Shamitha Somashekar (Cornell University), Claire Foley (Morehead State University), James W. Gair (Cornell University)
Earlier acquisition work has shown that free relative clauses may be developmental precursors to lexically headed forms. In this paper, we investigate this trend in a study of Tulu structures like (a) and (b).
Sixty children acquiring Tulu as a first language were tested in a controlled production study. Results show that despite the surface `transparency' of forms like (b), children show an early preference for structures like (a); Children productively convert forms like (2) into forms like (1). Results lead us to propose a new notion of transparency; Children more quickly assemble structures that are more transparent not in surface form, but in their reflection of UG principles.