THE PHENOMENON OF UNDERSPECIFICATION IN EARLY CHILD GRAMMAR: THE EXAMPLE OF VERB PLACEMENT AND OPTIONALITY
LE PHÉNOMÈNE DE SOUS-SPÉCIFICATION DANS LA GRAMMAIRE ENFANTINE: L'EXEMPLE DU POSITIONNEMENT DU VERBE ET DE L'OPTIONNALITÉ

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of underspecification in early child grammar with respect to the syntactic consequences it has in the child language system. The paper addresses the phenomena of verb placement and optionality and how they are accounted for by first language acquisition theories assuming identity between child and adult grammatical systems. These phenomena are discussed within the weak and strong continuity frameworks which account for L1A by incorporating the notion of underspecification among their basic assumptions. Continuity approaches to L1A find underspecification to be of crucial importance in the early grammar. It seems that underspecification of functional categories and their features is what makes the child and adult systems different by provoking a number of syntactic consequences evident in the child system, while absent in the adult one.

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