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Total 46 (44.7%) 21 (20.4%) 16 (15.5%) 3 (2.9%) 14 (13.6%) 3 (2.9%) Table 2: Kayla’s non-adult like use (103 tokens) of negation in third person contexts (3PS) according to
developmental phases
The shift in word order preference is also shown in Figure 3. During phase II and III Kayla
clearly prefers the German post-verbal placement of the negator in her English utterances.
This changes abruptly when she enters the fourth developmental phase at around the age of
3;07 years. Suddenly the use of preverbal negations in the English word order Neg+V
increases to over 60%. Next the possibility of transfer of V2, as a cause for non-adult like
negations in English, was investigated through the analysis of inflectional morphology of
lexical verbs in negative 3PS contexts.
Katharina Genske 96
Figure 3: Shift in word order preference in Kayla’s negation
During phases II and III the child strongly prefers the German word order in negative contexts
(Figure 3). Whether or not it is transfer of German V2 syntax that causes the occurrence of
these non-adult like utterances can be investigated through the use of inflection, as outlined in
section 2. Figure 4 depicts the use of inflection in negative contexts according to the English
Neg+V or German V+Neg word order within the three different developmental phases. It
becomes evident that Kayla inflects main verbs in negative contexts at a very high rate from
the very beginning of the study. While in phase II, when the German word order is still
preferred, the English data show an almost equal amount of inflected and bare verbs with
omitted inflectional morphology. The rate of inflected versus bare verbs clearly changes in
phase III. Here the inflection rate rises to over 65% in the English word order not+V, while
bare verbs decrease in occurrence. This rate becomes even higher in phase IV, where over
75% of lexical verbs in the English negative word order are inflected and the use of bare verb
forms in 3PS negative contexts drops to just over 20%. The only unexpected observation is
the increase in bare verb forms within the German word order, from 20% in phase II to nearly
twice as much at 40%, during phase III. As German remains the preferred word order in
negative contexts and the child still raises lexical verbs over negation to the V2 position the
numbers of omissions of morphology should stay low. However, these data can easily be
explained by fluctuation due to the child trying out different strategies in order to arrive at the
target syntax. Such an approach is especially notable during this developmental phase of great
transition, where many structures seem to change simultaneously, e.g. increased use of
negative auxiliaries, shift in word order preference, increase in inflection in English word
order and emerging use of do-support in the form of doesn’t.
Negation as formal flexible feature 97
Figure 4: Kayla’s use of inflection
The shift in word order preference also co-occurs with the emerging use of negative
auxiliaries, as can be seen in Figure 5. At age 3;07 years the use of clitic n’t overtakes
negation with the negator not. While at the beginning of the study the child uses the negator
not in 100% of all negations, this number slowly decreases to almost nothing at the end of the
study. The opposite development can be observed for the use of negative auxiliaries with
clitic n’t. Usage rates seem to change rather suddenly at the transition from phase III to phase
IV at age 3;07 years.
Figure 5: Kayla’s use of the negator not versus clitic n’t
Next the acquisition of do-support, specifically the form doesn’t, was examined. As predicted,
the negative auxiliary doesn’t is acquired relatively late, only in phase IV from age 3;07 years
onwards. Further, as soon as doesn’t emerges, the non-adult like utterances with agreement
Katharina Genske 98
errors decrease in number. With productive use of doesn’t at age 5;06 years non-adult like
negations decrease and Kayla successfully establishes a maximal projection NegP with clitic
negation occupying the head position, as highlighted in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Distribution of negation in head or specifier position in Kayla’s 3
rd person negation
5. Discussion
The aim of this study was to investigate claims made by the Interface Hypothesis (IH) and the
Formal Flexible Feature Hypothesis (FFFH) regarding the acquisition of negation of a
German-English bilingual child. Four clear predictions were made:
1. Unidirectional transfer of word order from German to English;
2. Agreement errors due to doubling or lowering of inflection over negation before head
negation are incorporated into the child’s syntax;
3. High rate of inflection in early negations, where English monolingual children tend to
omit inflectional morphology;
4. With the complete acquisition of do-support, specifically the form of doesn’t, non-
adult like English negation subsides.
The data presented here show that transfer occurs in the expected direction, exclusively from
German to English, as predicted by the IH. Overall Kayla produced more target-like
utterances than non-adult-like structures. Her German remained free of any English influence,
while her English non-adult like negations in 3PS contexts showed word order transfer from
German in 45% of the data. This highlights not only the difficulties this specific configuration
causes in Kayla’s early language development, but also that fusion as an explanation for the
occurrence of non-adult like negations is not plausible. Kayla is able to differentiate her
languages from early on and data analysis showed that V2 in German is acquired early and
used effectively at the onset of the study at age 2;10 years. The structure of V+not in English
negation has only been reported to occur with very low frequencies in previous studies
investigating cross-linguistic influences in German-English bilingual children (Döpke, 2000;
Schelletter, 2000). However, the current data demonstrate that transfer of V2, as predicted by
Negation as formal flexible feature 99
the IH, is a strong motivator for non-adult like negation in the bilingual child’s English.
