LEXICALLY SPECIFIED PATTERNS IN EARLY VERBAL MORPHOLOGY IN SPANISH Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole University of Wales Bangor Eugenia Sebastián Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Pilar Soto Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Address for Correspondence: Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole School of Psychology University of Wales Bangor Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG e-mail:
[email protected]
*This study was supported in part by an Acciones Integradas grant, co-sponsored by the British Council and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, and by DGICYT (Spain, grant number PB091-0016).
0. INTRODUCTION Since the 1960's, when serious investigation of child language acquisition was spurred on by both the Chomskyan revolution and the work carried out by Roger Brown and his colleagues, one issue that has been investigated extensively has been early grammatical development. This area of development has been of continual interest and investigation because it presents many of the most intractable issues surrounding language acquisition. These issues include the question of the timing and order of development across items and what controls this order; the determination of what constitutes evidence of a productive command on the part of the child; the question of the scope of the child’s categories and rules; and the nature of children’s errors and what they may reveal about the child’s knowledge. All of these issues are, of course, intimately related. Recent research in this area has suggested that, for English-speaking children at least, the earliest steps to grammatical development consist of acquiring piecemeal knowledge, and that children's productive command of the language is restricted to limited-scope, lexically specified patterns or rules. Children learning inflectional languages, in contrast, are often reported to achieve a productive command of morphological paradigms earlier than English-speaking children, even as early as two years of age. This investigation seeks to contribute to the question of children’s early grammatical knowledge by examining the early use of verb forms in Spanish-speaking children. 1. BACKGROUND In many studies conducted on English-speaking children, there is growing evidence that children’s earliest applications of verbal morphology or verbal argument structure are limited rather than of a general nature. Braine’s influential (1986) monograph proposed that children begin with limited scope formulas in making their earliest word combinations. Bloom, Lifter, and Hafitz’s (1980) and Shirai and Andersen's (1995) work has documented that early uses of the verbal inflections -ing, s, and the irregular past are distributed with different populations of verbs. More recently, the work of Lieven and Pine has documented piecemeal learning in the acquisition of the use of an extensive range of grammatical constructs (Pine & Lieven, 1993, Lieven, Pine, & Baldwin, 1997, Pine & Lieven, 1997). These authors argue that all children to some extent gain control over grammatical constructs by learning unanalyzed, rote-learned phrases and then breaking these down and finding “slots” over which they gain productive control. Similarly, Tomasello (1992) documented, through careful analysis of all of his daughter’s early uses of verbs, that the use of arguments and verbal morphology is limited to particular lexical items. He proposed the Verb Island Hypothesis, that a child learns the combinatorial possibilities and the marking of these possibilities for each verb individually. This includes her knowledge of the sentence frames in which verbs can occur, the syntactic marking of arguments across verbs, and the use of verb morphology and subject-verb agreement. (Recently Pine, Lieven, & Rowland (1997, see also Behrend, 1994) have argued that such islands are not limited to verbs, so the theory should be extended to include limited, lexically based patterns for other lexical types, such as bound morphemes, auxiliary verbs and case-marked pronouns.) This picture of piecemeal development contrasts with what has been claimed for inflectional languages, including the Romance languages (see discussion in Maratsos, 1998, in press). For example, some reports have claimed early productive use of verbal inflections in Italian (Hyams, 1992). Hyams predicts “children acquiring Italian will learn the inflectional affixes earlier than English speaking children because, given the Italian setting of the [stem] parameter, they do not have the option of omitting these inflectional elements" (Hyams, 1992, p. 696). Maratsos (1998) recently draws on this type of account of the development of inflectional morphology to propose that early development of complex morphology takes place “underground”; there is a period of non-use, followed by sudden correct use. The early productive use of inflectional morphology has not gone unchallenged, however. Pizzuto and Caselli (1992, 1993, 1994; see also Caselli, Leonard, Volterra, & Campagnoli, 1993) have argued that Italian-speaking children’s productive command of verbal inflections is no more precocious than English-speaking children’s. They argue that, in fact, their subjects only had a productive command of a few verbal inflections: all three of their subjects had a productive command of the third person singular indicative; two had a productive command of the first person singular indicative; and one had a productive command of the first person plural indicative/imperative. Furthermore, they report that in the earliest samples, there was only one form per verb (1994: 156). There is a growing body of work available on the acquisition of Spanish. Work by Hernández-Pina (1984), Jacobsen (1986), Cortés (1989) and Eisenberg (1985) have all reported early uses of infinitives, imperatives, past and present participles, and present tense forms, and some use of preterit and present perfect forms. In more recent reports in which the sequence of development has been carefully examined, some researchers have documented a protracted period of development like that found by Pizzuto & Caselli for Italian. Fernández Martínez (1994) reported on the development of
