!is is a contribution from Experience, Variation and Generalization. Learning a !rst language. Edited by Inbal Arnon and Eve V. Clark. © 2011. John Benjamins Publishing Company

!is electronic "le may not be altered in any way.!e author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF "le to generate printed copies to be used by way of o#prints, for their personal use only.Permission is granted by the publishers to post this "le on a closed server which is accessible to members (students and sta#) only of the author’s/s’ institute, it is not permitted to post this PDF on the open internet.For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact rights@benjamins.nl or consult our website: www.benjamins.com

Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Developing !rst contrasts in Spanish verb in"ectionUsage and interaction

Cecilia Rojas NietoInstituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

!is paper o"ers evidence of the strong parallelism between mother and child usage for exemplars of verb forms. Both mother and child usage reveal little in#ectional productivity, a highly skewed distribution of in#ection forms, and item-based frequency for speci$c in#ectional forms. !e contrasting forms of a verb depend on how that verb is ‘modeled’ in maternal speech. Mother and child uses of in#ected forms show small clusters of verbs marked by the same in#ectional contrasts. !is emergent organization does not necessarily point to depend on abstract guiding principles or on the underlying semantics of verbs. Rather they direct attention to the pragmatic functions and syntactic constructions where particular verb-in#ection combinations occur.

Keywords: Exemplars; Verb in#ection contrasts; Spanish acquisition

!. Introduction

Studies of morphological development have included as one topic how children acquire in#ectional verb forms. Competing theories have produced various questions and predicted di"erent developmental trajectories. Although these questions have been motivated by di"erent theories of acquisition, most share a common assumption: they expect and look for a uniform and verb-general developmental trajectory.

In the $rst generation of questions, morphological development was explained by the abstract organization of the morphological system with base forms, and/or more transparent patterning. Verbs were expected to $rst take an unmarked (basic in#ected or unin#ected) form (Bittner, Dressler & Kilani-Schoch 2003: xxii). And, despite obvious cross-linguistic di"erences, the default was con-sidered to be an in$nitival form (Wexler 1994, 1998). Questions posed by the

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

"# Cecilia Rojas Nieto

second generation were more attentive to verb semantics and cognitive elabora-tion. In one in#uential view, verbs and in#ectional categories were acknowledged to form di"erent semantic groups, and to select each other in terms of a ‘proto-type’ account. Predictions about early in#ections on verbs were based on Aktion-sart: Perfective in#ections were expected with telic verbs (achievements and accomplishments); nonperfective in#ections, like present or progressive forms, were expected with atelic verbs (activities and states) (Jackson-Maldonado & Maldonado 2001; Li & Bowerman 1998; Shirai & Andersen 1995).

A third generation of questions, informed by usage-based views of language, has opened up the debate still further. Usage-based research in both adult and child language has shown that the overall regularities that abstract grammar attri-butes to language di"er from the skewed and biased selections of actual language use (Bybee & Hopper 2001). !e supposition that in#ection is optimally produc-tive and that every lexical verb combines with every available verb in#ection is far from realistic (Stump 1998: 42). Verbs selectively combine with particular in#ections only under particular conditions of use. Lexical semantics, syntactic constructions, and discourse organization all have an impact on verb + in#ection combinations. !is results in highly selective, skewed, even idiosyncratic combi-nations of verbs and in#ectional forms (Bybee 1985, 1988; Clark 1996; Moreno de Alba 1978; Shirai & Andersen 1995).

Children’s experience of verb in#ection in parental usage appears to be equally, or maybe even more skewed. Speci$c patterns of su%xation and in#ec-tion are related, even restricted, to subclasses of verbs (Aksu Koç 1998; Clark 1996, 1998; Küntay & Slobin 1996). Lexical semantics biases verb-in#ection combinations in adult usage, and hence in the exemplars children have access to (Aguirre 2002; Aksu Koç 1998; Jackson-Maldonado & Maldonado 2001; Jackson- Maldonado 2004; Shirai 1998; Shirai & Andersen 1995; Stoll 1998). Experimen-tal testing has shown children’s conservative learning of modeled exemplars (Brooks & Tomasello 1999; Li & Bowerman 1998; Stoll 1998; Tomasello 2003; !eakston, Lieven & Tomasello 2003). We would expect similar sensitivity to the selective and skewed combinations of verb in#ection found in parental usage.

Usage–based research on language development does not predict a unique developmental trajectory for verb in#ections, but instead assumes the emergence of morphology will be item-based, dependent on the concrete exemplars of verb forms children have heard used (Tomasello 2000, 2003). From this view, both idiosyncratic verb-in#ection pairings, and even regular combination if any, appar-ently due to abstract guiding principles (e.g. the proposed Aktionsart-in#ection solidarities, or unmarked form selections), should re#ect the prominence of adult exemplars of verb-in#ection pairs, which instantiate and model both general and particular uses of verb forms.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish ""

Usage predicts that morphological development will not follow a particular course; rather, one should $nd particular verb-in#ection pairings and emer-gent regularities, but not any general trajectory for in#ectional forms. It also predicts that combinatorial regularities and idiosyncratic forms will be related to children’s experience. In short, verb in#ection learning is lexically based (Lieven, Pine & Baldwin 1997). In#ectional forms are experienced in concrete exemplars with speci$c verbs, so those particular in#ected forms are learned with those particular verbs, and there is no initial default nor a generalized trajectory for all verbs. !e adult’s combinatorial options and modeled regu-larities will emerge in the child’s uses in a piecemeal fashion. !ese provide the building blocks for latter schematizations (Bowerman 1985; Elman 1990; Pine, Lieven & Rowland 1998; Pizzuto & Caselli 1992, 1994; Stemberger & MacWhinney 1988; Tomasello 2003).

$. Method

$.! Focus and scope

Given the variable conditions that may a"ect the learning of verbal in#ections from skewed parental usage, this study focuses on the emergence of contrasting in#ected forms for early verbs in a child learning Mexican Spanish. I adopt a usage-based perspective (Bybee 1988; Bybee & Hopper 2001; Lieven, Pine & Bald-win 1997; Tomasello 2000, 2003), with the goal of describing the $rst contrast-ing in#ections that appear with speci$c verbs, and identifying any preferences in particular verbs for speci$c in#ectional forms. I also examine the possible impact of concrete exemplars of verb in#ection for the early development of a verb para-digm. !e research questions I address are the following:

1. What are the $rst contrasting in#ectional forms for a verb? How do early verbs develop a paradigm? Do all verbs follow a common trajectory or do they display lexically-speci$c patterns of morphological development?

