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Factors contributing to child scrambling: evidence from Ukrainian*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2011

ROKSOLANA MYKHAYLYK
ROKSOLANA MYKHAYLYK*
Affiliation:
Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics (CASTL), University of Tromsø
*
Address for correspondence: Roksolana Mykhaylyk, Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics (CASTL), Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway. tel: (47) 776-45-893; e-mail: roksolana.mykhaylyk@uit.no
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Abstract

This study examines the word order phenomenon of optional scrambling in Ukrainian. It aims to test factors such as semantic features and object type that have been shown to affect scrambling in other languages. Forty-one children between 2 ; 7 and 6 ; 0, and twenty adult speakers participated in an elicited production experiment. The picture description task was used to set appropriate semantic contexts to prompt the production of scrambled structures. The results demonstrate that the children scrambled at higher rates in definite/partitive contexts than in indefinite/non-specific contexts. This suggests that children are susceptible to the same semantic features that are associated with NP scrambling in adult production. However, they differ from adults in pronominal scrambling and approximate adult scrambling behaviour only around four to five years. These findings underline the complex nature of syntax/semantics/phonology correlation in scrambling, and contribute to our understanding of the issue of optionality in child and adult grammar.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , June 2012 , pp. 553 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

[*]

Previous versions of this article have been presented at GALA 9th and The Acquisition Workshop at GLOW-32. I thank the audiences at these meetings, as well as Irina Sekerina, Kenneth Wexler, John F. Bailyn, Richard Larson, Heejeong Ko and the Acquisition group at CASTL for helpful comments and discussions.

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