Relative clauses

Experimental test items

(1) The deer [that jumps over the lion] bumps into the donkey.

(2) The lion [that the donkey bumps into] jumps over the deer.

(3) The deer bumps into the donkey [that jumps over the lion].

(4) The donkey stands on the deer [that the lio jumps over].

Children’s spontaneous relative clauses

(1) That’s the rabbit that fall off. [Nina 2;7]

(2) Look at dat train Ursula bought. [Adam 2;10]

(3) This is the sugar that goes in there. [Nina 3;0]

(4) That’s a picture I made. [Adam 3;0]

(5) Here’s a tiger that’s gonna scare him. [Nina 3;1]

(6) It’s a song that we dance to. [Nina 3;2]

Semantic complexity

(1) Here’s the tiger that’s gonna scare him.

> The tiger is gonna scare him.

(2) This is the sugar that goes in there.

> The sugar goes in there.

(3) It’s a song that we dance to.

> We dance to a song.

Data

Age range Finite Nonfinite

AdamSarahNinaPeterNaomi

2;3-4;102;3-5;11;11-3;41;9-3;21;8-3;3

1783262258

12036714416

1;9-5;1 305 287

External syntax

Head of the relative clause

(1) The man who we saw was reading a book.

(2) He noticed the man who was reading a book.

(3) He saw to the man who was reading a book.

(4) The man who was reading a book.

(5) That’s the man who was reading a book.

SUBJ

DO

IO

NP

PN

Head of relative clause (total)

48,5

23,821,5

5,6

0,70

10

20

30

40

50

60

PN NP OBJ OBL SUBJ

prop

orti

ons

Head of relative clause (earliest)

80

2,57,5

10

00

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

PN NP OBJ OBL SUBJ

prop

orti

on

Head of relative clause (development)

PN

OBJ

NP

OBL

OBL

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

3;0 4;0 5;0

age

pro

po

rtio

n

PN

OBJ

NP

OBL

SUBJ

How do we account for the development?

Motivating factors

• Semantic complexity• Input frequency• Information structure• Pragmatic function

Conclusion

PN-relatives are the earliest relative clauses that

children learn because:

(1) they suit the communicative needs of

young children

(2) they are semantically similar to simple

sentences.

Syntactic amalgams

(1) That’s doggy turn around. [Nina 1;11]

(2) That’s a turtle swim. [Nina 2;2]

(3) Here’s a mouse go sleep. [Nina 2;3]

(4) That’s the roof go on that home. [Nina 2;4]

(5) That’s the rabbit fall off. [Nina 2;4]

Internal syntax

Relativizsed syntactic role

(3) The man who met the woman.

(2) The man who the woman met.

(1) The man who the woman talked to.

(4) The man who the girl gave the book to.

(5) The man whose dog bit the woman.

obl

obj

subj

io

gen

Relativized syntactic role (total)

57,3

37

5,7

0 00

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

subj obj obl io gen

pro

po

rtio

n

Relativized syntactic role (development)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

>3;0 3;0-4;0 4;0-5;0

age

pro

po

rtio

n obj

subj

obl

Experimental study

Das ist der Mann, der mich gestern gesehen hat.Das ist der Mann, den ich gestern gesehen habe.Das ist der Mann, dem ich das Buch gegeben habe.Das ist der Mann, mit dem ich gesprochen habe.Das ist der Mann, dessen Hund mich gebissen hat.

subjdoiooblgen

This is the girl who __ saw Peter on the bus this morning.This is the girl who the boy teased __ at school yesterday.This is the girl who Peter borrowed a football from __ .This is the girl who Peter played with __ in the garden.This is the girl whose horse Peter heard on the farm.

subjdoiooblgen

Results

71,1

40,5

31 31,5

2,40

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

subj do io obl gen

subj vs. do p =. 001

do vs. io p = .173

do vs. obl p = .169

68,5

32,8

21,4

12

0,50

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

subj do io obl gen

subj vs. do p =. 001

do vs. io p = .061

io vs. obl p = .001

English German

Subj-relatives

Why did subj-relatives cause the fewest errors?

Subj-relatives

English

ITEM: This is the girl who the boy teased at school.

CHILD: This is the girl that teased … the boy … at school.

German

ITEM: Da ist der Mann, den das Mädchen im Stall gesehen hat.

CHILD: Da ist der Mann, der das Mädchen im Stall gesehen hat.

Subj-relatives

English(1) This is the girl who bor/ Peter borrowed a football from.

German

(2) Da ist der Junge, der/ dem Paul … die Mütze weggenommen hat.

Questions

Why are children inconsistent in their responses?

What explains the frequent occurrence of repairs?

Hypothesis

Subj-relatives can be activated more easily.

What determines the ease of activation?

Frequency and ease of activation

The more frequently a grammatical construction occurs, the more deeply entrenched it is in mental grammar, and the easier it is to activate in language use.

Input frequency

35,6

53,8

7,7

0 00

10

20

30

40

50

60

SUBJ OBJ OBL IO GEN

(Diessel 2004)

Order of thematic roles

(1) The boy kissed the girl.

(2) This is the boy who kissed the girl.

(3) This is the boy who the girl kissed.

Order of thematic roles

AGENT VERB PATIENT. Simple clause

PRO is AGENT rel VERB PATIENT. Subj relative

PRO is PATIENT rel AGENT VERB. Other relatives

Question

Why did the English-speaking children basically produce the same amount of errors in response to obj- and obl-relatives?

DO, IO, OBL-relatives

(1) The boy who kissed the girl. SUBJ

(2) The boy who the girl kissed. DO

(3) The boy who the girl talked to. OBL

(4) The boy who the girl gave the letter to. IO

(5) The boy whose brother kissed the girl. GEN

Word order in English relative clauses

NP [V …] subj

NP [NP V …] do

NP [NP V …] io

NP [NP V …] obl

NP [[GEN N] V …] gen

Relative pronouns in German relative clauses

Der Mann, der … subj

Der Mann, den … do

Der Mann, dem … io

Der Mann, mit/von dem … obl

Der Mann, dessen N gen

Question

Why were genitive relatives almost always incorrect?

Gen- and io-relatives

Both gen- and io-relatives are basically absent from the

ambient language.

Io-relatives caused fewer errors than gen-relatives

because they are similar to do-relatives.

Summary

Important is the similarity between constructions:

• Subj-relatives caused few problems because they are similar to simple sentences.

• English do-, io-, and obl-relatives caused basically the same amount of problems because they have the same word order.

• Io-relatives caused relatively few problems because they are similar to do-relatives.

• Gen-relatives and German obl-relatives caused great problems because they are dissimilar to other relative clauses.

Why does similarity matter?

Relative clauses are constructions (i.e. form-function pairings) that are related to each other in a network like lexical expressions.

Children acquire this network in a piecemeal, bottom-up fashion by relating new relative clause constructions to constructions they already know.

A network of relative constructions

Simple Sentences

That is N [subj-relative]

…-relatives

…-relatives

…-relatives

… [gen-relative]