Minding the Absent: Arguments for the Full Competence Hypothesis

Abstract

Children, it is well known, go through a developmental stage in which they omit functional material, a fact that is often attributed to a missing of deficient functional structure in the early grammar. We argue that the systematic omission of functional material, on the contrary, argues for the presence of functional structure, as in the absence of such structure what is expected is not a systematic omission of functional material but rather its random (over) use. Random use of functional material is attested in agrammatic speech in which we suggest it may indeed stem from absent or deficient functional structure. On the other hand, the early grammar is characterized by full, albeit phonologically unrealized, functional structures. Such phonologically unrealized functional structures, we suggest, are interpreted in the early grammar through Discourse-linking using principles that are available through Universal Grammar and that are otherwise attested in natural language.

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