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Anne Salazar Orvig, Institut de Linguistique et Phontique Gnrales et Appliques, Universit Sorbonne

Nouvelle Paris 3, 19 rue des Bernardins, 75005 Paris, France.

Email: [email protected]

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30(3-4) 375402

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DOI: 10.1177/0142723710379957http://fla.sagepub.com

Dialogical factors in toddlersuse of clitic pronouns

Anne Salazar OrvigUniversit Sorbonne Nouvelle Sorbonne Paris Cit

Hayde MarcosCNRS, France

Aliyah MorgensternUniversit Sorbonne Nouvelle Sorbonne Paris Cit

Rouba HassanUniversit de Lille 3, France

Jocelyne Leber-Marin and Jacques ParsEA 1483 - RFC

Abstract

Young (1;92;4) childrens use of third person clitic subject pronouns in natural dialogues

was examined in both longitudinal and cross-sectional data. Considering that youngchildren mainly use pronouns in the context of referential continuity, this study aims

at identifying some of the factors that affect this use. Two possible dialogical factorsare examined: (1) the use of clitic pronouns can be interpreted as a reproduction ofthe adults discourse, either by taking up whole utterances containing a pronoun or by

taking up only the clitic pronouns without reproducing the adults utterance. (2) Theuse of pronouns could be driven by pragmatic-discursive factors. In order to assessthis hypothesis the use of clitic pronouns was observed in the context of dialogical

continuity. Three kinds of links were considered: children repeat or reformulate theadults utterances, add a new predication on the same topic, or establish a contrast.The results suggest that the reproduction of the adults utterance does not significantly

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376 First Language 30(3-4)

influence childrens use of pronouns, whereas pragmatic-discursive factors are found toaffect their choice of referential expressions.

Keywordsanaphora, clitic pronouns, dialogue, pragmatic-discursive factors, toddlers language,topic maintenance

The study of childrens early uses of third person clitic pronouns is a domain in which the

morpho-syntactic and pragmatic-discursive levels are closely intertwined. Various studies

on the use of referential expressions highlight the sensitivity of young children to

pragmatic features such as referent accessibility and its mention in previous discourse,

showing that the pragmatic-discursive level is constitutive of emergent grammar.

The purpose of the present research is to examine two competing factors that can be

proposed to explain the use of third person clitic pronouns by French-speaking children

in a dialogical context. Two main questions are addressed: (1) is the adults discourse the

model for the childs utterance and/or (2) does the use of pronouns respond to a pragmatic-

discursive choice by the child?

The acquisition of clitic pronouns

French presents a double series of personal pronouns: clitic pronouns and tonic pro-nouns. Clitic pronouns, which are characterized by their prefixal and unstressed position,

are used as subjects (je,tu,il,elle,on,nous,vous,ils,elles), or direct and indirect objects

(me,te,le,lui,nous,vous, les,leur). Tonic pronouns (moi,toi,lui,elle,nous,vous,eux,

elles)are characterized by an autonomous and stressed position. They can reduplicate the

subject pronoun (lui, il court, as for him, he runs) and are used for all other functions.

Since it presents almost no personal verbal inflexion, spoken French is a non null subject

language. In spoken French, the subject position is preferentially filled by a clitic pro-

noun (Jeanjean, 1980) which can coexist with a noun (Blanche-Benveniste, Bilger,

Rouget, & Van den Eyden, 1990; Franois, 1981). This characteristic leads some authorsto consider clitic pronouns as flexional morphemes (Jakubowicz & Rigaut, 1997; but see

De Cat, 2005 for a discussion).

Previous research on French shows that clitic pronouns are acquired quite early.

Parisse and Le Normand (2000), for example, note that at around 2 years old, pronouns

already represent 8% of the linguistic units used by children (the average is about 18%

for adults). The sequences pronoun + verb are among the most frequent sequences of

syntactic categories in Parisse and Le Normands data. In a more specific study on the

acquisition of nominative clitics, Jakubowicz and Rigaut (1997) note that, in children

aged from 2;0 to 2;7, a majority of utterances include a nominative clitic with a prefer-ence for third person pronouns. However, they identify an important rate of omissions:

younger childrens use of clitic pronouns seems to be optional. Authors also stress

(Hamann, Rizzi, & Frauenfelder, 1996; Jakubowicz & Rigaut, 2000) the asymmetry

between the earlier acquisition of subject clitics and the later acquisition of object clitics.

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Salazar et al. 377

Pronouns in discourse and dialogue

Studies of the acquisition of referential expressions such as determiners or pronouns

have concentrated predominantly on their use in monologue (Bennett-Kastor, 1983;Hickmann, 2002; Karmiloff-Smith, 1985; Peterson & Dodsworth, 1991), emphasizing

both their precocious acquisition and the errors children make, especially in using pro-

nouns to introduce new referents. In this perspective, for young children, reference might

be a deictic bottom-up process that does not suppose a discursive construction or repre-

sentation independent of the situational context.

But long before children can master monological discursive genres, they experience

adults use of pronouns and determiners in various dialogic contexts. In particular, involve-

ment in dialogue supposes the sharing of an intersubjective representation of discourse

(Salazar Orvig, 2002), which is constitutive of the anaphoric relation (Cornish, 1999;

Givn, 1995). The possibility for children to share such an intersubjective representation

has been prepared by their participation in joint attention episodes (Tomasello, 1999).

Attentional continuity which according to Bruner (1978) is at the root of the topic-

comment structure is constructed through joint action and non-verbal communication.

On the other hand, studies of childrens very first utterances, during the one word stage,

show that the first verbal exchanges correspond to the beginning of shared linguistic

meaning (Veneziano, 2000, p. 239, our translation) and that children can chain two or

more turns within the same communicative intent and, most often, in continuity with the

adults discourse (Scollon, 1979). More generally, dialogue can be considered as the

framework within which children experience, acquire and use linguistic units. The firstvalues of referential expressions might therefore be constructed in this type of context.

Various studies, based on experimental or natural data, have explored the use of

referential expressions in dialogue. Experimental studies (Campbell, Brooks, &

Tomasello, 2000; Wittek & Tomasello, 2005) on children between 2;6 and 3;6 show that

the type of question asked by the interlocutor determines which referring expression is

used by the child: when the question mentions the discourse object (What did X do?),

English-speaking children from both age groups tend to respond with a null reference,

whereas nouns and pronouns tend to be used more frequently when preceded by open

questions (What happened?). In German, children mostly use a pronoun or a null formwhen the question specifically bears on the referent (Where is the broom?) and more

general questions (What do we need?) elicit nominal responses.

Studies on non Indo-European languages such as Inuktitut (Allen, 2000; Allen &

Schder, 2003) and Korean (Clancy, 2003) show the impact of the discursive and prag-

matic dimensions on childrens use of referential expressions. In Inuktitut, in which

arguments are either made explicit by using nouns or are omitted, children produce

overt arguments significantly more often if the argument they wish to represent is

informative than if it is not (Allen, 2000, p. 511). Moreover, Clancy considers that the

clusters of semantic, discourse-pragmatic and formal properties of referents organizedinto A, S and O roles are available to young children as a source of hypotheses about the

functional foundations of the morphosyntactically marked categories in the language

being acquired (Clancy, 2003, p. 104). The results have been confirmed for null subject

Indo-European languages such as Italian (Serratice, 2005) and for non null subject



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languages such as English (Hughes & Allen, 2006). In this last case, whereas null

arguments appear in the context of great accessibility, it is not the case for overt arguments

(which include pronouns) for which the distribution is more variable. However, factors

such as newness and absence of the referent induce the coding of overt arguments. Thesestudies confirm the fact that the acquisition of grammar is intertwined with pragmatic and

discursive aspects of language.

