Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T15:47:58.824Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theoretical implications of complement structure acquisition in Korean*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Young-Joo Kim
Young-Joo Kim*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Department of Linguistics, Grays Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Acquisition Of Complement Phrasal Constructions In Korean Is Examined In Spontaneous Speech Data From Two Children, Who Were Observed From One And A Half To Three Years Of Age. In Spite Of Typological Differences Between English And Korean, Both Syntactic And Semantic Characteristics are found to be shared by children acquiring complement constructions in the two languages. however, certain language-specific features of korean complement structures make it possible to address theoretical points concerning the structure of infinitival complements which cannot be resolved with the acquisition data on English. The error pattern in the acquisition of certain ‘subject-equi’ verbs in Korean poses problems both for LEG and GB accounts of the constituent structure of infinitival complements and the acquisition of those constructions. On the basis of the Korean data, I propose that base-generated VP complements are acquired first, with semantically motivated reanalysis of previously acquired infinitival complement structures occurring at a later stage.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , October 1989, pp. 573 - 598
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

I am greatly indebted to Patricia Clancy, Susumu Kuno, Steven Pinker and Catherine Snow for many insightful comments and invaluable suggestions. Special thanks go to Donna Gerdts, Becky Kennedy, Ross King, John Whitman, and two anonymous reviewers who have read an earlier version of this paper and have given me helpful suggestions, both on content and exposition. I am very grateful to Patricia Clancy for generously sharing her transcripts of two children with me, and to my mother Sunkyung Lee for collecting data while Polam was in Korea.

References

REFERENCES

Baker, C. (1979). Syntactic theory and the projection problem. Linguistic Inquiry 10. 533–81.Google Scholar
Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K. & Fiess, K. (1980). Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and semantic relations in complex sentences. Journal of Child Language 7. 235–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bloom, L., Lightbown, P. & Hood, L. (1975). Structure and variation in child language. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40. No. 160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L., Tackeff, J. & Lahey, M. (1984). Learning to in complement constructions. Journal of Child Language 11. 391–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowerman, M. (1982). Reorganizational process in lexical and syntactic development. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. (1978). A realistic transformational grammar. In Halle, M., Bresnan, J. & Miller, G. (eds), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1980). On binding. Linguistic Inquiry 11. 1–46.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Clancy, P. (1984). The acquisition of subjects in Korean. A paper presented at the Ninth Annual University Conference on Language Development, Boston, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Hyams, N. (1984). The acquisition of infinitival complements: a reply to Bloom, Tackeff & Lahey. Journal of Child Language 11. 679–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hyams, N. (1985). The contribution of core and peripheral grammar to the acquisition of complex sentences. A paper presented at the Tenth Annual University Conference on Language Development, Boston, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. (1985). The acquisition of complement structures in Korean. Unpublished qualifying paper, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. (1987). The acquisition of relative clauses in English and Korean: development in spontaneous production (Doctoral thesis, Harvard University). Seoul: Hanshin Press.Google Scholar
Kuno, S. & Kim, Y. (1985). The honorific forms of compound verbals in Korean. In Kuno, S., Whitman, J., Lee, I.-W. & Kang, Y. -S. (eds), Harvard studies on Korean linguistics. Cambridge MA: Department of Linguistics, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In Moore, T. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M. P. (1978). New models in linguistics and language acquisition. In Halle, M., Bresnan, J. & Miller, G. (eds), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Martin, S. (1963). Korean reference grammar. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Roeper, T. & Williams, E. (eds) (1987). Parameter setting. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, S., Akmajian, A. & Demers, R. (1981). An encyclopedia of AUX. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Suh, C. S. (1978). ‘L kes’ ey kiaanhaye (On ‘l kes’). Kwukehak (Studies on Korean language) 6. 85–110.Google Scholar