French Object Clitics, L1 and the Left Periphery
Virginia Hill and Mihaela Pirvulescu
Recent studies show that the L1 acquisition of direct object clitics in French is
problematic, since it displays optional omission in production. Experimental work
suggests the existence of a stage where young children omit direct object clitics in
a non-target-like manner in French and in a variety of other languages (Schaeffer
2000; Wexler et al. 2003, 2004; Jakubowicz et al. 1997; Deen 2004, a.o.). One of
the puzzles is that this stage of optional omission seems to have different resolution
timing according to whether one investigates spontaneous or elicited production
(Jakubowicz et al. 1996, Pirvulescu 2006, Belzil 2009). The reason behind this
variation, as being dependent on the modality of production, has not been
explained, although there are several proposals concerning the omission itself.
Previous analyses link early object omission to clitic spell-out (Fujino & Sano
2002), parametric discontinuity (Müller & Hulk 2001), pragmatic principles
(Schaeffer, 2000), and computational limitations in the developing child (Wexler et
al. 2003/2004). All of these studies focus on factors that might inhibit the
production of object clitics. In contrast, in this paper we focus on what might
trigger the production of object clitics, by investigating the asymmetry arising in
the frequency of object clitic production according to the type of task. We account
for this asymmetry by analyzing the syntactic mapping of features of
conversational pragmatics.
Our main observation is that object clitic production varies within the
experimental paradigm: different elicitation tasks bring out radically different
production rates. Crucially, a discrepancy arises when task manipulations vary
between involving or not involving the discourse protagonists as grammatical
subjects in the statement the child produces.
We suggest that such a discrepancy may reflect a triggering type of relation
between the pragmatic role features (i.e., speaker and hearer) and the features
responsible for the derivation of clitic pronouns (e.g., feature syncretism). This
relation operates before the child sorts out the evidence for an articulated
Complementizer (CP) field. This analysis conforms to the strong Continuity
Hypothesis, since a complete set of functional features is assumed as being
available for Merge in the syntactic derivation. However, the Merge location for
certain features may be different in early child grammars; in our particular case,
the [topic] feature involved in the licensing of clitic pronouns is either merged in
the conversational pragmatics field or conditioned by the projection of that field.
Such derivational options are related to (i) the configurational stage, production
data showing that the articulation of the conversational pragmatics field is
established before the clause typing area of the CP; and (ii) semantic affinity, as
both the clitic pronouns and the pragmatic roles involve strong specificity features.
1. Previous
research
1.1. Previous results
Several elicited production studies found a high percentage of clitic omission in
contexts where a clitic would normally be used – that is, in the pronominalization
context (Jakubowicz et al. 1996; Schaeffer 2000; Schmitz, Cantone, Mueller &
Kupisch 2004; Wexler et al. 2003/2004; Zesiger et al. 2010). The experimenter
introduces a specific, previously mentioned, referent for the clitic. The task design
is homogeneous, consisting of static pictures/toy manipulation, 3rd person subjects,
object DPs introduced prior to the prompt, and verbs in the present tense. An
example is provided in (1), from Van der Velde (2003) where pictures were used in
order to elicit object clitics:
(1)
Prompt :
Expected answer:
Que fait le garçon avec le feu?
‘What is the boy doing with the fire?’
Il l’éteint.
‘He is putting it out.’
In this type of task, omissions are significant for 2- and 3-year-olds, as seen in
Table 1. Some studies report omission in children aged 4; at mean 4;0 in the study
by Chillier (2001) and Chillier-Zesiger et al. (2006), the average rate of omission
was 21%; at mean = 4;3.9 in the study by Pérez-Leroux et al. (2008) the average
rate of omission was 25%.
Table 1: Rate of object clitic omission in elicitation tasks
Language
French (France)
Jakubowicz et al (1997)
Schmitz et al. (2004)
Van der Velde (2003)
Chillier et al. (2006)
Clitic DO
DP
Null
2-year- 3-year- 2-year- 3-year- 2-year- 3- and 4olds
olds
olds
olds
olds
year-olds
38.30% -
29.85% -
32%
-
-
-
-
30%
15.6-23.9%
21%
21%
-
45%
-
French (Québec)
Pérez-Leroux et al. (2008)
13.20%
50.70%
34.50%
However, a similar clitic context, as in (2), allows for different results in
spontaneous production, as shown in Tables 2 and 3. Notably, by the age of 3
(MLU = 3-3.5) object clitics are essentially no longer omitted (Jakubowicz &
Rigaut 2000, van der Velde et al. 2002, Pirvulescu 2006, Belzil 2009).