Studies by Salazar Orvig et al. (2004, 2006, 2010) lead to similar conclusions. The

authors analyse spontaneous dialogues with children between 1;9 and 3;0 in various situ-

ations. Their results show that the children are sensitive to the discursive and attentional

context of verbal exchanges : in the majority of cases, predications about an implicit

referent concern a referent that has is fact been previously mentioned in the dialogue.

Children also use third person clitic pronouns in the context of shared attention and as

second or subsequent mentions in the dialogue in the context of discursive continuity. An

experimental study also supports this interpretation: 2-year-old children respond to prior

mention as an indicator of referent accessibility before they do to perceptual availability

(Matthews, Lieven, Theakston, & Tomasello, 2006, p. 408).

What do these performances correspond to? Several possibilities can be considered.

The first, proposed by Levy (1989, 1999), suggests that the relation between the pro-

noun and its antecedent corresponds to the repetition of nounpronoun strings pro-

duced by adults. In this case, since the child does not establish the co-referential

relation existing in his or her discourse autonomously, the pronoun does not have an

anaphoric value. The second possibility presented by Matthews et al. (2006) drawing

on Pickering and Garrods (2004) model suggests that there is a dissociation betweenthe co-referential links with the interlocutors discourse, which would be of a mechan-

ical nature, and the childs representation of the interlocutors informational needs. Thus,

it could be considered that the co-referential links are not anaphoric (see also Karmiloff-

Smith, 1985). Finally, a third alternative (De Cat, 2004a; Salazar Orvig et al., 2010)

differentiates the values of referential expressions from the difficulties children may

have in the management of discursive sequences, joint attention and common ground.

In this case, we can consider that children acquire pronouns with a proto-anaphoric

value (maintaining continuity in the context of a shared discursive representation),

while they present performance errors, in particular when they have to manage com-plex interlocutive situations.

Aim of this study

The present research studies aspects of the dialogical context of the use of third person

clitic pronouns. In view of the questions raised above, two possibilities are considered:

(1) young childrens use of pronouns is prompted by the form of the adults utterances;

(2) childrens choice of a pronoun as a referential expression could be explained by

pragmatic-discursive factors. To address the first option, we analyse how the form ofadults utterances influences childrens use of referential expressions. The second possi-

bility will be tackled through the analysis of the ways in which childrens utterances are

anchored in the dynamics of dialogue and, more specifically, the type of continuity

between the childs utterance and the previous utterance of the adult.



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Salazar et al. 379

The analysis of these factors will allow us to evaluate the type of relation existing

between the pronoun and its antecedent. If the children reproduce the whole utterance

(utterance reproduction), we may consider that the coreferential relation is only a side

effect of repetition. If the children reproduce only the referential expression (item repro-duction), we may think they take up a model from the adult and establish a basic type of

discursive relation, as the reference of the expression they use is grounded in the dia-

logical context. Finally, only if the use of pronouns can be related to other pragmatic-

discursive factors, we may conclude that these early uses are anaphoric.

We concentrate on the subject function, since, on one side, it is the privileged slot to

express topics and, on the other, in French, subject clitic pronouns are acquired long before

object clitic pronouns. To determine whether our results are specific to this grammatical

category, pronouns are compared to other referential expressions in subject position.

Method

Participants

The data presented here are part of a larger corpus (Salazar Orvig et al., 2004, 2006). For

the purpose of the present study we considered only the children (in the cross-sectional

corpora) or the sessions (for the longitudinal follow-up) for which there was at least one

clitic pronoun in subject position in the data. Three videotaped corpora were used (Table 1):

Corpus 1:A longitudinal corpus of two boys (Daniel and Lonard). For six sessionsper child about one session per month between 1;9 (for Daniel) or 1;11 (for Lonard)

and 2;4 were analysed. The children were observed in different situations at home

(play, snack time, picture book reading, bath).

Corpus 2:A cross-sectional corpus at 1;11 based on five dialogues of five children

(four girls, Alice1, Ccile, Lisa, Pauline1 and one boy, Thibault) with their father or

mother during a standardized play session at home.

Corpus 3:A cross-sectional corpus at 2;3 based on 10 other children (six girls, Alice2,

Chlo, Elodie, La, Margaux, Pauline2 and four boys, Arnaud, Maxime, Rmi, Tho)

with their mother in various activities (play, snack). For five of those children (Chlo,

Table 1. Population: number of children, age, MLU, number of sessions, number of turns

Corpus Age MLU MLUlevel

No. ofchildren

No. ofsessions

Total no.of turns

Mean no.of turns

Cross-sectional Per child Per child 1;11 mean: 1;11

(1;11.31;11.26)1.562.83mean: 1.98

1, 2, 3 5 1 306 61.20

2;3 mean: 2;3.5(2;2.52;3.29)

1.323.01mean: 2.07

1, 2, 3 10 24 2620 262

Longitudinal

(home) 2 Per child Per session

Daniel 1;92;4 1.362.50 1, 2, 3 6 1603 229Lonard 1;112;4 2.042.85 2, 3 6 384 647



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Elodie, Margaux, Rmi and Tho), play and snack sessions were also recorded at their

nursery school.

The utterances of all participants were transcribed and contextual information necessaryfor the interpretation of the verbal production was noted.

At each step, we first present the results from the longitudinal data and then from the

cross-sectional data. The longitudinal data are divided into two-months periods 1;91;10,

1;112;0, 2;12;2 and 2;32;4.

In the cross-sectional data, the two corpora present a similar range of mean length of

utterance (MLU) (computed in number of words out of 100 utterances per child). In order

to draw a developmental trend, it is thus better to contrast childrens productions accord-

ing to their MLU rather than their age. Even though there is not necessarily a direct link

between MLU and pragmatic development, this method is also appropriate because chil-

drens use of referential expressions cannot be considered independently of morphological

development. The cross-sectional data have thus been divided according to three groups

of children, roughly corresponding to Browns I, II and III stages (Brown, 1973):

Level 1:Five children whose MLU is between 1.32 and 1.73. Fewer than 17% of their

utterances include a verb, with or without arguments; the utterances are either bare

nouns (mean 34%), or one- to two-word pre-syntactic predications (mean 14%).

Level 2:Five children whose MLU is between 2.04 and 2.44. 30% of their utterances

have a verbal predicate (with or without arguments). Nominal utterances are less

prevalent (19%) but 15% of their utterances can still be described as pre-syntacticpredications.

Level 3:Five children whose MLU is between 2.50 and 3.01. The mean number of

verbal predicate utterances corresponds to 40%, nominal utterances to 22% and pre-

syntactic predications to 9% of their utterances.

The two children from the longitudinal corpus follow a similar trend: at 1;10 they

mostly produce non-verbal utterances and a very low percentage of utterances with ver-

bal predicates. This proportion is inverted at the end of the recordings: there are between

40% and 50% utterances with verbal predicates.All children belong to French-speaking middle-class families.

Data analysis

In this section we first present the types of referential expressions and the criteria used to

categorize referential continuity between the childrens utterances and their interlocutors

utterances. Then, we turn to the categories concerning the influence (of the form) of the

adults discourse and the type of continuity between the speech turns of the adults and of

the children.

Referential expressions. Considering any linguistic unit that can refer to an entity or to

events processed as entities as a referential expression,1we contrast clitic pronouns with

other referential expressions.



