The perfect construction

For both boys utterances with the perfect auxiliary replace an earlier utterance type with bare supines (so called “root supines”, cf. Josefsson 2002; Christensen 2003a), for instance “pillt boodet” spillt bordet [spilled.SUP table.the] ‘I have spilled on the table’ (B 2;0). Table 21 shows the development of the root supine vs. the full perfect for both children. A total of 128 supine forms are registered for Hugo and eighty-two for Bruno. The two non-target-like instances of a supine form as a subordinated verb after other verbs than ha ‘have’ (i.e., “den e sovit” [it is slept.SUP] (H 2;1); “vill inte sovit” [want not slept.SUP] (H 2;1)) are not included in Table 21. Still, the two utterances are naturally interesting because they reveal that the supine shows up in a non-target-like subordinated position before it shows up in the target-like construction for Hugo.

It seems as if both boys acquired the full perfect construction at more or less the same age, that is at 2;4 to 2;5. But their developmental processes are not identical.

For Hugo the first registration of a full perfect occurs in an imitation of an adult utterance (“vem ha ita dä?” [who has drawn there]; H 2;0). This item is not included in Table 21 because the subordinated form is not a target-like supine form (the suffix –t is missing). The first target-like instance is instead registered at 2;3 (“ha du sett?” [have you seen.SUP]). At 2;5 it is reported to be frequent. Even if the registrations for Hugo end after 2;5, the figures illustrate a rapid switch from single supine forms to the full perfect in Hugo’s productive language. At 2;5 it is explicitly stated that Hugo “now uses ‘ha’ [have] in approximately 50% of all supine-utterances”; already six days later it is stated that “ha” is heard “in almost all supine-utterances”.

Table 21. Syntactic function of the supine for Hugo and Bruno.

Hugo Bruno

Root supine Full perfect Root supine Full perfect

1;9 8 1;10 1 0 1;11 3 0 2;0 31 5 2;1 44 5 2;2 14 0 6 2 2;3 10 1 7 6 2;4 4 11 9 11 2;5 0 7 1 6 2;6 — — 0 1 2;7 — — 7 8 ∑ 107 19 48 34

In comparison, Bruno actually started out earlier than Hugo with full perfect constructions (as well as with the root supine), but he then alternated between using bare supine forms and full perfect constructions for a long period of time. An important factor is that many of the quotes have different supplementary notations indicating that the auxiliary was weakly pronounced. At 2;7 there are a total of fifteen registrations of the supine for Bruno. One of them is not a quote but a note on a specific form; six of them are quotes of whole utterances with the supine but with no indication at all of the auxiliary (for instance “ja klippt gääset me pappa” [I cut grass.the with daddy] ‘I and daddy have mowed the lawn’ (B 2;7); “Ebba cyklit dä” [Ebba cycled there] (B 2;7)); five of them are quotes where the auxiliary is noted as “ha”, for instance “ja ha pättat nya bilen” [I have washed new car.the] (B 2;7). The remaining records show the auxiliary either within brackets, indicating that it has been

very weakly pronounced, or in the form “a”, i.e., with the initial [h] left out. At 2;7, the full perfect is explicitly reported as acquired more or less fully for Bruno, even if there actually are later instances of root supines.

It is possible to conclude that what for Hugo seems to be a rapid syntactic switch (from root supine to full perfect), is for Bruno a much more prolonged process where the two variants alternate. The difference may be related to general linguistic developmental pattern of the two boys. Hugo had a much more distinct pronunciation than Bruno did, and he also seems to have acquired different syntactic constructions more rapidly. If and how these general tendencies are related to one another is a question that naturally cannot be elucidated from the diary data.

9.8 Conclusion

Hugo and Bruno acquire four major Swedish functional verb constructions during the period investigated. There is no fixed chronological order among the four functional constructions, however. The only chronological pattern that is parallel between the boys is that the full modal construction (subject + modal + verb in the infinitive) precedes the intentional future marker (which is a type of modal construction).

In Figures 2A and 2B, a graphic representation of the emergence of functional verbs and related phenomena is presented. The emergence of more than sporadic root supines is also indicated, even if this part of the story rather has to do with morphology. It is clear that Bruno was earlier than Hugo when it comes to producing verbs in the supine.

1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 First modals Full modal constr Copula constr Intentional future constr Root

supines perfect Full

constr

1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 First modals Full modal constr Copula constr Intentional future constr Root supines Full perfect constr

10 Clauses

In this chapter some early subordinate clause types and a couple of main clause types other than the declarative main clause will be discussed.

Because it is very difficult to establish “watertight” criteria for determining when a syntactic string is a target-like declarative clause in child Swedish (cf. Wikström 2008), I will avoid the question and instead go in the opposite direction by determining linguistic strings that show structural indications of being either specific main clauses (other than declaratives) or subordinate clauses. The analysis takes the verb unit analysis as its starting point, cf. Chapter 7. The number of verb units in Hugo’s files is 678; in Bruno’s files there are 399 verb units. The number of various non-declarative main clauses is forty-two (6% of all verb units) for Hugo and twenty- nine (7%) for Bruno. The number of (possible) subordinate clauses is twelve (2%) for Hugo and thirteen (3%) for Bruno. What remains is a number of verb units consisting of one-verb-utterances, proto-declaratives of various kinds and (more or less) fully target-like declaratives. For Hugo 92% (624/678) and for Bruno 89% (357/399) of all verb units are of this unspecified type. (These numbers also include explicit comments on isolated verb lexemes or verb forms.) Instead of trying to define which of all these verb units are proper declarative main clauses and which are not, I have carried out an analysis of clause subjects (see the following chapter). This investigation can be said to illustrate the emergence of the full declarative main clause by examining one significant aspect of it – the presence of a target-like subject.