(2)
Adult:
Child:
‘
Tu ne veux pas le mettre dans l’eau [le canard]?
‘You don’t want to put it in the water?’
_ mettre ici.
put here’ Max, 2;0,14
Table 2: Rate of object clitic omission in spontaneous production
Para Corpus, France (Pirvulescu 2006)
MLU
2.58
2.83
3.01
2.61
3.25
3.38
3.21
2.87
2.85
3.66
3.56
3.59
AGE
2;2,30
2;4,02
2;4,20
2;5,04
2;5,18
2;6,02
2;6,18
2;7,01
2;8,03
2;8,20
2;9,15
2;10,18
NULL
62.50%
50.00%
33.33%
25.00%
25.00%
28.00%
70.58%
20.00%
42.85%
40.00%
16.00%
8.00%
CL
25.00%
16.66%
0.00%
0.00%
37.50%
57.14%
11.76%
60.00%
42.85%
50.00%
83.00%
92.00%
DP ANSWERS
12.50%
33.00%
66.00%
75.00%
12.50%
14.20%
17.60%
20.00%
14.20%
10.00%
0.00%
0.00%
Cl contexts (tokens)
8
6
3
4
8
7
17
5
7
10
12
25
Table 3: Rate of object clitic omission in spontaneous production Belzil Corpus (Élie), Québec (Belzil 2009)
MLU
2.4
2.6
2.2
2.3
3.3
AGE
2;2,06
2;3,10
2;4,07
2;5,10
2;6,10
NULL
34.00%
20.00%
80.00%
54.55%
61.54%
CL
66.00%
80.00%
20.00%
45.45%
38.46%
CL contexts (tokens)
3
10
6
12
12
3.7
3.7
3.7
2;7,14
2;8,07
2;8,29
0.00%
0.00%
0.00%
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
16
7
9
In both spontaneous and elicited production, clitics seem to be used alongside the
clitic-drop option in clitic contexts, so omission seems optional. The difference is
in the resolution time, which concerns the methodology used to elicit child
production: clitics are supplied in a target-like manner in clitic contexts much
earlier in spontaneous production (before the age of 3) than in elicited production;
in the latter case, clitic omission lingers to some extent in 4-year-old children.
1.2. Previous accounts
Several studies looked at how pragmatics regulates the omission or production of
pronominal arguments (Allen 2000, Allen & Schröder 2003, Serratrice et al. 2004).
These studies start from the premise that children are highly sensitive to various
discourse-pragmatic factors and adjust their speech accordingly. Greenfield &
Smith (1976) note that children tend to encode those aspects of the event that are
most informative but not those that are presupposed, such as the subject or the
agent. Hence, newness of the information is considered by several researchers to
be the most relevant feature for informativeness – this leads to arguments
representing given referents to be omitted (Valian 1991, Hirakawa 1993). Clancy
(1993, 1997) found that omission of arguments is influenced by newness as well as
by other features of discourse prominence: absence, contrast, and query. More
specifically, the argument is omitted when a referent is animate, present in the
discourse context and not contrasted. Clancy’s research is on Korean, which is a
Top drop language, so is not surprising that children adhere to these regularities
from early on. However, in English, French, German children are also more likely
to produce a subject when the referent has been mentioned before, although in
these languages the drop of the subject is not “argument” or “topic” drop (Hamann
and Plunkett 1998). This kind of drop follows from the impact of discourse factors.
Along these lines, Allen (2000, in press) and Allen & Schröder (2003) showed that
several of the discourse variables they investigated (called informativeness
features) were statistically significant predictors of argument realization in their
sample, and that there was a cumulative effect for these features.1 In the same vein,
Serratrice et al (2004) show that null objects are also constrained by discourse
pragmatics: null arguments are significantly more likely to be associated with
uninformative features.
Sensitivity to the discourse context is observed in experiments across
languages; in particular, null objects are preferred whenever the object is
recoverable from the discourse. Crucially, previous studies have not analyzed
pronominal arguments separately from lexical arguments, and although we can
presume that object clitic omission is influenced by discourse-pragmatic factors, it
is not yet clear how. In the next section we will concentrate on a contextual factor
that seems to play a role in object clitic omission: the context of address.