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Salazar et al. 381

Clitic pronouns: For this study we have considered all adult-like forms as clitic

pronouns ([il], [l]). Some authors (Jakubowicz & Rigaut, 1997; Veneziano, 2003) con-

sider that the forms [i] and [] (e.g., [tb] e(lle) tombe shes falling) do not clearly

correspond to pronouns. However, in oral French, adults frequently omit the lateral [l] infront of a consonant; we have thus included these forms in the pronominal category.

Forms in [l] (e.g., [leasi] (i)l est assis hes sitting) frequently used by children, were

also included.

Other referential expressions:

Nouns: Both proper names and nouns are included in this category.

Demonstrative pronouns: a ([savala] a va l it goes there) is the most fre-

quent form of demonstrative pronoun in our data. Other forms such as celui-ci

(this one) and celui-l (that one) are occasionally used.

Cestis considered separately from other demonstratives because it can correspond

either to the association of the demonstrative and the copula or to a presentative

(Martinet, 1979) and because it is difficult to determine whether children are produc-

ing a creative combination or a frozen expression for a given utterance. Besides,

cest is used very often (e.g., [seamwa?] cest moi? is it mine?] by young

children.

Dislocation constructions: In oral French, pronouns are often used in co-occurrence

with a noun (e.g., [analepati] Anna elle est partie Anna shes gone or [ifedodola],

il fait dodo le chat it is sleeping, the cat). Dislocations also involve demonstratives

(e.g., [sepabsa] cest pas bon a its not good, that).2

Other pronouns: There also are a few occurrences of indefinite and interrogativepronouns.

This study is focused on referential expressions in subject function. As the period

under study covers the emergence of syntax, position was not the sole criterion to iden-

tify subjects; semantic criteria have also been used as in (1) where [lapupe], the agent,

has been considered as the subject:

(1) Alice 1;11 MLU 2.2

Alice: bwa atas lapupe3 boit F

4tasse la poupe drinks Fcup the doll

We also include the category of unmarked reference: during the period under study,

the subject can be absent.5This can be the case in pre-syntactic productions, such

as (2):

(2) Daniel 1;9 MLU 1.59

Daniel has just put a piece of something in his shirt. He is looking for it.

Mother: o il est? where is it?Daniel takes out the object and looks at it.

Mother: le voil! here it is!

Daniel: a!6kae

ah! cass oh! broken!



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It can also be the case in utterances that are already syntactically fairly advanced, such

as (3):

(3) Arnaud 2;3 MLU 3.01Mother: quest ce quelle fait la camra? what does the camera do?

Arnaud: feptipobwi

fait un petit peu Fbruit makes a little bit Fnoise

During this period, (proto)verbs can be associated to proto-forms ([atu]: F tou(rne)

Fturn{/s}) called fillers (Peters, 2000; Veneziano & Sinclair, 2000). The morphological

status of these units is uncertain: it is particularly difficult to differentiate a proto-pronoun

and a proto-auxiliary in preverbal position which implies that it would also be difficult

to specify whether these items are referential. We thus include them in the unmarked

reference category.

Relation to the interlocutors discourse. This analysis7concerns the referential continuity

between the children and their interlocutors previous utterances. We consider as inter-

locutors not only the mother, the father, or the caretaker but also other children (siblings

in home recordings, other children in the nursery) and the observer who is recording.8

The referential expression used by the child can be linked to these previous utterances in

four different ways:

Immediate explicit mention (IM):the interlocutor has mentioned the referent(with any

referential expression, including pronouns) in the immediately preceding utterances:

(4) Lonard 2;4 MLU 2.45

Mother and child are looking at a book.

Mother: Et oui, et Adle? yes, and Adle?

Lonard: [letobela gad]

elle est tombe l regarde she fell over there look

Non-immediate explicit mention (NIM):this groups three different categories:

Distant explicit mention: the interlocutor has mentioned the referent in anothertopical sequence, which means that there are at least two shifts in the discourse

topic (Dik, 1997) between the target utterance and the one produced by the inter-

locutor:

(5) La 2;2 MLU 2.4

La and her mother are playing in the room. They are looking for stuffed

animals.

La: ijeu

il est o where is it?Mother: je sais pas. tu sais o ilest? hum? I dont know. do you know

where it is? hum?

. . . eight turns involving Las name and age.



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Salazar et al. 383

La points to something behind her mothers back.

La: ejeja . wimbmatata.

elle est l. Simba Matata. (c)ochon its here. Simba Matata. piggy

In this case, La reintroduces the reference to an object that both interlocutors were

looking for previously.

Inferable reference: the referent has not been explicitly mentioned by the inter-

locutor but can be inferred from her/his utterance:

(6) Daniel 2;4 MLU 2.39

Daniel sits on his train.

Daniel: vvwa m {} tuu {bi bije}. vwj

vwa {} vavjva

veux voir mon Ftchou tchou {???}. want to see my Ftchu

{veux} voi(r) F{vache/va}. veux tchu. {want} see

vache{vache/va} F {cow/go}, want {cow/go}

Observer: tu ten vas? are you leaving?

Daniel: wi oui yes

Daniel: ksa isava

comme a i(l) sen va like that its leaving

The attention of both participants (the observer and the child) is focused on the

little train, which has been mentioned only by the child. Even though we can consider

that the observers utterance tu ten vas is alluding to the train it does not explicitly

mention it.

Absent referent: the referent mentioned by the child is absent from the previous

interlocutors discourse:

(7) Arnaud 2;3 MLU 3.01 Arnaud is having his snack with his mother.

Mother: tu vas manger une tarte you are going to eat an apple pie

aux pommes

Arnaud: w

ouais yeah

Mother: ouais yeah

Arnaud: {uwe} klmari?

{ou est} Claire-Marie? where is Claire-Marie?

Influence of the adults utterance. In the cases of immediate referential continuity, chil-

drens use of referential expressions can be influenced by the form of the interlocutors

utterance. Four cases are considered:



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Utterance reproduction:Children reproduce the lexical and syntactic form of the adultsutterance:

(8) Margaux 2;3 MLU 2.62Margaux is having her afternoon snack at the nursery school.

Adult: non elle est pas l no shes not here

Margaux: {selasepala{xx}la++ palasalt}

cest l cest pas l {xx} ++ shes not here, not here.

pas l Cha(r)lotte

Adult: Charlotte? Charlotte?

Margaux: lepala

elle est pas l shes not here

The reproduction may not immediately follow the interlocutors utterance, Margaux

replicates the adults utterance word for word in her second turn.

Item reproduction:The child takes up the referential expression used by the adult

but constructs a different utterance. The childs utterance shares with his or her

interlocutors utterance the referential expression (e.g., the noun, the pronoun)

for the same referent, without it being a replication of the whole interlocutors

utterance:

(9) Arnaud 2;3 MLU 3.01

Arnaud and his mother are talking about the observer.Mother: elleva revenir dans un petit shes coming back soon,

moment, tu finis ta tarte finish your apple pie

aux pommes

Arnaud: lepati

(e)lle est partie shes gone

The cases when the verb is also taken up are included in this category:

(10) Pauline2 2;3 MLU 2.52Mother: elle est o la brioche? where is the cake?

Pauline: ledda)

elle est dedans its inside

As illustrated in this example, cases where a clitic pronoun follows an adults disloca-

tion are also included in this category: the child is taking up a form available in the

adults discourse.

