Minimal answers: Ellipsis, syntax and discourse in the acquisition of European Portuguese (review)

The minimalist program, with its biolinguistic underpinnings, represents a significant advance in linguistic theory. With only a handful of exceptions, however, the minimalist program has not been extended to the field of language acquisition. Having grown accustomed to a syntactic theory that made clear predictions about the course of language acquisition, researchers have struggled to formulate experimental hypotheses based on the minimalist program. Ana Lúcia Santos’s investigation of the acquisition of verb phrase (VP) ellipsis in European Portuguese (EP) is one of the noteworthy exceptions. The acquisition research reported here is grounded in linguistic theory, drawing on the details of Merchant’s (2001) theory of ellipsis, as well as on current research in the syntax of EP in the minimalist framework (e.g. Cyrino & Matos 2005). This is one of the best monographs in recent years to use linguistic theory as the basis for investigating children’s acquisition of syntax.

The monograph is structured as follows. Ch. 1, ‘Introduction’ (1–20), marks the territory, placing the investigation of verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) in child language squarely within the frame-work of generative grammar. Ch. 2, ‘VPE and the structural and anaphoric properties of minimal answers in EP adult grammar’ (21–112), presents the syntax of VPE in EP, and compares the properties of VPE with constructions it could be confused with, such as null complement anaphora (NCA) or structures with null arguments. The learnability issues that arise for acquisition of VPE are discussed in Ch. 3, ‘Learnability issues in VPE and focus’ (113–36), and Ch. 4, ‘How early can VPE be found?’ (137–224), presents the child data that argue for children’s early acquisition of VP ellipsis. Experimental investigations probing how children interpret yes/no questions that are clefts or contain the focus word ‘only’ (só) are the topic of Ch. 5, ‘Answers as a window into the interpretation of questions’ (225–70). Ch. 6 concludes the volume.

S’s monograph contains an investigation of very young children’s answers to yes/no questions. As 1 shows, yes/no questions can be answered in a number of ways in EP, including ‘verbal’ answers like 1b, in which the question is answered with a form of the main verb. These answers are arguably derived from VPE in the adult grammar.

1. 1. Q: Ele já encontrou a chave?

   he already found.3sg the key

   ‘Has he already found the key?’

   1. a. A: a. Sim. (sim ‘yes’ answer)

      yes

   2. b. Encontrou. (verbal answer)

      found.3sg

   3. c. É./Foi. (ser ‘be’ answer)

      is/was

   4. d. Já. (adverbial answer)

      already

Children also produce verbal answers, as in 2.

1. 2. *MAE: o cavalo vai papar?

   (MOT) the horse goes eat

   ‘Is the horse going to eat?’

   *TOM: vai

   goes

   ‘Yes’ (Tomás 1;9.14)

The main thesis of the monograph is that children’s minimal verbal answers are also derived by VPE. In making the case, S takes pains to demonstrate that young children’s single-word ‘minimal answers’ have underlying syntactic structure. This is the main feat of the book, since the successful execution of this demonstration promises to drive a wedge between models of acquisition that are derived from the generative perspective and ones that are derived from an experience-dependent perspective.

To frame the investigations, S introduces two debates that have figured prominently in the first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition literature. One debate concerns the availability of functional categories in the grammars of young children. As S notes, VPE in EP differs from VPE in English in that all main verbs raise to I and potentially license ellipsis. It follows from this observation that a convincing demonstration that children’s verbal answers invoke VPE constitutes evidence that children project IP, an important contribution to the question of the availability of functional categories in the grammars of young children.

The second debate...