In:Acquisition and Development of Hebrew: From infancy to adolescence
Edited by Ruth A. Berman
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 19] 2016
► pp. 259–294
Development of intra- and inter-clausal dependency in Hebrew
Published online: 25 August 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.19.09nir
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.19.09nir
The chapter relies on the notion of dependency marking as a framework for a reinterpretation of data on syntactic development in Hebrew from early childhood to adulthood. Following a short outline of how grammatical dependencies are realized in Hebrew, I explore the emergence of dependencies in both simple (single-clause) and complex (clause-combining) syntax. In each case, concern is with the transition from isolated, to non-dependent, to partially dependent, and eventually to fully dependent combinations as markers of functional dependency, in the sense of integration of how events are represented verbally both within and across clause boundaries.
References (137)
Aguirre, C. 2003. Early verb development in one Spanish-speaking child. In Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective, D. Bittner, W.U. Dressler & M. Kilani-Schoch (eds), 1-26. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
. 2000. The development of person agreement markers: From pronouns to higher accessibility markers. In Usage-Based Models of Language, M. Barlow & S. Kemmer (eds), 197–260. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Armon-Lotem, S. 1997. A Parametric Approach to Functional Heads in Acquisition of Hebrew. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
. 2008. Subject use and the acquisition of verbal agreement in Hebrew. In The Acquisition of Verbs and their Grammar: The Effect of Particular Languages, N. Gagarina, & I. Gülzow (eds), 45-67. Berlin: Springer.
Armon-Lotem, S. & Berman, R.A. 2003. The emergence of grammar: Early verbs and beyond. Journal of Child Language 30: 845-878
Arnon, I. 2005. Relative clause acquisition in Hebrew: Towards a processing-oriented account. In 29th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Vol. 1, A. Brugos., M.R. Clark-Cotton & S. Ha, (eds), 37-48. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.
Barrett, M.D. 1981. The communicative functions of early child language. Linguistics 19(3-4): 273-306.
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. 1987. Competition, variation, and language learning. In Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, B. MacWhinney (ed.), 157-193. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1989. Functionalism and the competition model. The Crosslinguistic Study of Sentence Processing 3: 73.
. 1980. The case of an (S)VO language: Subjectless constructions in Modern Hebrew. Language 56: 759-776.
. 1981a. On the role of prepositions in Modern Hebrew syntax. In Hebrew Teaching and Applied Linguistics. M. Nahir (ed.), 253-276. Lanham MD: University Press of America.
. 1981b. Language development and language knowledge: Evidence from the acquisition of Hebrew morphophonology. Journal of Child Language 8: 609-626.
. 1981c. Regularity vs. anomaly: The acquisition of Hebrew inflectional morphology. Journal of Child Language 8: 265-282.
. 1982. Verb-pattern alternation: The interface of morphology, syntax, and semantics in Hebrew child language. Journal of Child Language 9: 169-191.
. 1985. Acquisition of Hebrew. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Also in Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. I., D.I. Slobin (ed.), 255-371. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1986. A step-by-step model of language learning. In Stage and Structure: Re-opening the Debate, I. Levin (ed.), 191-219. Norwood NJ: Ablex.
. 1987. A developmental route: Learning about the form and use of complex nominals. Linguistics 27: 1057-1085.
. 1988. Word-class distinctions in developing grammars. In Categories and Processes in Language Acquisition, Y. Levy, I.M. Schlesinger & M.D.S. Braine (eds), 45–72. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1990. Acquiring an (S)VO language: Subjectless sentences in children's Hebrew. Linguistics 28: 1135-1166.
. 1992. Modern Hebrew. In Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, W. Bright, B. Comrie & D. Crystal (eds), 1388-1395. Oxford: OUP.
. 1993. Crosslinguistic perspectives on native language acquisition. In Progression and Regression in Language: Sociocultural, Neuro-psychological, and Linguistic Perspectives, K. Hyltenstam & A. Viberg (eds), 245–266. Cambridge: CUP.
. 1996. Form and function in developing narrative abilities: The case of ‘and’. In Social Interaction, Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, D. Slobin., J. Gerhardt., A. Kyratzis & J. Guo (eds), 343-367. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1997. Theory and research in the acquisition of Hebrew as a first language. In Studies in the Psychology of Language, Y. Shimron (ed.), 57-100. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. (in Hebrew)
. 2004. Between emergence and mastery: The long developmental route of language acquisition. In Language Development across Childhood and Adolescence [Trends in Language Acquisition Research 3], 9-34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
. 2009. Acquisition of compound constructions. In Handbook of Compounding, R. Lieber & P. Stekauer (eds), 298-322. Oxford: OUP.
