1. morphosyntactic variation:
Acquiring constraints on
morphosyntactic variation:
Subject-verb ~ Verb Subject word order in Spanish
Naomi Lapidus Shin
14th International Congress for the Study of Child Language (IASCL)
Lyon, France
July 17-21, 2017

2. Morphosyntactic variation
Grammatical patterns that are probabilistically determined by multiple linguistic factors
For example…

3. Spanish subject pronoun expression
Two morphosyntactic options
Expressed subject: Ella vivió con su papá
She lived with her father
Unexpressed subject: Vivió con su papá
Choice of expression is probabilistically determined

4. Spanish subject pronoun expression
Factors that increase the likelihood of expressed subject pronouns:
1sg yo ‘I’
Subject reference is switched rather than maintained
Bueno era una niña que se le- que desde pequeña se le murió su madre, ella vivía con su papá. Y su papá era viudo, Ø se volvió a casar.
Well she was a girl who – since (she was little) her mother died, she lived with her father. And her father was a widow, Ø got married again. (901Mex)

5. Spanish subject pronoun expression
Factors that increase the likelihood of expressed subject pronouns:
1sg yo ‘I’
Subject reference is switched rather than maintained
Verb is a copula Ella es una niña ‘She is a girl’
Verb in the imperfect tense Ella bailaba ‘She used to dance’
None of these contexts categorically requires a subject pronoun
1sg, Switch-reference, Copulas, Verb tense are “CONSTRAINTS”.

6. How do children acquire constraints on morphosyntactic variation?
Pattern reproduction (e.g. Hudson Kam 2015, Labov 1989, Miller 2013, Roberts 1997, Smith et al. 2007, 2009).
Piecemeal learning. First learn high frequency sequences (no generalized pattern) and then gradually abstract over those sequences to extract generalizations/patterns. (e.g. Chevrot et al. 2009, Díaz-Campos 2004; Foulkes et al. 2001; Pine & Lieven 1997; Nardy et al. 2013; Tomasello 2003; etc.)
 Pattern should apply to both frequent and infrequent lexical items.
 Patterns should emerge with frequent items first.
For a nice overview contrasting the approaches see De Vogelaer et al. 2017

7. Piecemeal learning of morphosyntactic variation
Patterns emerge first with high frequency lexical items
Shin (2016): Children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression
(also see Chevrot et al. 2009; Díaz-Campos 2004)

8. Children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression
Age group (in years)
Factors that significantly favor pronoun expression
1sg yo ‘I’
Switch-reference
Copulative verbs ser/estar ’to be’
Imperfect tense
6-7 ✔ ✗
8-9
10-11

9. Children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression
Age group (in years)
Factors that significantly favor pronoun expression
1sg yo ‘I’
Switch-reference
Copulative verbs ser/estar ’to be’
Imperfect tense
6-7 ✔ ✗
8-9
10-11
 6-7 year olds had not yet acquired the ‘Imperfect verb’ constraint

10. Constraints on variation: Frequency effects
6-7-year-olds: Constraints on Spanish subject pronoun expression
1sg yo ‘I’
Switch-reference
Copulative verb ser/estar
Imperfect tense
Infrequent verb lexemes ✔ ✗
Frequent verb lexemes ✔
*Frequent = verb lexeme comprises at least 1% of the data.

11. Constraints on variation: Frequency effects
6-7-year-olds: Constraints on Spanish subject pronoun expression
1sg yo ‘I’
Switch-reference
Copulative verb ser/estar
Imperfect tense
Infrequent verb lexemes ✔ ✗
Frequent verb lexemes ✔
*Frequent = verb lexeme comprises at least 1% of the data.

12. Frequency effects: Constraints on variation
Do constraints on morphosyntactic variation emerge first with highly frequent lexical items?
✔ Subject pronoun expression: Impact of verb tense emerges first with high frequency verb lexemes.
What about other morphosyntactic patterns?
Current study: Subject-verb ~ Verb-subject alternation in Spanish

13. Subject-verb ~ Verb-subject word order in Spanish
… y la rana entró y el perrito también. La rana se quedó…afuera de la casa (#108)
… and the frog entered and the dog too. The frog remained… outside the house.
Verb-subject
… Y allí se quedó la rana. …. Y luego, llegaron a su casa, y estaba la puerta abierta y entró la rana. (#103)
… And remained the frog there. … And later, (they) got to his house, and the door was open and entered the frog.

14. Constraints on Spanish subject-verb ~ verb-subject word order
Among adults…
Subjects are more likely to appear after a verb if:
they refer to a new referent rather than a given referent (i.e. one that has been previously introduced).
they occur with change of location verbs* like llegar, venir, caer ‘arrive, come, fall’.
* ‘Change of Location’ class is a better predictor for Spanish word order than ‘Unaccusative’
References: Bentivoglio & Weber 1986, Delbeque 1988, Díaz-Campos 2001, Erker et al. 2017, Llompart 2016, Mayoral Hernández 2014, Nava 2007, Ocampo 2005, Olarrea 2012,, Roggia 2011, Silva-Corvalán 1982, 2014

15. Constraints on Spanish subject-verb ~ verb-subject word order
How do children acquire these probabilistic constraints on word order?