verbal morphology for one child learning Spanish, and she found that this subject only began to make person contrasts (but only for a couple of verbs, p. 37) between 21 and 22 months, and her first tense contrasts (present, present perfect, and periphrastic future) appeared between 23 and 24 months. The first contrasts for aspect occurred at 25 to 26 months (present continuous, present subjunctive/negative imperative). Similarly, Ezeizabarrena (1997) reported that the first non-imitative uses of person markers in her two subjects emerged over an extended period, from the earliest uses of third person singular and first person singular forms by one child at 19 months to the much later emergence of the second person plural in this same child at 34 months. In her other subject, the earliest uses were with the first person singular at 23 months to the late use of the second person singular (non-imperative), first person plural, and third person plural forms at 37 and 38 months. The question addressed here is to what extent is Spanish-speaking children's early command of verb forms based on knowledge of individual lexical items or individual verbs, and to what extent on more general knowledge of verbs? In order to explore this question in detail, we examined data from two children. This study examines their early speech verb-by-verb in order to determine their level of knowledge at the beginning stages. 2. METHOD 2.1. Subjects The subjects were two children, María and Juan, learning Spanish monolingually in the Madrid area. Each was videotaped and audiotaped in naturalistic settings approximately every month for half an hour--María between 9 and 30 months of age and Juan between 9 and 25 months of age. The original videotapes, tapes, and transcripts were collected and produced by Antonio Maldonado and Margarita Vidal for the purposes of studying phonological development and are reported in Lleó, Prinz, Mogharbel, & Maldonado (1996) and in Lleó (1996, 1997). For the purposes of this investigation, we examined María's sessions between 18 and 30 months of age, and Juan's between 20 and 25 months. These sessions were distributed as shown in Table 1. PLACE TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE. Since we were interested in precise details of the usage of verbs and their forms, every videotape and transcript was re-examined and reanalyzed for accuracy of transcription by the three investigators, two of whom are native speakers of Spanish. In cases of doubts or when disagreements occurred, the companion audiotapes were consulted and listened to on a REVOX audiorecorder. Occasionally, two further native speakers of Spanish were consulted. In the revised transcriptions, the child's exact productions, along with any morphological or phonetic deviations from the adult norm, were noted. This process yielded revised transcripts of all of the child's and the interlocutors' utterances that contained verbal elements. 2.2. Procedure For each subject, that child's use of each verb and the forms in which it was used were traced from the earliest usage to later usage. Care was taken to note both the morphological shape and the surrounding arguments for each verb at each stage. 3. RESULTS 3.1. Morphological shape All the verb types and their verb forms used by Juan and María, as well as the sessions in which they occurred, are shown in Tables 2 and 3. At first glance, both children seem to have quite a wide array of verbal forms and give the impression of having an advanced knowledge of Spanish verbal morphology. Juan uses infinitives, imperatives, the existential, a past participle, the first and third person singular and first person plural present, a preterit, and a third person singular periphrastic future form. María uses all of these plus the interjection venga ("come on, OK"), impersonal forms with the clitic se, the second person singular present, the first and third person singular present progressive, first and third person imperfects, first, second, and third person singular and first person plural present perfects, and the first person plural periphrastic future. (See Gathercole, Sebastián, & Soto, in press, for a more complete description of all of these forms.) But close examination reveals rather scattered knowledge of these forms: (1) At the earliest stages, every verb used by each child has only a single form. This is true for Juan at sessions 8 and 9, and for María at sessions 7 and 8. At session 10 (at age 1;11;8), Juan uses 3 verbs (or 16.7% of the verbs in his speech) in contrastive ways: ir "go", previously used in the 1 p pl present (vamos), is now used in the 3 p sg present (va) and in the 3 p sg periphrastic future (va a ir); quitar "take away/off", previously used in the imperative (quita), is now used in the 3 p sg present (quita); ver "see", previously used in the infinitive with a (a ver), is used in the 3 p sg present (ve). At session 11, he uses 3 more verbs (or 23.1% of the verbs in his speech) in more than one form: caer "fall", used previously in the 3 p sg preterit (cayó), is now used in the 3 p sg present (cae); romper "break", previously used in
the past participle (roto), is now used in the 1 p sg present (rompo); aupar "lift up" emerges in both the infinitive and the imperative; and ver "see" is also now used in the 1 p sg present (veo). María shows a similar gradual development: At session 9, 2 verbs (8.7% of the verbs in her speech) are used in more than one form--caer "fall", which has been used in the 3 p sg present, emerges now in the 3 p sg preterit, and ir "go", which had been used in the 3 p sg present perfect, is now used in the 3 p sg present. At session 11, one more verb is added to these (yielding now 10.0% of the verbs in her lexicon with more than one form)--comer "eat", which was previously used in the infinitive with a, is now used in the present participial form; she also adds the negative imperative and the 3 p sg present perfect for caer at this time. At session 12, 9 more verbs (for a total of 27.9% of her verbs) are used in more than one form; at session 13, 11 more verbs (39.7%); at session 14, 