Nevertheless, the data show a shift in preference from German word order V+Neg in phase II
and III to the English target word order Neg+V in phase IV (Figure 3). Current findings
contrast with previous studies, which found cross-linguistic influence to occur mainly in the
opposite direction, i.e. from English to German (Döpke, 1999). This can be explained by
differences in methodology. In the present study an elicitation method was used to elicit
negation in 3PS contexts. This had the advantage of gathering a large data set of an otherwise
infrequently occurring syntactic structure in naturalistic speech from just one individual.
However, elicitation experiments are designed to be highly felicitous to one specific structure
and encourage the child to produce utterances, which she might otherwise avoid in naturalistic
speech until they are securely established.
With regard to the second prediction, the data illustrate that the shift in word order
preference coincides with the increased usage of negative auxiliaries (Tables 1 and 2). While
can’t+V is present from the very beginning of the study and used correctly most of the time
(see Table 1), it can be argued that the child uses it as a chunked form of negation, especially
since other correctly used auxiliary+n’t combinations are absent or remain low in number
until phase IV. I also found that Kayla produced more non-adult like negations with negative
auxiliaries once they are used productively in phase IV (Table 2). The highest number of non-
adult like negations in 3PS contexts occurred with the negative auxiliaries don’t and didn’t.
Here the data attested ungrammatical utterances such as ‘It don’t swim-s’ (3;08 years) and ‘It-
s didn’t work-s’ (3;11 years), where inflection was either lowered over the negative clitic n’t
or even occurred doubled as a marker on the subject and the verb. These examples clearly
illustrate that the child has not yet mastered do-support. Such use of negative auxiliaries
displays agreement errors, which in turn demonstrate chunking in the form of negative
auxiliary+V to be the underlying structure in the child’s grammar (Cameron-Faulkner et al.
2007). Kayla has yet to realize that the clitic n’t constitutes a head in the English grammar,
and that lowering of the inflectional present tense –s marker violates the Head Movement
Constraint (Chomsky 1994), unless an adverbial treatment of negation in early stages is
assumed, as proposed by the FFFH (Zeijlstra 2007a; 2004). I will return to this point later,
when revisiting the fourth prediction regarding the status of negation in early acquisition.
The data illustrated in Figure 4 clearly demonstrate a high preference for using inflected
verbs in both word orders. While the inflection rate remains high in the word order V+not
throughout the study ranging from 80% in phase II to 70% in phase IV, the number of omitted
inflectional markers remains low. For the English target word order not+V a steady increase
in inflection rates from 50% in phase II to nearly 80% in phase IV can be observed. These
rates are unusually high compared to monolingual English speaking children. Phillips (2010)
cites inflection rates of as little as 10% in early utterances, which slowly increase to around
50% at the age of 4 years. English monolingual children tend to omit inflection at early stages
of development, which had previously been termed the Optional Infinitive Stage (Wexler &
Harris 1996). I conclude that our subject clearly displays influence of her German grammar in
her English inflection rates. Kayla moves the main verbs out of the VP through IP, where they
receive inflectional markers, as German V2 gets transferred to English from early on (see
Figure 3). English monolingual children do not display this kind of verb movement behavior,
which accounts for the discrepancy in rates of omission of inflectional morphology in early
stages. This difference diminishes in the last phase of acquisition. Another striking
observation is the preference for structures with not plus present progressive -ing. Utterances
such as She is not sleeping conform to the German syntax, representing a way to maintain V2
properties within English. They are also acceptable in adult English and an effective way of
Katharina Genske 100
avoiding the tricky operation of do-support in 3PS contexts. This use of negation allows the
child to treat negation adverbially and retain the V2 grammar on the surface, without
deviating from the two adult grammars. The high occurrence rate of 30% illustrates the
importance of avoidance as a strategy in bilingual first language acquisition.
The fourth prediction is displayed in Figure 5. Again, as previously demonstrated for word
order preference (prediction 1), agreement errors (prediction 2) and inflectional rates
(prediction 3) a major shift can be seen at the age of 3;07 years, in the transition from phase
III to phase IV. At this stage the use of clitic n’t negation overtakes negation with the free
negative marker not. While this change is not as abrupt as others it is still clearly observable;
Kayla progresses from using not as a negative marker in 100% of negation in the beginning of
the study to nearly exclusive usage of negative auxiliaries with the clitic n’t at the later
developmental stage. This development has also been attested in monolingual English
speaking children (Thornton & Tesan 2012), although at a younger age of approximately 3
years. This age delay can be explained with the fact that Kayla has to work out two critical
points in order to fully acquire the English syntax of negation compared with monolingual
English children. First she has to resolve the fact that English is a non-raising language. Also,
as described in the background section, English displays residual V2 in interrogatives and in
the behavior of be and have, which could lead Kayla to a raising analysis for English.
