Early verbs – meaning and argument structure
Reading: Armon-Lotem, S. and R. A. Berman. 2003. The Emergence of Grammar: Early
Verbs and Beyond. Journal of Child Language 30.4: 845-877
Verbs- “lexical items which express activities, changes of state, etc.”
Early Verbs- “verb forms that are the first to appear in speech of children at the oneword stage and in the transition to word-combinations.”
Questions?
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Why are verb acquired later than nouns?
What can we learn from early verbs?
How is verb meaning acquired?
Does the acquisition of verbs follow the same word-meaning constraints as for
nouns?
How does the context influence the acquisition of verbs?
How are the argument structure and selectional restrictions of a verb acquired?
How is the verbal morphology acquired?
What can we learn from early verbs?
LIOR, girl, aged between 1;5 and 1;6, in interaction with her mother
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
Breakdown of 120 Verb Forms by Mood/Tense and Stripped Stem Forms [in
percentages]
Stripped
Infinitive
46

6
Imperative
Present
Past
19
10
15
Future
5
Children have a large repertoire of verbs even before they start combining words,
and these represent a range of predicate types: syntactically, both transitive and
intransitive, and semantically, verbs which express activities, events, and states.
These verbs: 1. Lack overt syntactic marking of argument structure.
2. Fail to make productive use of inflection.
3. Show no ability to use morphological verb-pattern alternation
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Nonetheless, early verbs play an important role in children's early grammar and in the
interface between the development of syntax, morphology, semantics and the lexicon.
How is verb meaning acquired? Syntactic vs. semantic bootstrapping
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How do children acquire words? The acquisition of a morpheme in the lexicon
combines syntactic and semantic information.
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How do children pair concepts with their phonological realization? Nouns can be
acquired by pairing strings of sounds with concepts inferred from the world using
constraints on word learning – whole object, mutual exclusivity (Markman 1994),
e.g., by the naming game.
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Bloom 1994 - nouns are acquired by syntax-semantics mapping.
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How are verbs acquired? Would it be in the same way as nouns?
How are verbs acquired?
Many verb meanings are compatible with most events
What is the meaning of bix?
1. Look at the bix.
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Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
2. a.
The boy is bixing
b. The boy is bixing the flowers
c.
3.
The boy is bixing the flowers to the girl
The girl is bixing the flowers from the boy
What is acquired when verbs are acquired? Lexical entries for verbs
Fly, N, two winged insect,
-human, +animate, +count …
Fly, Vi, move through air with wings
(About, away, off, out)
Vt, Control an aircraft, transport in air
craft
[NP] Patient
Want, Vt, desire, wish
[NP] Patient
[to VP]
[NP to VP]
Give, Vbt, transfer possession, hand over,
[NP, PP] Patient, Goal
[NP, NP] Goal, Patient
Donate, Vbt, present as a gift
[NP, PP] Patient, Goal
Gleitman (1994)
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Children infer verb meaning by using the syntactic arguments which appear in the
sentence (subcategorization frames).
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Blind children learn verb meaning without “observing” the situation.
Syntactic bootstrapping (Fisher et al 1994): Structure dependent learning. Syntactic
cueing of word meaning. Children rely on a verb’s syntactic subcategorization frames to
learn its meaning. The learner represents the linguistic input that is to be paired with the
extralinguistic input (perceptual, conceptual & pragmatic), acquired by inspecting
ongoing events, by a parse tree within which previously learned nominals as well as the
novel verb occur.
Semantic bootstrapping (Pinker 1994): Semantic cueing of syntax / word meaning. A
verb’s content is learned from its situation of use. The semantics of at least some verb
forms are acquired without syntax.
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Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
Lexical reconciliation (Grimshaw 1994)
Fundamental claim: There is a principled relation between the syntax and the semantics
of a verb.
“The range of syntactic configurations associated with a verb is highly predictable from
its semantics, once parametric syntactic variation is taken into account.”