7 more (41.1%), at session 15, 2 more (41.6%), and at session 16, 9 more verbs (46.6%). (2) Another aspect of the data that points to piecemeal knowledge is that as multiple forms enter for different verbs, it is not always the same contrasts that emerge. For example, in the first session in which Juan shows more than one form per verb, session 10 (1;11;8), the verb ir "go" has the forms 1 p pl present, 3 p sg present, 3 p sg periphrastic future; quitar "take off/away" has the forms imperative, 3 p sg present; and ver has the forms: a + infinitive and 3 p sg present. In the first session in which María shows multiple forms for any verbs, session 9 (1;10;1), caer "fall" has two forms: 3 p sg present, 3 p sg preterit, ir "go" has two forms: 3 p sg present and 3 p sg present perfect. In the next two sessions, she also uses caer "fall" in the negative imperative and the 3 p sg present perfect, and comer "eat" as a present participle (in contrast to her earlier use of comer in the form a + infinitive). The forms for each verb appear to be learned one by one, with no overriding general principle governing which forms are added next. That is, except for the 3 p sg present (but see discussion in Gathercole et al. (in press)), one does not find, for example, that many verbs suddenly emerge in the preterit, or that many verbs suddenly appear in the present participial form, or that many verbs suddenly appear in the first person singular present tense form. (3) Furthermore, tests for productivity show that few of the early inflections are productive. In Gathercole at al. (in press), we applied two criteria to determine which forms are productive for Juan and María. For an inflection to be considered productive, (a) the child must have at least two verbs used with that inflection, and (b) at least one of those verbs must appear with another, different inflection (see, e.g., Pizzuto & Caselli, 1994, Fernández Martínez, 1994). When these very liberal criteria are applied, the only constructs that are productive for Juan are the infinitive, the imperative, and the third person singular present at 1;11;8, plus the first person singular present at 2;1;13. For María, the only forms that are productive by 2;1;9 are the third person singular present and the third person singular present perfect (and possibly the third person singular preterit, although this emerges more strongly at 2;2;11). Between 2;1;9 and 2;6;12, other forms gradually become productive; these include person contrasts in the present (at 2;2;11, first versus third person) and the present perfect (at 2;4;22, first versus second versus third), and additional tense contrasts (3 p sg imperfect and 1 p sg periphrastic future at 2;3;11, 3 p sg present continuous at 2;4;22, 1st and 3rd p sg present subjunctive at 2;6;12), and some number contrasts (sg vs pl 1 p present at 2;3;11, sg vs pl 1 p present perfect at 2;4;22, sg vs pl 1 p periphrastic future at 2;6;12). Note that these forms become productive in a very haphazard, piecemeal fashion. It is not possible to say, for example, that either child gains a productive command of person before a productive command of number, or of tense before person, and so forth. (See Gathercole et al. in press for further discussion.) Furthermore, the contrasts that emerge in Juan's and María's speech do so very gradually: First, only a few verbs participate in the contrast initially, and others are added only gradually. Secondly, a contrast that appears within one tense paradigm does not necessarily carry over to other tense paradigms --e.g., 1 p sg contrasts with 3 p sg within the present paradigm at 2;2;11 for María, but it does not appear elsewhere until 2;4;22, when it appears within the present perfect paradigm, and at 2;6;12 within the present subjunctive paradigm. One might wonder if perhaps these two children are simply not producing certain forms because they have no occasion to do so, or simply are not interested in talking about their referents (see claim in Hyams, 1992). One way to explore whether this is a possibility is to examine whether there are cases in which these children seem to be referring to the person, number, and tense that is lacking in their speech, but do so incorrectly--i.e., in which they make errors of commission. For example, a child may be speaking to his or her mother about herself but do so infelicitously by using the third person instead of the second person. Or he or she may refer to a plural referent but incorrectly use a singular verb. In Gathercole et al. (in press), we examined the data for all clear cases in which such errors occurred, dividing them between errors occurring before the session in which the relevant construct became productive and errors occurring after that session. In both children we see a relatively high percentage of errors in attempts made prior to the contrast session (Juan: 50% for both types and tokens, María: over 35% for types and tokens), and a diminution in the proportion of errors
in subsequent sessions (Juan: 33% types, 43% tokens, María: 14% types, 8% tokens). Thus, an absence of a productive command of a structure does not appear to be due to the child's simply not having occasion to talk about the relevant person, tense, or number. 3.2. Verbal argument structure Corresponding to the piecemeal acquisition of verbal inflections, we find evidence of piecemeal acquisition of knowledge of verbal arguments as well. Although a complete examination of the argument structure surrounding verbs is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is instructive to examine even just the expression of overt first, second, and third person object clitics. Juan's use of such clitics is very limited, so we will focus here on María's use. Table 4 shows all uses of the object clitics me "me", te "you", lo/la/le "him/her", and se (3 p reflexive and impersonal marker) by María in sessions 7 through 14. In addition, Table 4 shows expressions in which a clitic was required but was missing. While María used some early clitic forms, their use appears to be unanalyzed and rotelearned in the earliest sessions: (1) We applied the same strict criteria as above to determine productivity