The development of Spanish clitics: Semantic notions and formal devices

This thesis examines the relation between the use of Spanish clitics by young children and the formal and semantic characteristics of the clauses in which they occur. The language of six Spanish-speaking preschoolers between the ages of 2;6 and 4;6 was recorded as they participated in naturalistic interactions in their homes. Each child was taped one hour per month for a period of six months. The resulting language samples were transcribed and coded. The distribution of the accusative, lo (la), the third person, se, the first person, me and the dative, le with respect to semantic and formal characteristics of the clauses in which they occurred was then analyzed. Results indicate that the clitics lo (la), me, and se occurred from the youngest age studied, while le appeared in significant numbers only at the age of 4;0. All four clitics marked variations of an object perspective within events. Lo tended to mark a variety of object roles with respect to clauses high in transitivity, while me and le marked dative perspectives on these same events. In contrast, se marked patient perspectives on intransitive events.

Patterns of use for the four clitics indicated that several processes were at work in the language development of the preschool children studied. First, children throughout the ages studied used both rote and semi-productive clitic plus verb combinations. These combinations allowed the children to convey multiple object perspectives within events. Second, the children initially used clitics to mark object perspectives within highly transitive events. At the same time, however, a small but stable proportion of intransitive events occurred in which an object perspective was also grammaticized (i.e., reflexive constructions). Third, the ambiguity and definiteness of the referents signalled by each clitic contributed to the use of other formal markers of transitivity within the clause.

The results suggest that Spanish clitics are an important grammatical device with which young children mark object perspectives in both transitive and intransitive events. Furthermore, various strategies proposed by Slobin (1985) are at work in the acquisition of Spanish clitics.