Secondly Kayla, just as her monolingual peers, has to figure out that adult English displays
two forms of negation: a) negating adverbial with the negative marker not and b) head
negation with the negative clitic n’t. This is harder for Kayla than for monolingual English
children, as the first option a) gets constantly reinforced by the German input, where negation
is only adverbial. In addition English-speaking children produce agreement errors (as
discussed under the second prediction), which could lead Kayla to hypothesize that English
negative auxiliaries are also used adverbially. These two differences in both target languages
delay the acquisition process for the subject by about 4 to 6 months.
The most critical observation is captured in Figure 6. It becomes evident that Kayla
progresses from initially assigning negation the status of a specifier to using almost
exclusively head negation by the end of the study. However, as proposed by the FFFH this
change does not imply a parameter resetting as proposed by previous studies (Meisel 2011;
Paradis & Genesee 1997; Schütze 2010; Tracy 1995). Rather the child is able to incorporate a
head negation to the already existing adverbial negation at a later stage in her development
(Thornton & Tesan 2012; Zeijlstra 2007a). Adverbial negation is already present in the early
stage, as it is the default form of negation. German exhibits only this type of negation, where
the adverbial use of negation does not block verb movement, thus it is able to coexist with the
V2 requirement. This influence is visible in Kayla’s use of inflection, as discussed within the
third prediction (Figure 4). As long as utterances such as ‘She fits not’ or ‘It didn’t swims’ are
produced, the child has not incorporated a NegP with head negation into her English grammar
and still uses negative auxiliaries as vP adjuncts. The use of an adverbial negative marker in
German means that it can be interpreted within the semantics. In other words, there is no need
to stipulate a maximal projection NegP in German. Contrary to Zeijlstra’s theory, where
negative concord (NC) triggers the progression from adverbial negation to head negation
(Zeijlstra 2004), I prefer to agree with Thornton and Tesan (2012), who claim the acquisition
of the negative auxiliary doesn’t serves as proof that children have successfully mastered the
syntax of English negation. The data confirm this hypothesis. As soon as Kayla uses doesn’t
productively, non-adult like negations in English vanish rapidly (Figure 6). Further data
analysis is needed to confirm these primary observations, for example the development of
negative questions of the type ‘Why don’t you like chocolate?’ or negative tags as ‘He loves
Negation as formal flexible feature 101
you, doesn’t he?’. These would serve as natural test cases for Tesan and Thornton’s (2012)
hypothesis, as children in the stage of using only semantic negation are unable to move
negative auxiliaries up to C. The head movement of a negative auxiliary only becomes
available to the child after the establishment of head negation and a maximal projection NegP.
However, this will have to be confirmed at a later stage, as data analysis of the acquisition of
(negative) interrogatives is still ongoing. It will also be up to future work to investigate the
role of the quality of the input the child receives, as both parents are non-native English
speakers (with near-native competence due to multiple long-term stays in English speaking
countries) with German as their L1. This could have altered the input the child receives and
encouraged the child’s preference for adverbial negation.
6. Conclusion
The study presented set out to explain the processes guiding the acquisition of sentential
negation in a German-English bilingual child. A combination of predictions arising from the
Interface Hypothesis (IH) and the Formal Flexible Feature Hypothesis (FFFH) were tested in
an elicitation study. For now we can conclude that the acquisition of negation for the subject
moves through two very distinct stages. The child comes to realize that 1) English is a non-
raising language and transfer of the German V2 properties to English lead to word order
violations resulting in ungrammatical utterances, and 2) that English features two types of
negation: adverbial with the negative marker not and head negation with negative auxiliaries.
In accordance with Thornton and Tesan’s (2012) analysis I also found that the acquisition of
do-support, specifically the productive use of the negative auxiliary doesn’t, triggers the
integration of a maximal projection NegP in the English target grammar. My data indicate
that, as long as the child has not incorporated syntactic negation in the form of head negation
with the clitic n’t and a NegP, negation can continue to be used adverbially as a formal
flexible feature in the child’s syntax. This further strengthens the assumption that there is no a
priori availability of a functional projection NegP in Universal Grammar.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the audience of the Macquarie HDR Showcase 2012, the ConSOLE XXI
conference in Potsdam 2013 and the Language Program Day at the ARC Centre of Excellence
in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD) 2013 for valuable feedback and discussions. Special
gratitude goes to Assoc./Prof. Rosalind Thornton, Prof. Stephen Crain, Dr. Michael Iverson,
Dr. Vincenzo Moscati and all the members of the Language Acquisition Group at Macquarie
University for their helpful advice and critiques. Additionally I am indebted to Michael
Sappir and Davina Tobin, who helped with collecting data.
Katharina Genske
Macquarie University (Sydney), Universität Leipzig