in María's use of clitics--i.e., that there be at least two verbs with which a given clitic is used and that at least one of those verbs appear without that clitic or with a different clitic. Given these criteria, the absolute earliest point at which any of the clitics can be considered productive is session 12 (age 2;2;11) for te and lo/la/le, and session 13 (age 2;3;11) for me and se: Me is used early on in dame "give me" (sessions 8, 9, 11, 12) and in déjame "let me" (session 12), but it is not until session 13 that one of these verbs is used in another construction, lo dejo aquí "I'm leaving it here". At session 14, we see a number of other verbs used with me that had previously been used in other forms: poner "put", quedar "stay", hacer "do", quitar "take off". Te appears early in quédate "stay", quítate "get away", and siéntate "sit down", but it is not until session 12 that any of these appears in any other form: a sentar "to sit" and sentadita "sitting". It is not until session 14, however, that te is used with a number of other verbs: levantar "rise", coger "take", gustar "like", salir "go out", comprar "buy". Lo/la/le do not appear at all until session 12; at this point, lo appears with a verb that previously appeared in infinitival form, a despertar "to wake up", and le appears with a verb which previously appeared with no clitic, a bañar "to bathe". At session 13, lo is used with three more verbs, dejar "leave", dame "give me", and guardar "keep". Se is used early with the verb caer "fall" and ir "go", and caer also appears (incorrectly) without a clitic. However, the early forms with se and caer and ir are phonologically reduced, so it is quite probable that they are unanalyzed units for María at these stages (see Plunkett, 1993). It is not until session 13 that se is unambiguously used with any verb that appears elsewhere in another form: se puede "one can" contrasts with puedo "I can". By session 14, there is more evidence that se has become productive: romper "break", which was used in session 13 with se, now emerges in the past participial form, roto; cerrar "close", also used in session 13 with se, now appears with lo; poner "put", previously used in the infinitive and the 3 p sg present, appears with se; and pintar "paint", previously occurring in the infinitive, now appears with se. (2) Another aspect of the data that suggests piecemeal knowledge is that at early stages, María has a number of verbs in her lexicon that could occur with a certain clitic, but do not. For example, although María uses me frequently in the imperative dame "give me", she never uses it with other imperative forms that are available--e.g., mira "look", espera "wait". Similarly, although la/le becomes available by 2;2;11, she does not use a third person clitic in dámelo "give it to me" until 2;3;11, and there are a number of verbs with which she uses a demonstrative direct object (e.g., esto) where lo would have been at least equally appropriate. PLACE TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE. (3) Finally, this gradual emergence of the clitics is mirrored by the gradual emergence of the use of overt NP objects. All of the utterances in which María used overt NP objects in sessions 7 through 14 are shown in Table 5. At sessions 8 to 11, the first overt objects appear, but all but two act as objects of the imperative mira "look", and at least one of the others (hecho caca 'done shit') appears to have been learned as a rote form. At session 12, the session at which one could first say that any clitics gained any productivity, María also uses overt direct objects with a wider array of verbs: tener "have", esperar "wait", bañar "bathe", decir "say", and chupar "suck", in addition to mirar. Three of these (mirar, esperar, and bañar) previously appeared without overt objects. By session 13, 9 verbs are used with NP direct objects, and by session 14, 17 verbs appear with NP direct objects. PLACE TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE. 4. DISCUSSION These results, then, provide little evidence that these two children have an early sophisticated command of verb forms in Spanish. In fact, they indicate that these two children first use verbal forms in a very restricted fashion. With regard to inflectional forms, one verb may initially be used exclusively in the imperative form (e.g., mira "look" for both children), while another may be used
only in the preterit (acabó "(it/he/she) finished" in María's speech), and still another in the third person singular present tense (está "(it/he/she) is" in both children's speech). In addition, the development of forms within the verb paradigm does not appear to occur suddenly, even within a given inflectional morpheme. For example, the development of a productive command of the first person singular within one tense does not ensure the productive use of that same form within another tense. With regard to object clitics, one verb may be used with a given clitic (e.g., me in dame), while other available forms are never used with the same clitic. In addition, the gradual entry of object clitics appears to parallel the gradual entry of NP direct objects, a finding that deserves closer examination in its own right. These results, taken together, suggest that it is not possible to posit discrete stages in the development of verb forms, such that one might be able to say, for example, that person is learned before number, or person before tense, or the like. Rather, the child gains a command of aspects of the paradigm in a much more piecemeal fashion. One might be able to attribute a productive command of a particular person for a particular tense to a given child, or a productive command of a particular set of persons for a particular tense for a particular verb, or a productive command of a particular tense contrast for a particular person and number for a particular verb. It appears to be an accumulation of such piecemeal bits of knowledge that eventually leads to a fully productive system. And such a fully productive system is certainly not available as early as some have claimed for inflectional languages, and certainly not until well past the ages studied here.
