The Investigation of Head-Complement and Verbal … Ali dokhtare ra dost darad Ali girl -- loves...

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International Journal of Basic Sciences & Applied Research. Vol., 4 (SP1), 56-68, 2015

Available online at http://www.isicenter.org

ISSN 2147-3749 ©2015

The Investigation of Head-Complement and Verbal Aesthetics of Lullabies in

Early Parameter Settings

Ferdows Agha Golzadeh

1*, Zeinolabedin Rahmani

2

1Associate professor, Linguistics Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

2Ph.D candidate, Linguistics Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

*Corresponding Author: Ferdows Agha Golzadeh

Abstract

An important aspect of language variation concerns the location of the head in

relationship to the other elements of the phrase called complements. The head of the

phrase can occur on the left of a complement or on its right. Language acquisition means

setting these heads and complements in every lexical phrase of NPs, VPs, PPs and APs

appropriately. How and when children are able to choose the appropriate setting for

given parameters is one of the questions posed by the parameter-setting model of

acquisition. Since some babies are exposed to the earliest form of sound patterning of

lullabies either by listening to their caretakers or other sources like TVs and radios, in

this research, head-complement and verbal aesthetics of some Persian and English

lullabies randomly chosen are to be analyzed aesthetically and head parametrically by

library studies. Since children hear these rhymes from early ages, it is supposed that they

have positive influences with early parameter setting meaning children's speech input is

made up of structures in which heads can either follow or proceed their complements,

providing them sufficient positive evidences by which they are able to set the head

parameters of their languages very early. Also we came to the conclusion no language can

be said is clear cut head-initial or head-last because for example in Persian and English

noun phrases, the head nouns can be both preceded and followed by some complements.

Keywords: Lullabies, Positive evidence, Parameter setting, Heads, Complements.

Introduction

Head parameter

A crucial innovation to the concept of phrase structure that emerged in the early 1970s was the claim that all

phrases have a central element, known as a head, around which other elements of the phrase revolve and can minimally

stand for the whole phrases. In any phrase, the head is the necessary part of its phrase and other words are dependents to

that head which can follow or precede it. There are at least four different syntactic relationships between a head and its

dependents (The relevant heads are given in bold).

Intl. J. Basic. Sci. Appl. Res. Vol., 4 (SP1), 56-68, 2015

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Table 1. Syntactic relationship between heads and dependents.

Heads as the most important elements in the phrase

Heads are the most important sections in their phrase due to the following reasons:

1. The head carries the most important semantic information, meaning it determines the meaning of the entire phrase.

For example the phrase very bright sunflowers are about sunflowers and overflowed quite quickly is about something

overflowing.

2. Heads are the only words that have the same distribution as the entire phrase because it's possible to substitute just

the head for the whole phrase. For instance, it could be said that either Kim liked very bright flowers, or just Kim liked

sunflowers; or it could be said, go inside the house or just go inside. By the same token the sunflowers were bright is

grammatically correct but not *the sunflowers were very.

3. The third property of heads is that they are the one obligatory item in the phrase, for example the answer to the

question Are you angry? Can’t be just very!

4. By taking the third property of heads into considerations, the forth property of heads will be that they may select an

obligatory dependent. The phrases have heads and may additionally contain some optional or obligatory dependents

(Crystal, 2003).

The position of heads in different languages

There is a strong tendency, cross-linguistically, for the head to occur in a fixed position in all phrases within a

language, and in head-initial languages the head precedes its complements, but in head-final languages the head follows

its complements (Cook & Newson, 1996).

Head-initial languages: "In English all heads (whether nouns, verbs, prepositions, or adjectives etc.) normally

precede their complements". The complements of V, P, A and N all are preceded by their heads.

Head-final languages: Examples of head-final language can be Persian and Korean, in which heads most usually

in every phrase such as AP, NP, VP and PP follow its complements.

Stages of development of the language faculty

Children are not born with the knowledge of all the lexical items in the language. Parameters and lexical items have

not been set in the initial state and the language faculty has minimal contents. "The two extreme states of the language

faculty are the steady state when the mind knows a complete I-language and the initial state when it knows only the

principles. Language acquisition comes down to how the human language faculty changes from the initial to the steady

state … the language faculty achieves adult knowledge of language, complete with parameter setting and lexicon for a

particular language, by getting certain types of information about the structures and vocabulary of the language it is

exposed to” (Cook & Newson, 2007).

