Table 3 Type and token frequencies for each child of all spatial locatives produced by session (English data) Elspeth

Abigal Age (months, days) 17.28 20.27 24.01 27.0 30.2 33-03 36.02 39.0 42.06 56.0

Types (tokens) 0(0) 3(4)

i(0 9

(18)

4(13) 5 (19)

7(U) 6(25) »('S) >'(32)

Age (months, days) 17.30 20.28 24.02 26.29 30.06 32.28 36.04 38.30 42.05 60.03

Types (tokens)

'(0 1(0 2(2) 6(1.) 12 (36) 10(21)

7 0S) 10 (27) 6(19)

"(30

We cannot be sure that the late pattern of acquisition indicated by these data is not due to undersampling of the children's linguistic repertoire. Studies based upon detailed diary records suggest an earlier acquisition of English locative particles than seems to be the case for these data. Bowerman (in press) reports that her subjects acquired full control of in, on, off, and out by 18-20 months, while our two subjects seem to acquire full control of in and on only at around 27 months, at which age they are producing six to nine types. It is possible that these items became fully productive at an early stage in the three-month interval from 24 to 27 months, during which the expansion of types occurs. It is also possible that usage before 27 months was simply undersampled. As we shall


Table 3 shows the combined frequency of production of all spatial uses of locative particles for each child during the period of study. The first number in each cell denotes the number of different types produced by the child in the session, and the number in parentheses denotes the number of tokens. Very few spatial locatives were produced in the early sessions, either in terms of types or of tokens. Those produced in the first three sessions were DOWN, IN, TO, UP, and OUT. From 27 months onwards, the range of types as well as the number of tokens increase considerably for both children, but neither type nor token frequencies increase monotonically thereafter. As well as the eight most frequent locative particles, the children also began to use ABOUT, BEFORE, BEHIND, BY, OVER, and OUTSIDE in the later sessions, but still with very low frequencies. In short, the English children seem to acquire locative particles late and gradually.



see, the Danish data, based upon more frequent recordings, reveal a considerably earlier acquisition pattern than the English data. The similarity in the frequency structures of 'our' two English children's production suggests that any undersampling is at least systematic, and we can be fairly confident that acquisition order is accurately reflected in the data. It is impossible to say whether sampling variation due to differences in frequencies of periodic recording is more or less significant than sampling variation due to the difference between periodic recording and diary study. The earliest spatial uses of prepositions are to locate a Trajector in terms of Coincidence with a Landmark (AT, IN, ON), to refer to Directed Motion of a Trajector (UP, DOWN) and to refer to the Path of motion of a Trajector with respect to a Landmark (IN, ON, TO, OUT, OFF). These spatial uses schematize spatial relations in an intuitively cognitively simpler way than the use of locative particles which schematize deictic and intrinsic Orientational relations (like BEHIND, BESIDE, IN FRONT OF), or non-coincidental Relative Distance (NEAR TO, FAR AWAY). We did not find any of these last in the corpus, and there were only a few instances of Orientational particles in later sessions. We have not in this analysis distinguished between Static and Dynamic uses of IN and ON (see Thorseng, in preparation, for a more detailed analysis). However, the explicit marking of this distinction by the use of INTO and ONTO occurred only once in Abigail's production and not at all in Elspeth's. Abigail produced UNDER only once, and Elspeth not at all; one of the very few production errors involved Elspeth using IN when UNDER would have been semantically appropriate. The utterance in question was 'put my night-dress in the pillow'. Given that IN, ON, AT, and OVER were produced by both children, and that UNDER would seem at first sight to be of a similar order of semantic and cognitive complexity, this seems curious, and we shall return briefly to this in our discussion. These data suggest that the English children are employing what we shall term a radial learning strategy. That is, they start from the spatial use of a limited subset of the most cognitively and semantically simple locative particles, and gradually extend their repertoire to include cognitively and semantically more complex ones. This learning strategy manifests itself both in order of acquisition and in relative frequencies of production of spatial locatives. Although we shall not present the analysis here, this radial learning strategy characterizes not only the acquisition pattern for spatial locatives as a group, but also the acquisition patterns for the different spatial uses of individual locative particles, which display a progression from early under-extension to a later command of a wider selection from the possible spatial uses (Thorseng, in preparation). In other words, die radial structure characterizing the poly-


