Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:04:28.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Un effet du principe C chez l’enfant francophone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Helen Goodluck  and
Lawrence Solan
Helen Goodluck
Affiliation:
Université d’Ottawa
Lawrence Solan
Affiliation:
Brooklyn Law School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We report a study that tests children’s knowledge of an effect of Principle C of the binding theory: In the adult grammar of English and French, coreference between a main clause object pronoun and a non-pronominal subject of a sentence-final temporal clause is permitted, whereas coreference between a subject pronoun and the subject of a temporal clause is blocked. In an act-out task, both French-speaking adults and children aged 3–7 were found to be sensitive to the position of a main clause pronoun (subject vs object) in selecting a referent for the subject of a temporal clause, permitting coreference more frequently when the pronoun was in object position. This result replicates earlier work done on English. A sentence judgement task produced clear results only for adults. Results from the act-out suggest that children are relatively inept at integrating non-mentioned participants into their interpretation of sentences. We suggest that children’s knowledge of the principle C effect we tested constitutes a “poverty of the stimulus” argument for innateness.

Résumé

Résumé

Notre article évalue la connaissance par l’enfant d’un effet du principe C de la théorie du liage. Dans la grammaire adulte de l’anglais et du français, un pronom objet d’une proposition principale peut coréférer avec le sujet non-pronominal d’une proposition subordonnée circonstancielle de temps. Par contre, la coréférence entre un pronom sujet de la proposition principale et le sujet d’une subordonnée circonstancielle de temps n’est pas permise. En utilisant un test de mise en scène, nous avons constaté que les adultes francophones et les enfants francophones âgés de 4 à 7 ans sont influencés par la position (sujet vs objet) du pronom de la proposition principale: ils admettent plus souvent la coréférence du pronom avec le sujet de la subordonnée dans le cas où le pronom est en position objet. Ce résultat correspond à ceux obtenus lors d’expériences menées auprès d’anglophones. Un test de jugement de grammaticalité effectué au cours de notre étude n’a produit des résultats concluants qu’avec les participants adultes. Quelques résultats du test de mise en scène indiquent que les enfants ont de la difficulté à intégrer des participants non-mentionnés dans leurs interprétations. Enfin, le fait que les enfants reconnaissent l’effet du principe C que nous avons testé renforce, selon nous, l’argument d’insuffisance du stimulus en faveur d’un composant inné de connaissances linguistiques.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 45 , Special Issue 1-2: Syntaxe et acquisition du francais langue maternelle , June 2000 , pp. 49 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2000

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.)

References

Références

Avrutin, Sergei. 1994. Psycholinguistic investigations in the theory of reference. Thèse de doctorat, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Crain, Stephen et McKee, Cecile. 1986. Acquisition of structural restrictions on anaphora. In Proceedings of NELS 16, sous la dir. Berman, de Stephen, Choe, Jae-Woong et McDonough, Joyce, 94–110. Graduate Linguistic Student Association, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Gerken, LouAnn. 1982. The effect of clause segmentation on coreference interpretation in children. Mémoire de maîtrise, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Gerken, LouAnn et Bever, Thomas. 1986. Linguistic intuitions are the result of interactions between perceptual processes and linguistic universale. Cognitive Science 10:457–476.Google Scholar
Goodluck, Helen. 1987. Children’s interpretation of pronouns and null NPs: An alternative view. In Studies in the acquisition of anaphora, sous la dir. Lust, de Barbara, 247–269. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Goodluck, Helen. 1990. Knowledge integration in processing and acquisition. In Language processing and language acquisition, sous la dir. Frazier, de Lyn et de Villiers, Jill, 367–383. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Goodluck, Helen. 1996. The act-out task. In Methods in the acquisition of syntax, sous la dir. McDaniel, de Dana, McKee, Cecile et Cairns, Helen, 147–162. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goodluck, Helen et Solan, Lawrence. 1995. Principle C and c-command in children’s grammar: A replication experiment. Cahiers linguistiques d’Ottawa 23 (Supplément):43–52.Google Scholar
Grodzinsky, Yosef et Reinhart, Tanya. 1993. The innateness of binding and coreference. Linguistic Inquiry 24:69–101.Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, Celia. 1996. Cross-linguistic study of syntax acquisition. In Methods in the acquisition of syntax, sous la dir. McDaniel, de Dana, McKee, Cecile et Cairns, Helen, 257–285. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 1969. On pronominalization and the chain of command. In Modern studies in English, sous la dir. Reibel, de David et Shane, Sanford, 160–186. Englewood: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
McDaniel, Dana, Cairns, Helen et Hsu, Jennifer Ryan. 1990-1991. Control principles in the grammars of young children. Language Acquisition 1:297–335.Google Scholar
McDaniel, Dana, McKee, Cecile et Cairns, Helen, dir. 1996. Methods in the acquisition of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
O’Grady, William. 1997. Syntactic development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Padilla, J. 1990. On the definition of binding domains in Spanish: Evidence from child Spanish. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1976. The syntactic domain of anaphora. Thèse de doctorat, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1983. Anaphora and semantic interpretation. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Solan, Lawrence. 1978. Anaphora in child language. Thèse de doctorat, University of Massachussetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Solan, Lawrence. 1983. Pronominal reference: Child language and the theory of grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
van Hoek, Karen. 1995. Conceptual reference points: A cognitive grammar account of pronominal anaphora constraints. Language 71:310–340.Google Scholar