Elicited:A question by the adult can elicit the form used by the child:

(11) Alice 2;3 MLU 2.44

Mother: quest ce que tu veux maintenant? what do you want now?

Max: s (de)ssert desert



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Salazar et al. 385

Absence of direct influence:The form of the adults utterance is not directly reflected in

the referential expression used by the child:

(12) La 2;2 MLU 2.4Mother: tu veux quon fasse une you want us to build a house with lego?

maison avec les legos?

La: wi {isdda}

oui {i(ls) sont dedans} yes theyre inside

Unmarked references are, by definition, not taken up from the interlocutors utterances.

Nevertheless we have considered the cases where a filler follows a clitic pronoun (alone

or in a dislocation construction) produced by the adult, and cases where they appear after

an adults question.

Types of dialogical continuity. This analysis deals with a pragmatic-discursive factor that

can account for the use of referring expressions in the dynamics of dialogue. In narra-

tives, the choice of a referential expression depends on the dynamics of the topics. In

dialogue, it can also correspond to the maintenance or the change of perspective towards

the discourse of the interlocutor. Three categories can be distinguished:

Repetitions and reformulationsof a preceding utterance without adding any new predi-

cation to the topic:

(13) Arnaud 2;3 MLU 3.01Mother: ben cest Nanaud qui well. Its Nanaud who is hitting

tape sur les boutons the buttons.

Arnaud: nanoitaibut?

Nanaud i(l) ta(pe) Fboutons? Nanaud is hitting Fbuttons?

Contrastive sequences:despite referential continuity there is a shift in the way the topic

is tackled with opposition, a change of thematic focusing (14), perspective shifting,

explanations, clarifications or requests for clarification:

(14) Chlo 2;3 MLU 2.71

Adult: cest Morgane qui la Is it Morgane who has the giraffe?

la + girafe?

Chlo: morgannenosapl +

morgannenosapl

Morgane [neno] sappelle Morgane [neno] is called

Morgane [neno] sappelle. Morgane [neno] is called

Plain continuity:only a new predication is added on the same topic without any changeof perspective or genre shifting:

(15) Daniel 2;0 MLU 2.02

Daniel: pupa (noise for fire men trucks)



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Observer: ah papoupa oui! oh! pa pou pa, yes.

Daniel: a ka katje pupa

{arte} poupa {stopped} pupa

Observer: a sest arrt oui it stopped, yes

This category also includes answers to questions about the same discourse object, as

in (10).

Reliability

Intercoder agreement for each of the categories under study was tested for 10% of the

data from children randomly selected. The rates of agreement were 98% for grammatical

categories and 87% for the presence of the discourse object in the interlocutors dis-

course. The coding of the two last sets of categories was done separately by different

coders (the co-authors) and afterwards discussed by the whole group of coders in order

to resolve divergences.

A descriptive approach was adopted for the data analysis. This approach seemed

preferable for two main reasons: the first is that children strongly differ as to the amount

of occurrences in each category; the second is that, even for adults, the use of a given

referential expression depends on various factors, and there are no sharp contrasts for

the use of referential expressions for each functional category. We present the total in

absolute values and the percentages for each group, as well as the mean and standard

deviation for each functional category. Tables A1A6 in the Appendix9give the data foreach child.

Results

Referential expressions

Table 2 presents the distribution of referential expressions and unmarked reference in

subject position.

Our data relate to the acquisition process of pronouns in its very beginning. The lon-gitudinal data enable us to observe how clitic pronouns in subject position emerge. Even

though the two children under study very quickly use more than two words per utterance

on average, the proportion of clitic pronouns does not grow at the same pace (with the

exception of Lonard at 2;32;4). Nouns and dislocations are (together) the most fre-

quent subjects. Unmarked reference, which appears to be prevalent at 1;91;10 in

Daniels corpus, corresponds to a third of both childrens utterances at 1;112;0 but still

around 1115% at 2;12;2 and 2;32;4. The cross-sectional data present a slightly different

distribution as there is no predominant category for the subject position: neither clitic

pronouns nor nouns (with dislocations), which are more frequent than clitic pronouns forsubject function at any stage. Unmarked reference diminishes with the MLU level, from

39% of the utterances at level 1 to 10% at level 3.



13/28

Salazar et al. 387

Table2.

Refe

rentia

lexpress

ionsan

dunmar

ke

dre

ference

insu

bjectpositi

on:num

beran

d(percentage

)

Corpus

Clitic

pronouns

No.

(%)

Nouns

No.

(%)

Dislocations

No.

(%)

Cest

No.

(%)

Dem.

pronouns

No.

(%)

Other

pronouns

No.(

%)

Unmarke

d

reference

No.(

%)

Tota

l

No.(

%)

Age

MLUleve

l

Longitudinal

Dan

iel

1;9

1;1

0

Leve

l1

5(11)

0

2(4)

1(2)

0

0

37(82)

45(100)

1;1

1

2;0

Leve

l2

5(6)

26(31)

16(19)

8(10)

5(6)

0

24(29)

84(100)

2;1

2;2

Leve

l2

4(11)

6(17)

12(33)

5(14)

5(14)

0

4(11)

36(100)

2;3

2;4

Leve

l3

14(11)

17(13)

33(25)

28(22)

18(14)

1(1)

37(15)

130(100)

Lonard

1;1

1

2;0

Leve

l2

2(13)

5(31)

2(13)

0

1(6)

0

6(38)

16(100)

2;1

2;2

Leve

l2

4(11)

6(16)

9(24)

9(24)

1(3)

4(11)

4(11)

37(100)

2;3

2;4

Leve

l3

15(30)

2(4)

17(34)

8(16)

0

1(2)

7(14)

50(100)

Cross-sectional

1;1

1/2;3

Leve

l1

15(20)

5(7)

12(16)

8(11)

5(7)

0

29(39)

74(100)

1;1

1/2;3

Leve

l2

32(16)

21(11)

32(16)

56(29)

9(5)

3(2)

41(21)

194(100)

1;1

1/2;3

Leve

l3

45(15)

36(12)

52(18)

113(38)

16(5)

4(1)

29(10)

295(100)



14/28


Presence of the referent in the interlocutors discourse

Tables 3a and 3b present the distribution of the referential expressions used by the children

in subject position according to the previous mention of the referent by their interlocutor.In order to simplify the tables, immediate explicit mention (IM) is contrasted with all other

categories (NIM), on the one hand, and clitic pronouns (CP) with other referential expres-

sions (ORE) and unmarked reference (UR), on the other hand. The last column indicates

the distribution of IM and NIM for each age or MLU level. Tables A1 and A2 in the

Appendix9present, in raw numbers (and percentages), the detail for each child and for

each referential expression.

The size of the standard deviations indicates that there are considerable individual dif-

ferences. However, (see table A2 in the Appendix9for full data) for the majority of children,

the proportion of occurrences in each category follows the same trend as mean percentages.

This is also the case for the results we present in Tables 4a and 4b and 5a and 5b. Given that

we deal with dialogic data and that we have focused the analyses on the subject position,

topical continuity is predominant for all referential expressions and unmarked reference,

even if the distribution is less contrasted for the longitudinal data. Tables 3a and 3b also

show that clitic pronouns are not used in the same way as the other referential expressions.