Principles and parameters in first language acquisition

In Chomsky's conceptualization, the child is born with some Language Acquisition Device (LAD) providing an

abstract specification of the range of possible and impossible rules and structure in natural language. With the help of

Example Language Dependents Head

On the table (preposition) English

Object NP

Postposition/preposition

1

Roye miz (preposition)

On table

Persian

Ali loves the girl English

Arguments of the verb

Verb

2 Ali dokhtare ra dost darad

Ali girl -- loves

Persian

Ali's car English

Possessor NP

Possessed noun

3

Mashine Ali

Car Ali

Persian

Big house English

Adjective

Noun

4 Khaneye bozorg

House big

Persian


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this inborn faculty, the child is able to account for the grammaticality and ungrammaticality of certain sentences and

rules he is faced with. “The child learning the grammar of some particular language simply has to find out the

permissible order of elements in that language. Thereby the head parameter admits a limited range of above mentioned

alternatives: head-initial or head-final. In Chomsky's view, universals provide the key to understanding language

acquisition since only if we hypothesize that the child has innate knowledge of these universals can we account for the

rapidity of language acquisition.

A child can develop his language with limited data and input because the limited input is shaped by UG which is

considered to be on people's mind by birth, the data comes from within, from UG itself, not from outside.

Accordingly, a new born baby's mind, by means of language acquisition is at its first state, which is called the

Initial Zero State or S0 (Cook & Newson, 2007); Language acquisition continues until the Steady State or Ss (the mind

of the adult native speaker) where language development is completed as from S0 to Ss. He at the initial state will set

the parameters on his mind depending on the input related to the language by activating the principles and parameters of

UG; for instance, taking the head parameter into considerations, the child should start with one of the possible values.

How appropriate setting is chosen by a child

As Chomsky claims, there are two types of evidence expected to be available for the language learner, namely

positive and negative evidence. If children's speech input is made up of structures in which heads precede their

complements like English, then this provides them with positive evidence and by this positive evidence they are able to

set the head-position parameter appropriately.

Negative evidence is of two kinds which also makes children set their appropriate parameter of mother tongue:

direct and indirect; direct negative evidence might come from the correction of children's errors by other speakers of the

language and indirect negative evidence occurs when for example, a child's experience includes no examples of

structures in which heads follow their complements such as there is no prepositional phrases like *dinner after to be

heard. On the basis of such indirect negative evidence (i.e. evidence based on the nonoccurrence of head-last

structures), the child might infer that English is not a head-final language and when the child hears a prepositional

phrase like with Daddy in which the head preposition with precedes its complement Daddy, he will have positive

evidence that English allows head-initial in prepositional phrases.

The features of lullabies and their effect on children

Lullabies feature repetition, rhyme, assonance and alliteration. Repeating the same patterns again, by singing the

same lullabies on other occasions, reinforces the sound recognition. Speaking to children is, of course, of tremendous

value in speech and language development, but the value of singing is often overlooked. Lullabies, like nursery rhymes,

provide children with the chance to hear sounds in predictable patterns, to recognize and understand those patterns in a

way that speech alone does not.

Speaking in a slower, higher-pitched, more exaggerated mode of speech often called “parents”, and singing

lullabies are important for language development, as well as laying the foundations for mathematical thinking.

Lullabies are known as harmonious words sung mainly with the purpose of sending children to sleep. Though within

the passing time it has come into being that it educates the ones that keep listening to it. Besides the positive effects of

the lullabies on children the clues they bear in their body provide significant contribution for the scientists of today. If

we should shortly mention them:

a. When babies are afraid of sudden movements and sudden voices their blood pressure and heartbeats rise

immediately. Lullaby draws this high blood pressure suffered by children into a normal level and this is

achieved in a very short time.

b. Lullabies provide for a healthier period of growing up.

c. The language of lullabies is simple, plain and fluent. As a result children comprehend the words being sung

very rapidly and are able to learn them in a very short time.

d. A child that grows up by listening to the lullabies of its mother will have a much better kind of

communication.

e. While the baby communicates with the mother through lullabies, its mind becomes active. Because as long as

the mother keeps speaking or singing the related perception centers in the brain of the child remain stimulated.

And this contributes to a faster comprehension of the desired information the baby is supposed to perceive.

f. Lullabies decrease the tension present to the child and ease the baby’s falling asleep while especially can

facilitate language acquisition.

The development of verbal aesthetics in young children: The child who on his mom's knees smiles and listens to

her lullaby in a relaxing manner is probably receiving an early lesson in the appreciation of verbal art. The involvement

of the body, as it sways in keeping with the rhythm, lays the foundation for perception of these patterns so


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unobtrusively that one might be tempted to think of the ability as an innate one. Rhyme after rhyme exposes the child to

the pleasures of patterning in language. Alliteration and assonance come into their own: repetition and parallel structure

are off-set by contrasts that break the spell of similarity, introducing the joy of the recognition of the unexpected."

Sound repetitions: alliteration, assonance, consonance and rhyme: Learning in infancy and early childhood is

not totally conscious and deliberate. The child doesn’t set out with the goal of mastering the language and doesn’t have

the idea of the significance of this achievement for his future life. And Lullaby is one form of verbal art to which a child

is exposed from an early period of her life, it displays a skillful use of the repetition of sound patterns, either the same

sounds are repeated or their places of articulations are the same.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound in the same phonological position; this term was traditionally

applied only to the recurring initial sound of the contiguous accented syllables. And assonance traditionally was used to

refer to recurring vowel sounds in contiguous syllables, but nowadays it is used to general similarities of both consonant

and vowel sounds. In the former definition, rhyme would be one type of assonance, as in the final vowel of /rai/ and

/pai/ as an example. But parallel structure is when some clauses resemble each other grammatically for examples both

are declarative, their subjects precede the element finite and their verbs have internal argument then we can say the two

clauses have parallel structure. Consonance also is a poetic device characterized by the repetition of the same

consonants two or more times in short succession as in "pitter patter" (Crystal, 2003).

