Subjects, verb classes and word order in child Catalan

A line of research initiated in Borer and Wexler (1987) and more recently pursued in Wexler (2004) indicates that language acquisition is conditioned by the maturation of the principles that regulate the projection of derived subjects. We consider what might be the consequences of assuming such maturation for the distribution of subjects in child Catalan, and with that purpose we examine the spontaneous productions of three Catalan-speaking children with regard to the production of overt and null subjects and the distribution of subjects in relation to verb class. Our findings indicate a delay in the production of subjects with unaccusatives, fulfilling the predictions of Wexler’s hypothesis, in an otherwise early target-like development of monoargumental verb structures.