2. Our study
2.1 The role of pragmatics
Results from previous studies show that an asymmetry arises in the rate of object
clitics according to whether the production is spontaneous or elicited: object clitics
are produced in a target-like manner in spontaneous production earlier than in
elicited production. Existing corpora contain evidence of this asymmetry and of a
relationship between this asymmetry and the discourse set-up (i.e., whether the
discourse is centred on the speaker and hearer or on a third party person).
For example, an analysis of two spontaneous data corpora revealed that the
object clitic was mostly produced in contexts of direct address: when the child is
engaged in a dialogue with an interlocutor and is asking a question, answering a
question, or asking for something. In these cases, the (intended) person of the
subject is 1st or 2nd person, as in (3), or the verb is in the imperative. Table 4 shows
the results of the analysis of two spontaneous corpora.
(3)
Adult:
Child:
c(e) est du polystyrène qu' i(l) y a dedans.
‘There is polystyrene inside.’
je l' enlève.
Ann, 2;5.18 (CHILDES database)
‘I it take out.’
Table 4: Object clitics in spontaneous production
Corpus
Para, Anne; 2;2-2;10,18
Mona, Max; 2;0-2;6,27
Total object clitics
79
83
Context of direct address
87%
90.3%
The results are not surprising, since in such data child production usually occurs in
conversation with an adult. In what way does this set-up influence clitic omission?
It is hard to answer this question by looking at spontaneous data alone, as the
number of tokens can be very low and other factors can intervene.
We therefore aimed to reproduce this conversational context within an
experimental task and to contrast it with the one usually used in elicited production
tasks. We propose the term targeted direct address to indicate a conversational
exchange where the child’s utterance contains 1st and 2nd person subjects in
addition to the object clitic (4a). This set-up may even arise when talking about
pictures, as long as the exchange in relation to those pictures involve 1st and 2nd
subject. On the other hand, the child’s answer formulated with 3rd person subjects
(albeit in a dialogue set-up) is classified as a non-targeted direct address, such as
in (4b). The examples come from spontaneous speech corpora.
(4)
a. targeted direct address
Max, 2;2,09 (CHILDES database)
(l)e connais, toi?
it know, you
‘Do you know it?’
b. non-targeted direct address
Max, 2 ;5,29 (CHILDES database)
mais il va faire quoi pour l'enlever
but he will do what for it take
‘But what is he going to do to take it out?’
In the next section, we show that a new task in which this conversational context is
reproduced reveals drastic changes in the production of the object clitic.
2.2 The experiment
The experiment followed previous experiments in the setting (toy manipulation)
but introduced a prompt that required an answer in the targeted direct address
conversational context. We acted out an activity that involved the experimenter
and tangible objects. The child had to target the experimenter in his/her address,
and say what the experimenter does with the tangible objects.
(5) Preparation:
Acting:
Prompt:
Acting:
Expected answer:
Tu vois ici j’ai des sous. Maintenant regarde et
écoute bien: je mets les sous dans la tirelire.
‘You see, I have pennies. Now listen and look at what I’m
doing. I am putting the pennies in the piggy bank.’
The experimenter puts the pennies in the piggy bank.
Dis-moi, qu’est-ce que je fais avec les sous?
‘Tell me, what am I doing with the pennies?’
The action is still going on.
Tu les mets dans la tirelire/dedans.
‘You are putting them in the piggy bank.’
We used 8 verbs and 4 distractors and at the beginning the experimenters modeled
the task; the verbs were couper (“cut”), mettre (“put”), manger (“eat”), pousser
(“push”), prendre (“take”), cacher (“hide”), ouvrir (“open”), détruire (“destroy”).
