- Email: [email protected]
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing in French Children and Adults from a Crosslinguistic Perspective
KNOWLEDGE ANDLANGUAGE I. Kurcz, G.W. Shugarand J.H. Danks(editors) © Elsevier SciencePublishersB.Y.(North-Holland),1986
349
LINGUISTIC CUES IN SENTENCE PROCESSING IN FRENCH CHILDREN AND ADULTS FROM A CROSSLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE Michele Kail and AgnesCharvillat
This chapter reports data obtained from French speaking adults and children in reference to data on two other SVO languages, English and Italian. All these data indicate that the use of various syntactic (word order), semantic (animate vs. inanimate) and pragmatic cues (stress and topicalization of one of the words ma sentence) is a function of the relative validity (clarity and reliability) of these cues in the language considered. While our results regarding the development of the use of these cues in French speaking children are in accordance with the predictions of the competition model, the results obtained with French speaking adults run partially counter some predictions of this model. We found that French adults' strategies relied more on semantic (animacy) than on syntactic (word order) cues, especially when these cues were presented in competition. These data suggest the integration of the notion of cue cost within the model in order to make predictions concerning the useful distinction between local and topological processing in sentence comprehension. The main goal of developmental cross-linguistic studies is to determine the psycholinguistic processing invariants which enable children to master any first language. Though it is true that a comparative analysis of language development constitutes a legitimate approach to the study of the degree of specificity (vs. universality) of natjve language acquisition devices, most theories of language processing have been formalized on the basis of analyses and studies of the English language. The anglocentric bias has influenced the formulation of questions concerning the existence, nature, and status of universals. This might explain the privileged position given to word order at the expense of morphological cues. Different "naturalistic" positions originating from various psycholinguistic perspectives -- naturalistic in so far as they
350
M. Kail and A, Chan'iliaI
state that word order reflects thought order -- have suggested that a universal of order would condition language acquisition from the very start (Bruner, 1975; McNeill, 1975, 1979; Osgood
& Bock. 1977; Pinker, 1979). Even though this idea of a developmental priority of SVO "natural" order over morphology or semantics is compatible with English (Bridges, 1980), we cannot ignore that, as Slobin and Bever (1982, p. 231) put it, an acquisitional model based on a predisposition for canonical word-order strategies encounters two basic difficulties: (1) How does the child determine the functions of other devices, besides word order, in languages like English? (2) How does the child acquire languages which use variable word order? Actually, such proposals presented as developmental universals work like perfect myths (Weist, 1983) and provide no reliable predictions concerning languages different from English. Alternatively, it has been suggested that semantic strategies might be the earliest ones, word order strategies inducing a more metalinguistic attitude toward language (Bever, 1970; Strohner
& Nelson, 1974). It seems that many studies about
French have likewise more or less explicitly stated such a filiation between these strategies (reviews on the development of simple sentence processing in French can be found in Vion,
1980,
Bronckart, Gennari, and De Week, 1981, Bronckart, 1983, Kail, 1982, in press-a, and Bronckart, Kail, and Noizet, 1983). Yet, as stressed by Chapman and Kohn (1978), these studies do not always make a clear distinction between semantic strategies based on the lexico-semantic characteristics of nouns and
stra~
egies based on the "local" event probabilities of object-action combinations. Their results assign clear limitations to the idea of an evolution from semantic to word-order strategies. On the whole, however, cross-linguistic studies have thrown more light upon facts hardly understandable in terms of the primacy of one information (semantic or syntactic). Kail (1983a, 1983b) has shown how such studies constitute an invaluable source of factual and theoretical information to reconsider language acquisition. We will briefly mention of few points before turning to our studies done in collaboration with Elizabeth
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
351
Bates and Brian MacWhinney. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying language acquisition demands a detailed analysis of the way different languages are acquired. To learn their native language, children have to identify the different constituent parts of sentences along with their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic relationships. making use of the varied cues each language provides (word order, inflections, stress patterns). In fact, they have to construct the whole set of form-function mappings. One crucial question for any acquisition theory is to know how children achieve the mastery of the main semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic functions. On the one hand, the different cues are in complex interaction in the course of everyday communication and, on the other, natural languages are characterized by partial overlaps among forms and functions (KarmiloffSmith, 1979). Indeed, one-to-one form-function mappings are very scarce so that forms generally assume several functions, and functions several forms; besides, form-function mappings are language-specific. Another crucial point which emerged recently is whether and how language structure influences the language learning process as such.
Slobin (1973, 1980, 1981b, 1985) suggested that child-
ren's processing of linguistic devices relies upon some operating principles which provide a grounding for hypotheses concerning their language, stressing the necessity to discriminate between what is unversal and what is particular in language acquisition. From these principles are derived psycholinguistic processing universals (as opposed to traditional linguistic universals referring to properties shared by different languages). Slobin (1977) has moreover sugge3ted that if these operating principles reflect very general cognitive rules constraining the form natural languages may take, then they account as well for language changes through time. Two notions are particularly interesting in Slobin's present formulation: local cue and canonical sentence pattern. The notion of local cue, which is not far from the notion of surface
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
352
cue (Fodor. Bever
& Garrett. 1974) and belongs to a general
theory of the development of processing competence. states that such cues facilitate sentence processing. When localized at certain places in sentences. these cues allow access to underlying semantic configurations. This is how Ammon and Slobin (1979) account for the better performance of Turkish and SerboCroatian children (as compared with English children) in causative sentence processing. While in Turkish and Serbo-Croatian noun and verb inflections indicate causative relationships. thus making local treatments possible. in English the whole sentence has to be processed in order to get a relevant interpretation of underlying semantic relations. Concerning the acquisition of any language. Slobin and Bever (1982) propose that children construct a canonical sentence schema as a preliminary organizing structure for language behavior. The canonical sentence embodies the typical features of complete clauses in the input language and serves as a framework for the application of productive and perceptual strategies. (p. 229) The experimental studies which support this point of view reach the general conclusion that children are equipped to learn both inflectional and word-order languages. According to the characteristics of their own language. children use specific strategies that may be described in terms of local and/or topological strategies. By local processing we mean the identification of linguistic elements without considering their sentential environment (animacy. gender and number cues. case markers, inflections), whereas topological processing deals with the form and position of these same elements with regard to environment (word order. stress
patterns. for instance).
With a proper selection of language it is possible to get a dissociation of some grammatical devices (for instance, the position of nouns in a sequence) and morphological devices (gender markers. case and verbal inflections); such dissociations provide comparative estimations of their functional role. That is precisely the method we adopted in former studies on the
353
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
part played by cross-linguistic lexical variations in processmg of connectives (Kail
& Weissenborn, 1980, 1984a, 1984b; Kail,
in press-b). Bates and MacWhinney have formalized a similar methodology, proposing a sentence processing model for children and adults, called the Competition Model. These theoretical convergences have prompted us to undertake some studies on the understanding of simple sentences in French in order to compare our data with those gathered in other languages: English and Italian (Bates, McNew, MacWhinney, Devescovi
& Smith, 1982), English, Italian,
and German (MacWhinney, Bates & Kliegl, 1984), Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian (MacWhinney, Smith
& Pleh, in press). (Besides,
as we will see later on, the findings of these French studies call for a revision, if not a modification, of certain "strong" hypotheses of the model.)
As the Competition Model is detailed
in some of the papers mentioned above, we shall present it quite briefly. THE COMPETITION MODEL In a series of empirical and theoretical articles, Bates and MacWhinney (Bates & MacWhinney, 1979, 1982a; Bates et al., 1982; MacWhinney, Bates
& Kliegl, 1984) developed a functional-
ist approach to grammar called the "competition model", This model assumes that "the forms of natural languages are created, governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions." For present purposes we shall summarize three main characteristics
of this model. Firstly, the competition model is a
theory of performance rather than competence; it is primarily a processing theory, a theory of competence
to perform. Sec-
ondly, the competition model is a functionalist model in which the relationship between linguistic forms and underlying meanings or intentions is stated as directly as possible. It does not postulate any a priori division of the language processor into separate modules (grammar vs. semantics, as in Forster, 1979). The division between processing components is considered
354
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
as an empirical question. Thirdly, it is a probabilistic theory, a key assumption being that the functional constraints must compete for accesss to the limited resources of the acousticarticulatory channel. This probabilistic aspect of the theory is the most important one for corss-linguistic studies. It offers a description of transitional stages in language acquisition (MacWhinney, 1978), of speech errors in both children and adults, and of various aspects of language changes. To illustrate this probabilistic component of the model, the authors give the following example: two languages may both employ a set of rules that are obligatory and yet the strength of the mappings implied by those rules may differ. English and Italian require agreement between the subject and verb in person and number. However, some of the data suggest that the agreement system is much stronger in Italian than in English. Given the example of topicdominated languages like Tagalog (where indefinite subjects are completely ungrammatical), Bates notices that one rule in one language may occur simply as a probabilistic tendency in another. Italians avoid constructions with indefinite subjects far more than Americans, a fact that is consistent with a characterization of Italian as a "topic-dominated subject system" language. Among the hypotheses proposed in the model, two have been specifically tested both in sentence comprehension and production. Cue Strength Hypothesis Each link between a form and a function is associated with a certain weight, no sharp babilistic tendencies
line being drawn here between pro-
and determinate rules (as opposed to
certain models in which rules are either present or absent: Wexler and Culicover, 1980). The Competition Model permits rules or conventions to emerge gradually through an
increase
in the strength of form-function mappings. Such a model, as opposed to deterministic ones, can be tested with empirical data. For example, according to MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984),
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
355
if it could be shown that, beyond a certain point, additional cues not only fail to increase certainty but even reduce it, then it would be necessary to find a new formulation. Cue Validity Hypothesis Extrapolating from some ideas of Brunswik (1956), MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984) argue that the weights of cues in a given language reflect their "relative validity" in that language. In an array of form-function mappings it is possible to estimate their relative cue validity and then use these estimates to predict an acquisition order along with a certain usage in adult speech. Cue validity is characterized by the degree of cue "applicability" on the one hand and cue "reliability" on the other. In sentence comprehension, cues are highly "applicable" if they are available and highly "reliable" if they are not ambiguous, the most valid cues being those which are both applicable and reliable. This characterization of cue validity comes from studies on morphophonology (MacWhinney, 1978). As far as developmental studies are concerned, the main hypothesis is that the order in which cues for sentence comprehension emerge in children speaking a given language is largely a function of the relative validity of cues in that language. BASIC LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES Italian
is a weak-order language and subjects are very of-
ten deleted. Although it is traditionally classified as basic SVO without case inflections, Italian permits an extraordinary amount of word-order variations for pragmatic purposes. Thus, word order is not a reliable cue, but the subject-verb agreement system, some stress-word order combinations and the existence of object clitic pronouns constitute important cues as far as grammatical relations are concerned. English
is an extremely strong word-order language. Even
in informal conversation SVO order tends to be rigidly preserved. Some rare exceptions include OSV and VOS, these exceptions being permitted only because they preserve certain structural features of basic order (SV and VO fragments). Except in
356
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
the pronoun system (I vs. me), there are no case markings and subject-verb agreement of the verb is not a reliable indicator of sentential relations. French
appears to be a mixed language as compared with the
two others. As in English, basic order is SVO with no subject deletion. However, French permits many kinds of word-order patterns under certain pause/stress/eli tic conditions which makes \
it comparable to Italian. For example, Paul ~ eu son permis.