semous structure of the meaning of the locative particle (Lakoff 1987) is paralleled or followed by the language-acquiring child.4 It seems that the child begins with a 'one lexeme-one meaning' hypothesis which is later abandoned with the discovery that one lexeme maps onto several meanings. The radial learning strategy exemplifies a more general class of conservative learning strategies, and this is reflected in the very low numbers of production errors (only four incorrect uses out of a total of 264 instances of spatial uses of locative particles). Below we shall argue that conservative learning is typical of children's acquisition of locative particles across different languages.

The Danish language is similar to English in that the regular and most common expression of spatial relational meaning is by means of preposed locative particles. However, the lexical diversity of locative particles is wider in Danish than in English, and our impression is that locative particles are used more frequently in Danish than in English. There are also differences, which we shall briefly describe below, in the distributional behaviour of locative particles in Danish and English. It is possible to divide the Danish locative particles into two groups: a main group and a subgroup. Both semantically and morphologically, the locative particles in the subgroup are derived from those of the main group. One subclass of the subgroup is derived by suffixation. Each of the main group particles schematizes a general meaning and can constitute the morphological stem from which suffixally derived subgroup particles profile different semantic aspects, such as Path, Directed Motion, Boundary: e.g. / (IN), IND (INTO), INDE (INSIDE), and INDEN (INSIDE-tight fit).* This derivational process is similar to that in English, but there is a greater morphological and semantic variety in Danish than in English. Almost all locative particles, both of the main group and of the first subclass of subgroup particles, may also receive (as is the case for most Germanic languages) a deictic prefix; the Danish deictics are HER (here) and DER (there). This usage does not directly modulate the meaning of the locative particle, but specifies a Goal or Location near to or far from the speaker or other discourse participant. This second subclass of uses also belongs to the subgroup, as we have defined it. Thus, the main group of Danish locative particles is constituted by morphologically simple and 'basic' particles such as / (IN), PA (ON), OP (UP), NED (DOWN), while the subgroup consists of three subclasses derived by prefixation, suffixation and a combination of both prefixation and suffixation. Like English, Danish allows compound expressions within a Prepositional Phrase in which either two different main group particles co-occur (e.g. Eng.


5 A C Q U I S I T I O N OF DANISH LOCATIVE PARTICLES


UP ON, Dan. OP PA), or a main group particle co-occurs with a subgroup particle (or in English, Particle + Deictic) derived from a different main group particle (e.g. Eng. OUT THERE IN, Dan. DERUDE I). However, unlike English, Danish also permits the co-occurrence in a single Prepositional Phrase of a subgroup particle with the main group particle from which it derives, as in (1) and (2):

Note in relation to the above examples than (a) the first-occurring particle is in each case optional, i.e. the Danish main group particle /, like English IN, can receive either a Static or, as in (3), a Dynamic meaning: (3) Sast koppen I skabet (b) the co-occurrence of more than one subgroup particle derived from the same main group particle is not permitted: (4) *Sxt koppen DERIND IND I skabet (c) the subgroup particles in Danish, unlike similar derived particles in English, . cannot occur on their own in a Prepositional phrase; they can only stand alone in adverbial position (again in contrast with English). In fact, in many cases, Danish main group locative particles cannot function adverbially, and this use is generally reserved for the subgroup.6 These contrasts between English and Danish are illustrated in (5)-(io) below: (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

*Saet koppen IND skabet Saet koppen IND *Saet koppen I Put die cup INTO the cupboard *Put the cup INTO Put the cup IN

