Knowledge and Obedience: The Developmental Status of the Binding Theory

A widespread view concerning the acquisition of binding holds that young children do not have complete knowledge of principle B of the binding theory. Several acquisition studies have shown that children will violate principle B a significant % of the time, leading researchers to propose that principle B is acquired, or develops later. Given that linguistic research has concluded that the binding principles are essentially universal, the issue of whether children know principle B is central for theoretical research into language acquisition. The position taken here is that despite appearances, children do in fact know the binding theory, but that failure to obey principle B mimics absence of knowledge under certain conditions. The relevant experimental data is reexamined, & it is argued that the data in fact show that children do know principle B. In many cases, experimental paradigms necessarily underestimate children's command of principle B, & in addition, certain grammatical properties of emphatic pronouns interfere with the assessment of principle B. It is concluded that children do know principle B, but that there are some very good reasons why they do not consistently obey it in acquisition experiments. 5 Tables, 43 References. AA