(SVO)
11 l'a eu son permis, Paul. 11 l'a eu, Paul, ~ permis.
(VOS) (VSO)
Son permis. Paul, il l'~~. (OSV) Paul, son permis. il l'~~. (SOV) Son permis, il l'~ eu, Paul.
(OVS)
As in English, there are no case markings but subejct-verb agreement seems to be an important cue. CROSS-LINGUISTIC EXPERIMENTS ON SENTENCE COMPREHENSION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS Methodology Adults. The comprehension studies reported here share the same experimental design: subjects have to interpret simple grammatical or semi-grammatical sentences with two nouns and a transitive verb. The linguistic material results from the combination of four types of information: der: NVN, NNV, VNN),
(1) syntactic (word or-
(2) semantic (animacy of nouns: AA, AI,
IA), and (3) pragmatic:
(a) stress contrast: default stress,
first noun stressed, second noun stressed, (b) topicalization: in this case the topicalized element has been shortly commented upon before the test sentence and is preceded by a definite article.
(The names and verbs used are listed in Table 1.)
Having heard a sentence, subjects were asked to say which noun was subject-agent of the action expressed by the verb. Choices as well as reaction times were analyzed.
357
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
Table 1 Object Names and Verbs Used in Adult Experiments
Animate objects
Inanimate objects
French
English
Italian
chat cheval chameau girafe + papillon canard+ singe ours cochon vache lion+ zebre mouton + hippopotame tortue chien lapin+ poisson
cat horse camel giraffe goat calf monkey bear piglet cow deer zebra sheep lamb turtle dog donkey fish
gatto cavallo cammello giraffa capra vitellino scimmia orso maialino mucca cerbiatto zebra pecora agnellino tartaruga cane asinello pesce
stylo+ verre taille-crayon gomme cube + marteau crayon cigarette
ball pen rock sharpener eraser block stick pencil cigarette
palla penna sasso temperino gomma cubo bastone matita sigaretta
eats smells licks kisses bi tes watches pats grabs greets
mangia annusa lecca bacia morde guarda carezza afferra saluta
mange sent leche embrasse mord regarde caresse attrape
~~~~:e+
renverse tape+ + Differences between French and English/Italian items Some French test sentences: (Total: 81 = 3 word order x 3 animacy x 3 stress x 3 topic) AVA: Le chameau attrape l'ours IVA: La gomme renverse le chien VAtA: Sent l'elephant un canard (elephant: stress + topic) AtAV: La giraffe un papillon renverse (giraffe topic, papillon stress)
358
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Children. In developmental studies children had to act out (with toys) the sentences read to them. The test sentences were carefully
~ontrolled
in order to minimize the possibility that
children would rely on specific event probabilities linked to lexical effects (Chapman & Kohn, 1978). Grammatical and semigrammatical sentences (with systematic variations of word order, animacy, and stress) were presented to English, Italian, and French chidlren aged 2;6, 3;6, 4;6, or 5;6. The test sentences involved converging and competing combinations of surface cues, competition being normally impossible in natural conversation, for instance: (1) la girafe pousse un verre (2) le poisson caresse la tortue )3) un marteau renverse Ie chien (1) is an illustration of converging cues: word order, animacy, stress, and topic indicate that the first noun is the subjectagent. In (2) the only available cue is word order.
(3) illus-
trates competition between word order and stress + topic + animacy. Though it is impossible to find sentences without word order information, non-canonical sequences (NNV and VNN) compel the subjects to use another syntactic strategy. By examining the extent to which specific cues determine comprehension (particularly in competitions) we can infer a hierarchy of strategies for each language. Main Results in English and Italian In studies where word order, animacy, topicalization, stress, and subject-verb agreement varied (Bates et al., 1982; Bates, MacWhinney, Caselli, Devescovi, Natale & Venza, 1984) the data
obtained with adults
gave evidence of word order
prevalence in English, the other cues having but marginal effects even in non-canonical word orders (OSV and VOS). Italians show completely different strategies: they rely primarily on subject-verb agreement, then on semantic cues; when neither is available they use pragmatic cues (topic and stress) to interpret the three syntactic combinations (NVN, VNN, NNV). Nevertheless, they make consistent use of syntactic cues whenever
cert~n
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
359
conditions are fulfilled: default stress on NVN, second noun stress on NNV and VNN. When examining interactions between word order and stress across languages it appears that the interpretation of word order depends on stress patterns, except in English where syn t.a c t i c cues appear to operate alone. Bates et al. 0982) claim that "semantic strategies apparently stand at the 'core' of Italian to the same extent that word order stands at the 'core' of English" (p. 246). As for children, Bates et al.
(1984) have shown that Ital-
ians heavily rely on semantic cues at all ages, whereas Americans rely heavily on order cues. From 2;6 the two linguistic groups begin to have entirely different strategies, as reflected in their respective adult models, which permits the authors to assume that the data are globally compatible with an acquisition model based on the impact of cue validity (MacWhinney, 1978) . MAIN RESULTS ABOUT FRENCH Children Word order is an important cue in the interpretation of our stimuli. In NVN combinations, the first noun=agent strategy is applied from the earliest age studied (2;6) and fully established at 3;6. As for semi-grammatical sequences, verb proximity strategies appear around 5;6 (see Table 2, next page). Semantic information is not used before 3;6; it prevails at 4;6, then its effect tends to lose strength, so that, as we will see later on, at 4;6 children are comparatively closer to adults' behavior. Stress has an effect among the younger children only (2;6 and 3;6), stressed nouns being taken as agents. When word order and animacy compete, the more the sentences are canonical the more the former dominates. As far as noncanonical sentences are concerned, the results are compatible
360
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Table 2 Results of the French ANOVA/Age Groups Group Age
G 1 2;6
G 2 3;6
G 3 4;6
G 4 5;6
Sources
Mean Square
e .r .
F
Prob.
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
5.30 0.16 3.23 0.27 1 .10 0.57 0.77
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
5.84 0.07 8.33 0.55 2.71 1. 44 2.72
.025
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
13 .70 1.62 2.51 1.12 0.22 0.41 0.68
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
18.00 0.67 8.43 3.35 1. 35 1. 33 1.80
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
18.65 22.74 0.29 2.60 0.20 0.15 0.17
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
30.75 24.46 1.14 7.93 1. 22 0.59 0.90
.0005 .0005
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
28.74 9.64 0.14 2.29 0.22 0.21 0.12
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
31.62 11. 74 0.65 6.13 1.17 0.93 0.52
.0005 .0005
.005 .05 .05 .0005 .005 .025 .10
.0005
.001
with those of Sinclair and Bronckart (1972) who showed that the first noun is not systematically taken as agent before 6;0. Our results show that at 4;6 choices are contingent when there is no semantic cue, then at 5;6, children seem to have a verb proximity strategy (Kail & Segui, 1978). The results are displayed in Table 3. Even though French children use semantic information more extensively than English children and less extensively than Italian ones, their choices are closer to those of English children. In the same way they use syntactic information less extensively than the English but more extensively than the
361
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
TabJe 3 Cell Means for French Children from Four Age Groups
NVN
VNN
NNV
NVN
2.90 2.10 2.75
3.40 3.20 3.40
Age 2;6
VNN
NNV
Age 3;6
Animate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.40 2.50 3.20
3.20 3.30 2.80
3.35 3.10 3.15
2.30 2.10 2.70
Animate/ Inanimate
Stress 0 Stress 1 st Stress 2nd
2.70 2.30 3.30
3.40 3.00 3.40
2.35 3.10 3.20
2.30 2.00 2.60
2.90 2.85 2.70
2.75 3.00 2.80
Stress 0 Inanimate/ Stress 1 st Animate Stress 2nd
3.00 2·40 3.05
2.90 3.00 3.50
3.60 2.90 3.40
2.80 2.20 2.35
2.90 2.85 3.40
3.40 3.00 3.40
Animate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.00 2.00 2.10
3.10 2.70 2.70
3.00 2.75 3.10
2.00 2.00 2.00
2.70 2.70 2.20
3.20 3.30 3.20
Animate/ Inanimate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.00 2.00 2.10
2.45 2.11 2.20
2.30 2.20 2.40
2.00 2.00 2.10
2.40 2.50 2.50
2.60 2.60 2.60
Inanimate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.30 2.30 2.50
3.40 3.60 3.50
3.80 3.75 3.60
2.20 2.00 2.20
3.20 3.30 3.10
3.90 3.60 3.60
Age 4;6
Age 5;6
Italians while remaining closer to the English (see Figure 1). Whereas in French the effect of stress is restricted to very young children (2;6), it is noticeable from 3;6 in Italian and from 4;6 in English. A detailed analysis shows that French children process canonical sentences like the English and noncanonical ones like the Italians (see Figure 2). From all these developmental studies taken as a whole we can draw the following conclusion: in the course of development children constantly adapt their initial strategies according to the differential weight of cues in adult speech. We will comment upon this point in discussing adults' French data. Adults We can summarize the findings of our study by stating that word order and semantic information are the two main cues used by French-speaking adults in the interpretation of isolated sentences.