Mapping of lexical semantic representation onto syntactic representation:
Lexical semantics of a predicate > argument structure
Argument structure + parametric properties of phrase structure > s-structure
Many verb meanings are compatible with most events
1. a.
The boy is ----ing
b.
The boy is ----ing the flowers to the girl
2.
The girl is ----ing the flowers from the boy
There is no situation in which (2a) is true while (2b) is false
2. a.
b.
We killed the dragon
The dragon died
>>> Observation of the world is not enough
>>> Subcategorization frames contain critical information
3. a.
b.
4. a.
b.
He put the book in his room
He wrote the book in his room
He became a doctor
He shot a doctor
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Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
>>> Only a few cases of one-to-one mapping from subcategorization frames to meaning
>>> Analysis across sentence types is required for sets of frames
5. a.
b.
6. a.
b.
I know her
I know that she is here
ani makir ota
ani yodea she hi po
>>> Clustering of different senses under a single morpheme varies across languages.
>>> A predictable relationship does not hold
>>> Without knowing about meaning it is not possible to know how to group
subcategorizations together
>>> We need a way to use the two sources of information > Reconciliation
Reconciliation
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Semantic-to-syntactic mapping provide predictive mechanism. Semantics predicts
syntax where UG makes it possible
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The subcategorization structure provided by the syntax serves as a checking
mechanism. Syntax eliminate wrong semantic candidates where possible
Acquiring verbs
Tomasello, M. & A. Kruger, 1992. Joint attention on actions: acquiring verbs in ostensive
and non-ostensive contexts, Journal of Child Language 19, 311-333
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In order to acquire a word it should be mapped onto a referential context.
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How? Joint attention (an ostensive context)
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Can this work for action verbs?
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Can we point to actions? Do we point to actions?
5
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
Activities: Play session begins with child and mother sitting on floor in family's play
area. Village mat is lying on the floor with a large sack of toys lying nearby.
Activities include play with train, vehicles and road signs on playmat
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
*MOT:
look what mummy found today.
right. what other cars do you want ?
do you want your Weetabix tanker ?
you saw one when you were coming home did you ?
and what was your tanker like coming home from school ?
right here's the A_A man coming to mend the cars .
okay where's he going ?
He’s mending the points is he ?
okay what else do you want ?
lots of people getting on the bus ?
right, what else do you want ?
what have you tied them together for?
I think that red one there belongs to the transporter really
well that looks he's got BP, so that means petrol .
so that they can go to the petrol station over there .
have you got enough things out ?
where are all these cars going ?
is there none of them going to the station ?
do you want some little cars to be parked at the station ?
all right yes put it there if you want .
any more space left in the car park ?
are you going to park that one in the station then as well ?
oh is he picking all his letters up from the station ?
right now then you tell me what all these people are doing on this
well where's the sign that's got children crossing the road ?
put it there to say children crossing the road from school .
what'll happen if they go near the river ?
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Adults usually use verbs in non-ostensive context.
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Naturalistic findings - 60% of verbs were used for impending actions. Children
were most responsive to such verbs.
Experimental procedure with nonce verbs in impending, on going and completed modes,
presented to three groups of children (ages 1;10-2;2).
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After presenting the verb to the child, he was tested on both comprehension and
production.
o Production - impending context was best.
o Comprehension - impending and completed are equally good.
Verbs are more easily acquired in non-ostensive context (when referring to
impending and completed actions rather than ongoing actions). Why?
6
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
In class exercise - How are the argument structure and selectional restrictions of a
verb acquired?
From: Sharon Armon-Lotem (1997). The minimalist child: Parameters and functional
heads In the acquisition of Hebrew.