. 2014. Acquiring and expressing temporality in HebSyntax and language acquisitiornew: A T/(M/A) Language. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 11: 2-29.
. 2016.Language development beyond the sentence. In Cambridge Handbook of Language Development, E. Bavin & L. Naigles (eds). Cambridge: CUP.
Berman, R.A. & Armon-Lotem, S. 1996. How grammatical are early verbs? In Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Franche-Comté: Actes du Colloque International sur l’Acquisition de la syntaxe, C.I. Martinot (ed.), 17-60. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Berman, R.A. & Lustigman, L. 2012. HARSP: A developmental language profile for Hebrew. In Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP, M.J. Ball, D. Crystal, & P. Fletcher (eds), 43-76. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Berman, R.A & Lustigman, L. 2014 Emergent clause-combining in adult-child interactional contexts. In Language in Interaction: Studies in Honor of Eve V. Clark [Trends in Language Acquisition Research 12], I. Arnon, B. Estogarret., C. Kurumada & M. Tice (eds), 281-299. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Berman, R.A. & Nir, B. 2009. Clause-packaging in narratives: A crosslinguistic developmental study. In Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language: Research in the Tradition of Dan I. Slobin, J. Guo., E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, S. Ozcaliskan & K. Nakamura (eds), 149-162. New York NY: Taylor & Francis.
. 2014. Clause-Combining in Hebrew from Early Childhood Across Adolescence: A Usage-Based Approach. Final Report to Israel Science Foundation.
Berman, R.A. & Ravid, D. 1999. The Oral / Literate Continuum: Developmental Perspectives. Final Report to the Israel Science Foundation.
Berman, R.A. & Slobin, D.I. 1994. Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
Biran, R. 2003. Development in Use of Relative Clauses among Normally Developing and Language-Impaired Children. MA thesis, Tel Aviv University. (in Hebrew)
Bittner, D. 2006. Case before gender in the acquisition of German. Folia Linguistica 40(1-2): 115-134.
Bittner, D., Dressler, W.U. & Kilani-Schoch, M. 2000. First verbs: On the way to mini-paradigms. Zas Papers in Linguistics 18.
Bloom, L. 1970. Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
. 1973. One Word at a Time: The Use of Single Word Utterances Before Syntax. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Bowerman, M. 1976. Semantic factors in the acquisition of rules for word use and sentence construction. In Directions in Normal and Deficient Child Language, D. Morehead & A. Morehead (eds), 99-179. Baltimore MD: University Park Press.
. 1985. What shapes children's grammar? In The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. I, D.I. Slobin (ed.), 1255-1318. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1989. Learning a semantic system: What role do cognitive predispositions play? In The Teachability of Language, M.L. Rice & R.L. Schiefelbusch (eds), 133–169. Baltimore MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Braine, M.D.S. 1976. Children's first word combinations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 41(1): 164.
. 1987. What is learned in acquiring word classes: A step toward an acquisition theory. In Mechanisms of Language Acquisition, B. MacWhinney (ed.), 65-87. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bybee, J. 1995. Regular morphology and the lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes 10(5): 425-455.
. 2002. Main clauses are innovative, subordinate clauses are conservative: Consequences for the nature of constructions. In Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse: Essays in Honor of Sandra A. Thompson, J. Bybee & M. Noonan (eds), 1-17. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Chen, P.-T. 2009. Topic and topic-comment structures in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. In Proceedings of the 21st North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-21), Y. Xiao (ed.), 165-177. Smithfield RD: Bryant University.
Clark, E.V. & Berman, R.A. 1987. Types of linguistic knowledge: Interpreting and producing compound nouns. Journal of Child Language 14: 547-568.
. 2013. Agreement as anaphora, anaphora as coreference. In Languages Across Boundaries: Studies in Memory of Anna Siewierska. D. Bakker & M. Haspelmath (eds), 107-29. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Danon, G. 2002. Case and Formal Definiteness: The Licensing of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases in Hebrew. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
Dasinger, L. & Toupin, C. 1994. Development of relative clause functions in narrative. In Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study, R.A. Berman & D.I. Slobin (eds), 457-514. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
Dromi, E. & Berman, R.A 1986. Language-general and language-specific in developing syntax. Journal of Child Language 14: 371–387.
