Draft: Paper presented at the Seventh GLOW in Asia (February 2009)

On Children’s NEEDs*
Koji Sugisaki
Mie University
sugisaki@human.mie‐u.ac.jp

1.

Introduction

Within the Principles‐and‐Parameters approach to UG (including the recent
Minimalist Program), a theory of cross‐linguistic variation is simultaneously a theoryof the child’s “hypothesis space” during language acquisition. The task for a child is
to identify the correct grammar for the community’s language from among thepossibilities permitted by UG. In principle, then, we can gain insight into the natureof permitted variation by investigating how the child’s grammar changes during thecourse of acquisition.
Recent studies of child language convincingly demonstrated that childlanguage acquisition is indeed a valuable source of evidence concerning possible
cross‐linguistic variation, especially in the domain of syntax. For example, Snyder(2001) revealed that English‐learning children acquire endocentric root compounds
and transitive verb‐particle constructions at around the same time, and proposed a
syntactic parameter that correlates these two distinct properties. Sugisaki & Snyder(2005/2006) provided evidence from child English for Kayne’s (1981) parametricproposal that the availability of preposition stranding is linked to the availability ofthe prepositional complementizer construction. In addition, Sugisaki (2008) showedthat the course of acquisition is consistent with the analysis (such as Hasegawa 2007)
that creates an implicational relationship between the languages that permits the

I would like to thank Takayuki Izawa for his help in analyzing children’s speech data. I am
grateful to R Amritavalli, Hiroshi Aoyagi, Hideki Kishimoto, Heejeong Ko, Keiko Murasugi,
Mamoru Saito, Tetsuya Sano, and especially to Stephanie Harves and William Snyder for
valuable suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply. This research was supported in part by aGrant‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research (B) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(#20320058, Project Leader: Seiki Ayano), and also by the grant from the Japanese Ministry of
Education and Science to Center for Linguistics at Nanzan University for establishment ofcenters for advanced research.
*‐1‐

swiping construction (Merchant 2002) and the languages that allows preposition
stranding.
In this study, I develop this line of research, and attempt to add another pieceof evidence that child language acquisition constitutes an important testing groundfor evaluating hypotheses about language variation. In contrast to the earlier studies,
the present study focuses on an (apparent) cross‐linguistic variation in the lexicon.
More specifically, this study evaluates the recent proposal by Harves & Kayne (2008)
and Harves (2008a,b) that, among Indo‐European languages, the languages that havea close counterpart of the transitive verb need are limited to a proper subset of thoselanguages that have a close counterpart of the transitive verb have. Our results fromchild English argue for the analysis by Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b)in which the transitive need is derived through an incorporation to a silent
counterpart of the transitive have.
2.

Have, Need, and Want: Accounting for their Cross‐linguistic Variation

It has been widely known that transitive verbs like need and want appear to take asimple DP argument which receives an intensional interpretation. The sentences
involving these transitive verbs exhibit two hallmark characteristics of intensional
contexts first discussed by Frege (1982): (i) Substitution of co‐referring terms need notpreserve truth, and (ii) non‐denoting objects need not induce falsity. For example,
substituting “Spiderman” in (1a) for “Peter Parker” in (1b) need not preserve truth,
even though these two terms are extensionally equivalent. The sentence in (2)remains true even though “a unicorn” has no reference in the actual world. In
contrast, regular transitive verbs do not exhibit these properties: Substitution of“Spiderman” for “Peter Parker” in (3) preserves truth, and the sentence in (4) is
simply false.
(1)

a.
b.

(2)

Ken needs/wants a unicorn.
a.
MJ met Spiderman.
b.
MJ met Peter Parker.
Ken owns a unicorn.

(3)
(4)

MJ needs/wants Spiderman.
MJ needs/wants Peter Parker.

Intensional transitive verbs need and want share other properties as well (seeLarson, den Dikken, and Ludlow 1997 and Schwarz 2007, among others). For‐2‐example, both of these verbs exhibit ambiguities with time adverbial adjuncts, as
illustrated in (5) (Schwarz 2007).
(5)

Matt needed/wanted some change before the conference.
a.
Paraphrase 1:
There was a time before the conference at which Matt needed/wantedsome change.
b.
Paraphrase 2:
What Matt needed/wanted is to have some change before the conference.

