ABSTRACT

The reference of understood subjects (ecs) in complement control (John persuaded Peter_i ec_i to read the book) and temporal adjunct control (John_i tapped Peter while ec_i reading the book) has long been described as restricted to the object and subject of the main clause respectively. These restrictions have shaped the grammatical targets proposed for children, most of whom are reported as having acquired both subtypes by age 7. Using three picture-selection tasks, 76 children’s (34 girls; aged 6;09–11;08) interpretations of the ecs were tested. Task 1 established their baseline preferences. Task 2 weakly cued the ecs toward an alternative referent and Task 3 strongly toward an alternative referent. Complement control responses were consistent across all tasks, but in adjunct control they shifted significantly toward the object in Task 3—a pattern mirrored by 15 adults. Responses in adjunct control also exhibited a degree of fluctuation in the baseline condition that complement control did not. A follow-up study on adjunct control showed that neither children nor adults permitted an external-referent reading, even when strongly cued in that direction. Two alternative proposals are discussed: one in which the results are viewed solely as the product of a parser’s sensitivity to activation and another that proposes two possible structures for adjunct control; this permits the evident interpretation shift yet gives precedence to the highly preferred subject-oriented reading.

摘要

理解受试者（的基准EC在补体对照S）（约翰说服彼得_我 EC_我读的书）和时间的辅助控制（约翰_我抽头彼得而EC_我阅读的书）长期以来被描述为限制的对象和主要条款的主题。这些限制已经形成了针对儿童的语法目标，据报告，其中大多数儿童在7岁时就已经获得了这两种亚型。使用三项图片选择任务，对76名儿童（34名女孩； 6; 09-11; 08岁）进行了解释。ec进行了测试。任务1确定了他们的基准偏好。任务2对ec的提示较弱代表替代参照物，而任务3强烈替代参照物。补体控制的反应在所有任务中都是一致的，但是在辅助控制中，补体控制反应显着地移向了任务3中的对象-由15个成年人镜像的模式。辅助控制中的应答也表现出基线状况的某种程度的波动，而补体控制则没有。一项关于辅助控制的后续研究表明，即使强烈暗示这一点，儿童和成人都不允许外部参照阅读。讨论了两种备选方案：一种方案将结果仅视为解析器对激活的敏感性的乘积，另一种方案则提出两种可能的辅助控制结构。