We tested 26 monolingual French-speaking children from the Montréal area. These
children were separated into two groups: 13 children 2- and 3-year-olds2 (mean
3;2) and 13 children 4- and 5-year-olds (mean 4;8). 8 adults were used as the
control group. A total of 8 questions were elicited. The results are presented below:
Table 5: Results of production in targeted direct address
Participants
2-3-year-olds;
n=13
4-5-year-olds;
n=13
Adults; n=8
Clitic answers
82.1%
DP answers
13.9%
Null answers
4%
84.9%
8.7%
6.4%
87.5%
10.9%
0
Unlike the traditional elicitation task, the new model (targeted direct address)
shows insignificant clitic omission, even in younger children: compare our results
with previous results in Table 13. The results are compatible with the ones from
spontaneous production (Table 2 and Table 3). This show that the type of task used
to elicit data affects clitic production. Notice that in all these elicitation tasks the
context allowed for the recoverability of the object (pictures or toys in the
immediate context). Therefore, the child had the option of not producing the clitic,
recovering the reference of the clitic in a non-target-like manner directly from the
context. However, in the targeted direct address they produced the clitic almost at
ceiling. The crucial contrast is between optional clitic production in the traditional
task and obligatory clitic production (in an adult-like manner) in the new task. We
interpret these results as indicating that the person feature of the subject (especially
2nd person) has an impact on the production versus the omission of the object clitic.
That is, in targeted direct addresses the child produces the clitic instead of relying
on context recoverability. Recoverability of the object from the context occurs
much more often in non-targeted direct addresses.
3. Theoretical background
In the preceding section we showed that the contrast in object clitic omission
across tasks is empirically correlated with the discourse role of the grammatical
subject. In this section, we present the current theoretical proposals for the
syntacticization of the conversational roles (i.e., 1st and 2nd person as discourse
protagonists) and for the generation of object clitics. In particular, we adopt the
dichotomy proposed in Harley & Ritter (2002), where person semantics (which is
inherently specific) is encoded as a functional feature [person] only on pronouns
indicating the speaker and the addressee (i.e., corresponding to the pragmatic roles
in the discourse set-up), but not on pronouns or DPs indicating a third entity not
involved in the discourse (not a discourse protagonist). We suggest various ways in
which such proposals become relevant to the results of our experiments. Crucially,
in our experiments, the presence of the discourse protagonists contributes syntactic
features that override the object recoverability option available to the child. How
can we account for this effect in a way that also extends to the relationship between
3rd person subjects (i.e., a lack of conversational pragmatic roles) and the reduced
(although partially existent) production of object clitics?
3.1 Pragmatic roles
Current research on the syntax-pragmatics interface in adult grammar discusses the
impact of the pragmatic roles of speaker and hearer on syntactic derivations.
According to Speas (2004), “the degree of personal experience and reliability of
evidence is relevant for the pragmatic-syntax interface; this pragmatic fiend is
instantiated through a Speech Act functional projection (SAP) in which
speaker/hearer information is encoded”. Along these lines, Speas & Tenny (2003)
consider speaker and hearer roles (together with sentience) to be computed in the
same way thematic roles are computed within the argument structure of the verb.
For them, speaker and hearer role features are checked within the argument
structure of the speech act (SAP) that dominates the utterance.
Other approaches to the same type of data accommodate the mapping of
pragmatic roles within the CP field, as agreement markers. Notably, Sigurðsson
(2004) argues that the syntactic realization of logophoricity follows the same steps
as the realization of tense. Hence, the interpretation of speaker and hearer involves
a co-indexical chain correlating th-roles (realized within the vP field), with
Agreement inflection (within IP) and with late insertion of logophoric elements
(within CP). Irrespective of the exact cartography proposed, most of these
approaches (see also Haegeman to appear; Hill 2007; Zanuttini 2008) concur in
considering that the syntactic location for the encoding of speaker and hearer is
hierarchically the highest in the left periphery, presumably higher than the level
attributed in Rizzi (1997) to clause typing (ForceP).
These theoretical arguments are relevant to our case study as follows: (i) By
defining the way pragmatic roles are encoded in syntax, these studies signal that
the correlation between pragmatic roles and object clitic production must be treated
as a syntactic phenomenon. (ii) Implicitly, these studies also signal that, when
discourse protagonists are present, children may work with a derivation that
extends to the highest level of the left periphery.
3.2 Licensing clitics
Formal grammar lists several theories on the syntactic status of clitic pronouns
(i.e., minimal versus maximal projections) and on their type of derivation (i.e.,
direct merge versus merge-and-move). The latter aspect also differs from author to
author as to the merge site and/or the nature of alignment constraints (Chomsky
1995, Kayne 1975, Legendre 2003, Mahajan 1991, Roberge 1990, Sportiche 1997,
a.o.). These approaches are instrumental for analyzing inter- and intra-language
variation in adult grammars, but do not provide the necessary framework for
understanding the child intra-language variation evidenced in this paper. In
particular, the conversational context is not factored in, so there are no discourserelated predictions on the omission of object clitics.