2. How are earlier contrasting in#ections for child verbs related to the same verb forms in maternal uses?

$.$ !e data

!e data consist of the longitudinal records of verbs produced spontaneously by one child, an urban middle class Mexican Spanish monolingual girl, aged 19 to 26 months (MLU 1;2 – 2;5), and all the maternal verbs addressed to this child.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

"% Cecilia Rojas Nieto

!e verbs were obtained from “ETAL: Etapas tempranas en la adquisición del len-guaje” (Rojas-Nieto 2007).1

All the lexical verbs and in#ection forms produced by the child have been identi$ed (122 lexical verb types, 3666 tokens). !ese data come from 20 two-hour recording sessions, made at 7-to-10-day intervals, for some 6–8 hours of sampling per month. !is sampling corresponds to about 2 to 3% of the child’s estimated production (Tomasello & Stahl 2004: 105). Studies of sampling have shown that for at least some phenomena, 4-hour samples per month have a close $t to inten-sive diary data (Rowland, Fletcher & Freudenthal 2008: 19). I consider 6–8 hours per month to be adequate for testing lexical speci$city in early verb in#ection combinations. At the same time, the documentation for particular verbs and verb in#ection combinations presents some di%culty. High frequency verbs are amply documented; low frequency verbs are not. !e fact is that some verbs occur in only one session, with a reduced number of tokens, maybe just one, and no in#ec-tional change. Other verbs are very frequent and display a variety of in#ections (e.g. ir ‘go’). Some frequent verbs reveal no in#ectional diversity, and are used exclusively in a single form (e.g. mirar ‘look’). In#ectional diversity, then, does not depend directly on verb frequency. Nevertheless, since my aim here is to track the emergence of in#ectional contrasts, I have set criteria so as to include particular verbs in tracing the emergence of in#ected forms. By de$nition, no ‘one token-one sample’, or ‘one sample-one single in#ection’ verb is appropriate in such an analysis. !is by itself eliminates from consideration some 30 verbs, out of the total 122 types. !e remaining 92 verbs provide the material for the overall analyses. A more stringent criterion pertains to the in#ectional development of speci$c verbs. I set a minimal Freq(uency) + Req(uired) criterion, where Freq requires at least 5 tokens of each verb. Req requires that each verb be used in three di"erent sessions. Together, these two criteria (Freq + Req) select 62 verb types from the child’s lexical inventory. !ese represent half (51%) the total verb types used by the child (n = 122), and 3,526 tokens, or 96% of the total 3666 occur-rences of verbs. !ese 62 verbs, then, should yield a clear picture of the way verbs develop, and the in#ectional forms that emerge over time.

To test the possible e"ect of maternal verbs in child’s early in#ected forms, I identi$ed all verbs the mother addressed to the child (202 verb types), but consid-ered only the 92 verbs matched to the child’s verbs for overall counts. In addition, to see if the child’s in#ectional patterns with a particular verb relate to the mother’s usage, I focus on the 62 verbs that meet the Freq + Req criteria for the child. When

!. ETAL is a longitudinal database from the Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Univer-sidad Nacional Autónoma de México, supported by Conacyt (Project 30798-H).

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish "&

the mother’s verbs present a variable but uneven number of forms, I set Freq (n > 5), to highlight the main in#ectional contrasts for that verb.

$.' In#ectional forms in Spanish

Spanish is a richly in#ected fusional language. Verbs may have as many as 44 in#ections in Mexican Spanish, which has lost 2& forms across all paradigms. Verb in#ections are mainly fused: a morphological form can simultaneously code tense, aspect, mode, person and number. !ere are three verb classes, each identi$ed by its theme vowel: -a, -e, -i. !ere is no unmarked verb form, unless the radical (root + vowel theme) is so considered. For regular verbs, the radical form displays both imperative and indicative present 3'( forms (come tú )*& ‘you eat’; él come ‘he eats’). !e in$nitive is marked with a $nal -r (cantar ‘sing’, temer ‘fear’, partir ‘depart’). !e only imperative form in Mexican Spanish is a 2'( form. For negative imperative functions, the subjunctive forms are used: no comas (eat-'+,-.2'( ‘don’t eat’), with subjunctive 3& forms for plural addressees (coman eat-'+,-.3&. ‘you.2&. eat’). !e loss of 2& in#ections in Mexican Spanish (cantáis, ‘sing-&/0'.2&.’, cantad ‘sing-)*&.2&.’) has led 3& forms to be used instead (cantan ‘you sing.&/0'.3&.’ = 2&.; canten ‘sing-'+,-.&/0'.3&.’ = 2&.). !e most frequent verbs in maternal and child speech (ser ‘to be’, ir ‘to go’, hacer ‘to do, to make’, estar ‘to be [locative]’) are irregular and contain some suppletive forms.

'. Analysis

'.! In#ectional inventory

In!ectional forms in child usage. During the period under study, the in#ectional categories the child uses attain 16 di"erent in#ection types. !e most prominent forms are imperatives, in$nitives and 1'(, 2'(, and 3'( present tense forms; but subjunctives and past indicative forms also occur (Rojas-Nieto 2003a). In#ection distribution among lexical items is severely skewed. !e verb in#ection inven-tory includes verbs with a single in#ected form across some (or even all) samples and verbs with a relatively large number of di"erent in#ected forms. !e data in Figure 1 does not include the 30 verbs characterized as ‘one token-one sample’, or ‘one sample-one in#ectional form’ verbs. Otherwise there would be a misleading apparent increase of the verb group with just one in#ection form.

