Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: First Language Acquisition of English Main and Embedded Questions

本论文项目探讨儿童如何学习英语作为他们的第一语言习得英语问题的语法。本研究的最终目的是有助于理解为什么某些类型的错误，而不是其他类型的错误，在语言习得中发生，以及这些错误与输入频率和单个单词的属性之间的关系。该研究将包括主语-助动词倒装的两种欠概括情况（在直接问题中主语和助动词倒装失败，例如，“你为什么在笑？”）以及过度概括的情况（在间接疑问句中过度使用主辅倒装，例如，“我不知道现在几点了”）。由于这些形式在成年母语使用者的言语中完全不存在，这些是语言学习机制创造的语言模式。本研究的结果将有助于揭示疑问结构的习得以及语言习得中泛化机制的本质。

This dissertation project examines how children learning English as their first language acquire the grammar of English questions. The ultimate goal of this study is to contribute to an understanding of why some types of errors, but not others, occur in language acquisition, and how these errors relate to input frequency and the properties of individual words. The research will include both cases of under-generalization of subject-auxiliary inversion (failure to invert the subject and the auxiliary in direct questions, e.g., "Why you are laughing?") and also cases of over-generalization (over-application of subject-auxiliary inversion in indirect questions, e.g., "I don't know what time is it.") Since such forms are entirely absent from the speech of adult native speakers, these are linguistic patterns created by the language learning mechanism. The outcomes of the proposed studies will shed light on the acquisition of interrogative structures and on the nature of generalization mechanisms in language acquisition.