362
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Word order, As va e expected, the first noun is more often selected as subject in noun-verb-noun (NVN) canonical sentences than in other combinations (NNV and VNN). This Subject-VerbObject strategy, the consistency of which is comparatively high, induces shorter reaction times than those at work with other syntactic combinations. The interpretation of NNV in terms of SOV suggests that this syntactic strategy is related to the clitization of French object-pronouns: in fact, pronominalized
Mean
Square
40
,
35
30
ENGLISH (Word-order)
/
/
FRENCH (Word-Order)
25 ITALIAN (Animacy)
20
15
10
--
-0---
_...
._' -0-'-'_'0
5
2;6
3;6
4:6
5:6
FRENCH (Animacy) ITALIAN (Word-order) ENGLISH (Animacy)
age
Figure 1. Mean squares of word-order and animacy effects in French/Enelish/ltalian children.
363
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
objects are always in preverbal position in French so that SOy sequences are widely used. The fact that VNN is far from being systematically interpreted as a VSO (interrogative form in French) can be explained as follows.
In written French, subjec~·
verb inversion exists (e.g., voulez-vous du cafe?) while in spoken French many interrogative forms use "est-ce que", which allows canonical order to be preserved (e.g., est-ce que vous voulez du cafe?).
r=
100
100
100
90
90 80
80 70
70
so
se
so 40
Z ~
0 Z l-
rn
JO
InCLISH I
20
10
...
10
: 2;6 3;6 4:6 5;6 Multi
0
w
~:
100 80 70 60
0-
40
J:
30
0
0 W
e
0< lZ W
0
a:
Ate: 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 Adultl
40 JO
AI
20
M IA
10 Ap' 2;6 3;6
4;6
5;6 Multi
I
90 IA.
~: IA
a:
IA.
20
so
SO
I
20
J\.
ITALIAH
I
"'" 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 ,Multi
/t
90
Q,
70 60 SO
40 30
InucHI
20 10
80 70 60
50 40 JO
20
~u
J\M ~IA
"'" 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 Adul••
..
",
90
AI
3;6 416
5;6 Multi
NVN Figure 2. Choice results
70
60 SO
40
30 20 10
"e. 90
70
70
60
60
50
SO
40
40
30
30 20
20
... =
~AI
90 80
80
80
IA
10
2;6
100
J\.
~IA 2;6
3;6
4:6 5;6 Multo
100
100
100 80
90
10
10
W
100
2;6
3;6 4;6
5:6 Multi
VNN
10
..
",
~:
2;6
316 416
5;6 Multi
NNV
(% N1) within languages and age groups.
M. Kailand A. Charvillat
364
Animacy. Animacy contrast is a
deter~ining
the interpretation of sentences. irrespective
factor too in of the position
of the animate noun; yet >Ie noticed that choice consistency was higher when the animate was in first position. Reaction times follow the same logic: they are shorter when animacy contrast is present and when the first noun is animate. Topicalizaticn. Pragmatic information conveyed by topicalization also plays an important part in so far as it shortens processing
and sets choices on topicalized elements particular-
ly when the first
~
is topicalized.
Stress. As for stress information, it appears to be a mere secondary cue in French, the effect of which only appears in interactions with one or more "strong" cue; at any rate, our data prompt us to reject an interpretation in terms of given vs. new information; it seems more relevant to account for stress effects in the terms used by Bates et al.
(1982): ac-
cording to these authors, stress represents for the addressee
Table
4
Order /Anirnacy /Topic /Stress Configurations: Choice and Latency Data Latencyz-scores \10rd order
NVN VNN NNV
Animacy
AA AI IA
Topic
Stress
NN NN NN NN NN NN Latency
-.12 -.03 .14 .24
- .16
-.OS
.10 -.06 -.04 .01 -.03 .01
Choice N1 actor
.67 .50 .57 .61 .89 .25 .58 .64
.52
Choice consistency choice - 50 %
.17 0 .07 .11 .39 -.25 .08
.14
.02
.61
• 11
.59 .54
.09 .04
z-score transformations against each individual's mean latency; slow response; positive direction negative direction = rapid response.
365
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
an indication that "something unusual is happening", this "SOEthing unusual" concerning in this case basic syntactic-semantic role assignment. However, as there was a tendency for stressed elements to be interpreted as subjects rather than as objects, we could formalize and, on the whole, validate the predictions of the model concerning word order/stress and word order/animacy interaction (Table
4).
The interaction between word order and animacy can be said to fulfil the coalition and competition "contract"; in other words, when the two cue types point to the same sUbject-agent candidate, choice consistency is higher and reaction times are shorter than when order alone is available. On the other hand, a competition between these cues delays processing and weakens consistency, the choices giving evidence of animacy prevalence. Indeed, the impact of semantic information was beyond our expectations; we thought that syntactic information should be a "tougher component" in the competition (1'able 5). Table 5 Order/Animacy Configurations: Choice and Latency Data Choice
NVN VNN
AA AI IA AA AI
IA
NNV
AA AI IA
.68 .93 .39 .54 .84 . 11 .61 .89 .19
Choice Consistency
.18 .43 - . 11 .04 .34 -.39 .11 .39 -.31
Latency
.09 -.41 -.05 .20 -.04 -.25 .44 -.03 -.06
The interaction between word order and topic has no significant effect as far as reaction times are concerned but choices and consistency data fit in with the model's predictions: word order/topic coalition makes choices more consistent than a mere syntactic information, but the latter induces a greater consistency on its own than when in competition with topic.
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
366
In order to explain our results concerning the animacytopic interaction, we had to take conditional weights into account. Even though semantic information is globally stronger than pragmatic information, we found that the pragmatic strategy operating when the first noun is topicalized is more powerful than the semantic strategy induced by the presence of an animate second noun, so that when there is competition between a topicalized first noun and an animate
second noun, pragmatic
information does win. Of course, the enlarged coalition principle stating that three cues pointing to the same interpretation are better than just one or two, was totally confirmed whatever cues were involved. For an analysis of competitions between three cues considering their respective weights (estimated by their mean square in the analysis of variance), we have proposed and largely confirmed the following assumptions:
A very strong cue plus
a strong cue against a weak cue is better than a very strong cue, or a strong cue, or a weak cue alone ~better than" meaning here "more consistent choices"
combined with "shorter process-
ing") . In our cross-linguistic comparisons we came to the conclusion that French was less canonical (if by canonical we mean a tendency to equate NVN with SVO) than English but more than Italian; besides, while English subjects manage to have consistent choices in NNV and VNN structures where syntax is the only available cue with a second noun strategy, the French, like the Italians are far less systematic and slower in processing them. And while the English keep on relying on syntax wheR it competes with semantic information, the prevalence of the latter is practically as dramatic in French as in Italian; this constitutes a rather unexpected finding in a language which, all things considered, has a comparatively strict SVO order. Therefore, the linguistic proximity between French and English, as far as SVO order prevalence is concerned, is not reflected in our data, which appear
to potentially constitute a case in
which sentence interpretation cannot be directly connected with cue validity (here word order) even though this is one assumption
367
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
of the competition model. Obviously, if the coalition principle turns out to be predictive of interactions, the competition principle needs a more precise estimation. The fact that English subjects hardly ever rely on animacy has been used to support the idea of a separation between syntactic processor and semantic processor, but the data gathered in other languages, and particularly in French, appear to cast doubt upon the universality of such strict separation. Processing grammatical and semi-grammatical sentences.
In
order to check whether the unexpected weight of the animacy factor might be due to an overextension to NVN grammatical sequences of semantic strategies which are heavily relied upon in semi-grammatical sequences, we re-examined the data concerning only NVN sequences. This analysis takes into account the percentage of choices (N1 vs. N2 as agent) as well as the
percent-
age of subjects who stick to one strategy (i.e., who give between 6 and 9 answers of the same type out of 9 for a given configuration). In fact,
some authors (for example, Vion, 1980;
Bronckart, 1983) have insisted upon the necessity to restrict the term !Istrategy" to the systematic behavior of each subject. (a) In AVI seguences, where animacy and word order point to the same agent candidate, we get a 93
% choice
all the subjects except one (that is, 97 N1
=
%)
of first noun;
having a prevalent
agent strategy. (b) In IVA seguences, where the two cues are in competition,
we get 39
% N1
choices, 61
% N2
choices, whereas non-canonical
sequences having the same animacy configuration (IAV + VIA) give only a 15
% choice
of N1 and thus 85
% for
N2. Then, even
though semantic strategy is prevalent in IVA sequences (30 the subjects have a N1 strategy, and 28
= agent
%have
strategy; 42
%a
N2
=
% of
agent
no prevalent strateGY) the subjects did
not process them as they processed the semi-grammatical ones. Thus we can conclude that canonical sequences are indeed processed in a specific way.
M. Kailand A. Charvillat
368
(c) In AVA seguences wi t ho u t animacy contrast, subjects were expected to rely on word order cues; in fact, the first
=
noun
agent strategy is less prevalent than might have been
expected from a basic SVO language. The data show a 68 choice and a 32
% N2
choice. If most subjects (56
%)
% N1
have a
N1 = agent strategy, few of them (16 %) have a N2 = agent strat·egy, while a comparatively important proportion (28
%)
has no
prevalent strategy. These data can be related to the inevitable semantic heterogeneity which emerges from investigations about the degree of plausibility of the agent-patient relationship in reversible sentences. For example, in (1) la poule leche Ie singe,
(2) une tortue attrape la girafe,
l'ours, and (4) le chat tape un cochon,
(3) Ie chameau atrape (3) and (4) have a
higher degree of plausibility than (1) and (2). Yet the Bates et al.
(1982)
data show no such thing as an
effect of plausibility among American subjects. Nevertheless the authors remark that for Italian subjects grammaticality and lexical plausibility intermingle in configurations where pragmatic and syntactic factors vary. As for French, by relating choices to reaction times in AVA sequences we get a clear illustration of what might be called strategy cost. In fact, the subjects (56
%)
who present the expected N1
=
agent strategy
have reaction times which are shorter than their own global mean (i.e., calculated from the 81 stimuli). The subjects presenting the unexpected N2
=
agent strategy have reaction times
that are longer than their global mean. These longer reaction times can be interpreted in terms of a sentence reconstruction process involving relative plausibility
(the strategy N1
=
agent excludes such a reconstruction). CONCLUDING REMARKS The main findings of this study may be summarized
as fol-
101"s:
1. Word order and animacy are the major factors that deter~ine
sentence interpretation in French (as well as in English
and Italian). Topic and stress are secondary cues that operate
369
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
primarily in conjunction with animacy. order, or both. 2. Like Italian adults, French adults are dependent on semantic factors and also make greater use of the information conveyed by topicalization. They are less systematic and slower than English adults in processing non-canonical sentences. The empirical data of adult subjects which indicate that french and Italian are two very close
languages
do not therefore reflect
the a priori descriptions of the differences between them.