On a closer view of how particular lexical items $t into this $gure, we $nd that verbs with two-in#ectional forms by themselves constitute the more robust group (20 types, 22%). By the end of the period, half the verbs have reached between 3 and 6 in#ectional forms (46 types, 50%), and 16 verbs (18%) still have only one

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

"( Cecilia Rojas Nieto

single in#ectional form. Only the irregular, suppletive, and highly frequent verb ir ‘go’ reached 12 in#ection forms. Some highly frequent verbs (9 types, 10%) have appeared with between 7 and 9 forms: e.g. poner ‘put’, quitar ‘take/move o" ’, ver ‘see’, dormir ‘sleep’, pasar ‘cross’, comer ‘eat’.

Verb

type

s

25

20

15

10

5

01 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12

Child’s Inflection diversity

Figure 1. In#ectional diversity in the child’s verbs (n = 92)

In!ectional diversity in maternal verbs. !e overall in#ectional variety of lex-ical verbs is much the same in the mother’s speech as in the child’s. Although the mother’s verbs display more in#ections, they still fall short of the 44 possible in#ections a Spanish verb can take. !e lexical distribution of verb in#ections in maternal usage is as varied as in the child.

!e mother’s lexical verbs may be used with di"erent numbers of in#ectional forms, from 1 to 20. Half the verbs occur with 1 to 4 in#ected forms (n = 41, 50%). !e rest take between 5 and 12 in#ections. !ere are just three verbs with a still wider variety of forms: poner ‘put’ (n = 14), ir ‘go’ (n = 15), and hacer ‘make, do’ (n = 20).

15 20

Verb

type

s

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 14

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

0

Mother’s Inflection diversity

Figure 2. In#ection diversity in maternal verbs (n = 92)

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish ")

!is high in#ectional diversity disguises the fact that many verb + in#ection pairs are rare. What is most common in maternal usage is adherence to one, two or three main in#ected forms, the rest being very infrequent. So, on a closer Req + Freq (n > 5) constrained view, then, in#ectional diversity is reduced: regardless of the number of in#ected forms for a speci$c verb, only a handful among them is used frequently: the most diverse of the 62 matched verbs reduces to just 8, and 20 verbs (32%) have just one dominant in#ected form (Figure 3).

To get a better idea of how this reduction in in#ectional diversity occurs, consider the three most highly in#ected verbs: among the 20 in#ected forms of hacer ‘make, do’, only 8 are used more than $ve times each: hacer ()12 = 33); hace (&/0'.3'( = 26), haces (&/0'.2'( = 11); hizo (&3'4.3'( = 9); hacen (&/0'.3&. = 8), hiciste (&3'4.2'( = 6), hacemos (&/0'.1&. = 6), hago (&/0'.1'( = 6). Only eight in#ected forms out of 15 used with ir ‘go’ appear in more than $ve tokens: vamos (&/0'.1&. = 121), va (&/0'.3'( = 40), vas (&/0'.2'( = 31), ir ()12 = 11), (se) fue (&3'4.3'( = 7). For the verb poner ‘put’, only $ve forms out of the 14 used are common: poner ()12 = 41); pon(lo) ()*& = 22), pongo (&/0'.1'( = 15) ponemos (&/0'.1&. = 13), ponga ('+,-.3'( = 7).

15

25

10

20

5

Lexi

cal v

erbs

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 80

Mother’s signi!cant inflectional diversity (n > 5)

Figure 3. Signi$cant in#ectional diversity in mother’s verbs (n > 5)

Although comparative data are not really available, this may be the normal case in maternal speech, even if the language has highly in#ected verbs. Küntay & Slobin (1996: 274) made similar observations for the Turkish verb koy ‘put’, with 18 in#ected forms and 126 tokens. Only four in#ected forms had $ve or more tokens: (i) koy ‘put’ (n = 53); (ii) koy-ma, put-10( ‘don’t put’ (n = 20); (iii) koy-al"m, put-5&4.1&. ‘let’s put’ (n = 18); (iv) koy- acag-"m, put-2+4.1'( ‘I will put’ (n = 5). !e forms koy-acag-iz put-2+4.1&. ‘we’ll put’ and koy-acak-sin put-2+4.2'( ‘you’ll put’ were used only 4 times, and the 12 remaining in#ected forms had just one or two tokens each.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

%* Cecilia Rojas Nieto

Data like this make clear that the child’s experience with in#ectional forms for particular verbs is quite diverse. It is seldom the case that every verb appears with the same in#ected forms. Frequently used verbs rarely present a wide num-ber of in#ected forms. And verbs with a wide number of in#ected forms do not make equivalent use of each one of them. !e child experiences verb in#ection combinations in adult usage that are skewed on a variety of dimensions.

'.$ Developing a verb paradigm

!e overall in#ectional variety in child verbs only gradually attains the point rep-resented in Figure 1. Almost every verb is used $rst with a single in#ected form (Aguado 2004; Aguirre 2002; Ezeizabarrena 1996; Gathercole, Sebastián & Soto 1999; Rojas 2003a; Serrat & Serra 1996), and progressively adds contrasting forms to develop what may count as a miniparadigm (Aguirre 2003; Bittner, Dressler, & Kilani-Schoch 2003; Gathercole, Sebastián & Soto 2003).

Table 1. Gradual emergence of contrasting in#ected forms in the 62 verbs $tting Req + Freq criteria by age

IFs per verb item 19m 20m 21m 22m 23m 24m 25m 26m

IFs = 1 7 12 23 18 14 6 4 3IFs = 2 1 3 10 12 10 11 6IFs = 3 4 9 17 11 9IFs = 4 1 4 14 7 12IFs = 5 1 1 5 8 8IFs = 6 1 3 9 14IFs = 7 0 3 2IFs = 8 1 2 4IFs = 9 0 2IFs = 10 1 0IFs = 12 1

Table 1 illustrates this: verbs ascending move from le6 to right, with a grad-ual non-monotonic and asynchronous displacement of a lexical verb from a sin-gle in#ected form to a varied set of contrasting in#ectional forms. !is move is dependent on each particular verb, with no speci$c rhythm or targeted move-ment towards particular in#ectional forms. Even highly frequent verbs do not necessarily lose the one-in#ectional form per verb pro$le. Nevertheless, around 22–23 months of age there is a change. While at 22 months most verbs have a

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish %!

single in#ected form, by 23 months most verbs already have two or more con-trasting forms. When the child reaches 24 months, she also produces some new verbs, verbs possibly learned from the start with two in#ectional forms, although most verbs are still learned initially with one in#ected form only.

