ABSTRACT
The English dative alternation has aroused much interest recently, both in theoretical linguistics and in language acquisition theory. The finding of overgeneralization of the double-object construction is more consistent with the kinds of late overgeneralization discussed in M. Bowerman, and raises the same kinds of issues. As Bowerman points out, the existence of semantic overgeneralizations is problematic for accounts of syntax acquisition which assume that semantic roles are somehow transparent to children and that semantics serves as a necessary precursor to the acquisition of syntactic form. Whilst the children’s treatment of these verbs in the imitation task suggests that they may be aware of their nonalternating status, the act-out results do not suggest differential treatment of the double-object versions of these verbs. In the imitation task, the verb was in the present progressive form; in the act-out task, in order to reduce the number of NPs in the sentences and to concentrate on the direct and indirect objects.