However, Delfitto (2002) points out the privileged relationship between clitics
and Topic phrases (TopP) in Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) constructions, and
notes that this relation relies on reference to a salient discourse entity, which
entails obligatory [specificity] on the items licensed in these configurations (e.g.,
bare quantifiers are ruled out in these constructions). Here, we follow the general
definition of DP specificity as involving referentiality, wide scope and
presuppositionality (Abbott 2003; Ionin 2006). The clitic is, then, seen as a
morphological expression of specificity. The impact of discourse-semantic
features on the syntax of the clitic is justified as follows: semantically, a sentence
with a simple pronominal clitic is not a proposition but a predicate; that is, an
unsaturated expression (Delfitto 2002: 43). The clitic thus acts as a syntactic
trigger for a semantic operation which (re)opens the corresponding argument
position of the verb, which must combine with an antecedent (i.e., an empty Top)
to become interpretable. Therefore, every sentence with a clitic (e.g., Marcello lo
legge ‘Marcello it reads.’) represents a structure of the form [TOP e] [λx (Marcello
reads x)]. This is the structure that also underlies CLLD constructions and
pronominal clitic constructions, with obvious extensions to clitic doubling.
This analysis offers us an important clue for interpreting the clitic production
data: targeted direct addresses have an advantage over non-targeted direct
addresses in providing the child with better evidence for discourse salience, and
thus, for the instantiation of the clitic. Since discourse salience implies
[specificity], the presence of this feature may prompt the realization of the
[specificity] feature in TopP, or it may even be realized syncretically for discourse
protagonists and clitics.
4. Discourse protagonists and object clitics in child grammar
The natural prediction of Delfitto’s (2002) theory is that the generation of clitic
pronouns implies the derivation of TopP at the left periphery, be it in adult or child
grammar. Accordingly, even 2-2.5-year-old children who produce object clitics in
French must be able to derive TopP. If this is true – and studies on other
manifestations of topic derivations in French L1 have shown it to be so (De Cat
2004) – then we may assume, prima facie, that TopP in child grammar is identical
to TopP in adult grammar, and that the acquisition of this functional projection
occurs at a very early stage.
Nevertheless, there are striking differences between adults and children when it
comes to the production of both object clitics and topic constituents. First, the
production of object clitics is optional for children, who prefer to recover reference
from the pragmatic context (Belzil, Pirvulescu & Roberge 2007). The adult
grammar excludes the optionality of clitic spell-out, or is much more limited
(Pirvulescu 2006, Belzil 2009). Second, in the production of topic constituents,
children display high sensitivity to the discourse set-up (De Cat 2004), which is
dependent on conversational pragmatics, including the manifestation of pragmatic
roles. Such a trigger is not necessary in adult grammar, where topic constituents
occur independently of the conversational context. Relevant to our case study is the
fact that the production of either TopP constituents or clitic objects in child
grammar is related to the context of targeted direct address, in which the discourse
protagonists are encoded as functional features for speaker and hearer.
4.1 The conversational pragmatics field in child grammar
Data from a good number of studies point out that children project the field of
conversational pragmatics from a very early age. Importantly, the projection of this
field precedes the production of object clitics. For guidance into what may
constitute the domain of the syntacticized conversational pragmatics, we follow the
criteria established in this area for adult grammars. In particular, the syntactic
mapping of conversational pragmatics includes the following: polarity particles
‘yes’ and ‘no’ (Farkas 2010), vocatives (Hill 2007, Haegeman to appear), and
imperatives (Zanuttini 2008). We shall briefly review the literature that shows how
these constructions fare in child grammars.
The spell-out of polarity particles follows from the syntactic computation of
speech act features (performativity) and of the speaker’s point-of-view (a.k.a. the
pragmatic role of speaker). Farkas (2010) uses semantic tests and c-commanding
hierarchies to argue that the responsible particles (RP) for polarity are maximal
projections that take scope over CP:
(6)
[RP particle [CP . . . ] ]
Children produce such particles very early in the acquisition process. For example,
Bates (1979) presents a longitudinal study of 25 children between 0;9 and 1;1,
where utterances such as no or yes were considered simply routine responses.
