Development of Relative Clauses in African American English

Gwynne Morrissey, Jill de Villiers, & Peter de VilliersSmith College, Northampton, MA

Introduction

Results

Participants

Research Questions

Poster presented at the ASHA Convention, Philadelphia, PA, 2004

ResultsResults

Method

Age GroupGroup 4 5 6 8.5 TotaldisAAE 9 18 25 25 77disMAE 13 18 19 23 73typAAE 35 36 57 25 153typMAE 30 41 38 31 140

Total 87 113 139 104 443

Prompt:

Here are two cats. They are doing different things.

I have the same two cats.

Prompt:

Only you can see these pictures.

Tell me what is happening in the red box on your picture.

I need to know which cat it is.

What is a relative clause?

A postnominal modifier (i.e. noun descriptor), as in:

This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the cheese that lay in the house

that Jack built. Specifies a referent, i.e. not the house that Joe built or the cheese in the fridge.

There are two types of interest in this study: SS: subject-subject

The relativized noun is the subject of the main clause and the relative clause, as in

The mom who fed the baby is riding her bike.

OS: object-subject

The relativized noun is the object of the main clause and the subject of the relative clause, as in

The man fed the cat who was sitting in the flowers.

Previous research says that… in production, it is easier to relativize a subject than an object (Comrie, 1981), in comprehension, it is easier to parse an OS than an SS (Hamburger & Crain, 1982; Kidd & Bavin, 2002)

Why might development of relative clauses in AAE-speaking children be different?

Dialect and clinical status were determined by a combination of a clinician report and performances on the DELV screener and criterion-referenced test.

1. What is the difference between typically developing and disordered children’s likelihood of producing a referent-specifying relative clause at all?

2. Of the intended responses to both SS and OS items (i.e. SS relative clauses and OS relative clauses), what relative pronouns were used? Green has suggested that relative pronouns are more optional and might be replaced by what in the adult AAE dialect (2002). Is there a tendency for AAE speakers to drop the pronoun or use a nonstandard one?

3. What strategies do children use in place of a basic relative clause?

MAE Relative Clause Production: SS Prompts

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4 5 6 8.5

Age Group

Relative Clause Use

DIS

TYP

Question 1: Use of Relative Clauses to Specify the Referent

AAE Relative Clause Production: SS Prompts

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Relative Clause Use

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TYP

MAE Relative Clause Production: OS Prompts

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Relative Clause Use

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AAE Relative Clause Production: OS Prompts

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Relative Clause Use

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Question 2: Relative Pronoun Use

SS Pronoun Use

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n that what who

Pronoun

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typaae

typmae

OS Pronoun Use

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n that who

Pronoun

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typaae

typmae

Question 3: Strategies Used to Replace Basic Relatives

Relative clause strategies - MAE SS

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cleft SS topic unsuccessful

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Percent usage

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8.5

Relative clause strategies - AAE SS

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cleft SS topic unsuccessful

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Percent usage

4568.5

Relative clause strategies - MAE OS

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cleft SStopic

OS

passive

unsuccessful

Age Group

Percent usage

4568.5

Relative clause strategies - AAE OS

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cleft SStopic

OS

passive

unsuccessful

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Percent usage

4

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6

8.5

Two ANOVAs were run, one each for success on SS and OS relative clause types. Dialect (AAE versus MAE), clinical status (typical versus disordered) and age (4, 5, 6, 8.5) were the independent variables.

Clinical status was highly significant for both types:

SS, F(1, 427) = 37.709, p < .000

OS, F(1, 427) = 62.64, p < .000

Age was also highly significant for each:

SS, F(3, 427) = 8.29, p < .000

OS, F(3, 427) = 18.319, p < .000

However, dialect was not significant; both groups performed equivalently on the task:

SS, F(1, 427) = .325 n.s.

OS, F(1, 427) = 1.59 n.s.

KEY: typ = typically developing dis = disordered

MAE = Mainstream American English AAE = African American English

AAE characteristics likely to affect relative clause acquisition.Past tense –ed deletion, sometimesbecause of consonant cluster reduction

She miss your call yesterday.

Nonstandard relative pronoun what, zeromarker (Ø)

the dog what we found in the street,a whistle Ø sound like a bird

Appositive pronoun (topicalization) The girl that was dancing, her dad madeher a sandwich.

Existential there → it ’It s som uchstu ff Ihaft .a do

A repeated measures test was run for the typically developing children’s use of relative pronouns. Dialect and age were the independent variables.

Dialect was not significant for either:

SS, F(1, 56) = 1.09, p = .3 or OS, F(1, 40) = .04, p = .8

Age was slightly significant for SS, but not for OS:

SS, F(3, 56) = 2.77, p = .05 OS, F(3, 40) = 2.08, p = .12

An analysis of means of use of the zero relative versus that in SS responses showed that only that increased with age.

Interestingly enough, the only child to use a nonstandard relative pronoun was an MAE speaker. All other zero uses were legitimate (e.g. in reduced relatives). Use of relative pronouns by disordered speakers was not analyzed due to small sample size (only 10 responses of disordered children included relative clauses requiring relative pronouns).

Topicalization in SS situations declines in the oldest group in both dialects, but in OS situations, topicalization increases with age for AAE.

Clefts are more prevalent in MAE, likely because the it is… construction is existential in AAE, therefore blocking it from being used in a cleft.

Passives are used earlier and more often in MAE, likely because the construction requires -ed, a morpheme often optional in AAE.

Targeted OS proved to be harder to produce than targeted SS in both dialects.

Conclusions

1. The relative clause elicitation task proved to be a very useful diagnostic indicator for children with language disorders. At the same time, it proveduseful for both AAE and MAE speakers, with no bias effects. However,it is highly demanding.2. Relative pronoun use did not show up differently on this task between dialects, but this may reflect the limitation on types of relatives elicited. It was not revealing for language disorder because so few disordered children produced relatives at all.3. Subtle dialect effects may be seen in the varieties of devices children use in the task.

Several syntactic alternatives to OS and SS relatives were used to get the same meaning across.

a) Most primitively, the child could produce two independent sentences, or a conjunction. These were counted as unsuccessful attempts at relative clause production.e.g. The cat’s sitting in the flowers and the man’s feeding it.

b) The child could use a topicalization structure with a relative:e.g. The cat that’s sitting in the flowers, the man is feeding it.

c) The child could use a cleft structure with a relative:e.g. It’s the cat sitting in the flowers that the man is feeding

d) The child could passivize the verb:e.g. The cat sitting in the flowers is being fed by the man

Target: The man is feeding the cat that is sitting in the flowers.

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