!e movement observed is this: !e child learns a verb together with a single in#ection; then she adds a new form of the same verb, with a focused in#ectional contrast. !is step is then repeated. !is process is what underlies the numbers in Table 1. So, a verb with n in#ected forms in a given cell has probably advanced from an n –1 cell, and then moves on into the cell of verbs with n + 1 in#ections (Rojas-Nieto 2003a).

!e next section of this paper focuses on the 22–23 month period, when in#ec-tional contrasts start to emerge in increasing numbers. !rough this small but sig-ni$cant window in time, it is possible to identify what could bias early in#ection selection and $nd those contrasting in#ections that are adopted $rst.

'.' Ways to develop a paradigm: First in#ectional contrasts

!e child learns every verb together with one in#ectional form. !ere is no evi-dence of bare root adoption. But the $rst in#ection for a given verb may di"er from verb to verb, with no one form used as a default. Even when the lexical inven-tory reaches 26 verbs, and most verbs display a single in#ectional form (except ir ‘go’, caer ‘fall’, and tener ‘have’), the in#ectional range covers a range of morpholog-ical forms and in#ectional categories ()*&, )12, &/0'.1'(/2'(/3'(, &3'4.1'(/3'(, '+,-.2'(). From this diversi$ed start, paradigm formation necessarily follows di"erent developmental trajectories for di"erent verbs.

Verbs add di"erent in#ectional contrasts and reach a variable number of in#ectional forms depending on the particular verb. Verbs that kept a single in#ected form with highly formulaic uses across all seven months under scrutiny included mirar ‘look’, andar ‘go on’, #jarse ‘pay attention’, mandar ‘command’; others early on added additional in#ected forms, like the irregular and suppletive ir ‘go’, instantiated by three di"erent forms: voy, &/0'.1'( ‘I go’, vamos &/0'.1&. ‘Let’s go’, (no) vayas '+,-.2'( ‘(don’t) go’. Ir was the only verb to attain 12 di"erent – mostly suppletive – in#ectional forms.

Not just readiness to add a contrasting verb form, but also the way in#ec-tional paradigms emerge is item-based, unpredictable, and diversi$ed. !e con-trasts among verb in#ections for a single verb may result in an elaborate mosaic of verb in#ection pairs. !is diversity complements evidence for verb-in#ectional splits related to the semantic properties of verbs, such as the relation between telic verbs and past in#ection, or between present participles and atelic activity verbs. !e morphological splits attested here reveal how lexical verbs are used,

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

%$ Cecilia Rojas Nieto

and so highlight the child’s sensitivity to functional and constructional factors in verb in#ections. In what follows we will see how di"erent verbs add contrasting in#ectional forms.

Person contrasts. !e most frequent trajectory to add an in#ectional form cor-responds to verbs that take contrasts referring to di"erent persons (Gathercole, Sebastián & Soto 2003). Even in the earlier point of verb-in#ection diversi$cation, verbs with two or three in#ected forms focused on di"erent personal forms out-number all other verb groups. Depending on the verb, the person contrast may be in a present tense (1a) or past tense form (1b).

(1) a. tiene – tienes – tengo have-&/0'.3'(/2'(/1'( juegas – jugamos – juego play-&/0'.2'(/1&./1'( ‘it has’/‘you have’/‘I have’ ‘you play’/‘we play’/‘I play’ b. pegaste – pegué hit-&/0'.2'(/&3'4.1'( ‘you hit’ (&/0')/‘I hit’ (&3'4) hice – hiciste make-&3'4.1'(/2'( ‘I made’/‘you made’

Although most verbs in this group add di"erent person forms (mainly 1'(, 2'(, and 3'(, or 1&., not the late 3&. forms), some verbs reduce the contrast space to 1'( and 2'( in#ectional forms. !ey focus the speech participants, with no direc-tional default: a given verb may present $rst an in#ected form referring to a 1'( and then add one referring to a 2'( (2a); or the opposite: the $rst verb form may be a 2'( one, and the next form a 1'( one (2b).

(2) a. quiero/¿quieres? want-&/0'.1'(/2'( ‘I want’/‘do you want?’ (no) puedo/¿puedes? can-&/0'.1'(/2'( ‘I can (not)’/‘can you?’ b. ¿ayudas?/¿ayudo? help-&/0'.2'(/1'( ¿acompañas?/¿acompaño? go with-&/0'.2'(/1'( ‘do you help (x)?’/‘do I help (x)?’ ‘do you go with (x)?’/‘do I go with (x)?’

Verbs that add a person contrast in the present tend to include an in$nitive ()12) among their three $rst in#ectional forms, as in (3). However )12 can also be the $rst in#ectional form for some verbs (9/62) and then form a mini-paradigm in contrast with other present forms.

(3) juegas – jugamos – (a) jugar play-&/0'.2'(/&/0'.1&./)12 bajo – bajas – bajar go.down-&/0'.1'(/&/0'.2'(/)12 ‘you/we play’/‘to play’ ‘I/you go down’/‘to go down’.

Contrasting number. Another group of verbs always refers to a 3rd person, but shows an in#ectional contrast in number by using 3'( vs. 3&. forms, as in (4):

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish %'

(4) es – son 'be.permanent.&/0'.3'(/3&. ‘it is’/‘they are’ está – están be.transient-&/0'.3'(/3&. ‘it is (located)’/‘they are (located)’ pica – pican irritate-&/0'.3'(/3&. ‘it irritates’/‘they irritate’

Contrasting tense. Some verbs may be anchored on a person form (generally 3'(), and then add a tense contrast. !is trajectory may start from a &3'4.3'(, and then add a &/0'.3'( (5a). Alternatively, the child may add a &3'4.3'( verb form to a verb formerly used only in a &/0'.3'( form (5b).

(5) a. cayó – cae fall-&3'4.3'(/&/0'.3'( ‘it fell’/‘it falls’ salió – sale go out-&3'4-3'(/&/0'.3'( ‘it ran out’/‘it runs out’ b. hay – había exist.&/0'.3'(/)*&2.3'( ‘there is’/‘there was’ gusta – gustó please-&/0'.3'(/&3'4.3'( ‘it please’/‘it pleased’.