Yet, a recent, detailed cross‐linguistic survey of Indo‐European languages by
Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b) revealed that, despite such similarities,
these two transitive verbs significantly differ in their cross‐linguistic distribution.
They observe that the availability of a transitive verb corresponding to need isseverely limited in that it is present only in H(ave)‐languages, the languages that havea close counterpart of English have, which is an overt verb expressing ordinary
possession such that the possessor has nominative Case and the possessee is a direct
object (with accusative Case and no preposition). In other words, transitive need is
not available in B(e)‐languages, the languages that lack a close counterpart of have andexpress ordinary possession using some counterpart of be. For example, Czech is an
H‐language and has a transitive verb corresponding to need, while Russian is a
B‐language and lack a transitive need: As illustrated in (7b‐d), Russian expression that
corresponds to English need either requires a Dative‐Nominative pattern or requires a
preposition in front of its object.
(6)

Czech (Harves & Kayne 2008:5‐7, Harves 2008b:8):a.
Possession
Mají
nové
auto.
have‐3PL new
car‐ACC‘They have a new car.
b.
‘Need’
Tvoje
děti
tě
potřebují.
yourchildren‐NOM you‐ACC need‐3PL‘Your children need you.’c.
‘Want’
Petr
chce
nové
auto.
Petr‐NOM want‐3SG new
car‐ACC‘Petr wants a new car.’
‐3‐

(7)

Russian (Harves & Kayne 2008:3‐4, Harves 2008a:215):
a.
Possession
U
Ivana
budet
novajamašina.
at
Ivan‐GEN be‐FUT.3SG
newcar‐NOM.SG‘Ivan will have a new car.’b.
‘Need’Mnenužnaèta kniga.
me‐DAT necessary‐FEM that book‐NOM.FEM‘I need that book.’c.
‘Need’
Rebenoknuždaetsjavvašej
pomošči.
child‐NOM
need‐3SG
inyourhelp‐PREP‘The child needs your help.’d.
‘Need’* Rebenoknuždaetvašu
pomošč.
child‐NOM
need‐3SG
yourhelp‐ACCe.
‘Want’
Ivan
xočet
novujumašinu.
Ivan‐NOM
want‐3SG new
ca‐ACC‘Ivan wants a new car.’

Harves (2008a,b) observes that, in sharp contrast to the transitive need, atransitive verb corresponding to English want can be present both in H‐languages
and in B‐languages. For example, both Czech and Russian have a counterpart ofEnglish want, even though the former is an H‐language and the latter is a B‐language,as illustrated in (6c) and (7e), respectively.
Part of the comparative survey by Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b)
is summarized in Table 1.

‐4‐

EnglishGermanSpanishCzech
Icelandic
SwedishFrenchItalianBulgarianRussian
Hindi
Irish
Welsh

Possession?

Transitive need?

Transitive want?

have
have
have
have
have
have
have
have
have
be
be
be
be

YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO

YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO

Table 1: Cross‐linguistic Survey of Indo‐European Languages
In order to account for the cross‐linguistic generalization in Indo‐European
languages that a transitive verb corresponding to need is available only in
H‐languages, Harves & Kayne (2008) adopt a Hale & Keyser (1993) styleincorporation‐approach to verbal need, and propose a derivation in which nominal
need raises and incorporates into unpronounced verbal HAVE. They argue that theincorporation of nominal need into silent HAVE results in the appearance of atransitive need inheriting the accusative Case licensing properties of HAVE.
(8)

VP
qp
N+V
NP
need + HAVE
rutDP

By assuming that the presence of a silent verb in a language requires an overt
counterpart, the lack of transitive need in B‐languages follows straightforwardly fromthe derivation shown in (8): Since silent HAVE constitutes a necessary component in
the derivation in (8), transitive need is available only in those languages that can
expresses possession using transitive have. Put another way, B‐languages lacktransitive need precisely because they lack transitive have and by extension its silent
counterpart.
‐5‐

As we can see in Table 1, there are H‐languages that lack transitive need, whichindicates that the presence of transitive verbal have is a necessary but not sufficientcondition for licensing verbal need in a given language. For example, French has
transitive have (and want) but still lacks transitive need, as illustrated in (9).
(9)

French (Harves & Kayne 2008:13, Harves 2008b:6‐7):a.
Possession
J’ai
une voiture.
I‐have‐1SG acar‘I have a car.’b.
‘Need’
J’ai
besoind’unevoiture.
I‐have‐1SG
need
of‐a
car
‘I need a car.’c.

‘Want’
Jeveux
une voiture.
Iwant‐1‐SG acar‘I want a car.’

