Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:03:43.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the acquisition of syntax in Tamil: a comment on Garman (1974)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Barbara Lust  and
Julie Eisele
Barbara Lust*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Julie Eisele
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, New York State College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Garman (1974), reporting on twenty Tamil children aged three to five, postulated a linguistic strategy and two prelinguistic strategies to explain the results of a question-picture choice task involving sentences with embedded and subordinate clauses. In a reanalysis of his data, we identify four processing strategies and show that some of Garman's findings are better explained not as the outcome of prelinguistic strategies but as an artefact of the experimental design. In fact the data provide evidence of a grammatical sensitivity which is consonant with a sensitivity – demonstrated in recent language-acquisition studies – to the branching direction of the language being acquired.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 215 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper was prepared with the partial support of National Science Foundation grant 8318983. We thank James Gair for consultation on the Tamil language.

References

REFERENCES

Asher, R. E. (1982). Tamil. Lingua Descriptive Studies 7. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Chien, Y.-C. (1983 a). Topic-comment structure and grammatical subject in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Chien, Y.-C. (1983 b). Topic-comment structure and grammatical structure in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese: a study of equi-constructions. Language Development 22. 74–82.Google Scholar
Chien, Y.-C. & Lust, B. (1985). The concepts of topic and subject in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Child Development 56. 1359–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chien, Y.-C., Lust, B. & Mangione, L. (1983). The concepts of topic and subject in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Paper presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Conference.Google Scholar
Gair, J. W., Suseendira Raja, S. & Karunatilaka, W. S. (1978). Introduction to spoken Tamil. University of Sri Lanka: External Services Agency.Google Scholar
Gair, J., Lust, B., Sumangala, L. & Rodrigo, M. (in press). Acquisition of null subjects and control in some Sinhala adverbial clauses. Papers and Reports in Child Language Development.Google Scholar
Garman, M. (1974). On the acquisition of two complex syntactic constructions in Tamil. Journal of Child Language 1. 65–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust, B. (1977). Conjunction reduction in child language. Journal of Child Language 4. 257–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust, B. (1983). On the notion ‘principal branching direction.’ A parameter of universal grammar. In Otsu, Y., VanRiemsdijk, H., Inoue, K., Kamio, A. & Kawasaki, N. (eds), Studies in generative grammar and language acquisition. International Christian University, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Lust, B. (in press). Universal grammar and the initial state. M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Lust, B. & Chien, Y.-C. (1984). The structure of co-ordination in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese: evidence for a universal. Cognition 17. 49–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust, B., Chien, Y.-C. & Flynn, S. (1986). A comparison of experimental methods in the study of first language acquisition. In Lust B. (ed.), Studies in the acquisition of anaphora. Volume 2. Applying the constraints.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust, B., Mangione, L. & Chien, Y.-C. (1984). The determination of empty categories in first language acquisition of Chinese. In Harbert W. (ed.), Working Papers in Linguistics, Cornell University 6. 151–65.Google Scholar
Lust, B. & Mazuka, R. (1989). Cross-linguistic studies of directionality in first language acquisition: The Japanese data – a response to O'Grady, Suzuki-Wei & Cho (1986). Journal of Child Language 16. 665–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lust, B. & Wakayama, T. (1979). The structure of co-ordination in first language acquisition of Japanese. In Eckman, F. & Hastings, A. (eds), First and second language learning. Rawley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Lust, B. & Wakayama, T. (1981). Word order in Japanese first language acquisition. In Dale, P. & Ingram, D. (eds), Child language: an international perspective. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Lust, B., Wakayama, T., Snyder, W., Mazuka, R. & Oshima, S. (1986). Configurational factors in the first language acquisition of Japanese empty categories. Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Schiffman, H. (1979). A grammar of spoken Tamil. Madras: The Christian Literature Society.Google Scholar