Contrasting mood. Expressing a mood contrast is another way for a verb to develop a mini-paradigm. !ese cases typically involve various 2'( person forms: imperative, &/0'.2'(, and '+,-.2'( forms. !ese in#ectional forms all have in common the fact that they are used as directives: a plain imperative, a mild directive – &/0'.2'( – as in (6a), and a subjunctive-prohibitive form, in (6b).

(6) a. siéntate – ¿(te)sientas? sit-)*& = 2'(./02./&/0'.2'(? dame – ¿me das? give-)*& = IO.1'(/&/0'.2'(? ‘sit down’/‘will you sit?’ ‘give me’/‘will you give me?’ b. pasa – no pases cross-)*&/'+,-.2'( ‘cross’/‘don’t cross’ agarra – no agarres take in hands-)*&/'+,-.2'( ‘take’/‘don’t take’.

Contrasting transitivity and polysemy splits. Other issues come into play when in#ectional contrasts re#ect transitivity changes. One notable contrast involves the opposition between 3'( middle forms with an unintentional reading, and agent-responsible constructions with 1'( or 2'( in#ectional forms (Melis 2010). !is contrast goes together with a construction marker that the child adopts early (Jackson-Maldonado, Maldonado, & !al 1998): the clitic se *)7.3'(/&., as shown in (7).

(7) se rompió/rompí 3'(.*)7 = break-&3'4.3'(/break-&3'4-1'( se acabó/acabé 3'(.*)7 = $nish-&3'4.3'(/$nish-&3'4-1'( ‘It broke’/‘I broke’ ‘It ran out’/‘I $nished’

Some in#ectional contrasts related to di"erent transitivity uses for the same verb are also found without a speci$c marker. Verbs with both transitive-causative and intransitive readings rely on di"erent in#ectional forms for each constructional frame (8a–b).

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

%# Cecilia Rojas Nieto

(8) a. abrir ‘open’ transitive-causative: ¿abres? – abro – ábrela open-&/0'.2'(?/1'(/)*&=75.3'(.f ‘will you open?’/‘I open’/‘open-it’ b. abrir ‘open’ intransitive: no abre 10(.open.3'(/&. ‘It/they do(es) not open’

Finally, polysemous verbs may adopt di"erent in#ections for each reading. !ey develop di"erent contrasts and di"erent syntactic constructions for each meaning (cf. !eakston, Lieven, Pine & Rowland 2002). For example, with pasar ‘cross’ vs. ‘happen’, the activity reading of ‘cross’ develops a mood contrast (9a), while the stative sense of ‘happen’ develops a tense contrast (9b).

(9) pasar ‘cross’ vs. ‘happen’ a. pasa – no pases cross-)*&/10(.cross.'+,-.2'( b. ¿qué pasa ? – ¿qué pasó? Happen-&/0'.3'(/&3'4.3'( ‘cross’/‘don’t cross’ ‘what happens?’/‘happened?’

'.# Emergent verb classes

!e diversity of early-in#ected verb forms, together with the fact that particular forms are linked to speci$c verbs, is congruent with the supposition underlying this research. In#ectional forms are item-based. !ere is no set of foundational properties that predict which contrast a particular verb will adopt $rst. Assign-ing a verb to a semantic class does not predict which in#ectional contrast will be added next.

What is more revealing is to consider post hoc which verbs adopt the same in#ectional contrasts. !is allows us to look at subsets of verbs grouped by the contrasts they display, and so focus on what they have in common. Part of this story – at age 24 months – is told in Table 2, where verbs are grouped by develop-mental in#ectional trajectory.

Table 2. Verb clustering around particular in#ectional contrasts at 22–24 months

#$%&'( (!") )''* (#) +$(&$ (") (,)-$% ($) +%.(&/+/0/+1 (%) (-*/)$(&/'(& (&)

Tener‘have, possess’

Pegarse‘hurt self ’

Sentarse‘sit’

Caer‘fall’

Ser‘be’

Romperse/romper‘get broken/brake’

Ir‘go’

Hacer‘make, do’

Comprar‘buy’

Cerrar‘close’

Gustar‘please’

Estar‘be located’

Abrir‘open/get open’

Ver‘see’

(Continued)

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish %"

Table 2. (Continued)

#$%&'( (!") )''* (#) +$(&$ (") (,)-$% ($) +%.(&/+/0/+1 (%) (-*/)$(&/'(& (&)

Poner‘put’

Saltar‘jump’

Dar‘give’

Salir‘run out’

Faltar‘be lacking’

Acabar/acabarse‘$nish/ran out’

Cargar‘hold in arms’

Jugar‘play’

Llevar‘take with’

Contar‘narrate, tell’

Guardar‘keep’

Servir‘be useful’

Meter‘put/go into’

Quitar‘remove’

Llegar‘arrive’

Querer‘want’

Buscar‘look for’

Haber‘exist’

Picar‘irritate, itch’

Poder/se puede‘be able/be possible’

Acabar ‘$nish’

Poder‘be able, can’

Agarrar‘hold, grasp’

Mojarse‘get wet’

Romperse‘get broken’

Bajar‘put down’

Ayudar‘help’

Llevar‘take’

Traer‘bring’

Caber‘$t’

Acompañar‘go with’

Oír‘listen’

Pasar‘happens’

Quitar‘Take out’

Comprar‘buy’

Pasar‘cross, pass’

One generalization here is that there is no single developmental trajec-tory, not even a dominant one. Although verbs that develop a mini-paradigm around person inflectional contrasts form a robust group, the verbs that do not display a person contrast but instead a mood, tense, number, or transitivity contrast, together outnumber the person-contrast group. At 24 months, four verbs have developed contrasts on different fronts. In these data, the tense contrast appears in telic verbs like caer ‘fall’ traer ‘bring’, salir ‘go out’, but not exclusively so, since pasar ‘happen’, a state verb, also adopts an early tense contrast. All the same, no previous stipulation can be adduced to explain, on the basis of verb semantics or morphological markedness, the fact that some verbs first contrast inflected forms on number, always with a 3P form (ser: es/son ‘it is’/‘they are’; faltar: falta/faltan ‘it lacks/they lack’, etc.). Nor is there any morphological or semantic reason why some verbs display a mood contrast, associated with the 2P form, and dependent on the pragmatic functions of the pertinent verbs. As for person-inflected forms adopted early by some verbs, these are not exclusive to agentive activity verbs, though they are quite numer-ous in this cell, as are lexical activity verbs in general (Clark 1996). Some stative and non-agentive verbs first contrast forms on person (caber ‘fit’, querer ‘want’, tener ‘have, possess’).