We predicted that the French language would \lork.Jore like a word order language. Looking at the eli tic configurations, we found that French permits much more word order variability when eli tic pronouns are available. It could be the case that these cliticized variants existing in informally spoken language influence the interpretation of sentences \lithout clitics as though there were a "competition
pool" of ph r-a s e-s s t.r-u c t.u r e
"demons" (cf. Selfridge's Pandemonium model in which interpretive demons of different weights are activated as soon as their signal comes in). These results could be compared ..l ith Glushko's experiments (1979, 1981) on pronunciation of non-\lords like "bink" which can be predicted on the basis of a competition pool of existing types that overlap partially with the target (link, pink, mink,
.•• ).
This is the first hypothesis that would allow us to explain the proximity of the French and Italian results. The second hy-pothesis according to which the semantic strategy vro u Ld be over·generalized from non-canonical sequences to canonical ones must be rejected. We observed that adults
~ed
different strate-
gies in the processing of these two types of linguistic material. All the same, this leads to a global reinforcement of the semantic factor,
since there were twice as many non-canoni-
cal sequences as canonical ones. The third hypothesis which we have partially tested (Kail
& Charvillat, in press) suggests integrating the notion of "cuo cost" within the competition model. This notion, which must be distinguished from that of "cue validity", is centered on the
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
370
distinction between local processing and topological processing in sentence comprehension. In French order and animacy are both valid cues but the results indicate that local processing using semantic information from nouns is less costly (as revealed in situations of word and animacy competition) than topological processing. This distinction transgresses the classical boundaries between syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues and raises in different terms the question of the autonomy of language processors. Local processing may indeed use grammatical (morphological) and semantic cues, and topological processing may use syntactic information and also suprasegmental information usually associated with topicalization and focusing of information. Let us note that this typological distinction that allows us to characterize different languages was initially put forward by MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984, p. 149): Languages seem to divide themselves into those that favor local cues and those that favor topological cues. If a language searches for grammatical cues locally, topological structure is then free to express meanings other than basic case relations. If a language searches for grammatical cues topologically, local features will not figure as prominently in grammatical processing, but may be available for use in entirely different ways. What appears to be decisive is that whatever language a subject speaks, he does not seem capable of searching for grammatical cues simultaneously at these two levels.
3. The French developmental data leave us with the question concerning the point in development when topological processing stops being less costly than local processing based on the animate/inanimate feature of nouns. One could answer such a question by studying older children. Obviously, the integration of the notion of cue cost would modify the assumption according to which the order of acquisition of cues seems to be a function of their clarity and/or reliability in the adult language. The implementation of the competition model with such a notion as cue cost is justified not only by French developmental data but also by some of the Italian data (e.g., the way three-
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
371
year·-old children use emphasis plus the overgeneralization of the SVO strategy in four-year olds which Bates et al. (1984) explain in terms of "syntactic conservatism"). It is also justified by some of the English data (the absence of the second noun strategy used by adults in NNV and VNN sequences plus the absence of an overgeneralization of the first noun
= agent strategy which
may be explained by the fact that English children acquire the SVO in terms of its components SV and VO and not in terms of a canonical schema, as proposed by Slobin and Bever, 1982). As a provisional conclusion, we would suggest that, as indicated by the French data in general, the competition model remains a useful tool even though it seems that some new elements should be added.
REFERENCES Ammon, H. S., & Slobin, D. I. (1979). A cross-linguistic study of the processing of causative sentences. Cognition, 7, 3-17. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1979). A functionalist approach to the acquisition of grammar. In E. Gchs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1982a). Functionalist approaches to grammar. In E. Wanner & I. Gleitman (Eds.), Language aCquisition: The state of the art. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B, (1982b) Second language acquisition from a functionalist perspective: Pra~matic, semantic and perceptual strategies. In H. Winitz lEd.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: Conference Qg native and £oreign language aCquisition. New York: Ne\[ York Academy of Sciences. Bates, E., MacWhinney, B, Caselli, C., Devescovi, A., Natale, F., & Venza, V. (1984). A cross-linguistic study of the development of sentence interpretation strategies. Child Development, 21, 341-354. Bates, E., McNew, S., MacWhinney, B., Devesco~i, A., & Smith, S. (1982). Functional constraints on sentence processing: A cross-linguistic study. Cognition, 11, 245-29~. Bever, T. G. (1970). The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley. Bridges, A. (1980). SVO comprehension strategies reconsidered: The evidence of individual patterns of response. Journal of Child Language, 1, 89-104. --
372
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Bronckart, J. P. (1983). La comprehension des structures a fonction casuelles. In J. P. Bronckart, M. Kail & G. Noizet (~ds.), Psycholinguistique de l'Enfant. Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niest16. Bronckart, J. P., Gennari, ~1., & De Weck, G. (1981). The comprehension of simple sentences. International Journal of ~ cholineuistics, ~, 5-29. Bronckart, J. P,. Kail, M., & Noizet, G. (Eds.) (1983). Psycholinguistique de l'Enfant: Recherches ~ l'acquisition du langage. Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle. Bruner, J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language, ~, 1-19. Brunswik, E. (1956). Perception and the representative design of psychology experiments. Berkeley, CA: University of Califoraia Press. Chapman, R. S., & Kohn, L. L. (1978). Comprehension strategies in two and three year old: Animate agents or probable events? Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, ~, 746-761. Fodor, J. A., Bever, T. G., & Carrett, M. F. (1974). The ~ _chology of language. Ne,,, York: McGraw-Hill. Forster, K. (1979). Levels of processing and the structure of the language processor. In W. Cooper & E. Walker (Eds.), Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill Garrett. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Glushko, R. J. (1979). The organization and activation of orthographic knowledge in reading aloud. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2' 674-691. Glushko, R. J. (1981). Principles for pronouncing print: The psychology of phonography. In A. M. Lesgold & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.), Interactive processes in reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kail, M. (1983a). L'acquisition du langage repensee: Les recherches interlan 9ues. Partie I: Principales propositions theoriques. L'Annee Psychologique, 83, 225-258. Kail, M. (1983b). L'acquisit,ion du langage repensee: Les recherches interlangues. Partie II: Specificites methodologiques et recherches empiriques. L'Annee Psychologique, 83, 561-596. Kail, M. (in press-a). The development of sentence interpretation strategies from a cross-linguistic perspective. In R. W. Andersen (Ed.), Cross-linguistic studies of language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. -Kail, M. (in press-b). R5le de la differenciation lexicale interlangues da~s Ie traite~ent des p~esupPositi?n~.chez l'enfant. In W. Borner & B. Klelhofer (Eds.). ACqUlsltlon du lan~: Probleme de bilinguisme et d'interlangue. TUbingen-:-Narr. Kail, M. & Charvillat, A. (in rress). Indices locaux et indices topologiques dans la comprehension des phrases chez l'enfant et l'adulte. L'Annee Psychologique.
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
373
Kail, M., & Segui, J. (1978). Developmental proQuction of uttepances from a series of lexemes. Journal of Child Language, 2' 251-260. Kail, M., & Weissenborn. J. (1980). A developmental cross-linguistic study of the processing of lexical presupposition: French "mai s " and German "aber v s , s ond ern'', Paper presented at Fifth Annual Conference on Language Development, Boston. Kail, M., & Weissenborn, J. (1984a). A developmental cross-linguistic study of adversative connectives: French "mais" and German "aber /sondern". Journal of Child Language, D, 143-1:;8. Kail, M., & Weissenborn, J. (1984b). L'acquisition des connecteurs: Critiques et perspectives. In M. Moscato & G. Pieraut Le Bonniec (Eds.), Le langage: Construction et actualisation (pp. 101-108). Rouen: Presses Universitaires de France. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A functional approach to child lan~. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphophonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, !l. MacWhinney, B., Bates, E., & Kliegl, R. (1984). Cue validity and sentence interpretation in English, German and Italian. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 127-150. MacVhinney, B., Smith. S., & Pleh, C. (forthcoming). The development of sentence interpretation in case-marked languages. McNeill, D. (1975). Semiotic extension. In R. L. Solso (Ed.), Information processing and cognition: The Loyola Symposium. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. McNeill, D. (1979). The conceptual basis of language. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Osgood, C. E., & Bock, J. K. (1977). Salience and sentencing: Some production principles. In S. Rosenberg (Ed.), Sentence production: Research and theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 1, 217-283. Sinclair, n., & Bronckart, J. P. (1972). SVO - a linguistic universal? A study in developmental psycholinguistics. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, !' 272-281). Slobin, D. 1. (1966). The acquisition of Russian as a native language. In F. Smith & G. A. Niller (Eds.), The genesis of language: ! psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C. A. Ferguson & D. I. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of child language development (pp , 175-208). New York: Holt. Slobin, D. I. (1977). Language change in childhood and history. In J. Macnamara (Ed.), Language learn~ and thought (pp. 185-214). New York: Academic Press.
374
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Blobin, D. I. (1980). Lniversal and particular in the acquisition of language. In L. R. Gleitman & E. Wanner (Eds.), Language aCquisition: The state of the art. New York: Academic Press. Slobin, D. 1. (1981a). Operating principles (personal communication). Department of Psychology, U.C., Berkeley. Slobin, D. I. (1981b). Psychology without linguistics without grammar. Cognition, lQ, 275-280.