Eisenbeiss, S. (2015). Syntax and Language Acquisition. In Syntax: an international handbook, 2nd edition, T. Kiss & A. Alexiadou (eds), 1792-1832. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Erbaugh, M.S. 1992. The acquisition of Mandarin. In The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 3, D.I. Slobin (ed.), 373-455. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fillmore, C. 1971. Some problems for case grammar. Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 24: 35-56.
Friedmann, N. & Novogrodsky, R. 2004. The acquisition of relative clause comprehension in Hebrew: A study of SLI and normal development. Journal of Child Language 31: 661-681.
Gagarina, N. 2003. The early verb development and demarcation of stages in three Russian-speaking children. In Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective, D. Bittner., W.U. Dressler & M. Kilani-Schoch (eds), 131-169. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Gathercole, V.C.M., Sebastián, E. & Soto, P. 1999. The early acquisition of Spanish verbal morphology: Across-the-board or piecemeal knowledge? International Journal of Bilingualism 3(2-3):133-182.
Gil, D. 2006. Early human language was isolating-monocategorial-associational. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference (EVOLANG6), Rome, Italy, 12-15 April 2006, A. Cangelosi, A.D. Smith & K. Smith (eds). Hackensack NJ: World Scientific Publishing Company Incorporated.
Givón, T. 2005. Context as Other Minds: The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Goldenberg, G. 1998 [1985]. On verbal structure and the Hebrew verb. In Studies in Semitic Linguistics, G. Goldenberg, 148-1996. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1975. Learning How to Mean—Explorations in the Development of Language. London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K & Matthiessen, C.M. 2013. Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Routledge.
Haspelmath, M. 2013. Argument indexing: A conceptual framework for the syntactic status of bound person forms. In Languages Across Boundaries: Studies in Memory of Anna Siewierska, D. Bakker. & M. Haspelmath (eds), 209-238. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Herzberg, O. 2010. Early Morphosyntactic and Lexical Development in Young Hearing Impaired Hebrew Speaking Children with Cochlear Implants Compared to Normally Hearing Peers. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
Hopper, P.J., & Thompson, S.A. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 60: 703-752.
Kaplan, D. 1983. Order of Acquisition of Morpho-Syntactic Categories Among Hebrew-Speaking Children, Aged 1;9-3;6. MA thesis, Tel Aviv University. (in Hebrew)
Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1986. Stage/structure vs. phase/process in modelling linguistic and cognitive development. In Stage and Structure: Reopening the Debate, I. Levin (ed.), 164-190. Norwood NJ: Ablex.
Kemmer, S. & Verhagen, A. 1994. The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5(2): 115-156.
Keren-Portnoy, T. 2002. The Development of the Verb Category in the Grammars of Children Learning Hebrew as their First Language. PhD dissertation, Hebrew University. (in Hebrew)
Khan, G.A. 1984. Object markers and agreement pronouns in Semitic languages. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47(3): 468-500.
LaPolla, R.J. 1995. Pragmatic relations and word order in Chinese. In Word Order in Discourse [Typological Studies in Language 30], P.A. Downing & M. Noonan (eds), 294-329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Leibovitch-Cohen, I. 2011. Syntactic Effects on Adjective Development in Hebrew- Speaking Toddlers Aged 1;7 - 2;11. MA thesis, Tel Aviv University. (in Hebrew)
Levy, Y. 1980. Gender in Children's Language: A Study in First Language Acquisition. PhD dissertation, Hebrew University. (in Hebrew)
Li, C.N. & Thompson, S.A. 1989. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.
Lustigman, L. 2013a. Linguistic Interfaces in Early Acquisition: Lexical Classes and Grammatical Systems in Hebrew Child Language. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
. 2013b. Developing structural specification: Productivity in early Hebrew verb usage. First Language 33: 47–67.
Lustigman, L. & Berman, R.A. 2015. Form and function in early clause-combining. Journal of Child Language 42: 1-29.
Macwhinney, B. 1978. The acquisition of morpho-phonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 43: 1-123.
. 2004. A multiple process solution to the logical problem of language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 31(4): 883-914.
Maital S.L., Dromi E., Sagi A. & Bornstein M.H. 2000. The Hebrew communicative development inventory: Language specific properties and cross-linguistic generalizations. Journal of Child Language 27: 43–67
Maschler, Y. 2009. Metalanguage in Interaction: Hebrew Discourse Markers [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 181]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Mel’čuk, I.A. 2009. Dependency in natural language. In Polguere & I.A. Mel'čuk (eds), 1-111.
Melnik, N. 2002. Verb Initial Constructions in Modern Hebrew. PhD dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.
