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In:L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning: The view from Romance
Edited by Larisa Avram, Anca Sevcenco and Veronica Tomescu
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 65] 2021
► pp. 83–108

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Chapter 4
Some thoughts on (the acquisition of) control

 | CLUL, School of Arts and Humanities University of Lisbon
Published online: 17 November 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.65.04san
Abstract
This paper discusses the subject / object control asymmetry in child language acquisition. Based on data reflecting the acquisition of European Portuguese, I argue that children do not have an initial absolute preference for object control and that not only subject control but also object control structures show developmental effects. This argues against analyses which assume that children are initially guided only by syntactic principles that preclude a non-local controller. Even though not excluding a syntactic bias that may favour object control, the acquisition data reviewed in this paper show that lexical acquisition has a larger role in the acquisition of control structures than is often assumed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and general goals
  • 2.The classic acquisition problem, control as movement and intervention effects
    • 2.1Control as a case of A-movement
    • 2.2Problems for an account of children’s difficulties with control as a result of intervention
  • 3.An alternative analysis: Subject control and smuggling
    • 3.1A smuggling analysis of promise structures
    • 3.2The difficulties with object control
  • 4.Assessing the object control bias and the effects of the inflected infinitive
  • 5.General conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
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