The difference between wordings and parallel structure seems to be necessary: "wording consists of both lexis and

grammar but parallel structure is defined largely by reference to grammar. Two units of wording form parallel structure,

if their own structural make-up is identical in all respects".

The questions of the research

1- How are the head-complement parameters and verbal aesthetics of English and Persian lullabies?

2- Is there any relation between early parameter setting and listening to lullabies?

Previous studies

We do not sing to our children because they will understand everything we sing. We sing to them so that they will

build an unconscious library of sound and words that they can draw upon later. “Today, lullabies are viewed as being

more than just a natural soporific. They promote the bonding process, aid in infant development by providing

stimulation, establish a foundation for later development in speech, music and movement, and promote a healthy

parent-infant attachment.” (Brand, 1985).

“Edwin E. Gordon believes that the quality and quantity of what is absorbed

Unconsciously before age three, relates directly to language development at a later age;

Moreover, without unconscious listening a child will not develop good conscious

Listening ability. This is one reason why child development specialists suggest parents read to infants so that language

and words, albeit incomprehensible, set the foundation for future language development. The first year of life is a

critical one in the child’s development…it is generally recognized as the most important formative year in the

development of receptive language, listening?”.

Study after study has supported the use of lullabies in acquiring language reducing stress, anxiety and depression in

new and pregnant mothers as well as helping them to bond with their children and feel like better mothers (Chang,

2008).

Methodology

To investigate the head-complement and verbal aesthetics of some Persian and English lullabies in early

parameter settings, first of all some lullabies have been chosen randomly from internet then the head parametric

structure of each language in their lexical phrases of NPs, VPs, PPs and APs are investigated parametrically, afterwards

the verbal aesthetics of Persian and English such as sound repetition, alliteration, assonance, rhyme and parallel

structure in the exampled lullabies have been analyzed aesthetically by using library studies .

Results

Head parameters of lexical phrases in Persian

Persian head noun (NP): There are Four complements in Persian such as 1- determiners, 2- interrogative

dependents, 3- numeral dependents, and 4- exclamatory dependents which precede their head nouns on the basis of the

phrase structure rules of: 1- X" → Spec X & 2- X' → Complement X, exemplified in the following chart.


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It should be borne in mind that determiners are words used with a noun to limit its meaning such as articles,

demonstratives like "this", possessives like "her", quantifiers like "some" and numerals like "three" (Richards &

Schmidt, 2002).

Table 2. Complements preceding their head nouns in Persian.

Head noun

Complement

The complements which precede their head nouns in Persian

Márd

Én

1- Determiners:

e.g., In márd doste mán ást.

This man friend my is

Ketab

Kodam

2- Interrogative dependents:

e.g., kodam ketab mâle tost?

Which book is yours?

Márd

Se

3- Numeral dependents:

e.g., se márd zakhmi shodand.

Three men injured were

Havaee

Ájab

4- Exclamatory dependents:

e.g., ájab havaye khobi!

What a weather nice

There are five complements following their head nouns in Persian, such as Attributive adjectives, nominal dependents,

appositive phrases, prepositional phrases, and adjective clauses are ordered on the basis of X' → Xcomplement.

Table 3. Complements following their head nouns in Persian.

As it is shown in the two above charts, more NPs in Persian are ordered on the basis of the phrase structure rule of X'

→ X complement than that of X' → Complement X, hence, hence, Persian NPs can be considered head-initial.

Persian head verb (VP): Regarding the VPs in Persian, as far as unmarked sentences are taken into account, the

head verbs appear on the right of the complement but when marked sentences are used for the cases of emphases,

angers, pleasures, surprises or immediate requests, the head verb can be located before its complements.

An ummarked Persian VP: yek naghashe maroof ást.

a painter famous is

Persian head preposition (PP): Persian head preposition appears on the left of the complement in Persian. There is

no case in which the order can be changed except in the case of Persian object marker "ra" studied by different

researches like Dabir-Moghaddam (1992).