Ninio, A. 1988. On formal grammatical categories in early child language. In Categories and Processes in Language Acquisition, Y. Levy, I. Schlesinger & M.D.S. Braine (eds), 99-119. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1992. The relation of children's single word utterances to single word utterances in the input. Journal of Child Language 19(1): 87-110.
. 1996. A proposal for the adoption of dependency grammar as the framework for the study of language acquisition. In Volume in Honor of Shlomo Kugelmass, G. Ben Shakhar & A. Lieblich (eds), 85‑103. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
. 1998. Acquiring a dependency grammar: The first three stages in the acquisition of multiword combinations in Hebrew‑speaking children. In Language Acquisition and Developmental Psychology. G. Makiello‑Jarza, J. Kaiser & M. Smolczynska (eds), 201‑210. Cracow: Universitas.
. 2004. Young children's difficulty with adjectives modifying nouns. Journal of Child Language 31(2): 255-285.
. 2005. Testing the role of semantic similarity in syntactic development. Journal of Child Language 32(1): 35-61.
. 2013. Dependency grammar and Hebrew. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, G. Khan (ed.), 710-712. Leiden: Brill.
. 2014. Learning a generative syntax from transparent syntactic atoms in the linguistic input. Journal of Child Language 41: 1249-1275
Nir, B. 2008. Clause-Packages as Constructions in Developing Narrative Discourse. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
Nir, B. & Berman, R.A. 2010. Complex syntax as a window on contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 42: 744-765.
Pelham, S.D. 2011. The input ambiguity hypothesis and case blindness: An account of cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic differences in case errors. Journal of Child Language 38: 235-272.
Pine, J.M. & Lieven, E.V. 1993. Reanalysing rote-learned phrases: Individual differences in the transition to multi-word speech. Journal of Child Language 20: 551-571.
Pleh, C. & MacWhinney, B. 1997. Double agreement: Role identification in Hungarian. Language and Cognitive Processes 12: 67-102.
Polguere A. & Mel'čuk I.A. (eds). 2009. Dependency in Linguistic Description [Studies in Language Companion Series 111]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ravid, D. 1995a. Language Change in Child and Adult Hebrew: A Psycholinguistic Perspective. Oxford: OUP.
. 1995b. Neutralization of gender distinctions in Modern Hebrew numerals. Language Variation and Change 7: 79-100.
Ravid, D., Dressler, W.U., Nir-Sagiv, B., Korecky-Kröll, K., Souman, A., Rehfeldt, S. Laaha, K., Bertl, J., Basbøll, H. & Gillis, S. 2008. Core morphology in child directed speech: Crosslinguistic corpus analyses of noun plurals. In Corpora in Language Acquisition Research. History, Methods, Perspectives [Trends in Language Acquisition Research 6], H. Behrens (ed.), 25-60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ravid, D. & Nir, M. 2000. On the development of the category of adjective in Hebrew. In From Sound to Sentence: Studies on First Language Acquisition, M. Beers, B. van den Bogaerde, G. Bol, J. de Jong & C. Rooijmans (eds), 113-124. Groningen: Center for Language and Cognition.
Schwarzwald, O.R. 2000. Studies in Hebrew Morphology, Vols. I–IV. Tel Aviv: Open University. (in Hebrew)
Slobin, D.I. 1985. The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 1. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
. 1990. The development from child speaker to native speaker. In Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development, J.W. Stigler., R.A. Shweder & G. Herdt (eds), 233-256. Cambridge: CUP.
. 1996. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, J. Gumperz & S. Levinson (eds), 17-70. Cambridge: CUP.
Tardif, T., Shatz, M. & Naigles, L. 1997. Caregiver speech and children's use of nouns versus verbs: A comparison of English, Italian, and Mandarin. Journal of Child Language 24: 535-565.
. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Tribushinina, E., van den Bergh, H., Ravid, D., Aksu-Koç, A., Kilani-Schoch, M., Korecky-Kröll, K., Leibovitch-Cohen, I., Laaha, S., Nir, B., Dressler, W.U. & Gillis, S. 2014. Development of adjective frequencies across semantic classes: A growth curve analysis of child speech and child-directed speech. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 5: 185-226.
Uziel-Karl, S. 2001. A Multidimensional Perspective on the Acquisition of Verb-Argument Structure in Hebrew Child Grammar. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.
. 2008. Acquisition of verb argument structure from a developmental perspective: Evidence from Child Hebrew. In The Acquisition of Verbs and their Grammar: The Effect of Particular Languages, N. Gagarina. & I. Gülzow (eds), 15-44. Dordrecht: Springer.
