L1. Lecture 8. Discontinuity hypothesis.
8.1. Syntactic theories vs. semantic theories.
Semantically based child grammars (M. Bowerman, D. Slobin, R. Brown) - there is no special syntactic organisation of the children utterances at the early stage; these utterances express the simplest semantic relations: agent-action, action-object, entitylocation, entity-attribute, possessor-entity. (Brown 1973).
Such grammar persists till 3-4 (Maratsos 1982) or even 5 (Maranz 1982).
An alternative to the nativist theories.
Bowerman (1973) explains the absence of syntax at the early stages by the fact that many syntactic operations proving its relevance (agreement, passive transformations) occur later.
Another assumption is that semantic distinctions are easier to understand than the abstract syntactic notions like verb placement, or pro-drop parameter. However, there is no evidence in both approaches that children have some metalinguistic knowledge about grammatical items. If this is true, then it would be difficult to explain the transition from the first semantic stage to the next, syntactic one. Gleitman (1981) proposes that the early semantic stage is later on (3-4 years) replaced by a syntactic stage.
8.2. Metalinguisic activity.
This happens really at the age before 5, and we may notice some metalinguistic work that goes on in a child:
U menja ne carapina, a carap - ja zhe mal’chik, a ne devochka.
Ich habe einen Wund, und keine Wunde, weil ich Junge bin und kein Mädchen.
Some traits of this metalinguistic activity may be noticed even earlier - in a form of the attention to linguistic sounds, and in the attempts to sound several roles during the game.
8.3. Elements of early language-specific syntax : agreement, pro-drop, postverbal subjects, clitic/NP distribution Clitic before the verb and the object after: io lo mangio, a mangia tutta pera. (counter-argument - frozen phrases, compare Ich hab's). An object and clitic have the same semantic function, therefore there is no opportunity to distinguish them semantically.
Mne nekak zavjazat' - (2;4).
8.4. Semantic-oriented theories claim that there are primary semantic relations reflected in the first telegraphic utterances, like general manipulative situation (Slobin
1973. Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar.). Passive constructions are interpreted by children acc. to the word order. (Slobin 1981. The origins of grammatical encoding of events. In W. Deutsch (Ed.) The child's construction of language.
Experiments.
8.5. Morphology-oriented theories.
Pre- and proto. Self-organisation (A.-M.Karpf). Theory of systemic organisation.
Preference for most natural, then - productive patterns.
(borrowed words)
8.6. The origins of grammaticible notions : beyond the individual mind (Slobin
1977).

Grammatical meaning vs. lexical meaning (material content – relation (Sapir), content word vs. function word.
Functors express the limited and universal set of meanings, their classes are small and closed, whereas the classes of words are large and opened.
8.6.1.Nativist theories (both cognitive and generative) tend to equip the mind with predisposition to relate particular types of meanings to grammatical elements and syntactic constructions (Bickerton 1981. Roots of language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma
Publ.; Pinker 1984. Language learnability and language development Cambridge MA
Harvard Univ. Press.
8.6.2. Functionalists tends to explain the grammaticalization by the analogy to recurrent diachronic processes.
8.6.3. Whorfians (??) tend to stress the individual differences (Afganistan - riveroriented verbs.) Sapir. Humboldt.\
Grammaticizable domains - verbs (Talmy 1985) tense, aspect and phase, causativity, valence, voice, mood, speech act type, personation, person, number of event participants, gender of participants, socialinterpersonal status , evidentiality, positive-negative status of event
// manner, purpose, result, figure participating (person, liquid etc.) path of movement, ground of movement (source-goal), combination of path & ground, direction, distribution of participants, speaker's attitude.
Conceptual Domains NOT amenable to grammaticalization. colour of the event participant (?), symmetry of the event participant, spatial setting
(indoors, outside), speaker's state of mind, relation to comparable events (only, even, instead)?, rate (slowly, quickly), degree of realisation (almost, just)?,temporal settings
(in the morning).
Grammaticizable qualities (Talmy 1988 Slobin 1997)) nouns and verbs. dimension (continuous/discrete), plexity (uniplex-multiplex), boundedness
(unbounded-bounded), dividedness (particulate - continuous), disposition
(combination of above), extension point, bounded/unbounded event),distribution
(one-way, non-resettable, ..) , axiality (relation to border), perspectival mode (longrange/closed up, moving/static), level of synthesis (gestalt-componental), level of exemplarity (full complement -single)