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TABLE 1. SUBJECTS AND SESSIONS EXAMINED IN THE PRESENT STUDY
SUBJECT
SESSION
AGE
María
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
1;6;3 1;7;24 1;10;17 2;0 2;1;9 2;2;11 2;3;11 2;4;22 2;5;19 2;6;16
Juan
8 9 10 11
1;8;5 1;9;25 1;11;8 2;1;13
TABLE 2. JUAN, ALL VERBS AND THEIR FORMS (Numbers in parentheses indicate all sessions in which form occurred.) Session when form emerged 8 (age 1;8;5)
(a +) Infinitive
Imperative
Existential
PINTAR "paint" (8)
AFF: TOMAR "take" (8, 9) TRAER "bring" (8)
(no) HAY (8, 11)
9 (age 1;9;25)
VER "see" (9, 10, 11)
AFF: QUITAR "take away/off" (9, 10) AFF: OIR "hear" (10) NEG: TOCAR "touch" (10)
10 (age 1;11;8)
11 (2;1;13)
AUPAR "lift up" (11) JUGAR "play" (11)
AFF: AUPAR "lift up" (11) COGER "take" (11) MIRAR "look" (11) NEG: CAER "fall" (11)
Past Participle
3 p sg Present
1 p sg Present
ESTAR "be (locative)" (8, 10, 11) LLORAR "cry" (8, 9, 10, 11) SER "be" (8, 9, 10, 11)
ROMPER "break" (9, 10)
BEBER "drink" (9) LLOVER "rain" (9, 10, 11) IR "go" (10) QUITAR "take away/off" (10) SALTAR "jump" (10) VER "see" (10, 11) --CAER "fall" (11) CORRER "run" (11) NADAR "swim" (11) PONER "put" (11)
1 p pl Present 3 p sg Preterit
3 p sg Periphrastic Future
IR "go" (8)
QUERER "want" (9, 11) CAER "fall" (10)
ROMPER "break" (11) TENER "have" (11) VER "see" (11)
IR "go" (10)
TABLE 3. MARÍA, ALL VERBS AND THEIR FORMS (Numbers in parentheses indicate all sessions in which form occurred.) Session when (a/para +) Infinitive Imperative Existential Past Participle form emerged 7 AFF: (age 1;6;3) MIRAR "look" (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16) TOMAR "take" (7, 8, 13, 14) 8 CALLAR "be quiet" (8) AFF: HAY "there is" (8,13,14) HACER "do" (8, 12) (age 1;7;24) COMER "eat" (8, 10, 12, 13) DAR "give" (8,9,11,12,13, DORMIR "sleep" (8, 9) 14,16) VER "see" (8,9,12,13,14,16) ESPERAR "wait" (8,11,12, 13,14,16) 9 ABRIR "open" (9, 13, 15) AFF: ESCRIBIR "write" (9) (age 1;10;17) GUARDAR "keep" (9,10,11, QUEDARSE "stay" (9) 12,13) QUITARSE "take away/off" (9, JUGAR "play" (9, 12, 14) 14) PINTAR "paint" (9, 11, 12) SENTARSE "sit" (9, 13, 16) 10 COGER "take" (10) NEG: (age 2;0) DESPERTAR "wake" (10, 12) CAER "fall" (10) LIMPIAR "clean" (10) 11 BAÑAR "bathe" (11, 12) (age 2;1;9) 12 ENJABONARSE "soap" (12) AFF: CANSAR "tire" (12) (age 2;2;11) PEINAR "comb" (12, 13) COMER "eat" (12) DORMIR "sleep" (12) SENTAR "sit" (12) DECIR "say" (12) SENTAR "sit" (12) DEJAR "leave" (12) ESTAR "be" (12) VENIR "come" (12, 16) NEG: ESCUPIR "spit" (12) 13 ARREGLAR "fix" (13) AFF: (age 2;3;11) CURAR "cure" (13) OIR "hear" (13) ECHAR "throw" (13, 16) NEG: METER "insert" (13) COMER "eat" (13) PARTIR "cut up" (13) LIMPIAR "clean" (13) PONER "put" (13, 14, 15) TOCAR "touch" (13, 16) 14 COMPRAR "buy" (14) AFF: COMPRAR "buy" (14) (age 