Early Acquisition of Basic Word Order in Japanese

Koji Sugisaki
Mie University

Running Head: Early Acquisition of Word Order in JapaneseAbstract

The acquisition of word order has been one of the central issues in the study of child language.
One striking finding from the detailed investigation of various child languages is that from theearliest observable stages children are highly sensitive to the basic word order of their target
language. However, the evidence so far comes mainly from the acquisition of rigid word-orderlanguages. In light of this background, this study presents new evidence that such earlysensitivity to basic word order can be observed even in the acquisition of Japanese, a free
word-order language.

1.

Introduction
The acquisition of word order has been one of the central issues in the study of childlanguage. One striking finding from the detailed investigation of various child languages is thatfrom the earliest observable stages children are highly sensitive to the basic word order of theirtarget language. For example, in the acquisition of English, children’s multiword utterances
hardly deviate from the basic order that places the verb before its object (e.g. Bloom 1970;Brown 1973). Yet, the evidence so far comes mainly from the acquisition of rigid word-orderlanguages, such as English, French, and Italian. Then, a question arises as to whether such earlysensitivity to basic word order can be observed even in the acquisition of a free word-orderlanguage like Japanese.
It has been noted in several studies that Japanese-learning children know the basic order ofobject-verb from very early (see e.g. Clancy (1985, section 5.2)). Yet, as far as I can see, nocorpus-based syntactic evidence has been presented that support this view. Sugisaki (2005)
attempted to provide such evidence, by demonstrating children’s knowledge of the structural
constraint on the reversed, verb-object order. Building on Sugisaki (2005), this study analyzes amuch wider range of data, and presents syntactic evidence that Japanese-learning children before
the age of three know that the object-verb order is the basic word order of their target language.
This finding suggests that the early setting of the word-order parameter holds even for theacquisition of a free word-order language.

2.

VO Sentences in an OV Language
In Japanese, word order is flexible. For example, both Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) and OSVorders are possible for a simple transitive sentence.１

(1)

a.

SOV:

Eri-gasushi-otabetayo.

Eri-Nomsushi-Accate

Excl(amation)

Sushi-oEri-gatabetayo.

sushi-Acc

Eri-Nomate

Excl‘Eri ate sushi.’b.

OSV:In addition, English-like SVO order is available.
(2) SVO:

Eri-gatabetaEri-Nom ateyo,sushi-o.

Exclsushi-Acc

Yet, such SVO sentences exhibit various syntactic restrictions that do not apply to SOV order.
First, SVO order cannot appear in embedded contexts.
(3) a.

Ken-ga[Ken-Nomb. * Ken-ga[Ken-Nom

Eri-gasushi-otabeta

to ] omotteiru.

Eri-Nom sushi-Accate

CEri-gasushi-oto ] omotteiru.

sushi-Acc

Ctabeta,

Eri-Nom ate

thinkthink‘Ken thinks that Eri ate sushi.’Second, idiom chunks that consist of a verb and an object lose their idiomatic interpretation
when the object is located after the verb (Tanaka (2001, 575)).
(4) a.

Eri-gahara-otateta

Eri-Nomstomach-Acc

set upb. ??Eri-ga
Eri-Nomtatetaset upyo,
Exclyo.
Excl

hara-o.
stomach-Acc.

‘Eri got upset.’
Third, the SVO order is incompatible with direct-object wh-questions.

(5) a.

Eri-ganani-otabeta(no)?２Eri-Nom

what-Acc

ate

Qb. * Eri-ga
Eri-Nomtabeta(no),nani-o?

ateQwhat-Acc‘What did Eri eat?’
The existence of these restrictions on SVO sentences suggests that this is a marked order, derived
in some way from the basic SOV order, which has more freedom. In other words, the contrasts
exhibited in (3)-(5) indicate that Japanese is an SOV language that takes the head-final value ofthe head-complement parameter.
We will not go into the discussion of why the (b) examples in (3)-(5) are ungrammatical,
which is orthogonal to the acquisitional investigation to be pursued here (see e.g. Tanaka (2001)
for a concrete syntactic analysis). Instead, we will use their ungrammatical status as a ‘tool’ toinvestigate when Japanese-learning children reach the correct setting of the head-complementparameter.

3.

VO Sentences in Child JapaneseJapanese-learning children around the age of 2;5 (years;months) sometimes produce utterancesthat contain VO order.３ Some examples are provided in (6).
(6) a.

Yomoo,

koko.

readthis part‘Let’s read this part.’b.

Akete,

kore.

open

this

‘Open this.’(Aki, 2;7: Miyata (2004a))(Ryo 2;5: Miyata (2004b))

c.

Morattekita,kore.

gotthis‘(I) got this.’d.