Harves (2008b) speculates that the restricting factor would be the availability of anincorporation operation: The H‐languages that disallow transitive need would be
those that lack incorporation altogether. Then, in order for a language to have verbal
need, the language must permit both a silent counterpart of transitive have and anincorporation operation.
To summarize, Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b) observe that, eventhough transitive want can be present both in H‐languages and in B‐languages,
transitive need is available only in a subset of H‐languages. To account for thiscross‐linguistic distribution of verbal need in Indo‐European languages, they
proposed an analysis in which transitive need involves incorporation into the silent
counterpart of transitive have.1

1. In order to account for the intensionality effects observed with need and want, Harves(2008b) proposed that these transitives select for a hidden vP complement, building on the
Small Clause analysis by Schwarz (2007). Crucially, under the analysis by Harves, languages
differ as to which verb is embedded within this clausal complement: In H‐languages, thisstructure involves silent HAVE or GET, while in B‐languages, the structure involves silent
BE. See Harves (2008b) for details.
‐6‐

3.

Prediction for the Acquisition of English

Even though Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b) are quite careful inlimiting their generalization to Indo‐European languages, one may criticize theircomparative survey by saying that the sample size is relatively small, by thestandards of language typology. In addition, the diagnostics employed are quite
superficial, and it would be necessary to become more precise about what counts as
the counterpart of “transitive need” and of “transitive have”.
In light of these potential problems, evidence from acquisition can be especiallyvaluable: We can overcome these difficulties by deriving and testing the acquisitional
prediction of their proposal. According Harves & Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b),
among Indo‐European languages, natural‐language grammars permitting transitiveneed are a proper subset of those permitting transitive have. In terms of acquisition,
this generalization suggests that the knowledge of verbal have constitutes a proper
subset of the knowledge required for deriving verbal need. Then, in the acquisition ofa language like English that has both transitive have and need, when the presence of
have is acquired earlier than other prerequisites for transitive need (such as theavailability of an incorporation operation), children will acquire transitive haveearlier than transitive need. On the other hand, when the presence of have is thelast‐acquired prerequisite for transitive need, children will acquire transitive have andneed at around the same time. Hence, the proposal by Harves & Kayne (2008) andHarves (2008a,b) makes the following ordering prediction for the acquisition ofEnglish.
(10) Prediction for the Acquisition of English:
In English, any given child will acquire transitive have prior to, or at around thesame time as, but never significantly later than transitive need.
The comparative survey by Harves (2008a,b) suggests that, in contrast to verbal
need, there should be no derivational link between transitive have and transitive want.
Then, we can expect that children learning English will not exhibit any strict ordering
effect between have and want. In the next section, we investigate the acquisition oftransitive have, need, and want in English, with the goal of evaluating the prediction in
(10).

‐7‐

4.

Transcript Analysis

In order to determine the validity of the prediction in (10), I analyzed ten
longitudinal corpora for English from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney 2000),
which provided a total sample of more than 246,000 lines of child speech. The
corpora analyzed in this study are summarized in Table 2. For each child, I locatedthe first clear uses of (i) transitive have, (ii) transitive need, and (iii) transitive want. To
count as a clear use, these verbs were required to be followed by an overt DP object.
The CLAN program Combo, together with a file of all the relevant forms of thesepredicates, was used to identify potentially relevant child utterances, which werethen searched by hand and checked against the original transcripts to exclude
imitations, repetitions, and formulaic routines.
Child

Collected byAge Span# Child Utterances

Adam
Anne
Aran
Becky
Eve
Naomi
Nina
Peter
Sarah
Shem

Brown (1973)
Theakston et al. (2001)
Theakston et al. (2001)
Theakston et al. (2001)
Brown (1973)
Sachs (1973)
Suppes (1973)
Bloom (1970)
Brown (1973)
Clark (1978)

2;03 – 4;10
1;10 – 2;09
1;11 – 2;10
2;00 – 2;11
1;06 – 2;03
1;02 – 4;09
1;11 – 3;03
1;09 – 3;01
2;03 – 5;01
2;02 – 3;0245,555
19,902
17,19323,33911,563
15,96031,50526,89137,012
17,507

Table 2: Corpora Analyzed
Results are summarized in Table 3. All ten children produced transitive have,need and want by the end of their corpora. Following Stromswold (1996) and Snyder(2007), the age of acquisition was taken as the first clear use, followed soon after by
repeated use. Mean age of acquisition for transitive have was 2;01 (years:months),
with a range of 1;06 to 2;05. Mean age of acquisition for transitive need was 2;03, witha range of 1;09 to 2;08. Mean age of acquisition for transitive want was 2;00, with arange of 1;06 to 2;06.