Table 1 - The development of argument structure for the verb ‘fall’
No argument
NP subject
VS
Hagar
lipol
‘to-fall’ (1;10;01)
lo nafal
‘not fell’
(1;10;14)
Hagar (na)fal
‘Hagar (fm) fell
(ms)’ (1;07;14)
hagari nafla
‘Hagar (fm) fell
(fm)’ (1;10;17)
(n)afal xaruzim
‘fell (sg) bids’
(1;07;17)
Location
nafal, la-mayim
‘fell, to-thewater’
(1;09;26)
Dative clitic
nafal li
‘fell to-me’
(2;01;13)
nofel lax
‘fell to-you’
(2;02;13)
Shauli nafal me
ha-kise
‘Shauli fell of
the-chair’
(2;01;19)
NP subject
+location
NP subject +
dative clitic
Leor
nafal
‘fell’
(1;09;17)
Lior
(na)fal
‘fell’
(1;05;26)
oto nafal
‘car fell’
(1;11;22)
nafal ha-magevet
‘fell (ms) towel
(fm).
(2;05;15)
(na)fal ze
‘fell this’
(1;07;00)
nafal li
‘fell to-me’
(2;04;22)
nafal li
‘fell to-me’
(1;08;02)
Smadar
(na)fal
‘fell’ (1;06;14)
oy! nafal!
‘oy! fell!’
(1;07;07)
Pigi lala
‘Pigi fell’
(1;06;14)
dubi nafal
‘teddybear fell’
(1;07;07)
hala ze
‘fell this’
(1;07;05)
nafal Kushi
‘fell Kushi’
(1;07;07)
nafal Bamba (me
ha-)kos
‘fell (ms) Bamba
(fm) (of the-)cup’
(1;07;11)
nafal li
‘fell to-me’
(2;01;08)
ze yipol al hashulxan
‘this will-fall on
the-table’
(2;04;22)
hi nafla me haofnoa
‘she fell of thebikes’
(2;05;15)
ze nofel lexa
‘it falls to-you’
(2;02;25)
ze nafal li
‘it fell to-me’
(1;11;13)
nafal li kcat hatush
‘fell to-me a-bit
the-pen’
(2;02;10)
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Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
Table 2 - The development of argument structure for the verb 'want'
No arguments
Nonfinite verbal
complement
(modal-like use)
NP complement
NP subject
Subject and object
Non-NP
complement
Hagar
lo roca
‘Don’t want’ (1;07;02)
roce (l)e(hitla)besh
‘Want to dress up’
roce lishon
‘Want to sleep’ (1;07;22)
roca od
‘Want (some)more’
(1;08;01)
lo roca yadayim
‘Don’t want hands’
roca aba
‘Want Daddy’ (1;08;04)
ani lo roca
‘I don’t want’ (1;08;09)
ani lo roca kola
‘I don’t want Kola’
(1;09;21)
*ani roca same'ax
‘I want happy’ (1;10;01)
Nonfinite CP
complement +
Subject
ata roce le'exol?
‘You want to eat?’
(1;10;01)
ani roca letayel
‘I want to take a walk’
(1;10;03)
Finite CP
complement
without
complementizer
roca loasim mastik
‘Want chewing chewinggum’ (2;01;24)
Leor
lo roce
‘Dont want’ (1;09;04)
roce (leh)o(r)id
‘Want to take off’
(1;09;04)
Smadar
lo roca
‘Dont want’ (1;08;13)
(ro)ce (li)shon
‘Want to sleep’ (1;08;13)
roce musika?
‘Want music’ (1;09;00)
roce (et) ze
‘Want this’ (1;09;00)
roca (sa)kin
‘Want a knife’ (1;07;16)
Liori lo roce
‘Liori doesn’t want’
(1;11;13)
ani roce kariyot
‘I want pillows’
(1;10;15)
roce kan, roce sham
‘Want here, want there’
(1;09;24)
roce levad
‘Want on my own’
(1;11;13)
hu roce lesaxek
‘He wants to play
(1;11;00)
ani roca
‘I want’ (1;11;13)
ani roca et ha-harkava hazoti
‘I want this pazzle’ (2;01;26)
kodem be ze ani roca
‘First I want with this’
(2;00;07)
buba roca (la)shevet (al ha)sapa
‘Doll wants (to) sit (on the)
cauch’ (1;07;07)
ata roce lir'ot?
‘You want to see?’
