Abstract
In this paper we explore the development of the morphosyntax-semantics interface by comparing development in 4 typologically diverse languages: Dutch (a Germanic V2 language), Greek, Italian (a Romance pro-drop language) and Swahili (a Bantu language), with particular emphasis on Swahili, a relatively understudied language whose morphosyntactic structure is particularly relevant to the questions we address. We show that children acquiring these different languages all adhere to a morphosyntax-semantics mapping principle that forces a complementarity between the expression of mood and the expression of tense ñ the Semantic Opposition Hypothesis (SOH), following Hyams (2002). Our findings support the hypothesis that linguistic development is guided by universal principles which lie at the interface of semantico-conceptual structure and morphosyntax.
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