=
langu~e
Slobin, D. 1. (e d , ) (1985). The cross-linguistic study of lan~ aCquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Blobin, D. 1., & Bever, T. G. (1982). Children use canonical sentence schemas: A cross-linguistic study of word order and inflections. Cognition, 12, 229-265. Strohner, n., & Nelson, K. (1974). The young child's development of sentence comprehension: Influence of event probability, nonverbal context, syntactic form, and strategies. Child Development, 42, 567-576. Vion, M. (1980). La comprehension des phrases simples chez Ie jeune enfant: Une etude experimentale. Doctoral dissertation, Universite de Provence. \'ieist, R. M. (1983). The wor d order myth. Journal of Child Language, lQ, 97-106. Wexler, K., & Culicover, P. (1980). Formal principles of lan~ aCquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
349
LINGUISTIC CUES IN SENTENCE PROCESSING IN FRENCH CHILDREN AND ADULTS FROM A CROSSLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE Michele Kail and AgnesCharvillat
This chapter reports data obtained from French speaking adults and children in reference to data on two other SVO languages, English and Italian. All these data indicate that the use of various syntactic (word order), semantic (animate vs. inanimate) and pragmatic cues (stress and topicalization of one of the words ma sentence) is a function of the relative validity (clarity and reliability) of these cues in the language considered. While our results regarding the development of the use of these cues in French speaking children are in accordance with the predictions of the competition model, the results obtained with French speaking adults run partially counter some predictions of this model. We found that French adults' strategies relied more on semantic (animacy) than on syntactic (word order) cues, especially when these cues were presented in competition. These data suggest the integration of the notion of cue cost within the model in order to make predictions concerning the useful distinction between local and topological processing in sentence comprehension. The main goal of developmental cross-linguistic studies is to determine the psycholinguistic processing invariants which enable children to master any first language. Though it is true that a comparative analysis of language development constitutes a legitimate approach to the study of the degree of specificity (vs. universality) of natjve language acquisition devices, most theories of language processing have been formalized on the basis of analyses and studies of the English language. The anglocentric bias has influenced the formulation of questions concerning the existence, nature, and status of universals. This might explain the privileged position given to word order at the expense of morphological cues. Different "naturalistic" positions originating from various psycholinguistic perspectives -- naturalistic in so far as they
350
M. Kail and A, Chan'iliaI
state that word order reflects thought order -- have suggested that a universal of order would condition language acquisition from the very start (Bruner, 1975; McNeill, 1975, 1979; Osgood
& Bock. 1977; Pinker, 1979). Even though this idea of a developmental priority of SVO "natural" order over morphology or semantics is compatible with English (Bridges, 1980), we cannot ignore that, as Slobin and Bever (1982, p. 231) put it, an acquisitional model based on a predisposition for canonical word-order strategies encounters two basic difficulties: (1) How does the child determine the functions of other devices, besides word order, in languages like English? (2) How does the child acquire languages which use variable word order? Actually, such proposals presented as developmental universals work like perfect myths (Weist, 1983) and provide no reliable predictions concerning languages different from English. Alternatively, it has been suggested that semantic strategies might be the earliest ones, word order strategies inducing a more metalinguistic attitude toward language (Bever, 1970; Strohner
& Nelson, 1974). It seems that many studies about
French have likewise more or less explicitly stated such a filiation between these strategies (reviews on the development of simple sentence processing in French can be found in Vion,
1980,
Bronckart, Gennari, and De Week, 1981, Bronckart, 1983, Kail, 1982, in press-a, and Bronckart, Kail, and Noizet, 1983). Yet, as stressed by Chapman and Kohn (1978), these studies do not always make a clear distinction between semantic strategies based on the lexico-semantic characteristics of nouns and
stra~
egies based on the "local" event probabilities of object-action combinations. Their results assign clear limitations to the idea of an evolution from semantic to word-order strategies. On the whole, however, cross-linguistic studies have thrown more light upon facts hardly understandable in terms of the primacy of one information (semantic or syntactic). Kail (1983a, 1983b) has shown how such studies constitute an invaluable source of factual and theoretical information to reconsider language acquisition. We will briefly mention of few points before turning to our studies done in collaboration with Elizabeth
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
351
Bates and Brian MacWhinney. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying language acquisition demands a detailed analysis of the way different languages are acquired. To learn their native language, children have to identify the different constituent parts of sentences along with their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic relationships. making use of the varied cues each language provides (word order, inflections, stress patterns). In fact, they have to construct the whole set of form-function mappings. One crucial question for any acquisition theory is to know how children achieve the mastery of the main semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic functions. On the one hand, the different cues are in complex interaction in the course of everyday communication and, on the other, natural languages are characterized by partial overlaps among forms and functions (KarmiloffSmith, 1979). Indeed, one-to-one form-function mappings are very scarce so that forms generally assume several functions, and functions several forms; besides, form-function mappings are language-specific. Another crucial point which emerged recently is whether and how language structure influences the language learning process as such.
Slobin (1973, 1980, 1981b, 1985) suggested that child-
ren's processing of linguistic devices relies upon some operating principles which provide a grounding for hypotheses concerning their language, stressing the necessity to discriminate between what is unversal and what is particular in language acquisition. From these principles are derived psycholinguistic processing universals (as opposed to traditional linguistic universals referring to properties shared by different languages). Slobin (1977) has moreover sugge3ted that if these operating principles reflect very general cognitive rules constraining the form natural languages may take, then they account as well for language changes through time. Two notions are particularly interesting in Slobin's present formulation: local cue and canonical sentence pattern. The notion of local cue, which is not far from the notion of surface
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
352
cue (Fodor. Bever
& Garrett. 1974) and belongs to a general
theory of the development of processing competence. states that such cues facilitate sentence processing. When localized at certain places in sentences. these cues allow access to underlying semantic configurations. This is how Ammon and Slobin (1979) account for the better performance of Turkish and SerboCroatian children (as compared with English children) in causative sentence processing. While in Turkish and Serbo-Croatian noun and verb inflections indicate causative relationships. thus making local treatments possible. in English the whole sentence has to be processed in order to get a relevant interpretation of underlying semantic relations. Concerning the acquisition of any language. Slobin and Bever (1982) propose that children construct a canonical sentence schema as a preliminary organizing structure for language behavior. The canonical sentence embodies the typical features of complete clauses in the input language and serves as a framework for the application of productive and perceptual strategies. (p. 229) The experimental studies which support this point of view reach the general conclusion that children are equipped to learn both inflectional and word-order languages. According to the characteristics of their own language. children use specific strategies that may be described in terms of local and/or topological strategies. By local processing we mean the identification of linguistic elements without considering their sentential environment (animacy. gender and number cues. case markers, inflections), whereas topological processing deals with the form and position of these same elements with regard to environment (word order. stress
patterns. for instance).
With a proper selection of language it is possible to get a dissociation of some grammatical devices (for instance, the position of nouns in a sequence) and morphological devices (gender markers. case and verbal inflections); such dissociations provide comparative estimations of their functional role. That is precisely the method we adopted in former studies on the
353
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
part played by cross-linguistic lexical variations in processmg of connectives (Kail
& Weissenborn, 1980, 1984a, 1984b; Kail,
in press-b). Bates and MacWhinney have formalized a similar methodology, proposing a sentence processing model for children and adults, called the Competition Model. These theoretical convergences have prompted us to undertake some studies on the understanding of simple sentences in French in order to compare our data with those gathered in other languages: English and Italian (Bates, McNew, MacWhinney, Devescovi
& Smith, 1982), English, Italian,
and German (MacWhinney, Bates & Kliegl, 1984), Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian (MacWhinney, Smith
& Pleh, in press). (Besides,
as we will see later on, the findings of these French studies call for a revision, if not a modification, of certain "strong" hypotheses of the model.)
As the Competition Model is detailed
in some of the papers mentioned above, we shall present it quite briefly. THE COMPETITION MODEL In a series of empirical and theoretical articles, Bates and MacWhinney (Bates & MacWhinney, 1979, 1982a; Bates et al., 1982; MacWhinney, Bates
& Kliegl, 1984) developed a functional-
ist approach to grammar called the "competition model", This model assumes that "the forms of natural languages are created, governed, constrained, acquired, and used in the service of communicative functions." For present purposes we shall summarize three main characteristics
of this model. Firstly, the competition model is a
theory of performance rather than competence; it is primarily a processing theory, a theory of competence
to perform. Sec-
ondly, the competition model is a functionalist model in which the relationship between linguistic forms and underlying meanings or intentions is stated as directly as possible. It does not postulate any a priori division of the language processor into separate modules (grammar vs. semantics, as in Forster, 1979). The division between processing components is considered
354
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
as an empirical question. Thirdly, it is a probabilistic theory, a key assumption being that the functional constraints must compete for accesss to the limited resources of the acousticarticulatory channel. This probabilistic aspect of the theory is the most important one for corss-linguistic studies. It offers a description of transitional stages in language acquisition (MacWhinney, 1978), of speech errors in both children and adults, and of various aspects of language changes. To illustrate this probabilistic component of the model, the authors give the following example: two languages may both employ a set of rules that are obligatory and yet the strength of the mappings implied by those rules may differ. English and Italian require agreement between the subject and verb in person and number. However, some of the data suggest that the agreement system is much stronger in Italian than in English. Given the example of topicdominated languages like Tagalog (where indefinite subjects are completely ungrammatical), Bates notices that one rule in one language may occur simply as a probabilistic tendency in another. Italians avoid constructions with indefinite subjects far more than Americans, a fact that is consistent with a characterization of Italian as a "topic-dominated subject system" language. Among the hypotheses proposed in the model, two have been specifically tested both in sentence comprehension and production. Cue Strength Hypothesis Each link between a form and a function is associated with a certain weight, no sharp babilistic tendencies
line being drawn here between pro-
and determinate rules (as opposed to
certain models in which rules are either present or absent: Wexler and Culicover, 1980). The Competition Model permits rules or conventions to emerge gradually through an
increase
in the strength of form-function mappings. Such a model, as opposed to deterministic ones, can be tested with empirical data. For example, according to MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984),
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
355
if it could be shown that, beyond a certain point, additional cues not only fail to increase certainty but even reduce it, then it would be necessary to find a new formulation. Cue Validity Hypothesis Extrapolating from some ideas of Brunswik (1956), MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984) argue that the weights of cues in a given language reflect their "relative validity" in that language. In an array of form-function mappings it is possible to estimate their relative cue validity and then use these estimates to predict an acquisition order along with a certain usage in adult speech. Cue validity is characterized by the degree of cue "applicability" on the one hand and cue "reliability" on the other. In sentence comprehension, cues are highly "applicable" if they are available and highly "reliable" if they are not ambiguous, the most valid cues being those which are both applicable and reliable. This characterization of cue validity comes from studies on morphophonology (MacWhinney, 1978). As far as developmental studies are concerned, the main hypothesis is that the order in which cues for sentence comprehension emerge in children speaking a given language is largely a function of the relative validity of cues in that language. BASIC LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES Italian
is a weak-order language and subjects are very of-
ten deleted. Although it is traditionally classified as basic SVO without case inflections, Italian permits an extraordinary amount of word-order variations for pragmatic purposes. Thus, word order is not a reliable cue, but the subject-verb agreement system, some stress-word order combinations and the existence of object clitic pronouns constitute important cues as far as grammatical relations are concerned. English
is an extremely strong word-order language. Even
in informal conversation SVO order tends to be rigidly preserved. Some rare exceptions include OSV and VOS, these exceptions being permitted only because they preserve certain structural features of basic order (SV and VO fragments). Except in
356
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
the pronoun system (I vs. me), there are no case markings and subject-verb agreement of the verb is not a reliable indicator of sentential relations. French
appears to be a mixed language as compared with the
two others. As in English, basic order is SVO with no subject deletion. However, French permits many kinds of word-order patterns under certain pause/stress/eli tic conditions which makes \
it comparable to Italian. For example, Paul ~ eu son permis.
