On the Acquisition of English Complex Predicates and Complex Word Formation

Revisiting the Parametric Approach

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5901065
AutoresTing Xu (0000-0001-5392-4731), Shuyan Wang (0000-0001-5191-6359)
Año2025
Volumen10
Número8
Páginas201
Fecha de publicación2025-08-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguages (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages10080201
OpenAlexW4413401743
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas21

Languages vary in their availability of productive endocentric bare-stem compounds (e.g., flower hat) and a range of complex predicates (separable verb-particles, double object datives, adjectival resultatives, put-locatives, make-causatives, and perceptual reports). To account for these cross-linguistic variations, two parameters have been proposed: the Compounding Parameter (TCP), which governs the formation of bare-stem compounds, separable verb-particles, and adjectival resultatives, and the Small Clause Parameter (SCP), which determines whether a verb can take a small clause complement. These parameters make testable predictions about children's acquisition. If TCP and SCP are on the right track, we would expect correlations in the acquisition of structures governed by each parameter. This study examines these predictions by analyzing longitudinal corpora from 23 English-speaking children, assessing both the correlation between the acquisition of different structures and their acquisitional ordering. Our findings support both TCP and SCP, confirming that the acquisition of bare-stem compounds is closely associated with that of separable verb-particles, while the acquisition of (some) complex predicates is related. In addition, our results offer new insights into the potential triggers that children use to set each parameter. These findings contribute to our understanding of language variation and the role of parameter setting in first language acquisition

Linguistics · Natural language processing · Parametric statistics · Statistics · Word (group theory · Word formation · Computer Science · Language and cultural evolution · Mathematics · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence · Philosophy