Alternative Grammars in Acquisition : Markedness-vs . Faithfulness-oriented Learning

In pursuing the question of how children acquire language, many researchers have claimed that in initial grammars (Ginitial), markedness constraints are more influential in shaping children’s outputs. Inventories of entirely unmarked structures are expected to be more easily processed in production and/or comprehension but of course lack the range of distinctions required for the expressiveness of adult language. Whether the child starts constructing grammar(s) from a set of unranked constraints (Tesar and Smolensky 1993, 1998; Boersma 1998) or from a ranking where markedness outranks faithfulness (Tesar and Smolensky 2000), its job is to figure out possible ways, known as learning paths (cf. Levelt and Van de Vijver to appear) that will gradually help it to acquire the final grammar (Gfinal). It is the linguist’s job to explain how a child reaches its goal by addressing and ultimately providing an answer to the following three fundamental questions: (a) given that there exists variation in children’s outputs, does this suggest more than one grammar is active at a given time interval and, if yes, is there a predominant grammar at each developmental stage? (b) what are the typological characteristics of intermediate grammars and (c) how are they interconnected to form developmental paths? In this paper, following the multiple parallel grammar model of L1 acquisition, proposed in Revithiadou and Tzakosta (to appear), we assume intermediate stages of acquisition to be associated with several co-existing grammars that give rise to extensive variation in children’s speech. In fact, the general picture that the Greek child database provides is that children produce variable outputs for a given target form not only during the same recording session but, in general, throughout the acquisition process. The emphasis, however, is on the typological properties of these intermediate grammars and, especially, those that constitute linking paths between initial and more advanced developmental stages. More specifically, we claim that multiple grammars may be active at a certain stage without, however, being equally forceful. In the stage we examine, the quantitatively dominant grammar, called the core grammar, is oriented towards the faithful production of the stressed syllable. Next to the core grammar, several other parallel grammars can be in force and leave a quantitatively significant imprint on the children’s production data. In the present paper, we examine a parallel grammar that drives children to produce the stressed nucleus with the initial consonant of the word as an onset. In short, we argue in favor of the existence of multiple intermediate grammars that lead to the production of variable outputs for a single input form. To illustrate with an example, a word like /karpu ! zi/ ‘water-melon’ in adult Greek is produced systematically by young learners of the language as [pu ! zi] or [ku ! zi]. We argue that the former output is derived from the stressed syllable core grammar whereas the latter output results from a grammar in which the initial consonant plus stressed nucleus is preserved. Crucially, such outputs suggest that children opt to preserve segmental material of phonologically prominent (stressed or initial) positions in their outputs. On the basis of this observation and in line with Tzakosta’s (in prep.) empirical findings, we maintain that positional faithfulness-oriented grammars play a crucial role in intermediate stages of L1 acquisition. Interestingly, a smaller fraction of children’s productions shows partial compliance with markedness principles, which suggests that the effects of markedness constraints fade away as acquisition progresses without, however, being completely annulled. Certain markedness principles such as the sonority hierarchy and the markedness scales are found to maintain a limited influence on the featural composition of the produced stressed syllable or the preserved initial consonant of the target form. The lingering effects of the sonority