Az kohántárin bánâhâye sháhr

Complement Head noun The complements which follow their head noun in Persian:

khob va sodmand

Ketabha-ye

1- Attributive adjectives:

e.g. ketabhaye khob va sodmand

books good and fruitful

Eslam

Payambar-e

2- Nominal dependents:

e.g., payambare eslam farmodand ke

Prophet Islam said that

neveshteye Saady

Golestan

3- Appositive phrases:

e.g., Golestan, neveshteye saady

Golestan written by Saady

darbareye naghde tarikh

Ketab

4- Prepositional phrases:

e.g., ketab darbareye naghde tarikh,

Book about critique history

ke Ali nevesht

Ketab-i

5- Adjective clauses (sentential clauses)

e.g., ketabi ke Ali nevesht,

book which Ali wrote


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From the oldest building city

Persian head adjective (AP): In APs, the head adjective is the most important element in the phrase and the rest

are complement(s). Persian head adjective has at least two choices of occurrence naming quantity adverbs positioning

before head adjectives and prepositional phrases positioning after them. But in marked sentences meaning when the

Persian speaker is going to express his feeling such as anger, emphasis, pleasure or surprise, he may change the order,

for example and according to the following diagrams in unmarked sentences, the speaker may choose "dostdashtanieh

kheily" instead of " kheily dostdashtani " and " áz borje Milâd bolantare" instead of "bolandtar áz borje

Milâd".

Hence, it can be stated that “Adjective phrase has a simple structure in Persian language; it is followed and

preceded by one complement either quantity adverbs or prepositional phrases.” Quantity adverbs as complements

precede head adjectives in Persian unmarked sentences and prepositional phrases can follow them (Rahmani, 2011).

1- Quantity adverb: kheily dostdashtani

Very lovable

2- Prepositional phrase: bolandtar áz borje Milâd

Taller than tower Milad

Head parameters of lexical phrases in English

English head noun (NP): There are three complements which precede their head nouns in English NPs: 1-

Determiners, 2- Attributive adjectives and 3- Nominal dependents. Determiners, attributive adjectives and nominal

dependents are positioned before head nouns in English and are ordered based on the phrase structure rules of: 1- X" →

Spec X’, 2- X' → Complement X. Since more complements in English NPs, follow their head nouns than the

complements which precede them, they are considered as head-initial.

Table 4. Complements preceding their head nouns in English.

Complements following their head nouns

There are five complements which follow their head nouns in English NPs, which are: 1- Appositive phrases, 2-

Participial phrases, 3- Gerund phrases, 4- Prepositional phrases and 5- Adjective clauses. They are positioned after their

head nouns as complements, based on the phrase structure rules of: 1- X" → Spec X' & 2- X' → X complement.

Table 5. Complements following their head nouns in English.

Complement Head noun The complements which follow their head noun in English:

In a hurry to get home

Mr. Harris

1- Appositive phrases

e.g., Mr. Harris, in a hurry to get home, took a taxi from the airport.

Talking to the teacher

Girl

2- Participial phrases

e.g., The girl talking to the teacher is very intelligent.

The house everyday

Cleaning

3- Gerund phrases

e.g., Her cleaning the house every day is not necessary.

Which describes animals

Book

4- Adjective clauses

e.g., Here is a book which describes animals.

Of the war Reason 5- Prepositional phrases

e.g., reason of the war

As the above discussion, in English, more NPs, are ordered based on the phrase structure rule of X' → X complement

and hence, their NPs are considered head-initial.

Head noun Complement The complements which precede their head noun in English:

Politicians

The

1- Determiners

e.g., The politicians are talking with each other.

Soldiers

Careless

2-Attributive adjectives

e.g., The careless soldiers have been fined.

House

grandmother's

3- Nominal dependents

e.g., My grandmother's house is being repaired.


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English verb phrase (VP): In the VP of English, the head verb appears on the left of its complements as SVO

language. This arrangement of head-complement in English VPs is mostly true as far as both unmarked and marked

sentences are concerned.

English prepositional phrase (PP): Like in Persian the head preposition in English precede the complements but

there is one exception because in Persian as mentioned above, there is an object marker "ra" which follows its

complements and makes both prepositional and postpositional phrases possible.

English adjective Phrase (AP): In APs, the head adjective is the most important element in the phrase and the rest

are its complement(s); in indeed good, it is considered head-final, but in jealous of Jack, head-initial. It is dealt more in

the following sections:

Why is English AP head-initial?

In most of the English APs, the head adjective as shown below, precedes its complements and that is why in

English, adjectives are considered head-initial.

A) Some of the complements which follow the head adjective in English are:

1- Prepositional Phrases: envious of someone

2- Enough Adverb: warm enough

3- That Clause: so beautiful that

B) Some of the complements which precede the head adjective in English are adjective modifier adverbs such as

"fairly", "quite", "rather", "pretty", and "very" which come before adjectives and modify them like in "rather cold".

English and Persian as head-marking or dependent-marking languages

Languages often mark either the head word or its dependent(s) in some way to signal the syntactic relationship

between them. Either the head or the dependent(s), or sometimes both will occur in some special form, perhaps taking

an affix, or exhibiting some other change in word from the fact that the syntactic relationship between a head and

dependent may be marked either on the head or the dependent gives us a broad typological distinction between head-

marking and dependent-marking languages.