(SVO)
11 l'a eu son permis, Paul. 11 l'a eu, Paul, ~ permis.
(VOS) (VSO)
Son permis. Paul, il l'~~. (OSV) Paul, son permis. il l'~~. (SOV) Son permis, il l'~ eu, Paul.
(OVS)
As in English, there are no case markings but subejct-verb agreement seems to be an important cue. CROSS-LINGUISTIC EXPERIMENTS ON SENTENCE COMPREHENSION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS Methodology Adults. The comprehension studies reported here share the same experimental design: subjects have to interpret simple grammatical or semi-grammatical sentences with two nouns and a transitive verb. The linguistic material results from the combination of four types of information: der: NVN, NNV, VNN),
(1) syntactic (word or-
(2) semantic (animacy of nouns: AA, AI,
IA), and (3) pragmatic:
(a) stress contrast: default stress,
first noun stressed, second noun stressed, (b) topicalization: in this case the topicalized element has been shortly commented upon before the test sentence and is preceded by a definite article.
(The names and verbs used are listed in Table 1.)
Having heard a sentence, subjects were asked to say which noun was subject-agent of the action expressed by the verb. Choices as well as reaction times were analyzed.
357
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
Table 1 Object Names and Verbs Used in Adult Experiments
Animate objects
Inanimate objects
French
English
Italian
chat cheval chameau girafe + papillon canard+ singe ours cochon vache lion+ zebre mouton + hippopotame tortue chien lapin+ poisson
cat horse camel giraffe goat calf monkey bear piglet cow deer zebra sheep lamb turtle dog donkey fish
gatto cavallo cammello giraffa capra vitellino scimmia orso maialino mucca cerbiatto zebra pecora agnellino tartaruga cane asinello pesce
stylo+ verre taille-crayon gomme cube + marteau crayon cigarette
ball pen rock sharpener eraser block stick pencil cigarette
palla penna sasso temperino gomma cubo bastone matita sigaretta
eats smells licks kisses bi tes watches pats grabs greets
mangia annusa lecca bacia morde guarda carezza afferra saluta
mange sent leche embrasse mord regarde caresse attrape
~~~~:e+
renverse tape+ + Differences between French and English/Italian items Some French test sentences: (Total: 81 = 3 word order x 3 animacy x 3 stress x 3 topic) AVA: Le chameau attrape l'ours IVA: La gomme renverse le chien VAtA: Sent l'elephant un canard (elephant: stress + topic) AtAV: La giraffe un papillon renverse (giraffe topic, papillon stress)
358
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Children. In developmental studies children had to act out (with toys) the sentences read to them. The test sentences were carefully
~ontrolled
in order to minimize the possibility that
children would rely on specific event probabilities linked to lexical effects (Chapman & Kohn, 1978). Grammatical and semigrammatical sentences (with systematic variations of word order, animacy, and stress) were presented to English, Italian, and French chidlren aged 2;6, 3;6, 4;6, or 5;6. The test sentences involved converging and competing combinations of surface cues, competition being normally impossible in natural conversation, for instance: (1) la girafe pousse un verre (2) le poisson caresse la tortue )3) un marteau renverse Ie chien (1) is an illustration of converging cues: word order, animacy, stress, and topic indicate that the first noun is the subjectagent. In (2) the only available cue is word order.
(3) illus-
trates competition between word order and stress + topic + animacy. Though it is impossible to find sentences without word order information, non-canonical sequences (NNV and VNN) compel the subjects to use another syntactic strategy. By examining the extent to which specific cues determine comprehension (particularly in competitions) we can infer a hierarchy of strategies for each language. Main Results in English and Italian In studies where word order, animacy, topicalization, stress, and subject-verb agreement varied (Bates et al., 1982; Bates, MacWhinney, Caselli, Devescovi, Natale & Venza, 1984) the data
obtained with adults
gave evidence of word order
prevalence in English, the other cues having but marginal effects even in non-canonical word orders (OSV and VOS). Italians show completely different strategies: they rely primarily on subject-verb agreement, then on semantic cues; when neither is available they use pragmatic cues (topic and stress) to interpret the three syntactic combinations (NVN, VNN, NNV). Nevertheless, they make consistent use of syntactic cues whenever
cert~n
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
359
conditions are fulfilled: default stress on NVN, second noun stress on NNV and VNN. When examining interactions between word order and stress across languages it appears that the interpretation of word order depends on stress patterns, except in English where syn t.a c t i c cues appear to operate alone. Bates et al. 0982) claim that "semantic strategies apparently stand at the 'core' of Italian to the same extent that word order stands at the 'core' of English" (p. 246). As for children, Bates et al.
(1984) have shown that Ital-
ians heavily rely on semantic cues at all ages, whereas Americans rely heavily on order cues. From 2;6 the two linguistic groups begin to have entirely different strategies, as reflected in their respective adult models, which permits the authors to assume that the data are globally compatible with an acquisition model based on the impact of cue validity (MacWhinney, 1978) . MAIN RESULTS ABOUT FRENCH Children Word order is an important cue in the interpretation of our stimuli. In NVN combinations, the first noun=agent strategy is applied from the earliest age studied (2;6) and fully established at 3;6. As for semi-grammatical sequences, verb proximity strategies appear around 5;6 (see Table 2, next page). Semantic information is not used before 3;6; it prevails at 4;6, then its effect tends to lose strength, so that, as we will see later on, at 4;6 children are comparatively closer to adults' behavior. Stress has an effect among the younger children only (2;6 and 3;6), stressed nouns being taken as agents. When word order and animacy compete, the more the sentences are canonical the more the former dominates. As far as noncanonical sentences are concerned, the results are compatible
360
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Table 2 Results of the French ANOVA/Age Groups Group Age
G 1 2;6
G 2 3;6
G 3 4;6
G 4 5;6
Sources
Mean Square
e .r .
F
Prob.
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
5.30 0.16 3.23 0.27 1 .10 0.57 0.77
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
5.84 0.07 8.33 0.55 2.71 1. 44 2.72
.025
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
13 .70 1.62 2.51 1.12 0.22 0.41 0.68
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
18.00 0.67 8.43 3.35 1. 35 1. 33 1.80
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
18.65 22.74 0.29 2.60 0.20 0.15 0.17
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
30.75 24.46 1.14 7.93 1. 22 0.59 0.90
.0005 .0005
Order Animacy Stress O.A O.S A.S O.S
28.74 9.64 0.14 2.29 0.22 0.21 0.12
2.18 2.18 2.18 4.36 4.36 4.36 8.72
31.62 11. 74 0.65 6.13 1.17 0.93 0.52
.0005 .0005
.005 .05 .05 .0005 .005 .025 .10
.0005
.001
with those of Sinclair and Bronckart (1972) who showed that the first noun is not systematically taken as agent before 6;0. Our results show that at 4;6 choices are contingent when there is no semantic cue, then at 5;6, children seem to have a verb proximity strategy (Kail & Segui, 1978). The results are displayed in Table 3. Even though French children use semantic information more extensively than English children and less extensively than Italian ones, their choices are closer to those of English children. In the same way they use syntactic information less extensively than the English but more extensively than the
361
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
TabJe 3 Cell Means for French Children from Four Age Groups
NVN
VNN
NNV
NVN
2.90 2.10 2.75
3.40 3.20 3.40
Age 2;6
VNN
NNV
Age 3;6
Animate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.40 2.50 3.20
3.20 3.30 2.80
3.35 3.10 3.15
2.30 2.10 2.70
Animate/ Inanimate
Stress 0 Stress 1 st Stress 2nd
2.70 2.30 3.30
3.40 3.00 3.40
2.35 3.10 3.20
2.30 2.00 2.60
2.90 2.85 2.70
2.75 3.00 2.80
Stress 0 Inanimate/ Stress 1 st Animate Stress 2nd
3.00 2·40 3.05
2.90 3.00 3.50
3.60 2.90 3.40
2.80 2.20 2.35
2.90 2.85 3.40
3.40 3.00 3.40
Animate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.00 2.00 2.10
3.10 2.70 2.70
3.00 2.75 3.10
2.00 2.00 2.00
2.70 2.70 2.20
3.20 3.30 3.20
Animate/ Inanimate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.00 2.00 2.10
2.45 2.11 2.20
2.30 2.20 2.40
2.00 2.00 2.10
2.40 2.50 2.50
2.60 2.60 2.60
Inanimate/ Animate
Stress 0 Stress 1st Stress 2nd
2.30 2.30 2.50
3.40 3.60 3.50
3.80 3.75 3.60
2.20 2.00 2.20
3.20 3.30 3.10
3.90 3.60 3.60
Age 4;6
Age 5;6
Italians while remaining closer to the English (see Figure 1). Whereas in French the effect of stress is restricted to very young children (2;6), it is noticeable from 3;6 in Italian and from 4;6 in English. A detailed analysis shows that French children process canonical sentences like the English and noncanonical ones like the Italians (see Figure 2). From all these developmental studies taken as a whole we can draw the following conclusion: in the course of development children constantly adapt their initial strategies according to the differential weight of cues in adult speech. We will comment upon this point in discussing adults' French data. Adults We can summarize the findings of our study by stating that word order and semantic information are the two main cues used by French-speaking adults in the interpretation of isolated sentences.
362
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Word order, As va e expected, the first noun is more often selected as subject in noun-verb-noun (NVN) canonical sentences than in other combinations (NNV and VNN). This Subject-VerbObject strategy, the consistency of which is comparatively high, induces shorter reaction times than those at work with other syntactic combinations. The interpretation of NNV in terms of SOV suggests that this syntactic strategy is related to the clitization of French object-pronouns: in fact, pronominalized
Mean
Square
40
,
35
30
ENGLISH (Word-order)
/
/
FRENCH (Word-Order)
25 ITALIAN (Animacy)
20
15
10
--
-0---
_...
