ABSTRACT

We reexamine the distribution of nonfinite root forms (NRFs) in Child French on the basis of two novel spontaneous speech corpora focusing on two issues that have increasingly dominated recent analyses of French on the one hand and NRFs/RIs on the other. First, we argue that the level of NRF production peaking at ~24% is in line with the independent characterization of the language of exposure, Colloquial Spoken French, as a null-subject language. Second, we examine the contexts of NRF production and present quantitative data in support of the claim that early NRFs do not have a predominantly modal interpretation in French. Instead, a modal shift or increase over time in modal interpretation is observed that is reminiscent of the one identified in Dutch. We argue that this shift is tied to a greater level of syntactic complexity of French modals than their temporal counterparts: Temporal structures are monoclausal, while modal structures are biclausal. Overall, the results support the conclusion that an inability to systematically deploy adult-like syntactic structure plays an important role in early syntactic production and in explaining the distribution of NRFs in French.

摘要

我们基于两种新颖的自发语音语料库，重新研究儿童法语中非限定词根形式（NRF）的分布，重点是两个方面，一方面越来越多地主导着法语，另一方面又对NRF / RI进行了最近的分析。首先，我们认为NRF产生的峰值水平约为24％，这与暴露语言口语“口语”作为零主题语言的独立特征一致。其次，我们研究了NRF的产生情况并提供了定量数据，以支持早期NRF在法语中没有主要的模态解释的主张。取而代之的是，观察到模态解释中的模态变化或随时间增加，这让人想起荷兰语中的一种。我们认为，这种转变与法国情态的句法复杂性相比，其时态结构的句法复杂性更高：时间结构是一元的，而情态结构是双月的。总体而言，结果支持以下结论：无法系统地部署类似成人的句法结构，这在早期句法产生和解释NRF法语分布方面起着重要作用。