The metrical basis for children's subjectless sentences

摘要: Abstract Young English speakers often omit sentential subjects but infrequently objects. In this paper I consider five accounts for these omissions that differ in the explanation of why children make (grammar versus production constraints) and what causes asymmetry subject object omissions. Hyams, 1986 , 1987 Paper presented at Boston University Conference on Language Development, October) proposes are born with an innate grammar them to pronominal subjects. Valian (1989 ,Papers Reports Child 28, 156–163) notes deletion is acceptable casual adult English: Based data, when sentence complexity puts too great a burden system. On pragmatic account ( Bates, 1976 ,Language context. New York: Academic Press; Greenfield & Smith, ,The structure communication early language development. Press), have limited abilities least communicatively informative elements: Because typically contain given information, they frequently omitted. P. Bloom 57–63) argues processing considerations cause expand sentences rightward, expense leftward elements. Finally, propose metrical hypothesis which weakly stressed syllables, including pronouns other function morphemes, particularly from iambic (weak-strong) feet. Data imitation task strongly support over others. The results examined light model developing speech production.