Ninio (1993) argues convincingly that such utterances are not just action schemes
(unless all speech is action) but linguistic signs with full communicative intent.
Attention-drawing interjections and vocatives are derived by checking speech
act features (i.e., injunction), matched with the pragmatic role feature of hearer
(Hill 2007). Ninio (1992, 1993) investigates single-word utterances of Hebrew
children about 1;6, and concludes that these children use attention-drawing
interjections and names as vocatives in direct addresses with request injunctions.
In the same vein, the imperative reading on verbs arises from the syntactic
checking of injunctive force and the pragmatic role feature of hearer – a relation
that Zanuttini (2008) identifies as a Spec-head configuration between jussiveness
and addressee features. Zanuttini’s examples are limited to English, but other
languages bring empirical support to this analysis; e.g., in Romanian, the marker of
injunctive force pro-cliticizes on the imperative verb (Hill 2010).
There are studies showing that imperatives are among the first productive
verbal forms used by children (e.g., Russian children aged 1;6 – 2;4 in Bar-Shalom
& Snyder’s 1999 study)4. Progovac (2006) interprets these productions as a
paradigm of an irrealis/unmarked form that provides children with the first step in
the acquisition of the verbal morpho-syntax – which, in our framework, implies the
acquisition of functional projections such as FinP (Rizzi 1997) in the CP field.
Other independent studies indicate that the acquisition of Finiteness (or its
equivalent) occurs at later stages (e.g., finiteness on verbs in Swedish fails before
the age of 2;6 in Lunding & Platzak’s study ).
The evidence listed above is aimed to point out that the first syntactic
derivations children acquire are concentrated in the sub-field of conversational
pragmatics in the left periphery of clauses. Production reflecting such derivations
occurs since the onset of speech (e.g., 0;9 in Bates’ 1979 study) and precede the
production of complementizers and wh-words (e.g., Müller & Hulk 2001 situate
the emergence of wh-words between 2;1-2;8). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume
that, every time the conversational set-up makes use of discourse protagonists,
children resort to this set structure as a cue for sorting out other projections.
4.2. TopP in child grammar
In order to produce object clitics, children must be able to compute TopP. There is
evidence that children do use TopP very early in the acquisition process, but for the
purpose of producing constituents with topic interpretation. Wittek & Tomasello
(2005) present three experiments which indicate that around the age of 2;5, the
conversational discourse context has a more powerful influence than the perceptual
context on children’s choice of referring expressions. In this study, children
correctly distinguished the theme-comment components of the structure (i.e., topic
versus information focus, such as answers to ‘What about X?’ versus ‘What
happened?’) and were able to contrast it with new information (i.e., contrastive
focus).
De Cat (2003, 2004) provides evidence that the ability to encode topics occurs
much earlier – from 1;10 in spontaneous speech (e.g., les vaches, #elles mange #de
l’herbe ‘the cows, they eat grass’; Tom 2;1.13). However, experimental conditions
(De Cat 2008) push the production and recognition of topic constituents to 2;6,
which is closer to the observations by Wittek & Tomasello (2005)5. Importantly,
De Cat (2008) points out that the competence for deriving topics is in place before
Theory of Mind is fully developed; very young children can already build an
abstract, dynamic representation of the information conveyed in the discourse and
have established adult-like associations of definiteness (which involves
[specificity]) and structural distinctions to encode the information status of
referents. This point is also raised in a different framework by Ninio (1993).
Along these lines, children seem able to project TopP especially in spontaneous
production, much as in our experiment. What our study points out is that, however,
children do not necessarily relate this TopP to the production of object clitics – at
least, not in the absence of discourse protagonists (non-targeted direct address).
4.3. Possible correlations
In light of the existing literature, there are different ways in which we could
formalize the correlation between the presence of discourse protagonists and the
production of object clitics in L1 French:
1. Syncretism
Since the functional features of speaker and hearer involve intrinsic semantic
[specificity], these features also support, as a free-ride, the production of elements
with [topic] features, such as object clitics or NP constituents with an “aboutness“
interpretation. This analysis may explain why languages that display the encoding
of the conversational pragmatics as a default option in root clauses also display
production of object clitics at equivalent ages without a significant rate of omission
(e.g., Romanian in Babyonyshev & Marin, 2005). However, this analysis does not
directly explain why production of object clitics may arise in French child
grammar in non-targeted direct address, albeit at a low rate.