In English phrase Tom’s house, the head is “house” and the dependent is the possessor NP Tom. The dependent

occurs in a special form of possessive (-'s) affix. The possessed head noun, “house”, however, has no special

morphology. Since it’s the dependent that receives the (-'s) marking, rather than the head, then English NP, consisting a

head noun with a dependent of possessor NP, is an example of Dependent-marking.

Table 6. English as a dependent-marking language.

The added morphology Head Dependent Example

s' House

(possessed) noun

Tom(’s)

(possessor NP)

Tom’s house

Persian language, in its two NPs of head noun plus the dependent of possessor NP and head noun plus adjective

dependent, is a head-marking language as shown in the following chart, because the heads khane and ketab took

morphologies of /ye/ and /e/ respectively when occurring with their dependents.

Table 7. Persian as a head-marking language.

Parameter-setting acquisition and positive evidence

Setting all the parameters of UG appropriately means acquiring a specific language; the parameters are limited in

numbers but powerful in their effects. As an example to acquire English rather than language X, the child must set the

values for the head parameter, and a handful of other parameters; the child doesn’t acquire rules but setting for

parameters, which, interacting with the network of principles, create a core grammar (Cook & Newson, 2007).

Parameter setting may start in a neutral position in which any setting is possible and or start from a particular value

(the unmarked setting) and need particular evidence to adopt the other setting (the marked setting) (Cook & Newson,

1996).

The added morphology Dependent Head Example

/ye/ Ali

(possessor NP)

Khane(ye)

(possessed) N

Khane(ye) Ali

house Ali

/e/ Khob

(ADJ)

Ketab(e)

(NOUN)

Ketab(e) khob


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One of the questions posed by the parameter-setting model of acquisition is how children are able to choose the

appropriate setting for given parameters, as Chomsky claims, there are two types of evidence expected to be available

for the language learner, namely positive and negative evidence. If children's speech input is made up of structures in

which heads precede their complements like English, then this provides them with positive evidence and by this

positive evidence they are able to set the Head-position Parameter appropriately.

Parameter-setting by negative evidence

Negative evidence is of two kinds which also causes children set their appropriate parameter of mother tongue:

direct and indirect; direct negative evidence might come from the correction of children's errors by other speakers of the

language and indirect negative evidence occurs when for example, a child's experience includes no examples of

structures in which heads follow their complements (e.g. no prepositional phrases like *dinner after in which the head

preposition after follows its complement dinner, and no verb phrases such as *cake eat in which the head verb eat

follows its complement cake).

On the basis of such indirect negative evidence (i.e. evidence based on the non-occurrence of head-last structures),

the child might infer that English is not a head-final language. … and when the child hears a prepositional phrase like

with Daddy in which the head preposition with precedes its complement Daddy, he will have positive evidence that

English allows head-initial order in prepositional phrases and there is the assumption that the head-position parameter is

a binary one and that each parameter allows only a single setting, then it is inferred that when for example English

allows head-first prepositional phrases, it will not allow head-final prepositional phrases. In order for the child to know

that English allows head-initial prepositional phrases, he doesn’t need negative evidence from the non-occurrence of

such structures, but he can rely on positive evidence from the occurrence of the converse order in head-initial structures.

Analyses of head-complement structures and verbal aesthetics of two Persian and English lullabies

An English lullaby

1. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.

2. Up above the world, so high, Like a diamond, in the sky.

3. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are!

4. When the blazing sun is gone, When there's nothing he shines upon,

5. Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, through the night.


7. In the dark blue sky so deep Through my curtains often peep

8. For you never close your eyes Till the morning sun does rise



Verbal aesthetics of the above English lullaby: Repetition is a simple enough word but very important in creating

harmony such as in twinkle, twinkle in the above lullaby. There are three different types of repetitions named sound,

wording and meaning repetition; among them, for example here in the lullaby just two of them named sounds and

wording repetition have been used, and between these two, sound repetitions of A) assonance such as between "high"

and "sky", "star" and "are", "gone" and "upon", "light" and "night", "deep" and "peep", and also "eyes" and "rise" and

B) alliteration like /t/ in "twinkle, twinkle" and in "little star" are more apparent.

In the following table the different repetitions of sounds, wordings, words along with parallel structure are studied

and it is worth of attention that among five similar couplets of 1, 3, 6, 9 and 10, just the couplet one has been analyzed

in this regard but we do consider the fact that five-time repetition of couplet one is purposeful and can make sense of

the lullaby to be enjoyable and harmonious to the ears of a child.

Table 8. Verbal aesthetics analysis of the above English lullaby.