._' -0-'-'_'0
5
2;6
3;6
4:6
5:6
FRENCH (Animacy) ITALIAN (Word-order) ENGLISH (Animacy)
age
Figure 1. Mean squares of word-order and animacy effects in French/Enelish/ltalian children.
363
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
objects are always in preverbal position in French so that SOy sequences are widely used. The fact that VNN is far from being systematically interpreted as a VSO (interrogative form in French) can be explained as follows.
In written French, subjec~·
verb inversion exists (e.g., voulez-vous du cafe?) while in spoken French many interrogative forms use "est-ce que", which allows canonical order to be preserved (e.g., est-ce que vous voulez du cafe?).
r=
100
100
100
90
90 80
80 70
70
so
se
so 40
Z ~
0 Z l-
rn
JO
InCLISH I
20
10
...
10
: 2;6 3;6 4:6 5;6 Multi
0
w
~:
100 80 70 60
0-
40
J:
30
0
0 W
e
0< lZ W
0
a:
Ate: 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 Adultl
40 JO
AI
20
M IA
10 Ap' 2;6 3;6
4;6
5;6 Multi
I
90 IA.
~: IA
a:
IA.
20
so
SO
I
20
J\.
ITALIAH
I
"'" 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 ,Multi
/t
90
Q,
70 60 SO
40 30
InucHI
20 10
80 70 60
50 40 JO
20
~u
J\M ~IA
"'" 2;6
3;6 4;6
5;6 Adul••
..
",
90
AI
3;6 416
5;6 Multi
NVN Figure 2. Choice results
70
60 SO
40
30 20 10
"e. 90
70
70
60
60
50
SO
40
40
30
30 20
20
... =
~AI
90 80
80
80
IA
10
2;6
100
J\.
~IA 2;6
3;6
4:6 5;6 Multo
100
100
100 80
90
10
10
W
100
2;6
3;6 4;6
5:6 Multi
VNN
10
..
",
~:
2;6
316 416
5;6 Multi
NNV
(% N1) within languages and age groups.
M. Kailand A. Charvillat
364
Animacy. Animacy contrast is a
deter~ining
the interpretation of sentences. irrespective
factor too in of the position
of the animate noun; yet >Ie noticed that choice consistency was higher when the animate was in first position. Reaction times follow the same logic: they are shorter when animacy contrast is present and when the first noun is animate. Topicalizaticn. Pragmatic information conveyed by topicalization also plays an important part in so far as it shortens processing
and sets choices on topicalized elements particular-
ly when the first
~
is topicalized.
Stress. As for stress information, it appears to be a mere secondary cue in French, the effect of which only appears in interactions with one or more "strong" cue; at any rate, our data prompt us to reject an interpretation in terms of given vs. new information; it seems more relevant to account for stress effects in the terms used by Bates et al.
(1982): ac-
cording to these authors, stress represents for the addressee
Table
4
Order /Anirnacy /Topic /Stress Configurations: Choice and Latency Data Latencyz-scores \10rd order
NVN VNN NNV
Animacy
AA AI IA
Topic
Stress
NN NN NN NN NN NN Latency
-.12 -.03 .14 .24
- .16
-.OS
.10 -.06 -.04 .01 -.03 .01
Choice N1 actor
.67 .50 .57 .61 .89 .25 .58 .64
.52
Choice consistency choice - 50 %
.17 0 .07 .11 .39 -.25 .08
.14
.02
.61
• 11
.59 .54
.09 .04
z-score transformations against each individual's mean latency; slow response; positive direction negative direction = rapid response.
365
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
an indication that "something unusual is happening", this "SOEthing unusual" concerning in this case basic syntactic-semantic role assignment. However, as there was a tendency for stressed elements to be interpreted as subjects rather than as objects, we could formalize and, on the whole, validate the predictions of the model concerning word order/stress and word order/animacy interaction (Table
4).
The interaction between word order and animacy can be said to fulfil the coalition and competition "contract"; in other words, when the two cue types point to the same sUbject-agent candidate, choice consistency is higher and reaction times are shorter than when order alone is available. On the other hand, a competition between these cues delays processing and weakens consistency, the choices giving evidence of animacy prevalence. Indeed, the impact of semantic information was beyond our expectations; we thought that syntactic information should be a "tougher component" in the competition (1'able 5). Table 5 Order/Animacy Configurations: Choice and Latency Data Choice
NVN VNN
AA AI IA AA AI
IA
NNV
AA AI IA
.68 .93 .39 .54 .84 . 11 .61 .89 .19
Choice Consistency
.18 .43 - . 11 .04 .34 -.39 .11 .39 -.31
Latency
.09 -.41 -.05 .20 -.04 -.25 .44 -.03 -.06
The interaction between word order and topic has no significant effect as far as reaction times are concerned but choices and consistency data fit in with the model's predictions: word order/topic coalition makes choices more consistent than a mere syntactic information, but the latter induces a greater consistency on its own than when in competition with topic.
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
366
In order to explain our results concerning the animacytopic interaction, we had to take conditional weights into account. Even though semantic information is globally stronger than pragmatic information, we found that the pragmatic strategy operating when the first noun is topicalized is more powerful than the semantic strategy induced by the presence of an animate second noun, so that when there is competition between a topicalized first noun and an animate
second noun, pragmatic
information does win. Of course, the enlarged coalition principle stating that three cues pointing to the same interpretation are better than just one or two, was totally confirmed whatever cues were involved. For an analysis of competitions between three cues considering their respective weights (estimated by their mean square in the analysis of variance), we have proposed and largely confirmed the following assumptions:
A very strong cue plus
a strong cue against a weak cue is better than a very strong cue, or a strong cue, or a weak cue alone ~better than" meaning here "more consistent choices"
combined with "shorter process-
ing") . In our cross-linguistic comparisons we came to the conclusion that French was less canonical (if by canonical we mean a tendency to equate NVN with SVO) than English but more than Italian; besides, while English subjects manage to have consistent choices in NNV and VNN structures where syntax is the only available cue with a second noun strategy, the French, like the Italians are far less systematic and slower in processing them. And while the English keep on relying on syntax wheR it competes with semantic information, the prevalence of the latter is practically as dramatic in French as in Italian; this constitutes a rather unexpected finding in a language which, all things considered, has a comparatively strict SVO order. Therefore, the linguistic proximity between French and English, as far as SVO order prevalence is concerned, is not reflected in our data, which appear
to potentially constitute a case in
which sentence interpretation cannot be directly connected with cue validity (here word order) even though this is one assumption
367
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
of the competition model. Obviously, if the coalition principle turns out to be predictive of interactions, the competition principle needs a more precise estimation. The fact that English subjects hardly ever rely on animacy has been used to support the idea of a separation between syntactic processor and semantic processor, but the data gathered in other languages, and particularly in French, appear to cast doubt upon the universality of such strict separation. Processing grammatical and semi-grammatical sentences.
In
order to check whether the unexpected weight of the animacy factor might be due to an overextension to NVN grammatical sequences of semantic strategies which are heavily relied upon in semi-grammatical sequences, we re-examined the data concerning only NVN sequences. This analysis takes into account the percentage of choices (N1 vs. N2 as agent) as well as the
percent-
age of subjects who stick to one strategy (i.e., who give between 6 and 9 answers of the same type out of 9 for a given configuration). In fact,
some authors (for example, Vion, 1980;
Bronckart, 1983) have insisted upon the necessity to restrict the term !Istrategy" to the systematic behavior of each subject. (a) In AVI seguences, where animacy and word order point to the same agent candidate, we get a 93
% choice
all the subjects except one (that is, 97 N1
=
%)
of first noun;
having a prevalent
agent strategy. (b) In IVA seguences, where the two cues are in competition,
we get 39
% N1
choices, 61
% N2
choices, whereas non-canonical
sequences having the same animacy configuration (IAV + VIA) give only a 15
% choice
of N1 and thus 85
% for
N2. Then, even
though semantic strategy is prevalent in IVA sequences (30 the subjects have a N1 strategy, and 28
= agent
%have
strategy; 42
%a
N2
=
% of
agent
no prevalent strateGY) the subjects did
not process them as they processed the semi-grammatical ones. Thus we can conclude that canonical sequences are indeed processed in a specific way.
M. Kailand A. Charvillat
368
(c) In AVA seguences wi t ho u t animacy contrast, subjects were expected to rely on word order cues; in fact, the first
=
noun
agent strategy is less prevalent than might have been
expected from a basic SVO language. The data show a 68 choice and a 32
% N2
choice. If most subjects (56
%)
% N1
have a
N1 = agent strategy, few of them (16 %) have a N2 = agent strat·egy, while a comparatively important proportion (28
%)
has no
prevalent strategy. These data can be related to the inevitable semantic heterogeneity which emerges from investigations about the degree of plausibility of the agent-patient relationship in reversible sentences. For example, in (1) la poule leche Ie singe,
(2) une tortue attrape la girafe,
l'ours, and (4) le chat tape un cochon,
(3) Ie chameau atrape (3) and (4) have a
higher degree of plausibility than (1) and (2). Yet the Bates et al.
(1982)
data show no such thing as an
effect of plausibility among American subjects. Nevertheless the authors remark that for Italian subjects grammaticality and lexical plausibility intermingle in configurations where pragmatic and syntactic factors vary. As for French, by relating choices to reaction times in AVA sequences we get a clear illustration of what might be called strategy cost. In fact, the subjects (56
%)
who present the expected N1
=
agent strategy
have reaction times which are shorter than their own global mean (i.e., calculated from the 81 stimuli). The subjects presenting the unexpected N2
=
agent strategy have reaction times
that are longer than their global mean. These longer reaction times can be interpreted in terms of a sentence reconstruction process involving relative plausibility
(the strategy N1
=
agent excludes such a reconstruction). CONCLUDING REMARKS The main findings of this study may be summarized
as fol-
101"s:
1. Word order and animacy are the major factors that deter~ine
sentence interpretation in French (as well as in English
and Italian). Topic and stress are secondary cues that operate
369
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
primarily in conjunction with animacy. order, or both. 2. Like Italian adults, French adults are dependent on semantic factors and also make greater use of the information conveyed by topicalization. They are less systematic and slower than English adults in processing non-canonical sentences. The empirical data of adult subjects which indicate that french and Italian are two very close
languages
do not therefore reflect
the a priori descriptions of the differences between them.