2;4;22) ESTUDIAR "study" (14) BORRAR "erase" (14) ROMPER "break" (14) HACER "do" (14, 16) COGER "take" (14) LEER "read" (14) HACER "do" (14) REPETIR "repeat" (14) LEVANTARSE "get up" (14) VENIR "come" (14) PINCHAR "pinch" (14) PONER "put" (14, 16) 15 BEBER "drink" (15, 16) CERRAR "close" (15) (age 2;5;19) CALENTAR "warm" (15, 16) TAPAR "cover" (15) 16 DAR "give" (16) AFF: CAGAR "shit/soil" (16) (age 2;6;16) ESTAR "be" (16) METER "insert" (16) HACER "do" (16) TOCAR "touch" (16) NEG: PORTARSE "behave" (16) QUITAR "take away/off" (16) REIR "laugh" (16)
Present Participle
Interjection
Impersonal w/ se
COMER "eat" (11)
PEGAR "stick" (13) PODER "be able" (13)
HACER "do" (14) SALTAR "jump" (14,15)
GUISAR "stew" (16)
VENGA "come on" (14,16)
PINTAR "paint" (14) PONER "put" (14)
CERRAR "close" (16) METER "insert" (16) TOCAR "touch" (16)
Table 3 (continued) Session when form emerged 7 (1;6;3)
8 (1;7;24) 9 (1;10;17)
3 p sg Present
13 (2;3;11)
14 (2;4;22)
15 (2;5;19) 16 (2;6;16)
1
1 p pl Present (Indicative)
2 p sg Present (Indicative)
3 p sg Present Progressive (Indicative)
ACOSTAR "lie down" (14) SALTAR "jump" (14)
1 p sg Present Progressive (Indicative)
INDIC.: CAER "fall" (7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16) ESTAR "be (locative)" (7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) INDIC: SER "be" (8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16) INDIC: IR "go" (9, 16)
10 (2;0)
11 (2;1;9) 12 (2;2;11)
1 p sg Present
INDIC.: PEGAR "hit, stick" (10) SACAR "take out" (10) INDIC: CHUPAR "suck" (12) HABLAR "speak" (12, 15) HACER "do" (12, 15) LLAMAR "call" (12, 15) VALER "be worth" (12) INDIC: ABRIR "open" (13) CERRAR "close" (13) DOLER "hurt" (13) GUSTAR "like" (13, 14) PONER "put" (13, 14) QUEMAR "burn" (13) VIVIR "live" (13) SUBJUNC: ACOSTAR "lie down" (13) INDIC: ENFADARSE "get angry" (14) QUEDAR "stay" (14) TENER "have" (14, 16)
INDIC: SUBIR "go up" (15) INDIC: ECHAR "throw" (16) LLOVER "rain" (16)1 QUERER "want" (16) SUBJUNC: CALENTAR "warm" (16) ESTAR "be" (16)
INDIC.: ECHAR "throw" (12, 16) SABER "know" (12, 14, 16) TENER "have" (12, 16) VENIR "come" (12) INDIC.: ABRIR "open" (13) COGER "take" (13) COMER "eat" (13) DEJAR "leave" (13) PODER "be able" (13, 14)
DESPERTAR "wake" (12)
INDIC.: COCINAR "cook" (14) IR "go" (14) PONER "put" (14, 16) QUEDAR "stay" (14) QUERER "want" (14, 15, 16) SER "be" (14)
CERRAR "close" (14) DEJAR "leave" (14) IR "go" (14, 16)
QUEDAR "stay" (14) VENIR "come" (14)
CALENTAR "warm" (15)
SENTAR "sit" (15)
PONER "put" (16)
ESTAR "be" (16) MANCHAR "stain" (16)
INDIC.: CERRAR "close" (16) GUARDAR "keep" (16) SUBJUN,: BAJAR "lower" (16) PONER "put" (16)
SABER "know" (13)
The form llueve "it is raining" is considered an impersonal form, but it is included here because its form is that of a third person singular of the verb llover.