In summary, the present data show that: (1) the diversity of in#ectional con-trasts for this child’s verbs appear similar to uses in parental speech; (2) the par-ticular in#ectional options for a verb point towards the discourse and syntactic

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

%% Cecilia Rojas Nieto

environments for uses of that verb; they do not simply result from a local a"air between a lexical item and an in#ected form.

'." Verb in#ection models in maternal usage

In!ectional selections in mother and child verbs. !e comparison between the child’s contrasting verb forms, and matched verb exemplars in maternal usage, shows that the child’s $rst in#ected forms for a particular verb re#ect the most frequent use of that verb in the mother’s speech. !is starts early, with the $rst in#ected form of each verb that is adopted by the child.

On the basis of my analysis of the child’s set of 62 verbs, and the matched verbs from the mother, we can see that when the child learns a verb, she nor-mally $rst picks up either the most frequent form of that verb in parental speech (1 = 27, or 44%), or one of the two or three most frequent forms of that verb (1 = 19, or 31%). Occasionally, the $rst form of a verb is based on some frequent in#ected form (fourth, $6h) in the samples of maternal speech (1 = 8, or 13%). And, in a handful of cases, there are too few tokens to identify any model for an in#ected form (e.g. quedar ‘stay’, pintar ‘paint’ agarrar ‘take in hands’). Two verbs, though, were probably learned in exchanges with other interlocutors (e.g. with the father for painting – pintar ‘paint’), and with the grand-parents for gardening – regar ‘water’).

!e parallel between mother and child verb-in#ection pairs continues with the emergence of contrasting forms. But at this point, comparing child’s verb forms with the corresponding maternal verbs is not always easy. I applied the Freq crite-rion (n > 5) to particular verb-in#ection pairs in order to detect the most prom-inent verb in#ection combinations in maternal usage. !e in#ectional contrasts $rst adopted by the child for a particular verb typically match frequent contrasts in maternal usage for the same verb. In general, the contrasting in#ections found in the child’s verbs mirror those in the mother’s usage. Tense contrasts are prominent, mainly anchored to 3P forms, for example, in haber ‘exist’, salir ‘go out’, gustar ‘like’, pasar ‘happen’. Number contrasts are prominent in maternal speech, again, with the same verbs with a 3'(/3&. in#ectional contrast in the child for ser, estar ‘be permanent/be transient’, picar ‘irritate’, faltar ‘lack’ (Ponce 2009). Mood contrasts anchored to a 2'( form involve the verbs dar ‘give’, abrir ‘open’, oir ‘listen’, ver ‘see’, tomar ‘take’, in both mother and child. Person-based in#ectional contrasts, again, point to the same verbs for both, namely tener ‘have, possess’, caber ‘$t’, pasar ‘cross’, llevar ‘take with’, querer ‘want’, poder ‘can’, ‘be able’, ayudar ‘help’.

However, there are some notable gaps in the in#ected forms used. For instance, there are no uses of the imperative form of ir ‘go’ – ve(te) – , despite the high frequency of this verb, and the high frequency of the imperative in other

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish %&

verbs. But the imperative form ve(te) is considered rude and not used by either mother or child (see also Ochs & Schie"elin 1995).

Also notable are certain asymmetries of use, with maternal but no child usage of such in#ected forms as the 3&. of certain verbs: salieron ‘they went out’, caben ‘they $t’, pasan ‘they cross’, tienen ‘they have’; the 3'( and 3&. subjunctive forms: caiga, ‘(may not) fall’, or subjunctive forms with a directive function: oiga ‘you ( = vous) listen’, súbase ‘you ( = vous) go up’. !ese forms tend to be low frequency forms for these verbs, below the level of the Freq criterion (n > 5).

Which underlying commonality – lexical, semantic, or syntactic – governs the child’s uptake of verbs forms is o6en unclear. But the sets of verbs attested in adult and child speech suggest that linguistic practice, how verb-in#ection pairs are put to use, plays a major role.

In sum, if we consider the elaborate net of verb in#ection forms in the mother’s speech by projecting on them the forms the child shares, we unveil the forms that most attract the child. !e $rst two or three in#ectional forms for a lexical verb that the child learns are clearly based on the mother’s dominant uses of that verb.

Verb morphology, syntactic constructions and pragmatic function. Adding in#ectional contrasts involves more than a local morphological change, or a local relation between a lexical item and an in#ectional form. Rather it is the result of learning verbs with particular in#ections in speci$c constructional frames. !is is evident both in the kind of contrasts verbs display and in the presence of particles and other elements that index particular constructional frames. !e most clear-cut evidence that this is so comes from the emergence of constructional cues on a par with in#ectional contrasts. Some contrasting in#ected forms occur only in particular syntactic frames, e.g. ¿qué pasa?/¿qué pasó? ‘what’s happening?’, ‘what happened?’. More telling still, verb forms tend to retain some elements of the con-structions they belong in, such as argument clitics, negative forms and the like, dis-played initially in $xed place-holder forms (Peters & Menn 1993). Take the middle voice marker se, used with both present and past 3'( verb forms. Use of se shows that in#ection learning goes hand in hand with the learning of constructional options for the verb. !is is also clear in transitive imperatives frames, which tend to keep the object and/or indirect object clitics in recurring prosodic frames, e.g. bájalo ‘put it down’, dámelo ‘give it to me’, siéntate ‘sit down (yourself)’ (see Gallo 1994). In much the same way, in$nitives may retain a directional preposition, a ‘to’, as in a ver ‘(let’s) see’, a (dor)mir ‘(let’s go) to sleep’, thus showing that they have been extracted from the frequent goal-directed construction with ir a + in$nitive (Aguirre 2003; Ezeizabarrena 2001; Rojas-Nieto 2009), or taken directly from the preposition + in$nitive frame used with directive force (Aguirre 2003: 7). When a child learns a new verb form, she may keep some elements of the construction in

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

%( Cecilia Rojas Nieto

which this verb form occurs, including the function of that construction or some constructional markers, together with the speci$c in#ected form.