16. María, ages 1;7 – 2;0: SV ~ VS
Bel (2003, 2005) found that María (CHILDES, López Ornat) produced more VS with unaccusative verbs than with other verb types.
27 examples of ‘caer(se)
1 example of acabarse (se acabó cumpleaños)
1 example of dolía esta pupa
1 example of falto el otro pendiente
3 examples of se vayan
3 examples of meterse
2 examples of pasar
2 examples of perderse

17. BUT… María’s SV ~ VS = Lexically restricted
125 tokens of SV~ VS variation between 1;7-2;0
66% of Maria’s ‘unaccusative’ verbs are caerse ‘to fall’
Se ha caído el nene, se cae el nene, etc.
71% of estar ‘to be’ = postverbal
no está Maria, no está mamá, aquí están las botas
100% ser ‘to be’ = preverbal
esta/este es X [demonstrative + is]
Mixed-effects regression
(i) Verb type (unaccusative, unergative, stative, transitive) not significant
(ii) Verb lexeme accounted for 75% of the variability!
27 examples of ‘caer(se)
1 example of acabarse (se acabó cumpleaños)
1 example of dolía esta pupa
1 example of falto el otro pendiente
3 examples of se vayan
3 examples of meterse
2 examples of pasar
2 examples of perderse

18. This study: Research Questions
Is 6-8 year-olds’ subject-verb ~ verb-subject variation constrained by factors that are known to constrain subject placement among adults?
Do the constraints apply equally to frequent and infrequent verb lexemes?

19. Participants 24 monolingual children in Mexico Queretaro & Oaxaca
Ages 6;3-8;5
Mean age: 7;4

20. Data collection Sociolinguistic interviews Picture book narration
Corpus of 27,413 words

21. Data for study
Extracted: All finite verbs with expressed subject. N = 1,379
Excluded:
92 impersonal haber ‘there is/there are’
30 Interrogatives
426 transitive verbs querer, hacer, tener, etc. ‘want, do/make, have, etc.’
10 experiencer-object verbs gustar ‘to be pleasing to’, doler ‘to hurt’
*4/10 experiencer-object verbs were preposed; 3 of which were ‘todos'
Total number of tokens for analysis: 821 tokens
Overall rate of VS = 20%

22. Lexical frequency
‘Frequent verb lexeme’ = at least 1% of data set (following Erker & Guy 2012)
1% of 1,379= 13.8, so verb lexeme must occur at least 14 times to be considered ‘frequent’.
Examples of frequent verbs: token frequency
estar ‘to be’: 191, ser ‘to be’: 190, ir(se) ‘to go/to leave’: 109
Examples of infrequent verbs
jugar ‘play’: 5, regresar ‘return’: 4, sonreir ‘smile’: 3
Frequent verb lexemes, N tokens = 577
Infrequent verb lexemes, N tokens = 244

23. Predictor variables
Given/new: ‘Given’: Average distance from previous mention = 3 clauses back (Std Dev = 3).
Verb type. All main verbs coded as:
Change of location: caer(se), entrar, ir(se), llegar, meterse, regresar, salir, tropezarse, venir, voltearse, volver. ‘fall, enter, go/leave, arrive, go in, return, leave, bump into, come, turn around, return’
Stative/Change of state: ser/estar, acabarse, alegrarse, aparecer, existir, nacer, morir, vivir, quedar(se), etc. ‘be, end, become happy, appear, exist, be born, die, live, remain/stay, etc.’
Other intransitives or ‘unergatives’: bailar, caminar, saltar/brincar, jugar, correr, llorar, hablar, etc. ‘dance, walk, jump, play, run, cry, talk, etc.’
Max. distance from previous mention = 17 clauses.

24. Mixed effects binary logistic regression analysis
Dependent variable: SV ~ VS
Predictor variables:
Given/new
Verb type
Random variable: Verb lexeme
Max. distance from previous mention = 17 clauses.

25. Figure 1. Mixed effects logistic regression
Figure 1. Mixed effects logistic regression. Estimated means of VS by Given/New * *
Given
New
Given
New
INFREQUENT VERB LEXEMES
FREQUENT VERB LEXEMES

26. *
Trend in line with Sorace’s (2000) classification of ‘unaccusativity’ as gradient
Figure 2. Mixed effects logistic regression. Estimated means of VS by Verb Type
Frequent verb lexemes
COL: Estimate: , Std. Error = , z value = , p = *
Stative: Estimate Std. Error z value = p =
Unergative
Stative
Change Location

27. Figure 3. Mixed effects logistic regression
Figure 3. Mixed effects logistic regression. Estimated means of VS by Verb Type *
COL: Estimate: , Std. Error = , z value = , p = *
Stative: Estimate Std. Error z value = p =
Unergative
Stative
Change Location
Unergative
Stative
Change Location
FREQUENT VERB LEXEMES
INFREQUENT VERB LEXEMES

28. Research Questions
Is 6-8 year-olds’ subject-verb ~ verb-subject variation constrained by factors that are known to constrain subject placement among adults?
Given/new - YES (cf. Díaz-Campos 2000)
Verb type – yes, but only for frequent verbs
Do the constraints apply equally to frequent and infrequent verb lexemes?
No. Constraints emerge first with frequent verbs.

29. How do children acquire morphosyntactic variation?
Piecemeal learning: Probabilistic patterns should emerge with frequent items first.
Evidence in favor:
Spanish subject pronoun expression
Influence of imperfect verbs emerges first with frequent verb lexemes (Shin 2016)
Spanish SV ~ VS word order
Ages 1;7 – 2;0 – lexically-restricted word order
Age 6-8: Influence of Change of Location verb type emerges first with frequent verb lexemes.

30. Conclusion: Piecemeal learning
Piecemeal learning. Well established for more categorical components of grammar (e.g. Aguado-Orea & Pine 2015; Pine & Lieven 1997; Tomasello 2003).
Piecemeal learning characterizes the acquisition of (at least some) constraints on morphosyntactic variation, too.
Grammatical patterns emerge based on experience with language. High frequency sequences are practiced more often and provide the opportunity to extract generalizations.

31. References
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32. THANK YOU!
Coding: Joely Morales, Desirée Ramírez-Urbaneja, Dominique Rodríguez
Transcription work: Dora LaCasse, Kristen Zadick
Funding: University of New Mexico, University of Montana