The VIA project (Variation in the Input in Acquisition) reflects the general focus of the Language Acquisition Group at UiT. The leader is Professor Marit Westergaard, and Kristine Bentzen is hired as a post-doctoral fellow in the project for the period 2008-2011 (funded by UiT).
The VIA project investigates children’s acquisition of different types of word order variation in the primary linguistic data, e.g. the well-known optionality of verb second in wh-questions in certain Norwegian dialects, illustrated in (1).
(1) Ka du trur? / Ka trur du?
what you think/what think you
‘What do you think?’
Examples from English include the two word orders in particle shift constructions (I can’t pull down my sleevevs. I can’t pull my sleeve down) or sentences with double objects (She gave Peter some wine vs. She gave some wine to Peter). Children’s linguistic behavior when exposed to different word orders is investigated both in corpus data and experiments. Data from child-directed speech are also studied in order to determine the effect of frequency of cues and micro-cues in the input. Due to the focus on variation in adult grammars, the project is closely linked to current work on syntactic theory. One sub-component of VIA also considers the possible diachronic consequences of the variation and acquisition data.
The project addresses questions such as: What kind of word order variation are children exposed to and what are the relevant distinctions in the adult language? Do children exhibit any word order preferences in such cases and what kinds of considerations influence their choices (e.g. economy, complexity, input frequency, etc.)? How early and to what extent are children sensitive to prosodic cues and the small nuances in syntax and information structure that govern adult grammars in cases of word order variation? Is there any indication in children’s behavior that they set major word order parameters or (over-)generalize in syntax? What can the study of language acquisition reveal about the nature of possible variation in the adult language? And how can knowledge of children’s preferences and varying frequencies in the input contribute to our understanding of historical word order change?
The VIA project has resulted in a number of publications and presentations in recent years.