EARLY ACQUISITION OF WORD ORDER: EVIDENCE FROM HINDI-URDU AND MALAYALAM MAYA LEELA A doctoral dissertation submitted for the degree of Philosophiæ Doctor in Cognitive Science and Language Supervised by Dr. Anna Gavarró Centre de Lingüística Teòrica Departament de Filologia Catalana Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Maya Leela: Early Acquisition of Word Order: Evidence from Hindi-Urdu 2016 and Malayalam © July Dedicated to Unniyamma. ABSTRACT Theacquisitionofwordorderintwounder-researchedlanguages,Hindi- Urdu and Malayalam, is explored under the assumptions of Univer- sal Grammar and Very Early Parameter Setting. The acquisition of the OV order was tested through an experiment that was conducted on 19 -month old native Hindi-Urdu infants using a combination of the preferential-lookingmode,theweird-word-orderparadigm,andpseudo- verbs. The results showed that the infants parsed the grammatical SOV order and did not parse the ungrammatical VSO order, indicating that 19 the parameter responsible for the OV order was set at months of age. The acquisition of scrambling was investigated by means of three ex- periments in Malayalam speaking children. The first experiment tested the acquisition of the canonical word order SOV, and the scrambled non-canonical word orders OSV, OVS, and SVO, with no discourse con- 3 5 text, through a picture matching task in children aged to -years-old. The experimental results showed above chance performance in the com- prehension of the canonical and most scrambled word orders by all age groups. The second experiment tested the acquisition of the canon- ical and the non-canonical word orders with a discourse context, in 2 an act-out task in -year-old children. The results revealed at ceiling 2 performance by all children. The third experiment, run with -year-old children, tested the acquisition of canonical and scrambled sentences with an anaphor. All children performed above chance indicating that anaphor resolution is adult like. Usage-based theories and the impli- cations of the theory of Relativized Minimality in child grammar are critically analyzed using the results of the Hindi-Urdu and Malayalam experiments. The evidence gathered is in support of the fact that adult- like competence of abstract syntax is present within child grammar at early ages and that movement appears to be adult-like. iv PUBLICATIONS Some of the results in this thesis have appeared or are to appear in the following publications: 1 2015 . Gavarró, A., Leela, M., Rizzi, L., & Franck, J. ( ). Knowledge of 19 theOVparametersettingat months:EvidencefromHindi–Urdu. 154 27 34 Lingua, , - . 2 . Gavarró, A., Leela, M. Child Relativized Minimality and the acqui- sitionofwordorderinMalayalam.ToappearinLinguisticAnalysis. v “A little parameter parametrizes the whole language” 2002 44 — (Baker, , p. ) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Anna Gavarró, my supervisor,whoseselflessdedicationtoguidemeinproducinganexcel- lent and impeccable result is the main reason for the final shape of this thesis. Anna has given me continuous support with her most updated knowledge on theoretical frameworks and experimental research, and her most sensible approach towards life. I thank all her contributions to me and my thesis. I thank the Departament de Filologia Catalana and the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica at the UAB for accepting me as a doctoral candi- date and allowing me to carry out the research. I formally express my gratitude to the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo and the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación for the MAEC-AECID funding provided for the research. The completion of the Hindi-Urdu experiment became possible with the help of the amazing ladies at the Associació Cultural, Educativa i Social Operativa de Dones Pakistaneses (ACESOP). I thank the presi- dent and the founder of the organization, Dr. Huma Jamshed, and the memberswhoparticipatedintherecordingofthetestsentences,aswell as the members who helped me find the subjects. I especially thank all themotherswhomanagedtogetpermissionfromthepatriarchybound environments and come with their infants for the testing. For all the technical knowledge I gathered in handling the eye-tracker, IthankbothDavidAguilarandJuanManuelGarciaattheDepartament de Psicologia Bàsica, Universitat de Barcelona, and Miquel Serra for giving me permission to use the lab and the equipment. I thank the students and teachers at the Wisdom Valley Kindergarten, and Ananthapuri School at Trivandrum for their participation in the Malayalamexperiments.Thedrawingsusedwereproducedbytheartist vi Justyna Kamykowska, and I thank her for allowing me to use the copy- righted materials. I thank Arathy Chandini, Vaisakh Surendran and Ahana Balan for helping me with the data collection. I would like to thank Luigi Rizzi, Julie Franck and Akira Omaki for giving me an opportunity to collaborate with their acquisition research. I thank Anna Espinal at the Servei d’Estadística Aplicada, UAB and Andrés Posada at the Université de Genève for the statistical analysis. Words of gratitude are not enough to thank Ivo Pletìkosic´, physicist from Croatia, for all the help in overcoming the hurdles I faced with the classicthesis template and with LYX. He replied quickly to all my emails, patiently guided me through every step and helped me immensely to produce this thesis in this form. Thanks a lot, Ivo, you being in the LYX port team of classicthesis is such a relief to the non-techie humanities researchers like me! I thank Io Salmons, Myriam Cantú, Jingtao Zhu, Shenai Hu from the Acquisition and Pathology Lab at the UAB for their valuable sugges- tions and feedback throughout my doctoral work. I thank Isabel Crespí from the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, UAB, who translated the ab- stract of my thesis into Catalan. I also thank Cristina Puigdollers at the CLT, UAB, for all the invaluable help with the documentation that helped me to submit my thesis on time. I am indebted to my family, especially my mother, my sister and my little brother who stood by me when I wanted to give up a highly paid job in the States to pursue my passion for language acquisition research. Vishnu and Anu, thank you for being my most sincere critics and sup- port. I would like to thank my partner Naru; his Buddha-like nature had helped me in every way to push forward when I wanted to give up. Itwasadifficultjourney,Iwaspainfullyslow,butIdidthisformyself, and I am happy I made it to the end through episodes of depression, procrastination, complete numbness and then adamantly pursuing my passion. vii DECLARATION Icertifythatthisworkcontainsnomaterialwhichhasbeenacceptedfor theawardofanyotherdegreeordiplomainmyname,inanyuniversity or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, containsno materialpreviously publishedor writtenbyanother person, except where due reference has been made in the text. Barcelona, July 2016 Maya Leela ACRONYMS ACC Accusative ADVL Adverbial Suffix CI Conceptual Intentional Interface COMP Complementizer CONJ Conjunction DAT Dative EMPH Emphasis ERG Ergative F Feminine FUT Future tense GEN Genitive INF Infinitive INST Instrumental LOC Locative M Masculine NOM Nominative PAST Simple Past Tense PERF Perfective Aspect POSS Possessive PRES Present ix x P&P Principles and Parameters PROG Progressive QP Quotative Particle RP Relative Participle RM Relitivized Minimality SM Sensory Motor Interface SMT Strong Minimalist Theory SOC Sociative UG Universal Grammar VEPS Very Early Parameter Setting