SYNTACTIC POSSIBILITIES IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS’ CHOICES OF NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

Published by The Linguistics Association, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

The Principles and Parameters theory (Chomsky 1981, 1995) postulates that, because children possess human genome, they are biologically en suite with a Universal Grammar that contains the core principles of language. However, some recent studies provide relevant data that support the view that young children lack sufficient knowledge of syntactic principles for the production and comprehension of negative constructions. The present study therefore employs the Optimality Theory of syntax to investigate the discrepancies between the children and the adult respondents used this study in their choices of different syntactic devices for expressing negative propositions. To achieve this aim, the present researchers attempt to: categorise negative constructions into typologies with a view to isolating the particular forms peculiar to children; investigate the syntactic devices exploited mainly by the adult informants; and discover the linguistic resources that are commonly used by both the children and the adults. The analysis has shown that negative propositions can be expressed in English language via the grammatical, morphological, lexical and analytical processes. The analysis has also demonstrated that, while the adult respondents uniquely employed the analytical process, the children respondents exploited the grammatical process more than the adults. On the basis of these findings, the study concluded that, children’s syntactic devices of generating negative utterances differ significantly from those used by adults.Key Words: Optimality Theory, Negative construction, Negative Propositions, and Analytical Processes