The acquisition of German relative clauses

Holger Diessel (Uni Jena)Silke Brandt (MPI Leipzig)

Early relative clauses in English

Here’s a tiger that’s gonna scare him.

This is the sugar that goes in there.

This is the horse sleeping in a cradle, their bed.

Dere’s was a kitty walking by.

The development of relative clauses in other languages

• Spanish (Dasinger & Toupin 1994)

• Hebrew (Dasinger & Toupin 1994)

• French (Hudelot 1980)

• Indonesian (Hermon 2005)

Hypothesis: The development of relative clauses follows a general cross-linguistic pattern.

The acquisition of Japanese relative clauses (Ozeki & Shirai 2005)

• The development of Japanese relative clauses does not follow the pattern.

Hypothesis: The development of postnominal relativeclauses follows a general cross-linguistic

path.

• Japanese has prenominal relative clauses.• Since prenominal relative clauses are processed

differently, they may develop along a different path.

Structure of German relative clauses

• German has postnominal relative clauses.• German uses a different relativization strategy.• The word order of German relative clauses is different

from the word order of main clauses.• The final position of the verb is seen as a sign of

subordination.

Hypothesis: If children acquire relative clauses based on their previous knowledge of main clauses, the earliest German relative clauses may occur with main clause word order.

Structure of German subordinate clauses

• Subordinate clauses serve a particular syntactic function in the main clause.

• Subordinate clauses include a subordinate conjunction or relative pronoun.

• Subordinate clauses typically provide background information, or information that is pragmatically presupposed.

Can V2-constructions be seen as relative clauses?

Structure of German subordinate clauses

Prototypical subordinate clauses have all of these features, but there are many constructions that carry only some of them.

Ich denke mal, dass wir das schon richtig gemacht haben.

Er behauptet, das ist nicht richtig.

Ich schreibe das Paper, weil ich ja sonst nichts zu tun habe.

Ich gehe dort hin, obwohl eigentlich wäre ich lieber hier.

Structure of German relative clauses

Er gehört zu denen, die das nie tun würden, auch wenn sie dazu das Recht hätten.

(1) Da ist Michael, der mir gestern geholfen hat.

(2) Da ist Michael, der hat mir gestern geholfen.

Data

age utterances relative clauses

2;0 – 2;5 77,870 92 (0.12%)

2;6 – 2;11 55,921 309 (0.55%)

3;0 – 3;5 13,429 90 (0.67%)

3;6 – 3;11 11,574 96 (0.82%)

4;0 – 4;11 22,910 199 (0.86%)

Total 181704 786 (0.43%)

Coding: Word order

(1) Der Mann, der Peter geholfen hat. V-final

(2) Der Mann, der hat Peter geholfen. V-second

(3) Der Mann, der schläft.ambiguous

Coding: Head

(1) Der Mann, der dir geholfen hat, heißt Müller. SUBJ

(2) Peter kennt den Mann, der dir geholfen hat.OBJ

(3) Er spricht mit dem Mann, der dir geholfen hat. OBL

(4) Der Mann, der dir geholfen hat. NP

(5) Das ist der Mann, der dir geholfen hat. PN

Coding: relativized role

(1) Der Mann, der uns gesehen hat. SUBJ

(2) Der Mann, den wir gesehen haben.OBJ

(3) Der Mann, dem wir das Buch gegeben haben. IO

(4) Der Mann, mit dem wir gesprochen haben.OBL

(5) Der Mann, dessen Frau uns gesehen hat.GEN

Results: Word order

(1) Ein Wal, der hat Zahnschmerzen.

(2) Wo ist ein Wal, der Zahnschmerzen hat?

(1) Im Schlangenhaus ist sicher auch einer dabei, der passt auf.

(2) Im Schlangenhaus ist auch jemand, der aufpasst.

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

100,00%

2;5 3;0 3;5 4;0 5;0

vfvs

word order / age

age

word order

Results: Word order

Results: Head

38,25%

25,29%

11,04%

21,31%

4,11%

0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

45,00%

SUBJ OBJ OBL PN NP

Head percentage

head

Results: Head

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

2;5 3;0 3;5 4;0 5;0

NPOBJOBLPNSUBJ

Head / Age

age

head type

Results: Head

CHI: Ähm, dafür kriegt sie die Scheibe.

MOT: Sie will die Glocke.

CHI: Nein, sagt diese.

CHI: Nee, ich leg’s einfach mal hin.

MOT: Leo.

CHI: Nein, die Scheibe.

MOT: Es ist Wilhelmines Glöckchen.

CHI: Die Scheibe.

CHI: Ne Scheibe, die kann man auch darunter rollen.

Results: Head

92,68%

80,00%

32,82%

26,67%

14,01%

7,32%

20,00%

67,18%

85,99%

73,33%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

100,00%

SUBJ OBJ OBL PN NP

verb finalverb second

Head / Word Order

head

word order type

Results: Relativized role

17,49%20,47%

62,05%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

SUBJ OBJ OBL

Anzahl von case

focus

Results: Relativized role

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

2;5 3;0 3;5 4;0 5;0

OBJOBLSUBJ

Anzahl von case

age

focus

Results: Relativized role

The man who kissed the woman SUBJ

AGENT VERB PATIENT

The man who the woman kissed OBJ

PATIENT AGENT VERB

Der Mann, der die Frau geküsst hat SUBJ

AGENT PATIENT VERB

Der Mann, den die Frau geküsst hat OBJ

PATIENT AGENT VERB

Results: Relativized role

49,06%

84,67%

97,69%

50,94%

15,33%

2,31%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

100,00%

SUBJ OBJ OBL

vfvs

Anzahl von case

focus

wordorder

Results: Relativized role

(1) Die Biene, die holt ein Mittagessen.SUBJ

(2) … den Kuchen, den du gebacken hast. OBJ

(3) Dieses Haus, wo die Leute wohnen.OBL

Conclusion

Leo’s early relative clauses carry the following features:

• They are attached to an isolated head noun.

• They occur with the finite verb in second position.

• They contain an anaphoric pronoun in nominative case.

• They typically assert new information.

Conclusion

The topicalization constructions are only little different from simple main clauses:

• They include a single verb.

• They occur with the finite verb in second position.

• They denote the agent prior to other participants.

• They typically provide new information.

Since V2-relatives have properties of both main and relative clauses, they help the child to bridge the gap between their early simple sentences and more complex relative constructions.

Conclusion

The development of Leo’s relative clauses is similar to the development of relative clauses in English.

In both languages, children acquire relative clauses in an incremental fashion.

The development of German relative clauses supports the hypothesis that postnominal relative clauses develop along similar pathways across languages.

Conclusion

Ozeki & Shirai (2005): Early Japanese relative clauses include a stative verb and are attached to a generic head noun:

Yeki kkinum ke eti isse?

here insert thing where exist

‘Where is the thing that is inserted here’

Conclusion

The development of Japanese relative clauses can be seen as an extension of adjectival modification. (Ozeki & Shirai 2005)

word clause

Noun modification in Japanese

Since adjectives do not express full propositions, Japanese relative clauses develop from structures that semantically function as simple sentences.

Conclusion

Hypothesis:

The incremental development of relative clauses from simple sentences is characteristic of the acquisition of relative clauses across different language types.