(1;11;13)
rocim ti(f)tax or
‘Want turn on (the) light’
(1;09;11)
roce tavi'i
‘Want bring’ (1;09;11)
roce ani yasim ‘Want I
put’ (1;11;04)
ani roca she nelex lir'ot
‘I want that we go to see’
(1;11;18)
Finite CP
complement with
complementizer
8
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
Table 3 - The development of argument structure for the verb 'give'
No Arguments
Frozen dative or
accusative
NP complement
Frozen dative with NP
complement
Two NP complements
Non-frozen dative clitic
with NP complement
Nonfinite CP
complement
NP subject +
Hagar
latet
‘to-give’
(1;07;24)
ten lax
‘give you’ (1;07;03)
Leor
ten lax bakbuk
‘give you a-bottle’
(1;07;17)
(x)a(r)uzim latet le
(H)agari
‘bids to-give to
Hagari’ (1;08;09)
li titni gvina
‘to-me give cheese’
(1;09;06)
tni lo lexem
‘give him bread’
(2;00;03)
tni li la'avor
‘let me to-pass’
(1;11;20)
od ten lo
‘more give him’
(1;09;17)
ten lo
‘give him’ (1;09;04)
aba, titen Dani
‘Daddy, give Dani’
(1;10;22)
natan li srita
‘gave me a-scratch’
(2;05;06)
ten li lir'ot
‘let me to-see’
(2;01;28)
ani roca latet le
Bindi
‘I want to-give to
Bindi.’
(2;01;05)
aba natan li bananot
‘Daddy gave me
bananas’ (2;01;23)
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Smadar
tni
‘give!’
(1;06;20)
tni li
‘give me’ (1;07;02)
sefer tni
‘book give’
(1;06;20)
ten od daf
‘give another page’
(1;07;05)
tni li od daf
‘give me another page’
(1;07;05)
savta Xana lo natna leRotem
smalot
‘Granma Xana not gave to
Rotem dresses’ (2;00;00)
(na)tat li et ha-kaze?
‘you-gave me ACC the-likethis’
(1;11;13)
savta Matilda natna li gam
lishtot ba-mita
‘granma Matilda gave me
also to-drink in-the-bed’
(2;02;10)
savta Xana natna lanu et hasmalot ha-ele
‘granma Xana gave us ACC
the-dresses these’
(2;00;00)
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Early verbs
The acquisition of the verbal system in Hebrew
Early verb usage: unclear forms or aspectually limited use of particular verbs
•
•
•
•
Over 80% look like IMPERATIVES or INFINITIVES without the infinitival
morpheme le- 'to'.
PAST forms are used only with a perfective actions, e.g., fal for nafal ‘fell’ and
PRESENT tense forms are used for durative actions, e.g., xel for oxel ‘eating’.
All non-infinitival forms are singular, with some nonproductive variation between
masculine and feminine forms, e.g., kxi ‘you, feminine, take’ is used for a male
addressee.
There is no overt person morphology.
Subject-verb agreement in gender
Limited to third person forms in the present tense and second person in the imperative.
(1) Smadar 1;7: sim/simi 'put', ms/fm, kax/kxi 'take', ms/fm, vi/abi`i 'give (me),
bring', ms/fm, ten/tni 'give', ms/fm, shev/shvi 'sit', ms/fm.
(2) Lior 1;6: koev '(it) hurts', boxe 'crying, (meta)peset 'climbing', (mitnad)nedet
'swinging'.
An explosion of past and present forms
(3) Smadar 1;10: le'exol 'to eat', oxelet 'eats' sg,fm, axa(l)ti 'ate', 1st,sg,
toxli '(will) eat', 2nd,sg,fm.
First and second person
(4) Lior 1;11: 'finished' gamarti '1st, sg', gamarta '2nd, sg, ms',
gamart '2nd,sg,fm', gamarnu '1st, pl.'
Order of acquisition of verbal morphology in Hebrew as a first language
Early verb usage > Subject-verb agreement in gender >An explosion of past and present
forms > First and second person.
Why?
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