We predicted that the French language would \lork.Jore like a word order language. Looking at the eli tic configurations, we found that French permits much more word order variability when eli tic pronouns are available. It could be the case that these cliticized variants existing in informally spoken language influence the interpretation of sentences \lithout clitics as though there were a "competition
pool" of ph r-a s e-s s t.r-u c t.u r e
"demons" (cf. Selfridge's Pandemonium model in which interpretive demons of different weights are activated as soon as their signal comes in). These results could be compared ..l ith Glushko's experiments (1979, 1981) on pronunciation of non-\lords like "bink" which can be predicted on the basis of a competition pool of existing types that overlap partially with the target (link, pink, mink,
.•• ).
This is the first hypothesis that would allow us to explain the proximity of the French and Italian results. The second hy-pothesis according to which the semantic strategy vro u Ld be over·generalized from non-canonical sequences to canonical ones must be rejected. We observed that adults
~ed
different strate-
gies in the processing of these two types of linguistic material. All the same, this leads to a global reinforcement of the semantic factor,
since there were twice as many non-canoni-
cal sequences as canonical ones. The third hypothesis which we have partially tested (Kail
& Charvillat, in press) suggests integrating the notion of "cuo cost" within the competition model. This notion, which must be distinguished from that of "cue validity", is centered on the
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
370
distinction between local processing and topological processing in sentence comprehension. In French order and animacy are both valid cues but the results indicate that local processing using semantic information from nouns is less costly (as revealed in situations of word and animacy competition) than topological processing. This distinction transgresses the classical boundaries between syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues and raises in different terms the question of the autonomy of language processors. Local processing may indeed use grammatical (morphological) and semantic cues, and topological processing may use syntactic information and also suprasegmental information usually associated with topicalization and focusing of information. Let us note that this typological distinction that allows us to characterize different languages was initially put forward by MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl (1984, p. 149): Languages seem to divide themselves into those that favor local cues and those that favor topological cues. If a language searches for grammatical cues locally, topological structure is then free to express meanings other than basic case relations. If a language searches for grammatical cues topologically, local features will not figure as prominently in grammatical processing, but may be available for use in entirely different ways. What appears to be decisive is that whatever language a subject speaks, he does not seem capable of searching for grammatical cues simultaneously at these two levels.
3. The French developmental data leave us with the question concerning the point in development when topological processing stops being less costly than local processing based on the animate/inanimate feature of nouns. One could answer such a question by studying older children. Obviously, the integration of the notion of cue cost would modify the assumption according to which the order of acquisition of cues seems to be a function of their clarity and/or reliability in the adult language. The implementation of the competition model with such a notion as cue cost is justified not only by French developmental data but also by some of the Italian data (e.g., the way three-
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
371
year·-old children use emphasis plus the overgeneralization of the SVO strategy in four-year olds which Bates et al. (1984) explain in terms of "syntactic conservatism"). It is also justified by some of the English data (the absence of the second noun strategy used by adults in NNV and VNN sequences plus the absence of an overgeneralization of the first noun
= agent strategy which
may be explained by the fact that English children acquire the SVO in terms of its components SV and VO and not in terms of a canonical schema, as proposed by Slobin and Bever, 1982). As a provisional conclusion, we would suggest that, as indicated by the French data in general, the competition model remains a useful tool even though it seems that some new elements should be added.
REFERENCES Ammon, H. S., & Slobin, D. I. (1979). A cross-linguistic study of the processing of causative sentences. Cognition, 7, 3-17. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1979). A functionalist approach to the acquisition of grammar. In E. Gchs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B. (1982a). Functionalist approaches to grammar. In E. Wanner & I. Gleitman (Eds.), Language aCquisition: The state of the art. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Bates, E., & MacWhinney, B, (1982b) Second language acquisition from a functionalist perspective: Pra~matic, semantic and perceptual strategies. In H. Winitz lEd.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: Conference Qg native and £oreign language aCquisition. New York: Ne\[ York Academy of Sciences. Bates, E., MacWhinney, B, Caselli, C., Devescovi, A., Natale, F., & Venza, V. (1984). A cross-linguistic study of the development of sentence interpretation strategies. Child Development, 21, 341-354. Bates, E., McNew, S., MacWhinney, B., Devesco~i, A., & Smith, S. (1982). Functional constraints on sentence processing: A cross-linguistic study. Cognition, 11, 245-29~. Bever, T. G. (1970). The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley. Bridges, A. (1980). SVO comprehension strategies reconsidered: The evidence of individual patterns of response. Journal of Child Language, 1, 89-104. --
372
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Bronckart, J. P. (1983). La comprehension des structures a fonction casuelles. In J. P. Bronckart, M. Kail & G. Noizet (~ds.), Psycholinguistique de l'Enfant. Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niest16. Bronckart, J. P., Gennari, ~1., & De Weck, G. (1981). The comprehension of simple sentences. International Journal of ~ cholineuistics, ~, 5-29. Bronckart, J. P,. Kail, M., & Noizet, G. (Eds.) (1983). Psycholinguistique de l'Enfant: Recherches ~ l'acquisition du langage. Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle. Bruner, J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language, ~, 1-19. Brunswik, E. (1956). Perception and the representative design of psychology experiments. Berkeley, CA: University of Califoraia Press. Chapman, R. S., & Kohn, L. L. (1978). Comprehension strategies in two and three year old: Animate agents or probable events? Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, ~, 746-761. Fodor, J. A., Bever, T. G., & Carrett, M. F. (1974). The ~ _chology of language. Ne,,, York: McGraw-Hill. Forster, K. (1979). Levels of processing and the structure of the language processor. In W. Cooper & E. Walker (Eds.), Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill Garrett. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Glushko, R. J. (1979). The organization and activation of orthographic knowledge in reading aloud. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2' 674-691. Glushko, R. J. (1981). Principles for pronouncing print: The psychology of phonography. In A. M. Lesgold & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.), Interactive processes in reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kail, M. (1983a). L'acquisition du langage repensee: Les recherches interlan 9ues. Partie I: Principales propositions theoriques. L'Annee Psychologique, 83, 225-258. Kail, M. (1983b). L'acquisit,ion du langage repensee: Les recherches interlangues. Partie II: Specificites methodologiques et recherches empiriques. L'Annee Psychologique, 83, 561-596. Kail, M. (in press-a). The development of sentence interpretation strategies from a cross-linguistic perspective. In R. W. Andersen (Ed.), Cross-linguistic studies of language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. -Kail, M. (in press-b). R5le de la differenciation lexicale interlangues da~s Ie traite~ent des p~esupPositi?n~.chez l'enfant. In W. Borner & B. Klelhofer (Eds.). ACqUlsltlon du lan~: Probleme de bilinguisme et d'interlangue. TUbingen-:-Narr. Kail, M. & Charvillat, A. (in rress). Indices locaux et indices topologiques dans la comprehension des phrases chez l'enfant et l'adulte. L'Annee Psychologique.
Linguistic Cues in Sentence Processing
373
Kail, M., & Segui, J. (1978). Developmental proQuction of uttepances from a series of lexemes. Journal of Child Language, 2' 251-260. Kail, M., & Weissenborn. J. (1980). A developmental cross-linguistic study of the processing of lexical presupposition: French "mai s " and German "aber v s , s ond ern'', Paper presented at Fifth Annual Conference on Language Development, Boston. Kail, M., & Weissenborn, J. (1984a). A developmental cross-linguistic study of adversative connectives: French "mais" and German "aber /sondern". Journal of Child Language, D, 143-1:;8. Kail, M., & Weissenborn, J. (1984b). L'acquisition des connecteurs: Critiques et perspectives. In M. Moscato & G. Pieraut Le Bonniec (Eds.), Le langage: Construction et actualisation (pp. 101-108). Rouen: Presses Universitaires de France. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A functional approach to child lan~. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphophonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, !l. MacWhinney, B., Bates, E., & Kliegl, R. (1984). Cue validity and sentence interpretation in English, German and Italian. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 127-150. MacVhinney, B., Smith. S., & Pleh, C. (forthcoming). The development of sentence interpretation in case-marked languages. McNeill, D. (1975). Semiotic extension. In R. L. Solso (Ed.), Information processing and cognition: The Loyola Symposium. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. McNeill, D. (1979). The conceptual basis of language. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Osgood, C. E., & Bock, J. K. (1977). Salience and sentencing: Some production principles. In S. Rosenberg (Ed.), Sentence production: Research and theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 1, 217-283. Sinclair, n., & Bronckart, J. P. (1972). SVO - a linguistic universal? A study in developmental psycholinguistics. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, !' 272-281). Slobin, D. 1. (1966). The acquisition of Russian as a native language. In F. Smith & G. A. Niller (Eds.), The genesis of language: ! psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C. A. Ferguson & D. I. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of child language development (pp , 175-208). New York: Holt. Slobin, D. I. (1977). Language change in childhood and history. In J. Macnamara (Ed.), Language learn~ and thought (pp. 185-214). New York: Academic Press.
374
M. Kail and A. Charvillat
Blobin, D. I. (1980). Lniversal and particular in the acquisition of language. In L. R. Gleitman & E. Wanner (Eds.), Language aCquisition: The state of the art. New York: Academic Press. Slobin, D. 1. (1981a). Operating principles (personal communication). Department of Psychology, U.C., Berkeley. Slobin, D. I. (1981b). Psychology without linguistics without grammar. Cognition, lQ, 275-280.
=
langu~e
Slobin, D. 1. (e d , ) (1985). The cross-linguistic study of lan~ aCquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Blobin, D. 1., & Bever, T. G. (1982). Children use canonical sentence schemas: A cross-linguistic study of word order and inflections. Cognition, 12, 229-265. Strohner, n., & Nelson, K. (1974). The young child's development of sentence comprehension: Influence of event probability, nonverbal context, syntactic form, and strategies. Child Development, 42, 567-576. Vion, M. (1980). La comprehension des phrases simples chez Ie jeune enfant: Une etude experimentale. Doctoral dissertation, Universite de Provence. \'ieist, R. M. (1983). The wor d order myth. Journal of Child Language, lQ, 97-106. Wexler, K., & Culicover, P. (1980). Formal principles of lan~ aCquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.