Sound

repetition

Word

repetition

Wording

repetition

Parallel structure

Couplet one

Line one /t/ twinkle - -

Line two /w/ , /r/, /ɑ:/ - - -

Lines together /t/ , /n/, and

/r/ in the

ending

words

- - -

Line one - - - -


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Couplet two Line two /ɑi/, /l/, /s/ - - Two prepositional phrase of

"like a diamond" and "in the

sky"

Lines together /ɑi/ in the

ending

words

the - Three prepositional phrases of

"like a diamond", "in the sky",

and "up above the world"

Couplet

three

Line one /n/ - - -

Line two /n/, /z/, /ɑ:/ - - -

Lines together /n/, /z/, /ɑ:/,

/ŋ/ and /ɑ:n/

in the

ending

words

when - -

Couplet

four

Line one /t/, /l/ you - -

Line two /t/, /n/, twinkle - -

Lines together /t/, /n/, /l/,/i/,

/ǝ/, and

/ɑ:it/ in the

ending

words

- - -

Couplet

five

Line one /d/ - - -

Line two /r/, /n/ - - -

Lines together /d/, /r/, /n/,

/k/, and /i:p/

in the

ending

words

deep - Two prepositional phrases of "in

the dark blue sky" and "through

my curtains" and two adjectival

phrases of " so deep" and "often

deep"

Couplet six

Line one /z/

Line two /z/, /n/, /d/

Lines together /z/, /n/, /r/,

and /ɑ:iz/ in

the ending

words

- - Two prepositional phrases of

"for you" and " till the morning"

As we can see above there are two repetitions of sounds and words but not wording one. And also there is parallel

structure of only prepositional phrase but no other phrases of VPs, Aps and NPs.

Considering the repetitions of sounds, not only they are usually repeated in for example line one of couplet x but

also the same sounds are used in the line two of the same couplet increasing the repeated sounds in one couplet creating

a pleasant song for children to sleep, to be soothed and to set their language.

Head-complement structure of the above English lullaby

Prepositional phrases in the lullaby: According to the above English lullaby there are at least five prepositional

phrases of "in the sky", "through the night", "in the dark blue sky", "through my curtains" and "till the morning" in

which the head prepositions has preceded their complements.

Table 9. English prepositional phrases, the order of heads and complements.

English prepositional phrases Head preposition Complement

"In the sky" In The sky

"Through the night" Through The night

"In the dark blue sky" In The dark blue sky

"Through my curtains" Through My curtains

"Till the morning" Till The morning

Adjective phrases in the lullaby: As mentioned above in English adjective phrases, there are almost three

complements of "prepositional phrases", "enough adverbs" and "that clause" which follow their head adjectives and one


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complement which precedes the head adjective called Adjective Modifier Adverbs. In the lullaby above there were just

two APs of "so high" and "so deep" in which both head adjectives have been modified by adjective modifier adverbs

and the other kinds of complements which follow the head adjectives weren’t observed in the text.

Noun phrases in the lullaby: In the data above, there are almost five NPs in which all head nouns have been

preceded by their complements either determiners like "the" and "a" or attributive adjectives like "little", "blazing" and

"little" but there was no complements following the head nouns in the text. In other words no complement of appositive

phrases, participle phrases and gerund phrases was observed.

Table 10. English noun phrases, the order of heads and complements.

English noun phrases Complement Head noun

"Little star" Little Star

"The world" The World

"A diamond" A Diamond

"The blazing sun" "The" & "blazing" Sun

"Your little light" "Your" & "little" Light

Verb phrases in the lullaby: There have been almost four VPs in the data which in all cases, the word order SVO

was obvious. As it is clear now English transitive VPs can have internal argument according to X' → X Complement

and the opposite order is not correct as far as English VPs are into account.

For example the verb "wonder" in English can have three different internal arguments such as:

1- If clause: I wonder if you could help me.

2- Wh clause: I wonder what the new teacher will be like.

3- Prepositional phrase: we wondered at the speed with which he worked.

Table 11. English verb phrases, the order of heads and complements.

Examples of SVO Head verb Complement Considering the point that …

"Wonder what you are" Wonder What you are Transitive verbs can have internal

arguments (NP complement).

"Is gone" Is gone No internal

argument

Passive verbs don’t have internal

argument.

"Is nothing" Is No internal

argument

-

"Shines upon" Shines upon No internal

argument

Intransitive verbs don’t have internal

argument.

"Show your little light" Show Your little light -

"Close your eyes" Close Your eyes -

A Persian lullaby

1. Lɑ:lɑ: lɑ:lɑ: gʊle pʊne Gedɑ: ʊmæd dære xʊne

2. Nʊneʃ dɑ:dæm, bædeʃ ʊmæd Pʊleʃ dɑ:dæm, xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd

3. Xʊdeʃ ræftʊ sægeʃ ʊmæd tʃexeʃ kærdæm bædeʃ ʊmæd

4. Nɑ:zeʃ kærdæm xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd

5. Lɑ:lɑ: lɑ:lɑ: gʊle tʃɑ:I: Lʊlʊ æz mæn tʃe mi:xahi:

6. Ah in bætʃe pedær dɑ:re Du xænjær bær kæmær dɑ:re

7. Lɑ:lɑ: lɑ:lɑ: gʊle peste ʃʊdæm æz gerϳeæt xæste

8. Lɑ:lɑ: lɑ:lɑ: tʊ xɑ:b dɑ:ri Hævɑϳ:e ʃire gɑ:v dɑ:ri

9. Lɑ:lɑ: gʊϳæm bæræϳe tʊ Bemiræn duʃmɑ:nɑ:ϳe tu

Verbal aesthetics of the above Persian lullaby

In the above Persian lullaby like in the English one, there are repetitions of sounds and words along with parallel

structure. In the following table, the parallel structure of verb phrases and the repetitions are studied in more details.


