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The overgeneralization of non-finite complements to finite contexts: The case of decide*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2007

AMANDA J. OWEN  and
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
AMANDA J. OWEN*
Affiliation:
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
Affiliation:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
*
Address for correspondence: Amanda J. Owen, Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology, 121-A WJSHC, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52245, USA. tel: 319-335-6951. e-mail: amanda-owen@uiowa.edu
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Abstract

Current views on the acquisition of PRO can roughly be divided into two areas: lexical and syntactic accounts. We present data on one verb, decide, that yields data that not only differs from the data for other similar verbs with the same children, but does not lend itself easily to either type of account. Data from a sentence elicitation task conducted with 20 typically-developing children (4 ; 0–7 ; 11), along with 3 case studies illustrate that children may not be assigning a referent for PRO in an adult-like manner for particular verbs. Instead they may be overgeneralizing the use of non-finite complements to finite contexts.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 545 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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