BUSCAR "look for" (16) SUDAR "sweat" (16)
Table 3 (continued) Session when form emerged 7 (1;6;3) 8 (1;7;24) 9 (1;10;17) 10 (2;0) 11 (2;1;9)
3 p sg Preterit
3 p sg Imperfect
1 p sg Imperfect
ACABAR "finish" (8, 9) CAER "fall" (9, 13)
14 (2;4;22)
ROMPER "break" (13)
1 p pl Present Perfect
CAER "fall" (11, 12, 16) MORDER "bite" (11) ACABAR "finish" (12, 13) COMER "eat" (12) HACER "do" (12, 16) QUEMAR "burn" (13) ABRIR "open" (14) DEJAR "leave" (14) ROMPER "break" (14)
1 p pl Periphrastic Future
CAER "fall" (13) SER "be" (13, 14) ESTAR "be" (14) SUBIR "go up" (14)
DECIR "say" (12)
HACER "do" (14)
PINTAR "paint" (14) PONER "put" (14) SALIR "go out" (14) TERMINAR "finish" (14) TIRAR "throw" (14) VER "see" (14)
COMPRAR "buy" (14) PONER "put" (14, 16)
15 (2;5;19)
16 (2;6;16)
1 p sg Periphrastic Future
IR "go" (8)
12 (2;2;11)
13 (2;3;11)
3 p sg Present Perfect 1 p sg Present Perfect 2 p sg Present Perfect
TENER "have" (16)
QUERER "want" (16)
ENSUCIAR "dirty" (16)
ABRIR "open" (16) PREPARAR "prepare" (16)
MANCHAR "stain" (16)
PONER "put" (16)
COGER "take" (15) LIMPIAR "clean" (15) SENTARSE "sit" (15) ECHAR "throw" (16) HACER "do" (16) MIRAR "look" (16)
CANTAR "sing" (15)
HACER "do" (16) VER "see" (16)
TABLE 4. VERB USE WITH CLITICS, MARÍA. Session
clitic missing
1 p sg: me
2 p sg: te
3 p sg: lo/la/le
3 p reflexive/impersonal: se
[ () = required form] 7 (1;6;3) 8 (1;7;24)
caer "fall" [3 p sg present](I) acabar "finish" [3 p sg preterit] (se) caer "fall" [3 p sg pres] (se) hacer caca "shit" [past part.] (se)
dar "give" [imperative]
acabar "finish" [3 p sg preterit] (se) caer "fall" [3 p sg preterit] (se) dar "give" [imperative + me] (lo) caer "fall" [neg. imperative] (te) pegar "hit" [1 p sg present] (lo) sacar "take out" [1 p sg present] (las) caer "fall" [3 p sg pres] (se) morder "bite" [3 p sg pres perfect] (me) estar quieta "be quiet" [imperative] (te) hacer caca "shit" [3 p sg pres perfect, past part.] (se)
dar "give" [imperative]
dar "give" [imperative] dejar "let/leave" [imperative]
echar "throw" [1 p sg present]
bañar "bathe" [a + infinitive] (w/ le) despertar "wake" [1 p pl present] (w/ lo)
13 (2;3;11)
caer "fall" [3 p sg present; should be 1 p sg] (me/se) gustar "like" [3 p sg present] (me) quemar "burn" [3 p sg pres perfect; should be 2 p sg] (te/se) quemar "burn" [3 p sg pres perfect] (se)
dar "give" [imperative]
sentar "sit" [imperative]
dar "give" [imperative + me] (w/ lo) dejar "leave" [1 p sg present] (w/ lo) guardar "keep" [a + infinitive] (w/ lo)
14 (2;4;22)
gustar "like" [3 p sg present] (me/te) poner "put on" [1 p sg present + me] (lo) quedar "stay" [3 p sg present; should be 2 p sg] (te/se) romper "break" [3 p sg pres perfect; should be 1 sp sg] (lo)
dar "give" [imperative] hacer pis "pee" (lit. "do piss") [1 p sg pres perfect] ir "leave" [1 p sg present] poner "put on" [1 p sg present, 1 p sg periphrastic future, 2 p sg pres perfect] quedar "stay" [1 p sg present] quitar "take off" [3 p sg present; should be 2 p sg present]
coger "pick up" [imperative] comprar "buy" [1 p sg periphrastic future] gustar "like" [3 p sg present] levantar "get up" [imperative] salir "leave" [2 p sg pres perfect]
abrir "open" [3 p sg pres perfect; should be 1 p sg] (w/ la; should be lo) cerrar "close" [1 p pl present] (w/ lo) dejar "leave" [1 p sg plural] (w/ la(s)) poner "put" [imperative, overregularized] (w/ lo) repetir "repeat" [a + infinitive] (w/ lo)
9 (1;10;17) 10 (2;0) 11 (2;1;9) 12 (2;2;11)
caer "fall" [3 p sg present] ir "go" [3 p sg pres perfect]
quedar "stay" [imperative] quitar "take away/off" [imperative] sentar "sit" [imperative]
caer "fall" [3 p sg preterit] ir "go" [3 p sg present]
dar "give" [imperative]