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Table 12. Verbal aesthetics analysis of the above Persian lullaby.

As far as Persian verb phrases are concerned, the head verb most probably is preceded by its complements in unmarked

sentences like "Nʊneʃ dɑ:dæm" and "Pʊleʃ dɑ:dæm" - "bædeʃ ʊmæd" and "xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd" in the lullaby above but

there are other cases in which the head verb is followed by its complements like in "Lɑ:lɑ: gʊϳæm bæræϳe tʊ" and

"Bemiræn duʃmɑ:nɑ:ϳe tu" which may have some effects on early parameter setting of children.

In every first line of couplet x, there are at least some sounds which are repeated, and in the second line of the

same couplet not only there are other sounds which are repeated together but also compared with line one, there will be

more sounds which are repeated; for example in first line of couplet one, four sounds of /l/, /e/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/ are repeated

respectively 5, 2, 2, and 4 times and in the second line two sounds of /e/, /æ/, respectively have been repeated 3 times

and twice but when both lines are compared together, the number of repeated sounds will approximately be more, here

five sounds: /e/, /g/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/, and /ʊne/ which have been repeated respectively 5, 2, 4,5 times, and twice.

Sound repetition Word

repetition

Wording

repetition

Parallel structure

Couplet one Line one /l/, /e/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/ Lɑ:lɑ: - -

Line two /e/, /æ/ - - -

Lines

together

/e/, /g/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/, and

/ʊne/ in the ending

words

- - -

Couplet two Line one /n/, /ʊ/, /ʃ/, /d/, /ɑ:/,

/m/

- - -

Line two /ʊ/, /ʃ/, /d/, /m/, /e/,

/ɑ:/

- - -

Lines

together

/ʊ/, /ʃ/, /d/, /ɑ:/, /m/,

/e/

dæm/ ɑ:/d

mæd/ʊ/ &

- Two verb phrases of "Nʊneʃ

dɑ:dæm" and "Pʊleʃ dɑ:dæm"

and other two VPs of "bædeʃ

ʊmæd" and "xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd"

Couplet

Three

/ʃ/, /æ/, /ʊ/, /m/, /d/ - - Two verb phrases of " "Nɑ:zeʃ

kærdæm" and "xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd"

Couplet

Four

Line one /l/, Lɑ:lɑ: - -

Line two /l/, /ʊ/, /æ/, /i:/ - - -

Lines

together

/l/, /ʊ/, /ɑ:/, /tʃ/, and

/i:/ in the ending

words

- - -

Couplet

Five

Line one /l/, /ɑ:/, /e/ Lɑ:lɑ: - -

Line two /æ/, /e/, /t/ - - -

Lines

together

/e/, /t/, /g/, /s/, and

/ste/ in the ending

words

- - -

Couplet

Six

Line one /l/, /ɑ:/ Lɑ:lɑ: - -

Line two /ɑ:/, /r/ - - -

Lines

together

/ɑ:/, /r/, /i:/, /r/ dɑ:ri - Two VPs of "xɑ:b dɑ:ri" and

"hævɑ:ye ʃire gɑ:v dɑ:ri"

Couplet

Seven

Line one /l/, /ϳ/, /ɑ:/, - - -

Line two /m/, /ɑ:/ - - -

Lines

together

/ϳ/, /ɑ:/, /m/, /b/, /r/,

/t/, /, /ʊ/, /æ/

tʊ - Two VPs of "Lɑ:lɑ: gʊϳæm

bæræϳe tʊ" and "Bemiræn

duʃmɑ:nɑ:ϳe tu"


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Head-complement structure of the above Persian lullaby

Prepositional phrases in the above Persian lullaby: According the above Persian lullaby there are at least four

prepositional phrases of " æz mæn ", " bær kæmær ", "æz gerye" and " bæræye tʊ " in which the head prepositions have

preceded their complements.

Table 13. Persian prepositional phrases, the order of heads and complements.

Persian prepositional phrases Head preposition Complement of prepositional phrase

æz mæn æz Mæn

bær kæmær bær Kæmær

æz gerye æz Gerye

Bæræye tʊ bæræye tʊ

Adjective phrases in the above Persian lullaby: In the lullaby above there is one head adjective called "xaste"

(tired) with no complement. It has neither quantity adverb to precedes it like "xeily xaste" (very tired) nor a

prepositional phrase to follow it like "xaste az moʃkelɑ:te zendegi".