As for pragmatic function related to in#ectional contrasts, the maintenance of intonation patterns with &/0'.2'( forms indexes their directive interpretation. !is shows that the child learns in#ected verb forms along with the pragmatic functions they serve, a characteristic of early verb uses (Tomasello 1995). !e con-trast between an imperative and a present tense 2'( interrogative form – both directives, the second a milder one (Rojas 2003b) – reveals how children learn to ask. Subjunctive 2'( verb forms are learned from the maternal prohibitive con-struction frame (no pegues ‘do not hurt’; no pases ‘don’t cross’; no hagas (x) ‘don’t do’ that). !e child in turn learns to prohibit acts by adopting a maternal model that includes as pieces of the constructional frame a subjunctive 2'( verb in#ec-tion and the negative particle no. !ese data suggest that the sources of contrasting verb in#ections are the constructions in which each verb form is put to use. !e constructional markers hint at the relevance and association of constructions with pragmatic functions and particular in#ectional forms. But more detailed research remains to be done on these connections.

#. Final considerations

In a nutshell, this study adds to the evidence that children’s $rst in#ections rely on concrete exemplars of verb use. Morphological development is not simply a matter of learning successive target forms. How the individual cells of the paradigm for a speci$c verb are $lled depends on the lexical item and the functions they encode in the constructions each verb occurs in.

!is overview of in#ected verb forms, in both mother and child usage, reveals relatively little in#ectional productivity, a highly skewed distribution of in#ected forms, and item-based frequency of speci$c in#ected forms. !e contrasting forms of a verb depend on how that verb is ‘modeled’ in maternal speech. Mother and child uses of in#ected forms show small clusters of verbs marked by the same in#ectional contrasts. !is emergent organization does not depend on either the graded semantics or the formal complexity of in#ected forms. Groupings of verb in#ections do not necessarily point to dependence on any abstract guiding prin-ciples nor on the underlying semantics of the verbs. Rather they direct attention to the pragmatic functions and syntactic constructions where particular verb in#ec-tion combinations occur: children extract and adopt verb in#ection pairs one at a time from their discursive-constructional niches. From those constructional frames, verbs retain – in addition to the same in#ected form – a clitic marker, say, as a formal trace of other verb exemplars adopted with a similar use.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish %)

!e parallels between mother and child usage for exemplars of verb forms in this study adds positive evidence for the constructivist view that the child learns language on the basis of experience with parental usage. In language learning, as in historical or sociolinguistic change, the replication of language is supported by the exemplars to which the child has access (Cro6 2000; this volume).

Abbreviations

)*& imperative)12 in$nitive)*&2 imperfect past*)7 middle voice clitic& person&3'4 inde$nite past&/0' present'+,- subjunctive

75 direct object8'( $rst person singular9'( second person singular:'( third person singular8&. $rst person plural:&. third person plural9; second person + respect (= vous)

References

Aguado-Orea, J. 2004. !e Acquisition of morphosyntax in Spanish: Implications for Current !eories of Development. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nottingham.

Aguirre, C. 2002. !e acquisition of tense and aspect morphology: A key for semantic interpre-tation. In Pre- and Protomorphology: Early Phases of Morphological Development in Nouns and Verbs, M.D. Voeikova & W.U. Dressler (eds), 163–176. München: Lincom.

Aguirre, C. 2003. Early verb development in one Spanish speaking child. In Development of Verb In!ection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-linguistic Perspective, D. Bittner, W. Dressler & M. Kilani-Schoch (eds), 1–26. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Aksu Koç, A. 1998. !e role of input vs. universal predispositions in the emergence of tense-aspect morphology: Evidence from Turkish. First Language 18: 255–280.

Bittner, D., Dressler, W.U. & Kilani-Schoch, M. (eds), 2003. Development of Verb In!ection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bowerman, M. 1985. Beyond communicative adequacy: From piecemeal knowledge to an integrated system in the child’s acquisition of language. In Children’s Language, Vol. 5, K.E. Nelson (ed.), 369–398. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Brooks. P. & Tomasello, M. 1999. Young children learn to produce passives with nonce verbs. Developmental Psychology 25: 29–44.

Bybee, J. 1985. Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form [Typological Studies in Language 9]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Bybee, J. 1988. Morphology as lexical organization. In $eoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, M. Hammond & M. Noonan (eds), 191–241. San Diego CA: Academic Press.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

&* Cecilia Rojas Nieto

Bybee, J. & Hopper, P.M. 2001. Introduction to frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure [Typological Studies in Language 45], J. Bybee (ed.), 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Clark, E.V. 1996. Early verbs, event-types and in#ections. In Children’s Language, Vol. 9, C.E. Johnson & E.J. Gilbert (eds), 61–93. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Clark, E.V. 1998. Morphology in language acquisition. In $e Handbook of Morphology, A. Spencer & A.M. Zwuicky (eds), 374–390. Oxford: Blackwell.

Cro6, W. 2000. Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow: Longman.Elman, J. 1990. Finding structure in time. Cognitive Science 14: 179–211.Ezeizabarrena, M.J. 1996. Adquisición de la morfología verbal en Euskera y Castellano por niños

bilingües. Bilbao: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad del País Vasco.Ezeizabarrena, M.J. 2001. Dos tipos de morfología verbal, dos tipo de adquisición en bilingües

vasco-españoles. In La adquisición de la lengua materna: Español, lenguas Mayas y Euskera, C. Rojas & L. de León (eds), 237–263. México DF: UNAM-CIESAS.

Gallo, P. 1994. Adquisiciones gramaticales en torno al imperativo: Lo que se aprende dando ‘órdenes’. In La adquisición de la lengua Española, S. López Ornat, A. Fernández, P. Gallo & S. Mariscal (eds), 47–58. Madrid: Siglo XXI.

