LING 355 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Cookie Monster, Teddy Bear
Document Summary
Aux-doubling errors are quite infrequent, estimated by stromswold at 0. 4% of all questions. People think of errors as occurring a lot because they are so obvious when you are listening to a child. However, the textbook suggests that they are very common in the case of negative questions. Nakayama (1987) showed that aux-doubling errors are more likely to occur if the subject is long and/or complex. In general, more errors occur involving auxiliary do than other auxiliaries. Inversion with how come and in embedded clauses. Children sometimes treat how come as if it is why. The subject and the auxiliary have been inverted. Failure to invert reflects the presence of a null auxiliary. (recall the missing modal account of errors with inflection. ) Possibly the lower negated aux is unanalyzed in such cases (behaving tell. This is a possible explanation, particularly for stage 1. You might have movement of the auxiliary, but because it is null, you can(cid:495)t.