(Tai 2;2: Miyata (2004c))

Tabenaino,nanimo.

eat-Neganything‘(You) don’t eat anything’(Jun 2;6: Ishii (2004))

There are two possible syntactic sources for these VO sentences in child Japanese. One
possibility is that the child has already figured out that the target language takes the head-final
value of the head parameter, and that VO sentences are derived from the OV order in exactly thesame way as in the adult grammar. The other possibility is that children are still entertaining both
values of the head parameter, and that sentences like those in (6) stem from the head-initial value.
If the former possibility is right, then VO sentences in the child’s speech should obey theconstraints on this order discussed in the previous section. On the other hand, if the latter
possibility is correct, then OV and VO sentences should have the same syntactic status in thechild grammar, and hence VO order should show no restrictions compared to the OV order.

4.

Transcript Analysis
In order to determine which of the two possibilities discussed in the previous section iscorrect, I analyzed four longitudinal corpora for Japanese from the CHILDES database(MacWhinney (2000)), which provide a total sample of more than 70,000 lines of child speech.
Since embedded sentences and idiom chunks are extremely rare in early child speech, I focusedon the restriction on direct-object wh-questions exemplified in (5), repeated here as (7).

(7) a.

Eri-ganani-otabeta(no)?

Eri-Nom

what-AccateQb. * Eri-ga
Eri-Nomtabeta(no),nani-o?

ateQ

what-Acc‘What did Eri eat?’
Every sentence with either OV order or VO order that appeared after the first clear use of adirect-object wh-question was picked out by hand.４ The corpora analyzed in this study aresummarized in Table 1, and the results of my transcript analysis are presented in Table 2. Some
actual utterances are given in the Appendix.

[Insert Tables 1&2 around here]

All the four children showed a clear contrast between (S)OV and (S)VO sentences: BothVO sentences and direct-object wh-questions occurred reasonably often, but there was only asingle (apparent) example of an object wh-question with VO order.５ This contrast suggests thatyoung Japanese-learning children already know that the head-final value is the correct setting,and that VO sentences have the same syntactic basis as for adults.６
If VO sentences in child Japanese are completely adult-like, we might reasonably expectthat the frequency of these sentences in the child’s spontaneous speech approximates that ofchild-directed speech. In order to obtain a representative case, I analyzed the child-directedspeech in the first twenty files of Aki corpus (Aki01-Aki20), which provide a total sample ofapproximately 6,000 lines of the mother’s speech. The results are summarized in Table 3.

[Insert Table 3 around here]By comparing Table 2 and Table 3, we can see that the degree to which children produce VO
utterances are not quite different from that of adults. This is consistent with the above conclusionthat VO order in child Japanese has the same grammatical basis as for adults.

5.

Conclusion
The results of my transcript analysis have revealed that VO sentences in child Japaneseobey a key syntactic restriction that holds for adult Japanese, which in turn demonstrates thatyoung Japanese-learning children already know that OV is the basic word order. This findingconstitutes a new piece of syntactic evidence for the early acquisition of basic word order inJapanese.
One theoretical implication of this study is as follows. Based on the findings from theacquisition of Germanic and Romance languages, Wexler (1996, 1998) proposed the hypothesis
of Very Early Parameter-Setting (VEPS):(8) Very Early Parameter-Setting (Wexler 1998, 25):
Basic parameters are set correctly at the earliest observable stages, that is, at leastfrom the time that the child enters the two-word stage, around 18 months of age.
According to Wexler (1998, 29), ‘basic parameters’ include at least the following:(9) a.

Word order, e.g. VO versus OV (e.g. Swedish versus German)b.

V to I or not (e.g. French versus English)c.

V2 or not (e.g. German versus French or English)d.

Null subject or not (e.g. Italian versus English or French)

In light of (8) and (9), the data from child Japanese reported in this study is consistent with
Wexler’s claim that the parameter determining the basic word order in a given language falls
under VEPS.７,８

However, our results would also be consistent with the view that, based on large amounts ofinput data, children derived a surface generalization that VO order is incompatible withdirect-object wh-questions. In order to exclude this possibility and to confirm that children assign
adult-like, abstract syntactic representations to VO sentences, it would be necessary todemonstrate that Japanese-learning children are also sensitive to other restrictions to the VO
order (for example, the restriction that VO order is limited to the matrix clause). Unfortunately,given the limitation of the available data, I have to leave this task for future research.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Tomohiro Fujii, Takuya Goro, Keiko Murasugi, Yukio Otsu, Deborah ChenPichler, Mamoru Saito, Tetsuya Sano, William Snyder, David Stringer, and two anonymous
reviewers for Language Acquisition for valuable comments and suggestions. I am also grateful tothe audience of the 29th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, wherea preliminary version of this paper was presented (Sugisaki (2005)). Any remaining errors are ofcourse my own. The research reported here was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid forScientific Research (B) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#17320062, Project
Leader: Seiki Ayano).