Gathercole, V., Sebastián, E. & Soto, P. 1999. !e early acquisition of Spanish verbal morphology: Across-the-board or piecemeal knowledge? International Journal of Bilingualism 3: 133–182.

Gathercole, V., Sebastián E. & Soto, P. 2003. !e emergence of linguistic person in Spanish-speaking children. Language Learning 52: 679–722.

Jackson-Maldonado, D. 2004. Verbal morphology and vocabulary in emergent bilinguals. In Bilingual Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-English Speakers, B. Goldstein (ed.), 131–161. Baltimore MD: Brookes.

Jackson-Maldonado, D. & Maldonado, R. 2001. Determinaciones semánticas de la #exión verbal en la adquisición temprana del español. In La adquisición de la lengua materna: Español, len-guas Mayas y Euskera, C. Rojas & L. de León (eds), 165–200. México DF: UNAM-CIESAS.

Jackson-Maldonado, D., Maldonado, R. & !al, D. 1998. Re#exive and middle markers in early child language acquisition: Evidence from Mexican Spanish. First Language 18: 403–429.

Küntay A. & D.I. Slobin. 1996. Listening to a Turkish mother. Some puzzles for acquisition. In Social Interaction, Social Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, D.I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, J. Guo & A. Kyratzis (eds), 266–286. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Li, P. & Bowerman, M. 1998. !e acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese. First Language 18: 311–350.

Lieven, E., Pine, J. & Baldwin, G. 1997. Lexically based learning and early grammatical develop-ment. Journal of Child Language 24: 187–220.

Melis, Ch. 2010, February. Distinciones lingüísticas entre la intención, la responsabilidad y el accidente. Seminario Multidisciplinario, Presentación, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosó$cas, UNAM.

Moreno de Alba, J.G. 1978. Valores de las Formas Verbales en el Español de México. México DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Ochs, E. & Schie"elin, B. 1995. !e impact of language socialization on grammatical develop-ment. In $e Handbook on Child Language, P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (eds), 73–94. Oxford: Blackwell.

Peters A. & Menn L. 1993. False starts and $ller syllables: Ways to learn grammatical mor-phemes. Language 69: 742–777.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

Verb in#ection in Spanish &!

Pine, J.M., Lieven, E. & Rowland, C.F. 1998. Comparing di"erent models of the development of the English verb category. Linguistics 34: 807–830.

Pizzuto E. & Caselli, M.C. 1992. !e acquisition of Italian morphology: Implications for models of language development. Journal of Child Language 19: 491–557.

Pizzuto E. & Caselli, M.C. 1994. !e acquisition of Italian verb morphology in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Other Children, Other Languages: Issues in the $eory of Language Acquisi-tion, Y. Levy (ed.), 137–188. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ponce, X. 2009. La adquisición temprana de los verbos copulativos ser y estar en español. MA thesis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Rojas-Nieto, C. 2003a. Early acquisition of Spanish verb in#exion: A usage-based account, Psychology of Language & Communication 7: 17–36.

Rojas-Nieto, C. 2003b. Efectos del uso lingüístico en la construcción temprana de peticiones. Variantes de #exión en los verbos directivos. Lingüística 13: 179–215.

Rojas-Nieto, C. 2007. La base de datos ETAL. Etapas tempranas en la adquisición del lenguaje. Jornadas Filológicas 2005, 575–599. México DF: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Rojas-Nieto, C. 2009. Before grammar. Cut and paste in early complex sentences. In Hispanic Child Languages: Typical and Impaired Development [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 50], J. Grinstead (ed.), 143–174. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Rowland, C.F., Fletcher, S.L. & Freudenthal, D. 2008. How big is big enough? Assessing the reli-ability of data from naturalistic samples. In Corpora in Language Acquisition Research: His-tory, Methods, Perspectives [Trends in Language Acquisition Research 6], H. Behrens (ed.), 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Serrat, E. & Serra. M. 1996. La adquisición de la sintaxis. Formación de la categoría verbal. In Estudios sobre la adquisición del Castellano, Catalán, Eusquera y Gallego. M. Pérez Pereira (ed.), 157–164. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.

Shirai, Y. 1998. !e emergence of tense-aspect morphology in Japanese: Universal predisposi-tion? First Language 18: 281–309.

Shirai, Y. & Andersen, R.W. 1995. !e acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype account. Language 71: 743–762.

Stemberger, J.P. & MacWhinney, B. 1988. Are lexical forms stored in the lexicon? In $eo-retical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, M. Hammond & M. Noonan (eds), 101–116. London: Academic Press.

Stoll, S. 1998. !e role of Aktionsart in the acquisition of Russian aspect. First Language 18: 351–379.

Stump, G. 1998. In#ection. In $e Handbook of Morphology, A. Spencer & A.M. Zwicky (eds), 13–44. Oxford: Blackwell.

!eakston, A.L., Lieven, E.V., Pine, J.M. & Rowland, C.F. 2002. Going, going, gone: !e acquisition of the verb ‘go’. Journal of Child Language 29: 783–811.

!eakston, A.L., Lieven, E.V. & Tomasello, M. 2003. !e role of the input in the acquisition of third person singular verbs in English. Journal of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research 46: 863–877.

Tomasello, M. 1995. Pragmatic contexts for early verb learning. In Beyond Names for $ings: Young Children’s Acquisition of Verbs, M. Tomasello & W.E. Merriman (eds), 115–146. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Tomasello, M. 2000. First steps in a usage based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics 11: 61–82.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved

&$ Cecilia Rojas Nieto

Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language. A Usage-based $eory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Tomasello, M. & Stahl, D. 2004. Sampling children’s spontaneous speech: How much is enough? Journal of Child Language 31: 101–121.

Wexler, K. 1994. Optional in$nitives, head movement and the economy of derivations. In Verb Movement, D. Lightfoot & N. Hornstein (eds), 305–350. Cambridge: CUP.

Wexler, K. 1998. Very early parameter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional in$nitive stage. Lingua 106: 23–79.

© 2011. John Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved