Concord phenomena in first language acquisition

Abstract

Scope-bearing items for sentential negations and sentential questions appear in Dutch child language as ‘doubling’ constructions. A <+neg> or <+Q> element appears in sentence-initial position and is doubled in sentence-final position. The ‘doubling’ is not part of the adult system nor is it part of the child’s acquisition input. The temporary doublings suggest that the grammatical property of sentential scope is learned in a stepwise fashion by means of intermediate grammars that are temporarily simplified. The present view opposes to the idea that temporary constructions in child language betray an innate UG option (v.Kampen 1997, Crain et al. 2006).