We can attempt to summarize these linguistic facts about Danish as follows. First, Danish (as one would expect when considering two closely related languages) bears a broad resemblance to English, in terms of the semantics of locative particles (there is a main or basic group of particles expressing rather similar spatial meanings); derivational morphology (in both languages, more


(1) Saet koppen IND I skabet Put-cup.the- INTO-IN-cupboard.the Put the cup INTO the cupboard (2) Sst koppen DERIND I skabet Put-cup.the-THERE.INTO-IN-cupboard.the Put the cup INTO the cupboard there OR Put the cup in there (in the cupboard)



specific meanings can be expressed by derived particles); and distributional behaviour (particles can be used prepositionally, or adverbially). None the less, there are differences between the two languages in each of the above three domains. Semantically, although the main group of locative particles in both languages can be characterized in terms of partially overlapping polysemous structures, the actual structures in each case are different. We shall not go into this in detail here (Thorseng, in preparation), but we shall refer to some relevant differences in attempting below to account for differences between Danish and English acquisition patterns. Morphologically, Danish has a more complex combinatorial structure than English, and correspondingly the overall lexical diversity of the Danish locative particle system is greater than that of English; to put it the other way round, we could say that, taking the subgroup together with the main group, Danish is less polysemous than English. Distributionally, Danish not only has different rules from English, but also permits and encourages a higher degree of specification or semantic profiling of the spatial relations which are encoded. In other words, Danish appears to have a more overtly distributed spatial semantics than English, within the locative particle system itself. We may now ask what, if any, consequences these similarities and differences have for the acquisition pattern in Danish, when compared with English. As with the English data, all instances of spatial usage of locative particles by the children were identified from transcript. However, there was more variation between the Danish subjects in the eight most frequently produced particles. Table 4 shows the frequency over all sessions for the 13 most frequently produced locative particles for each child. As was also the case for English, the locative particles with the highest overall frequency tended to be from the main (morphologically simple) group. However, it is perhaps surprising that / was produced much less frequently than PA, and TIL was one of the least frequently occurring items. Frequencies for the production of locative particles in adult speech to the children have not been analysed. The acquisition order of the eight first acquired locative particles for the Danish children was established similarly as for the English children (Table 5). Although the two Danish children did not (unlike the English children) display an absolute overlap, seven of the eight first acquired particles were the same for the two children. For both Danish children, the eight first acquired particles were exclusively from the main group. It has been suggested that / and PA are the first locative particles acquired in Scandinavian languages (Plunkett & Stromqvist 1992). This is not true of the present corpus, in which OP and NED were acquired earliest. For both Danish children, I and PA were later acquisitions. None the less, of the eight first acquired locative particles, six were the 'same' for the Danish as for the English children, namely OP, NED, /, PA, UD, AF. All of these were among the eight most frequently produced particles


Table 4 Total frequency of each child of the 13 most frequent spatial locatives during the period of study (Danish data)

Jens

Anne No. of tokens

Item

No. of tokens

op (up) pa (on) af(off) ud (out) vsek (away)

107

pa (on) op (up) ned (down) derovre (over there!)

54 47

i(in)

23

henne (gone to!) ud (out) af(off) deroppe (up there!) derinde (in there!) dernede (down there!) deromme (around there!) nede (down!)

19 18

83 48 44 38 34

ned (down) henne (gone to!) derover (over there)

31 26

i(in)

22

derovre (over there!) over (over) til (to) oppe (up on!)

19 10

7 6

3° 27

18 19

8 7 6 6

Note: Glosses marked ! are very approximate.

Table 5 Acquisition order of spatial locatives for each child weighted for frequency of production (Danish data)

Jens

Anne Age (years, months)

Item

Age (years, months)

Item

1,1

op (up) af(off) ned (down) ud (out) pa (on)

1,0

1,8

op (up) ned (down) nede (down!)

1.9

i(in)

1,10

af(off) pa (on) ud (out) henne (gone to!)

1.2

1.4 1,6

•.7

1,0

1.7 1,8

vsek (away)

1,11

i(.n)

I.I 1

henne (gone to!)