Longitudinal data show that, even when clitic pronouns are not very frequent in the corpus

(before 2;3), children use them more often in immediate continuity with a referent explicitly

mentioned by the interlocutor than when the referent has not been immediately mentioned

by the interlocutor (with the exception of Daniel at 2;32;4, for whom there is just a slight

tendency). The opposite is true for the other referential expressions, especially for disloca-tions, nouns and demonstratives. With the same exception of Daniel at 2;32;4, they appear

fairly less often in the context of immediate explicit mention than in the context of no

immediate mention. On the contrary, unmarked reference follows the same trend as clitic

pronouns, being more frequent in the IM than in the NIM condition.

In the cross-sectional data the effect of the dialogical context is clear: for all three lev-

els, clitic pronouns are more frequently used when the discourse object is immediately

present in the interlocutors utterance than when this is not the case, the other referential

expressions, and more specifically nouns, dislocation constructions and demonstratives,

appear more often in the non-immediate explicit mention condition. The examination ofindividual data (see also Table A2) shows that nearly all the children at the three levels

present this pattern. The exceptions are: Lisa (whose referential expressions other than

pronouns are very scarce) and Alice2 (who, on the contrary presents a much higher pro-

portion of ORE in subject function). Unmarked reference does not present the same con-

figuration as clitic pronouns; it appears in level 2 and level 3 as often in IM condition as

in NIM condition. Individual data show that for the majority of children unmarked refer-

ences are more frequent in the NIM context than in the IM context.

Influence of the adults utterance

Tables 4a (longitudinal corpus) and 4b (cross-sectional corpus) present the distribution of

formal links with the preceding adult utterance for each type of referential expression

produced by the children. In order to grasp the prevalence of the direct influence of the



15/28

Salazar et al. 389

Table3a.

Distri

butiono

fre

ferentia

lexpres

sionsaccord

ingtothementiono

fthere

ferent

inthe

interlocutors

discourse

long

itu

dina

ldata

(num

beran

dpercentage

)

Child

A

ge

Mention

Cliticpronouns

%CP

Other

referentia

l

express

ions

% ORE

U

nmarke

d

re

ference

%UR

Tota

l

%Tota

l

Dan

iel

1

;9

1;1

0

IM

4

16

1

4

2

0

80

25

56

NIM

1

5

2

10

1

7

85

20

44

T

ota

l1;9

1;1

0

5

11

3

7

3

7

82

45

100

1

;11

2;0

IM

5

11

22

50

1

7

39

44

53

NIM

0

0

32

82

7

18

39

47

T

ota

l1;1

1

2;0

5

6

54

65

2

4

29

83

100

2

;1

2;2

IM

4

20

13

65

3

15

20

56

NIM

0

0

15

94

1

6

16

44

T

ota

l2;1

2;2

4

11

28

78

4

11

36

100

2

;3

2;4

IM

9

11

59

73

1

3

16

81

62

NIM

5

10

38

78

6

12

49

38

T

ota

l2;3

2;4

14

11

97

74

1

9

15

130

100

Lonard

1

;11

2;0

IM

2

22

2

22

5

56

9

56

NIM

0

0

6

86

1

14

7

44

T

ota

l1;1

1

2;0

2

13

8

50

6

37

16

100

2

;1

2;2

IM

3

17

14

78

1

5

18

48

NIM

1

5

15

79

3

16

19

51

T

ota

l2;1

2;2

4

11

29

78

4

11

37

100

2

;3

2;4

IM

13

39

13

40

7

21

33

66

NIM

2

12

15

88

0

0

17

34

T

ota

l2;3

2;4

15

30

28

56

7

14

50

100

IM:exp

lic

itimm

ediate

lymentione

d;N

IM:non-i

mm

ediate

lymentione

d(distant,

infera

ble

,ora

bsent).



16/28


Table3b.

Distr

ibutiono

fre

ferentia

lexpres

sionsaccord

ingtothementiono

fthere

ferent

inthe

interlocutors

discoursecross-s

ectiona

ldata

(num

beran

dpercentage

)

MLUgroup

Mention

Cliticpronouns

Otherreferentia

lexpress

ions

Unmar

ke

dre

ference

Tota

l(%)

No.

%

M

ean

%

SD

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

Leve

l1

IM

12

23

2

9

15

.1

16

31

35

14

.1

24

46

35

19

52(70)

NIM

3

14

1

5

33

.5

14

63

65

38

.7

5

23

20

12

.8

22(30)

Tota

lL1

15

20

2

2

21

.1

30

41

46

22

.8

29

39

32

17

.7

74(100)

Leve

l2

IM

28

22

1

9

21

.6

76

58

59

27

.9

26

20

22

24

.1

130(67)

NIM

4

6

4

8

.1

45

70

73

16

.9

15

24

22

18

.5

64(33)

Tota

lL2

32

16

1

5

16

.9

121

62

64

15

.9

41

21

21

15

.8

194(100)

Leve

l3

IM

38

20

2

4

24

.4

136

70

66

22

.9

19

10

10

2

.5

193(65)

NIM

7

7

1

2

17

.6

85

83

75

18

.8

10

10

12

6

.3

102(35)

Tota

lL3

45

15

2

1

23

.5

221

75

69

22

.8

29

10

10

2

.2

295(100)

IM:exp

lic

itimm

ediate

lymentione

d;N

IM:non-i

mm

ediate

lymentione

d(distant,

infera

ble

,ora

bsent).



17/28

Salazar et al. 391

Table4a.

Influenceo

fthe

interlocutorsutteranceonc

hildren

suseo

fre

ferentia

lexpress

ions

long

itud

ina

ldata

(num

beran

dpercent

age

)

Child

Age

Influence

Clitic

pronouns

%CP

Other

referentia

l

express

ions

% ORE

Un

mar

ke

d

reference

%UR

Tota

l

%Total

Dan

iel

1;9

1;1

0

Item

repro

duction

2

100

0

0

0

0

2

8

No

influence

2

9

1

4

20

87

23

92

To

tal1;9

1;1

0

4

16

1

4

20

80

25

100

1;11

2;0

Utterance

repro

duction

1

33

2

67

0

0

3

7

Item

repro

duction

3

33

2

22

4

45

9

20

No

influence

1

3

18

56

13

41

32

73

To

tal1;1

1

2;0

5

11

22

50

17

39

44

100

2;1

2;2

Utterance

repro

duction

0

0

3

100

0

0

3

15

Item

repro

duction

2

40

3

60

0

0

5

25

No

influence

2

17

7

58

3

25

12

60

To

tal2;1

2;2

4

20

13

65

3

15

20

100

2;3

2;4

Utterance

repro

duction

0

0

8

100

0

0

8

9

Item

repro

duction

4

0

0

0

0

100

24

30

Elic

ite

d

0

17

20

83

1

0

1

1

No

influence

5

10

21

65

12

25

48

59

To

tal2;3

2;4

9

11

31

72

13

16

81

100

Lonard

1;11

2;0

Item

repro

duction

0

0

0

0

3

100

3

33

No

influence

2

33

2

33

2

33

6

67

To

tal1;1

1

2;0

2

22

2

22

5

56

9

100

2;1

2;2

Utterance

repro

duction

1

50

1

50

0

0

2

11

Item

repro

duction

2

50

1

25

1

25

4

22

No

influence

0

0

12

100

1

0

12

67

To

tal2;1

2;2

3

17

14

78

1

6

18

100

2;3

2;4

Utterance

repro

duction

0

0

1

100

0

0

1

3

Item

repro

duction

10

83

1

8

1

8

12

39

No

influence

3

17

10

56

5

28

18

58

To

tal2;3

2;4

13

42

12

39

6

19

31

100



18/28


Table4b.