‐8‐

ChildTransitive haveTransitive needTransitive wantAdam

2;04.032;06.17

2;06.03Anne

1;11.082;02.12

1;10.17Aran

2;02.25

2;08.12

1;11.12Becky

2;02.30

2;03.27

2;02.15

Eve

1;06

1;09

1;06

Naomi

1;10.18

1;10.18

1;09.26

Nina

2;00.24

2;02.122;01.06

Peter

2;00

2;01

2;00

Sarah

2;05.30

2;08.022;03.07Shem

2;03.16

2;03.022;02.16

Mean

2;01

2;03

2;00

Table 3: Ages of Acquisition
To evaluate the statistical significance of observed age differences between
acquisition of transitive have on one hand and acquisition of transitive need and wanton the other, I counted the number of clear uses of the earlier construction before thefirst clear use of the later construction. Next I calculated the relative frequency of thetwo constructions in the child’s own speech, starting with the transcript after the firstuse of the later construction, and continuing through the end of the corpus. A
Binomial Test was then used to obtain the probability of sampling the observed
number of tokens of the earlier construction simply by chance, before the first clear
use of the later construction. The null hypothesis for the test is that the second
construction was grammatically available at least as early as the first construction,and had the same relative frequency observed in later transcripts (Stromswold 1996,
Snyder 2007).
The results of the statistical analysis are summarized in Table 4. Four children
acquired verbal have significantly earlier than verbal need, and the remaining six
children acquired these two predicates at approximately the same age (no significant
difference, p > .10). Crucially, no child in this study acquired transitive needsignificantly earlier than transitive have, as predicted in (10). In sharp contrast, in thecase of transitive have and want, two children acquired transitive have significantly
earlier than transitive want, six children acquired transitive have significantly later
than transitive want, and the remaining two children acquired these two predicates atapproximately the same age. Hence, the results of my transcript analysis indicate thateven though the order of acquisition between transitive have and transitive want canvary from child to child, the order of acquisition between transitive have and‐9‐transitive need is quite strict: Children never acquire transitive need significantly
earlier than transitive have.
Transitive have vs. Transitive needTransitive have vs. Transitive wantChild

Early acquiredp=

Early acquired

p=

Adam

have

p < .05have

p < .05

Anne

have

p < .01want

p < .001

Aran

have

p < .001

want

p < .001

Becky

at around the same timep > .05want

p < .001

Eve

at around the same timep > .10have

p < .05

Naomi

at around the same time

‐‐‐‐‐

want

p < .001

Nina

have

p < .001

at around the same timep > .05

Peter

at around the same timep > .10at around the same time

‐‐‐‐‐

Sarah

at around the same timep > .10want

p < .01

Shem

at around the same timep > .10want

p < .001

Table 4: Results of the Statistical Analysis
A possible alternative explanation for the observed order of acquisition in
English would be to say that the order merely reflects the frequency of thesepredicates in the child‐directed speech. In order to determine whether such
input‐based account can be maintained, I analyzed the same ten corpora and counted
the number of sentences involving transitive have, want, and need in the mother’sutterances, up to the point when the child begins using all of these transitive verbs.
The results are summarized in Table 5. In the adult speech, transitive have tended tobe most frequent and transitive need tended to be least frequent. Since there werechildren who acquired verbal have significantly later than verbal want, and also
children who acquired verbal have and need at around the same time, the frequency
in the adult input cannot be regarded as the crucial factor that explains the order ofacquisition of these predicates.

‐ 10 ‐

ChildFiles analyzed

Transitive haveTransitive needTransitive want

Adam

01‐08

54

12

17

Anne

01a‐14a

244

33

129

Aran

01a‐27a

539

85

162

Becky

01a‐12a

132

17

93

Eve

01‐08

196

13

59

Naomi

01‐15

35

1

39

Nina

01‐14

159

2

21

Peter

01‐07

12

0

15

Sarah

001‐024

58

3

47

Shem

01‐04

7

1

7

Table 5: Frequency of have, need, and want in the child‐directed speech
5.

Conclusion

The results of my transcript analysis greatly strengthen the generalization by Harves& Kayne (2008) and Harves (2008a,b) that, at least among Indo‐European languages,
natural‐language grammars permitting transitive need are a proper subset of thosepermitting transitive have. The findings lend acquisitional support to their analysis
that transitive need is derived through incorporation to a silent counterpart oftransitive have, and consequently, to a decompositional approach to predicates (Hale& Keyser 1993). A broader implication of this study is that the time course oflanguage acquisition provides an important testing ground to evaluate proposals
regarding syntactic variation, which in turn suggests that child language ispotentially a valuable source of evidence concerning the nature of variation
permitted by human language (Snyder 2001, 2007, Sugisaki 2003).

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