References
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Appendix: Examples from Child Japanese
Examples from Aki’s speech:a. (S)OV:
koko
juusu
utteru.
here
soft drinks
sell‘This (shop) sells soft drinks.’b. wh-question: empitsu doko
ittano@fp?９pencil
wherewent-Q‘Where did the pencil go?’c. (S)VO:
amite,kore!
hey lookthis‘Hey, look at this!’(file 36: 2;7.12)(file 36: 2;7.12)(file 36: 2;7.12)

Examples from Ryo’s speech:a. (S)OV:
Hirokun notsukueninotta.
HiroPossdeskDat
got on‘(I) got on Hiro’s desk.’(file r20927: 2;9.27)
b. wh-question: naniyatteru
no@fp ?
whatdoingQ‘What (are you) doing?’(file r20927: 2;9.27)
c. (S)VO:
Ryookun waiku,gakkoo.
RyoTopwill-go school‘Ryo will go to school.’(file r20913: 2;9.13)
Examples from Tai’s speech:a. (S)OV:
bokujoomotteru yo.
ranch
haveExcl‘(I) have a ranch.’(file t940414: 2;0.4)
b. wh-question: hoochoo
wadokoitchatta?
kitchen knife Top
wherewent‘Where did the kitchen knife go?’(file t940714: 2;3.4)c. (S)VO:jibun
de motteru, kore.
oneself by keep
this‘(I) keep this by myself.’(file t940526: 2;1.16)
Examples from Jun’s speech:a. (S)OV:
hai, reezooko mottekita .
here fridge
brought‘Here, I brought a fridge.”(file 20628: 2;6.28)
b. wh-question: naniyuuteru ?
whatsaying‘What is it saying?’(file 20628: 2;6.28)
c. (S)VO:
mekuttaro,
kore mo .
turn overthis also
‘I will turn this over, too.’(file 20628: 2;6.28)

Table 1: Corpora Analyzed
ChildAge

Number of child utterances

Collected byAki

2;6.15 - 3;0.0

12,415

Miyata (2004a)Ryo2;4.25 - 3;0.30

5,901

Miyata (2004b)Tai

1;9.3 - 3;1.29

29,980Miyata (2004c)

Jun

2;3.23 - 3;0.1

22,444Ishii (2004)(years;months.days)

Table 2: Results of the Transcript Analysis
AkiRyoTaiJun(S)OV (S)VO (S)OV (S)VO (S)OV (S)VO (S)OV (S)VO
Total number of utterances

518

38252

43112050754120

Number of direct-object wh-question

18504007011400% of direct-object wh-question

38.7

0

15.906.3

218.60

Table 3: Analysis of Child-directed Speech in Aki Corpus
Aki's Mother(S)OV(S)VO
Total number of utterances
Number of direct-object wh-question% of direct-object wh-question

505
114
22.6

2500

1.

For arguments that OSV order is derived from SOV order via movement (scrambling), seeSaito (1985) and Nemoto (1999), among many others.
2.

The Q-particle no can be omitted when the sentence is pronounced with an appropriatequestion intonation. See Yoshida and Yoshida (1997) and Ko (2005) for detailed discussion ofthe Q-particle drop phenomenon.
3.

As a reviewer correctly points out, the object in the VO order tends to be a demonstrative

expression (see also the examples given in the Appendix). In adult Japanese, postverbal objects
often express materials that are highly presupposed in the context (Kuno (1978)). Then, thisobservation suggests that young children are already sensitive to the pragmatic functions of thepostverbal objects, which is consistent with the main claim of this study that Japanese-learning
children acquire the basic OV order at a very early age. Clancy (1985) and Nomura (2007)
provide a detailed discussion on the pragmatic properties of the postverbal objects in child
Japanese.
4.

OV and VO sentences include not only sentences that contain a verb and a nominal object

but also those that contain a verb and a prepositional complement.
5.

The single apparent example of an object wh-question with VO order is given in (i). A

plausible analysis of this example would be that the child intended to say the sentence in (ii)(which is grammatical in adult Japanese) but mispronounced dokoka-ni ‘somewhere’ as doko-ni‘where’.
(i)

minna

haittaeveryone entered(ii) minna

haittaeveryone enteredno-ka-na, doko-ni .
Q

where

no-ka-na, dokoka-ni .
Qsomewhere(Tai 2;10.6: file t950216)

‘Did everyone enter somewhere?’
6.

Each file in the corpora contained approximately the same number of VO utterances (two tofive sentences), which suggests that the grammatical basis for this construction did not change inthe course of acquisition. I thank an anonymous reviewer for relevant discussion.
7.

See Chen (2001) for evidence from the acquisition of American Sign Language, which also

has a variable word order.
8.

Yet, recent acquisition studies have also revealed that not every parameter falls under VEPS.

See Snyder (2001) and Sugisaki (2003) for detailed discussion.
9.

The symbol “@fp” stands for “final particle”.