Influenceo

fthe

inter

locutorsutteranceonc

hildren

sc

ho

iceof

referentia

lexpress

ioncross-s

ectiona

ldata

(num

beran

dpe

rcentage

)

MLU

group

Influence

Cliticpronou

ns

Otherre

ferentia

lexpress

ions

U

nmarke

dre

ference

Tota

l(%)

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

%

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

%

N

o.

%

Mean

%

SD%

Leve

l1

Elicit

ed

0

0

0

3

100

40

54

.8

0

0

0

3(6)

Item

repro

duction

4

57

41

.7

50

3

43

46

.7

50

.6

0

0

0

7(13)

Utte

rance

repro

duction

0

0

0

1

100

20

44

.7

0

0

0

1(2)

Noin

fluence

8

19

.5

29

.3

16

.9

9

22

24

.3

20

.3

24

58

.5

46

.3

17

.9

41(79)

Tota

lL1

12

23

29

15

.1

16

31

35

14

.1

24

46

35

18

.9

52(100)

Leve

l2

Elicit

ed

0

0

0

1

100

20

44

.7

0

0

0

1(1)

Item

repro

duction

14

50

39

37

.1

13

46

58

.5

34

.1

1

0

0

0.1

28(22)

Utte

rance

repro

duction

3

19

25

36

.3

13

81

75

36

.3

0

0

0

16(12)

Noin

fluence

11

13

13

.5

13

.5

49

58

58

.9

24

.3

25

29

.4

27

.6

27

.2

85(65)

Tota

lL2

28

22

19

21

.6

76

58

59

26

.9

26

20

22

24

.1

130(100)

Leve

l3

Elicit

ed

0

0

0

3

100

60

54

.8

0

0

0

3(2)

Item

repro

duction

26

49

45

.1

32

.3

24

45

49

.8

29

3

0

0.1

0.1

53(27)

Utte

rance

repro

duction

1

5

25

50

21

95

75

50

0

0

0

22(11)

Noin

fluence

11

10

10

.3

7.3

88

77

75

.1

7.4

16

13

.9

14

.7

13

.5

115(60)

Tota

lL3

38

20

24

24

.5

136

70

66

22

.9

19

10

9.9

2.4

9

100



19/28

Salazar et al. 393

interlocutors utterance form in the childrens use of referential expressions, the last column

presents the global percentage of each functional category for each age or MLU level.

Tables 4a and 4b show that direct influence of the interlocutors utterance is not a homoge-

neous phenomenon across children and ages or MLU levels. For both the longitudinal andcross-sectional data, direct influence of the form of the interlocutors discourse ranges from 0%

to 60% (see also and Tables A3 and A4 in the Appendix9for full data). In the longitudinal data,

item reproduction ranges from 8% to 40% of the childrens utterances, utterance reproduction

from 0% to 15% and elicitation is a marginal phenomenon present only in Daniels data. These

data show that the two children therefore do not behave in the same way as far as this direct

influence is concerned. Daniel tends to produce clitic pronouns after the adult has also pro-

duced one (item reproduction) in the first months and then use them autonomously, whereas

Lonard presents the opposite pattern with item reproduction for clitic pronouns only after 2;1.

But for both children, utterance reproduction does not seem to be a privileged context for the

production of clitic pronouns. It therefore seems difficult to consider that there is a systematic

trend for the influence of the form of the interlocutors utterance on childrens utterances.

The cross-sectional data show that utterance reproduction grows from 2% to 12% and

that item reproduction grows from 13% at level 1 to 27% of the childrens utterances at

level 3. Elicitation by questions appears as a minor process in any case and, as it could be

expected, unmarked references are more often associated with an absence of influence. In

item reproduction contexts, clitic pronouns seem to be as frequent as the other referential

expressions. Individual data confirm that children behave differently with respect to the

way they anchor their productions in their interlocutors utterance. At each MLU level,

some children (two at level 1, two at level 2 and four at level 3) proportionally take upclitic pronouns more often than other referential expressions from their interlocutors

utterances. The other children either behave equally for clitic pronouns and other referen-

tial expressions, or take up the other referential expressions more often.

Types of dialogical continuity

Tables 5a (longitudinal) and 5b (cross-sectional) present the type of dialogical continuity

existing between the childrens utterances and their interlocutors immediately preceding

utterance (see also Tables A5 and A6 in the Appendix9).Globally, plain continuity is the most frequent link between the childrens utterances

and their interlocutors turns. The longitudinal data show that pronouns appear more often,

at each age period, in this context whereas the other referential expressions tend to be acti-

vated more frequently when there is a contrast, a repetition or a reformulation. With the

exception of Daniel at 1;91;10 and Lonard at 2;12;2, unmarked reference appears more

frequently in the context of plain continuity than in the context of contrast sequencing. But

it does not show the same pattern as clitic pronouns for repetition reformulation.

As for the cross-sectional corpus, the data show an evolution between level 1 and level 3.

At level 1, there are no differences between plain continuity and contrast for clitic pronouns,but the other referential expressions appear slightly more frequently in the context of con-

trast and repetition or reformulation. Two types of profile can be set on the basis of the

individual data (Table A6 in the Appendix9): at level 1, three children use clitic pronouns

more often in the context of plain continuity and other referential expressions in the context



20/28


Table5a.

Distri

butiono

fre

ferentia

lexpres

sionsaccord

ingtothetypeof

dialog

ica

lcontinu

ity

long

itud

ina

ldata

(num

beran

dpercent

age

)

Child

A

ge

Dialog

ica

l

continu

ity

Clitic

pr

onouns

%CP

Other

referentia

l

expressions

%ORE

Unmarke

d

re

ference

%UR

Total

%Tota

l

Dan

iel

1

;9

1;1

0

Plaincont.

3

27

0

0

8

73

11

44

Contrast

0

0

1

13

7

87

8

32

Rep./

ref

1

17

0

0

5

83

6

24

Tota

l

4

16

1

4

20

80

25

100

1

;11

2;0

Plaincont.

2

20

4

40

4

40

10

24

Contrast

2

12

9

53

6

35

17

42

Rep./

ref.

1

7

6

43

7

50

14

34

Tota

l

5

12

19

46

17

41

41

100

2

;1

2;2

Plaincont.

3

50

3

50

0

0

6

30

Contrast

1

17

5

83

0

0

6

30

Rep./

ref.

0

0

5

63

3

37

8

40

Tota

l

4

20

13

65

3

15

20

100

2

;3

2;4

Plaincont.

5

24

9

43

7

33

21

27

Contrast

3

12

22

85

1

4

26

33

Rep./

ref.

1

3

26

81

5

16

32

40

Tota

l

9

11

57

72

13

16

79

100

Lonard

1

;11

2;0

Plaincont.

2

50

1

25

1

25

4

44

Contrast

0

0

1

50

1

50

2

22

Rep./

ref.

0

0

0

0

3

100

3

33

Tota

l

2

22

2

22

5

56

9

100

2

;1

2;2

Plaincont.

2

50

2

50

0

0

4

22

Contrast

1

25

3

75

0

0

4

22

Rep./

ref.

0

0

9

90

1

10

10

56

Tota

l

3

17

14

78

1

5

18

100

2

;3

2;4

Plaincont.

10

55

5

28

3

17

18

55

Contrast

0

0

5

71

2

29

7

21

Rep./

ref.

3

38

3

38

2

25

8

24

Tota

l

13

39

13

39

7

21

33

100



21/28

Salazar et al. 395

Table5b.

