Pragmatic Leads and Null Subjects: When Children Consult Leads and When They Do Not

This study was a preliminary investigation into children’s attention to pragmatic leads when assigning reference to null subjects in three different sub-types of control. The sentences included were object control (Ron persuaded Hermione ec to kick the ball), controlled verbal gerund subjects (ec Pouring the water quickly made Harry wet) and temporal adjunct control (Harry tapped Luna while ec feeding the owl). 76 British children, aged 6;9 to 11;8, divided into five year groups, undertook three picture-selection tasks. Constructions were presented with no pragmatic lead, with a weak pragmatic lead cueing a particular referent and with a strong pragmatic lead cueing a particular referent. Children across all year groups ignored both leads when assigning reference to the null subject in object control, consulted both strengths of lead when doing so for verbal gerund subjects and utilised the strong lead when making an interpretative choice in temporal adjunct control. Thus they demonstrated a selective use of the discourse when interpreting these three different sub-types of control. The results for temporal adjunct control are surprising and the implications they have for its classification are discussed. The data on verbal gerund subjects provide a first step towards an understanding of older children’s development of this far less studied example of control. In addition, the way in which children attended to the discourse for this construction brings data to bear on the unresolved theoretical debate over the correct characterisation of the ec in non-obligatory control.