2.5 2,5

for both Danish children, with the exception of/, which was the ninth most frequent particle in Anne's repertoire. It should be noted that when comparing the eight first acquired particles in English and Danish that: (a) English AT cannot without serious distortion be glossed by one locative particle in Danish. Rather, spatial relations which would


Item


6 DISCUSSION OF THE ENGLISH AND DANISH A C Q U I S I T I O N DATA We begin by noting the obvious similarities and differences between the acquisition patterns of spatially used locative particles in the two languages. First, in both languages the first acquired particles are morphologically simple ones which canonically mark cognitively simple spatial relations. There is a high degree of overlap between the 'basic' spatial meanings and their related expression forms which are acquired earliest in the two languages. There can be little doubt that this reflects both cognitive and linguistic determinants, inasmuch as these early acquired terms can be regarded as 'basic' in both respects (see Berlin & Kay 1969; Lakoff 1987 on the notion of'basic terms'). Within the group of six to eight 'basic' first acquired particles, however, there is no evidence of a strict cognitive determination of acquisition order for example, while IN and ON were the first acquired particles of the English children, the Danish children did not acquire their equivalents until well after they had acquired other particles. Second, it seems that the Danish children start off on their productive acquisition of the spatial locative particle system earlier than do the English


be expressed by use of English AT will be expressed in Danish by selecting from the following particles: /, PA, VED,HOS, OM (Thorseng, in preparation); (b) although Danish TIL is usually glossed to English TO, it is possible to use HENNE in some contexts where English would employ TO-constructions, such as 'hvorerden henneV ('where did it go to?'). Table 6 shows the type add token frequencies of all spatial uses of locative particles for each child over the period of study (compare with Table 3 above). The data are divided in terms of main group and subgroup particles, with the latter being subdivided in terms of their derivation by prefixation, suffixation, and the combination of these (denoted 'mix' in the table headings). We noted above that the first acquired particles were from the main group, and that main group particles predominated in the group of particles with the highest overall frequency across the period of study. Table 6 shows that the Danish children each produced, over the period of the study as a whole, at least as many subgroup as main group types, but that the main group types were more frequent during the earlier sessions. The total token frequency of the main group particles is, for each child, much higher than that of subgroup particles over the period of study as a whole (404:148 and 204:123). And, as we would expect, the subgroup particles were generally acquired later than the main group particles. There is no clear order of acquisition in the different derivational subdivisions of the subgroup particles.

14.25 15-14 16.0 16.24 17.1 17.24 18.9 18.18 19.4

'3-9 '4-5

Age (m,d)

Anne

•to

2(7) 4(n) 6(32)

•to

2(10) 3('O 2(8)

2(3) •(')

3(3) '(•)

I8.I3 18.20

1 (1)

•to 2(2)

14.20 15.2 I6.I 16.20 17.6 17.22

•(•)

2(2)

•(0

I4.6

1(8)

2(2)

mix

Main group

2(9)

suffix

Age (m.d)

12.02 13.20

affix

Subgroup

>(s)

Main group

lens

Table 6 Type and token frequencies for each child of all spatial locatives produced by session (Danish data)

ed from jos.oxfordjournals.org at Lunds Universitet on September 8, 2010 2(2)

>(•)

affix affix

Subgroup

• (•) • (•)

suffix suffix

2(2)

•(')

'(•)

•to

2(7)

mix mix

|

I"

g.

ri

3

a.

a.

o

n


IS

"-

N

(S

—

O

O

6* d

o

—

—

—

v-*

— • -

H

fSj

—

-*

IS

\Q


N

f»J

4 4 (3) 3(4) 2(3)

5(14)

4(6)

•(0

3(i6)

8(26)

12 (44)

8(13)

19(38) 4(12) 10(14) 10(19)

3(»)

•(>)

5(6)

•(9) 4(U)

3(18)

7 03)

5(39) 3(8)

>3(3

Comparative Spatial Semantics and Language

Comparative Spatial Semantics and Language

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