The Acquisition of V ° Movement*

A proposal that further generalizes a rule in Government and Binding theory (Chomsky, 1981) is examined for its implications for acquisition of verb movement. Mark Baker's proposal extends the Move-alpha rule to posit that the head of any phrase may be moved to become incorporated into the head of any phrase that properly governs the phrase where the incorporating head originated. The study uses longitudinal data collected for four 2- and 3-year-old children acquiring K'iche'. It was found that by age 2.10 the children seemed to have acquired one construction involving verb movement, and to have begun using the causative construction. Additional observations concerning the relative acquisition of the verb constructions for each child and the applicability of the proposed model are made. The data are seen as providing tentative confirmation for the theory, pending study of many more details of the incorporation process. (MSE) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the or:.ginal document. PRCLD 2q (1990