Distr

ibutiono

fre

ferentia

lexpres

sionsaccord

ingtothetypeof

dialog

ica

lcontinu

itycross-s

ectiona

ldata

(num

beran

dperc

entage

)

MLUgroup

Dialog

ica

l

continu

ity

Cliticpronouns

Otherre

fe

rentia

lexpress

ions

Unm

arke

dre

ference

Tota

l(%)

No.

%

M

ean

%

SD

%

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

%

No.

%

Mean

%

SD

%

Leve

l1

Plain

continu

ity

8

28

24

26

.8

7

24

38

41

.5

14

48

37

28

.3

29(57)

Contrast

3

27

19

37

.5

4

36

41

42

.5

4

36

40

49

.0

11(22)

Rep./

ref.

1

9

11

19

.2

4

36

54

39

.9

6

55

35

35

.7

11(22)

Tota

lL1

12

23

29

15

.1

16

31

35

14

.1

24

46

35

18

.9

51(100)

Leve

l2

Plain

continu

ity

18

33

24

33

23

42

49

30

.3

14

25

27

29

.1

55(42)

Contrast

4

8

6

8.1

36

72

76

16

.4

10

20

18

14

.4

50(38)

Rep./

ref.

6

24

38

46

.5

17

68

52

41

.5

2

8

10

22

.4

25(19)

Tota

lL2

28

22

19

21

.6

76

58

59

26

.9

26

20

22

24

.1

130(100)

Leve

l3

Plain

continu

ity

33

41

38

27

.3

36

44

44

24

.3

12

15

18

13

.7

81(42)

Contrast

2

3

2

.9

6.4

52

88

88

14

.7

5

8

9

9.3

59(31)

Rep./

ref.

3

6

5

.1

7.0

48

91

93

7.9

2

4

2

2.9

53(27)

Tota

lL3

38

20

24

24

.5

136

70

66

22

.9

19

10

9

.9

2.5

193(100)



22/28


of contrasts or reformulations, whereas two other children invert this pattern. At level 2,

clitic pronouns are clearly more frequent for plain continuity than for contrast and this dif-

ference increases at level 3. The pattern is inverted for the other referential expressions. At

level 2, one child does not reproduce this pattern and two of them also present pronouns moreoften in the context of repetition or reformulation. A level 3, there is only one child for whom

there is no real contrast between the use of clitic pronouns and other referential expressions.

Unmarked reference is, at each level, more frequent in the context of plain continuity

than in the context of contrast sequencing. At level 1 it is a prevalent feature of utterances

in repetition or reformulation; this characteristic diminishes dramatically at levels 2 and 3.

For these two levels, the unmarked reference pattern is similar to that of the clitic pronouns.

Discussion

The data presented in the Results section concern the very first periods in the acquisition

of clitic pronouns. In this research, several issues related to childrens use of clitic pro-

nouns as opposed to other referential expressions were explored. The analysis was

restricted to the subject position. In the first place, the results confirm that most referen-

tial expressions tend to code a referent previously mentioned by the interlocutor, which

is natural in dialogue. It can be assumed from previous studies (Matthews et al., 2006;

Salazar Orvig et al., 2010) that children draw on intersubjective sharing and dialogue to

construct their discourse rather than relying on their sole apprehension of the world.

On these bases, two main issues were investigated. The first concerns the links

between the childs production of a clitic pronoun and the forms used by his or her inter-locutor in the immediate context. Four possibilities were considered: the childs utter-

ance is merely a repetition, the child takes up the referential expression (clitic pronoun or

other) used by the adult in the immediate context, the referential expression (clitic pronoun

or other) is elicited by a question, or the referential expression (clitic pronoun or other)

mainly stands for a co-referential relation without directly depending on the form used

by the interlocutor. The second main issue concerns the role of a pragmatic-discursive

factor in the use of pronouns in contrast to the use of other referential expressions.

The results for the first issue show that this relation does not always correspond to the

mere uptake of the interlocutors construction. This is true for elicitation by a question,as well as for the exact reproduction of the interlocutors utterances. Concerning the use

of pronouns by the children just after the adults have used one themselves, our definition

of the category item reproduction includes several cases of possible direct influence by

the form of the adults utterance, including when a subjectverb construction produced

by the adult (be it assertive or interrogative) shapes the childs response (example 10).

The results form a complex picture. The item reproduction phenomenon is not perva-

sive throughout the whole corpus and there are considerable differences among the chil-

dren in the use of clitic pronouns in this context. The hypothesis of a mere reproduction

of an anaphoric link established by the adult (Levy, 1989, 1999) should thus be dis-missed. Even if children anchor their production in the adults utterances, they do not

always preferentially take up the referential expression used by their interlocutor.

On the other hand, if we go back to the results in Tables 4a and 4b, we can observe that

the more linguistically advanced children take up the interlocutor referential expression,



23/28

Salazar et al. 397

without reproducing his/her utterance, more often than the less advanced children. Thus,

the reproduction of the form does not necessarily correspond to an acquisitional move. It

can depend on the dynamics of the dialogue. Therefore factors other than the influence of

the form used by the interlocutor might play a part in the use of pronouns in continuity withthe interlocutors discourse. For instance, the shared construction of a topical sequence

could partly explain the use of pronouns. As a matter of fact, fewer children in level 1 take

up the clitic pronouns from the interlocutors utterances. This could be due to the fact that

during the first stages of language acquisition, dialogical exchanges are short (McTear,

1985; Ninio & Snow, 1996; Salazar Orvig, 2003). On the contrary, four of the five children

in level 3 show a preference for clitic pronoun continuity. This suggests a correlation

between pronoun use and childrens ability to maintain a conversation topic in dialogue.

This leads us to consider pragmatic-discursive factors. The analysis presented here con-

cerns the types of continuity between the childs productions and the previous adult utter-

ances in the dynamics of the dialogue. In adult language, the use of pronouns in contrast

with other referential expressions depends on referent accessibility (Ariel, 1988; Givn,

1995; Prince, 1981). Similarly, studies on narratives in children (Bamberg, 1986; Hickmann,

2002) show that the use of nouns or dislocations mostly corresponds to shifts and reintro-

ductions of topics. However, according to Apothloz (1995) the choice of referential

expressions does not only depend on this factor, it can also be linked to modifications of

the discourse genre (for example shifting from description to argumentation). According to

our results on dialogical continuity, childrens discourse presents similar phenomena.

In the case of plain continuity, the childrens discourse might be in line with a discur-

sive representation (Cornish, 1999) that was previously elaborated and shared. In the caseof repetitions and reformulations children do not add anything to the discursive represen-

tation, they simply reiterate it. Finally, when children need to express a contrast, they tend

to use nouns or dislocations. Their verbal production functions as a new utterance act,

either because children change the discourse focus (request for clarification) or because

they change perspective, or finally because they need to assert their own positioning as

speaker. Level 2 and 3 children (four out of five, each time) favour the use of clitic pro-

nouns when a topic is continued and new predications are added in linear progression.

They use nouns and dislocations when there is a contrast with the interlocutors utterance.

This preference seems to be initiated while the children are in the process of mastering theuse of pronouns as it appears if we consider cases where there are five or more pronouns

in subject position: Lisa (level 1), La (level 2), Ccile, Margaux and Pauline2 (level 3) in

the cross-sectional data and Daniel at 1;112;0 and 2;32;4 and Lonard at 2;32;4 in the

longitudinal data; only Chlo (level 3) presents an undifferentiated pattern.

