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Keiko Murasugi, Tomoko Hashimoto, Chisato Fuji
VP-shell analysis for the acquisition of Japanese intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, and causatives
Japanese-speaking children erroneously produce intransitive forms instead of (di)transitive forms, and intransitive/(di)transitive forms instead of causative forms. Murasugi and Hashimoto (2004) provide a uniform account of such verbal errors following Larson's (1988) v-VP frame or VP-shell hypothesis: (i) the predicate-argument structures of large V's and small v's are acquired early, (ii) children assume [±cause] v to be phonetically null at one stage, and (iii) what requires time is the acquisition of the lexical form of each V and the forms in which [±cause] small v's are realized. Additional empirical evidence for their v-VP frame analysis is obtained from Sumihare Noji's database as well as from observational data reported in previous research. Based on an analysis of Japanese-speaking children's common errors widely observed in previous literature and on the two longitudinal studies presented in this article, we develop the v-VP frame analysis for the acquisition of Japanese verbs and complex predicates.
Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0024-3949
Volume: 45, 05/2007
Pages: 615 - 651