caer "fall" [3 p sg pres perfect] acabar "finish" [3 p sg pres perfect] caer "fall" [3 p sg pres perfect] chupar "suck" [3 p sg present] enjabonar "soap" [a + infinitive] llamar "call" [3 p sg present] acabar "finish" [3 p sg pres perfect] acostar "lie down" [3 p sg present subjunctive] caer "fall" [3 p sg preterit, 3 p sg imperfect] cerrar "close" [3 p sg present] pegar "stick" [3 p sg present] poder "be able" [3 p sg present] romper "break" [3 p sg preterit] enfadar "get angry" [3 p sg present] pintar "paint" [3 p sg present] poner "put" [3 p sg present] romper "break" [3 p sg pres perfect]
TABLE 5. ALL UTTERANCES IN WHICH OVERT NP OBJECTS ARE USED BY MARÍA, UP TO SESSION 14 Session 8 (1;7;24) 9 (1;10;17)
hacer 'do' mirar 'look'
10 (2;0) 11 (2;1;9)
coger 'take'
12 (2;2;11)
bañar 'bathe' chupar 'suck' decir 'say' esperar 'wait' hacer 'do'
13 (2;3;11)
mirar 'look'
abrir 'open' coger 'take' comer 'eat' dar 'give' echar 'throw'
14 (2;4;22)
acostar 'lay down' cocinar 'cook' coger 'take' comprar 'buy' dar 'give' dejar 'leave' hacer 'do,make'
mirar 'look' pintar 'paint'
UTTERANCES AND GLOSSES hecho caca (se ha hecho caca) 'done shit' mira cuna 'look at crib' mira la pupa 'look at the hurt' mira la cuna 'look at the crib' mira, globo 'look, balloon' mira, muñeca 'look, doll' mira, Gaptu 'look, Gaptu' a coger esto no 'to pick this up no' mira la sillita 'look at the chair' mira el guauguau 'look at the bow wow' mira basura 'look at trash' a bañar queca 'to bathe doll' se chupa el dedito 'she sucks her finger' quieta he dicho 'I have said quiet' espera, la comida 'wait (for), the food' la queca ha hecho caca (se ha hecho caca) 'the doll has done shit' hecha caca (se ha hecho caca) 'done shit' hecho caca, queca (se ha hecho caca queca) 'done shit, doll' abro esto 'I open this' ahora cojo la N 'now I pick up the N' a comer el jarabe 'to eat the syrup' dame uno cremita 'give me one, cream' dame uno para Javi 'give me one for Javi' a echar esto 'to throw this' ha quemado a echar esto (se ha quemado...) 'she has burned herself on inserting this' está acostando al bebé 'he is putting the baby to bed' cocino tomate 'I cook tomato' cógete el bolso 'pick up your purse' a comprar una camiseta 'to buy a T-shirt' te voy a comprar un pachú 'I'm going to buy you a chupachups' dame la zapatilla rosa 'give me the pink slipper' dame la manita 'give me your hand' ha dejado esta pelota? (quién ha dejado esta pelota?) '(who) has left this ball?' haciendo gimnasia 'doing gymnastics' haciendo saltando 'doing jumping' hace esta raya por aquí (haz esta ray por aquí) 'do this line over here' a hacer a la ficha 'to make the token' hacer otra ficha 'to do another token' hacer agujerito 'to do hole' me he hecho pis 'I have peeed (lit. made piss)' mira la cartera 'look at the wallet' mira cartera 'look at wallet' no has pintado todo 'you haven't painted everything' no has pintado como esto 'you haven't painted like this one' esto has pintado mal "you have painted this poorly'
mirar 'look' tener 'have'
limpiar 'clean' poner 'put' tocar 'touch' ver 'see'
poner 'put'
querer 'want' quitar 'take off/away' subir 'go up' tener 'have' tirar 'pull' ver 'see'
mira esto, pañal 'look at this, diaper' mira el bebé 'look at the baby' tengo pera 'I have pear' la silla tengo 'I have the chair'
Javi, no limpieh la cara (no limpies la cara) 'Javi, don't clean your face' que pone esto 'it puts this' a poner esto 'to put this' no toques esto más 'don't touch this again' a ver qué más 'let's see what else'
pone papilla 'it puts/has porridge' a poner la colcha 'to put the blanket on' a poner la ficha 'to put the token in' a poner el abrigo 'to put the coat on' que me voy a poner el abrigo 'I'm going to put on my coat' me pongo el abrigo 'I put on my coat' no me ha(s) ponido zapato(s) (no me has puesto zapatos) 'you haven't put shoes on me' yo quiero zapato 'I want shoe' me quita zapatilla? (me quitas la zapatilla) '(will) you take off my slipper?' quita esto 'take this off/away' ya subía la silla 'he already got up (on) the chair' tiene todo 'it has everything' ha tirado el pelo 'he has pulled her hair' éste ha(s) visto que está saltando? (éste has visto....) 'have you seen that this one is jumping?' ha visto éste? (has visto éste) 'have you seen this one?'