But the data also show that plain continuity can be expressed as well through forms

other than pronouns. This might indicate that the use of a particular referential device

follows a more complex pattern. Let us consider the case of nouns (alone or in disloca-

tions), on the one hand, and the case of unmarked references, on the other hand.

As far as nouns or dislocations are concerned, they are mostly used in the context ofa contrast (shifting topics or points of view) with the preceding discourse. Nevertheless,

this can interact with the fact that, in certain cases, children do take up forms previously

used by adults (17 out of 29 cases). The following example suggests how these two fac-

tors seem to combine:



24/28


(16) La 2;2 MLU 2.4

La and her mother are talking about a fictional character, a little princess

named Poucelina.

Mother 180: Et le prince il est beau le prince? and the prince, he ishandsome, the prince?

La 157: wi oui yes

Mother 181: cest vrai? its true?

La 158: pijepaatilps dpuselina

Fp(r)in(ce) il est pas gentil Fprince, he is not nice,

le p(r)ince de Poucelina Poucelinas prince

Mother 182: pourquoi il est pas gentil? why isnt he nice?

La 159: pask ijemea

pa(r)ce que il est mchant because he is mean. . . talking about other topics

La 176: jpdpuselina ijemea

le p(r)in(ce) de poucelina Poucelinas prince, he is

il est mchant mean.

Mother 205: oh bien a! on na pas russi well we havent found out

savoir pourquoi il tait why he was mean. well,

mchant mais bon! pourquoi il why is he mean the prince?

est mchant le prince?

La looks up at the camera and then looks at a toy.La 177: pask iiijedijebo meijepabo

pa(r)ce que {i i} {il est dit/il because {? ?} {its said/he

dit/jai dit} il est beau mais il says/ I said} he is handsome,

est pas beau but he isnt handsome

In turn Mother180, the mother refers to Poucelinas prince using a double dislocated

construction, in turn La 158, the child reproduces the double dislocation used by her mother.

In the next turns (Mother 182 and La 159) referential continuity is marked by the exclusive

use of a pronoun, again both by the mother and the child. This could lead us to the conclusionthat the child is simply adopting the adults model. However, this is not the case in La 177

where La continues with a pronoun even though her mother did not use it in her question.

Returning to the first part of the excerpt, note that in turn La 158, there is a slight shift in

perspectives. The child adds a predication about the prince, but this predication is in contrast

with the one proposed by the mother: as French children usually do, La uses here pas beau

(not beautiful, not handsome) as a synonym of pas gentil (not nice). Therefore it can also

be considered as being in opposition with the representation the mother was giving of the

character. In the third part of the dialogue the referent le prince is reintroduced with a dislo-

cation (a typical form for reintroductions) by the child and then continued with pronounsboth by the child and the mother. The mothers speech turn (Mother 205) illustrates the dif-

ference between plain continuity (we havent found out why he was mean) and contrast

marked by a new question to the child (why is the prince mean?). The childs utterance is in

continuity with this discursive representation and only the pronoun is used after that turn.



25/28

Salazar et al. 399

The results concerning unmarked reference deserve a specific discussion. As far as types

of continuity are concerned, unmarked reference is as frequent as clitic pronouns in the dif-

ferent contexts, especially in the less advanced children in the cross-sectional data. Therefore

before pronouns are mastered, topical continuity seems to be maintained by predications onreferents that are implicit in the childrens productions (Tables 5a and 5b) but have been

previously mentioned in the discourse, and particularly by the interlocutor. This corrobo-

rates the results of the study on English by Hughes and Allen (2006), who consider that

pragmatic discursive features of null arguments foreshadow the adult use of pronouns. In a

similar vein, De Cat (2004b) suggests that subject omission does not correspond to a lack of

pragmatic competence in young children. As a matter of fact, this type of utterance is set in

the framework of joint attention episodes, which for Bruner (1978) are the prerequisite for

the referential function. When pronouns emerge, children might already master two func-

tions: (1) the deictic function, which corresponds in the gestural modality to pointing and in

the linguistic modality to devices such as demonstratives; and (2) the topical continuity

function, for which children produce predications about unmarked referents (with or with-

out fillers) in joint attention episodes. The emergence of clitic pronouns can thus be consid-

ered in terms of the well-described process by Slobin: New forms first express old functions,

and new functions are first expressed by old forms (Slobin, 1973, p. 184). Third person

clitic pronouns might not initiate the anaphoric function but actually become the privileged

tool to convey a function that was already present in the childrens language uses.

Overall, these findings suggest that childrens uses of pronouns reflect early prag-

matic skills, which seem to be acquired during the period under study. Children seem to

be able to differentiate moves in dialogue and to choose the adequate linguistic devicesto express them. Even though differentiation with the use of other referential expressions

does not seem to be established for every child at levels 1 or 2 , there are no cases where

a greater number of pronouns are used for other types of continuity.

The relation between the discourse of the child and the discourse of the interlocutor is

not confined to a mere referential coincidence. On the one hand, children master topical

continuity before the use of pronouns (Bruner, 1978; Ochs, Schieffelin, & Platt, 1979;

Veneziano, 2000) and, on the other hand, the present findings show that when they start

to use pronouns, they tend to contrast them with other referential expressions. Hence, we

can consider that third person clitic pronouns have the value of marking topical continu-ity in a shared discursive representation. At a more general level, the results suggest that

in the process of acquiring morphological devices, children do not first acquire their

strict grammatical values and add their discursive value later on. On the contrary, the

discursive values are associated with the grammatical level from the onset.

These findings confirm the relevance of a pragmatic study of the emergence of pro-

nouns that takes the dialogical conditions of their acquisition into account. Nevertheless,

dialogical conditions must not be understood as mere copying of adult productions on

the part of the child. Our data suggest that childrens productions are predominantly

anchored in an intersubjective space shared in dialogue. Indeed, most referents mentionedby the children were first mentioned by the adult. In a Bakhtinian approach to language

(Bakhtin, 1986), this means that children use the interlocutors discourse in order to elab-

orate their own. This could be the framework for two types of concurrent phenomena that

could be explored in further research. First, mediation: adults mediate the construction of



26/28


longer and more continuous sequences in their dialogues with children; and second, an

integration of interactional episodes (Veneziano, 2000, p. 254, our translation). Children,

in their communicative experience, grasp the contrasts marked by adults in their choice of

referential expressions and in particular the fact that adults use pronouns in the contextof plain continuity, and nouns and dislocations for contrastive sequences.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Edy Veneziano, Kevin Durkin and the three anonymous reviewers for their

thorough reading of a first version of this article and their stimulating comments. We would also

like to thank Cristina Corlateanu and Gwendoline Fox for their collaboration.

Notes1 We have excluded all first and second person reference as well as metalinguistic utterances.

2 The only three cases of tonic third person pronouns appear in dislocations.

3 We present an interpretation of the examples in French and a translation in English along

with the phonetic transcription. Braces indicate ambiguities and uncertain transcriptions,

translations or interpretations. A slash separates alternative interpretations.

4 We use Fto indicate the probable presence of a filler syllable.

5 Contrary to English, German or other languages (Allen, 2000; Givn, 1995; Hickmann,

2002), in French null forms are not a syntactic choice for subject function (except when two

predications are coordinated).

6 The intonation is clearly exclamatory here, which leads us to interpret this [a] as an interjectionand not as a filler.

7 This issue has been treated for all functions in Salazar Orvig et al. (2010).

8 Note that in cross-sectional observations, the observer left the room during the recording.

9 Appendix available at http://fla.sagepub.com/content/30/3-4/375/suppl/DC1

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