2. Cued production
The presence of [specificity] in the projection of speech acts provides a topdown cue for the derivation of TopP, which is also associated with [specificity].
This analysis involves the same mechanism as proposed above, except for the freeriding operation. This distinction, however, needs further justification as to why
wh-questions, which share the information structure field with TopP, are not
facilitated by this same process in early acquisition stages.
3. Truncation
In his analysis of root infinitives in child grammar, Rizzi (1993/94 and
subsequent work) defines root clauses in child French as IPs versus CPs.
Accordingly, since the child needs TopP to produce object clitics, we expect such
clitics to be absent as long as the child uses root infinitives, which is a very strong
theoretical prediction. In this framework, targeted direct addresses would force the
projection of the root clause as a CP, which automatically triggers the projection of
TopP (in addition to FinP). Hamann et al. (1996) show that object clitics occur
with root infinitives, and Hamann (2003) provides a graph on infinitive use and
development of object clitics (a true negative correlation is not visible). This
suggest that a correlation between root infinitives and omission of object clitics
may not hold either.
4. Situation reference
Another possible explanation – suggested by an anonymous reviewer – is that
syntactic computations are not involved in the production difference we discuss,
which may follow independently from memory limitations: The 1st and 2nd person
pronouns are vividly situation referents. They do not ask for resources in a memory
for discourse references. For the task with 1st/2nd person subjects, the child only has
to take into consideration one 3rd person referent. For the task with a 3rd person
subject, he/she has to keep track of two 3rd person referents. Consequently, if the
child recovers reference from the “pragmatic context” (and does not crucially need
a memory for discourse references), it may as well be possible that the object clitic
is also recovered from the situational context (De Cat 2009 observes that French
children may use simple clitics, but then support it with a gesture).
Our experiment does not allow for an accurate prediction along these lines.
This hypothesis needs experiments that dissociate linguistic from non-linguistic
(situation) contexts, whereas our experiment is based on dialogue only. Apart from
the experimental inadequacy, we also have to understand why the 2nd person is
privileged over the 3rd person when it comes to memory help from situation
referents: the child looks both at the adult (2nd person) and at the doll or the face in
the picture (3rd person) at the same time, so there is help with situation reference in
both cases – why is it not helping at the same level in the production?
5. Conclusions
In this article we showed that the frequency of object clitic production varies
according to the type of task. A change in the experimental paradigm gives rise to
different production rates. Therefore, we find different rates of omission not only
cross-linguistically (cf. Wexler, Gavarró & Torrens 2003) but also within the same
language, depending on the methodological tools. We suggest an explanation in
terms of a relation between discourse protagonists and the derivation of
pronominal object clitics. In particular, following current research on the
syntacticization of the discourse (Haegeman 2010; Speas & Tenny 2003 a.o.), we
consider that the use of 1st and 2nd person clitics trigger the conversational
pragmatic field by checking the pragmatic role features for ‘speaker’ and ‘hearer’.
There is no pragmatic role feature for the third protagonist of the dialogue (Harley
& Ritter 2002), so when the utterance contains only 3rd person pronouns the
conversational pragmatic field is inactive unless modal pragmatic features are
present (e.g., evalutives, evidentials, epistemics).
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Notes
1
Skarabela & Allen (2002a, 2002b) also identified joint attention as another potential
explanatory variable in children’s realization of arguments.
2
Note that there were only 3 children under 3 years. Two children were 2;8 and one child
was 2;10. We decided to include them because an inspection of the data revealed they were
not outliers.
3
One reviewer points out that the answers the children gave could have been listed
linguistic chunks. While the children usually gave the expected answer, they also made
some verbal substitutions such as défaire (undo) for détruire (destroy), mettre (put) for
prendre (take), faire rouler (make roll) for pousser (push). Crucially, for all verbal
substitutions the object clitic was produced.
4
Imperative verbs in Russian are different and distinct from root infinitives; for the latter,
see Avrutin (1998).
5
We are not aware of any study that measures the production of topic constituents (DP, PP)
in targeted versus non-targeted direct addresses. De Cat’s observation that topic constituents
are produced in spontaneous speech much earlier than in experimental contexts seems to
point to a discrepancy similar to the variation in object clitic production.