Noun phrases in the above Persian lullaby: Regarding the text above most Persian head NPs precede their

complements rather than being preceded. Nominal dependents of either head noun + complement noun or head noun +

suffixed pronoun were used a lot as "gʊle pʊne", "dære xʊne", "nʊneʃ", "Pʊleʃ", "gʊle peste", "hævɑ:ye ʃire gɑ:v"

and "duʃmɑ:nɑ:-ye tu" but only in two cases, one numeral determiner and one article determiner preceded the head

nouns such as in "én bætʃe" (this child) and " Du xænjær" (two swords) .

Verb phrases in the above Persian lullaby: It was mentioned that as far as unmarked sentences are taken into

account, the head verbs of Persian appear on the right of the complement but when marked sentences are used for the

cases of emphases, angers, pleasures, surprises or immediate requests, the head verb can be located before its

complements. In the case of the above lullaby, almost more head verbs have been preceded and a few followed by their

internal arguments (complements) which the alternation can be due to the passion and feeling of the moms or

caretakers.

Table 14. Persian verb phrases, the order of heads and complements.

Head Verb before Internal argument Head Verb after internal argument Persian VPs

neʊre xæd mædʊ - neʊre xæmæd dʊ

- dæm,ɑ:d ʃneʊN dæm,ɑ:d ʃneʊN

- mædʊ ʃbæde mædʊ ʃbæde

-

, dæmɑ:d ʃleʊP

mædʊ ʃeʊʃx

dæm,ɑ:d ʃleʊP

mædʊ ʃeʊʃx

-

ʊræft ʃdeʊX

mædʊ ʃsæge

ʊræft ʃdeʊX

mædʊ ʃsæge

- kærdæm ʃzeɑ:N kærdæm ʃzeɑ:N

- i:xahi:me ʃtæz mæn i:xahi:me ʃtæz mæn

- reɑ:dpedær reɑ:pedær d

- reɑ:dmær r kæær bænjæDu x reɑ:r kæmær dær bænjæDu x

dæm æz geryeæt xæsteʃʊ - dæm æz geryeæt xæsteʃʊ

ye tuɑ:mɑ: nʃdu Bemiræn - ye tuɑ:mɑ: nʃBemiræn du

ʊbæræye t yæmʊg - ʊyæm bæræye tʊg

yæm ʊg ɑ:lɑ:L yæm ʊg ɑ:lɑ:L

Discussion and Conclusions

Regarding English NPs, there are at least three complements including specifies, attributive adjectives and nominal

dependents which precede their head nouns and there are five complements including appositive phrases, participial

phrases, gerund phrases, propositional phrases and adjective clauses which follow their head nouns; hence it can be

concluded that English NP has more tendency to be considered head-initial and we cannot say this language is clear cut


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head-initial in all its NPs. In Persian there are four complements including specifies, interrogative dependents, numeral

dependents, and exclamatory dependents which precede their head nouns and five complements including attributive

adjectives, nominal dependents, appositive phrases, propositional phrases, and adjective clauses (sentential clauses)

which follow their head nouns, and therefore Persian NP in most of the cases has tendency to be head-initial too.

Adjectives also have more tendencies to be head- initial in English because in most of the APs, the head adjectives

precede the prepositional phrase, enough adverb, that clause as their complements, But in Persian APs it can be

something between the two extremes because the complement of quantity adverb precedes the head adjectives and the

prepositional phrase follow the head adjectives, then it is a difficult job to determine a clear cut parameter for this

phrase in this language.

The place of head preposition in both languages is fixed and the head precedes the complements in both of them,

but in one case in Persian as far as "ra" is concerned, the head preposition can follow the complements and hence

although both languages are considered to have preposition but Persian has postposition too due to the case of "ra".

Regarding verb phrases it should be taken into account that English is a configurationally language and has fixed

order of SVO and when a transitive verb for example has an internal argument it has to precede the argument

(complement) and can't follow it but as far as Persian language is concerned, it is non configurational language and then

sometimes verb not only can follow its internal arguments but also can precede them like in the case of above Persian

lullaby: in unmarked sentences like "Nʊneʃ dɑ:dæm" and "Pʊleʃ dɑ:dæm" - "bædeʃ ʊmæd" and "xʊʃeʃ ʊmæd", the

head verbs are preceded by the complements but in "Lɑ:lɑ: gʊϳæm bæræϳe tʊ" and "Bemiræn duʃmɑ:nɑ:ϳe tu", the head

verbs have been followed by the complements which shouldn’t be disregarded in early parameter setting of English and

Persian children.

Although repetition is a simple enough word, it was very important in creating harmony such as in sound, word,

and wording repetition in the above lullabies. This harmony was made by alliteration, assonance, consonance and

rhyme along with the beauty of parallel structure. As we know learning in early childhood isn't totally conscious and

deliberate and the child doesn’t set out with the goal of mastering the language but lullaby as one form of verbal art to

which a child is exposed from an early period of his life seems to have considerable effects on parameter setting of his

language. Therefore children, at a very early age, seems to be familiar how to project different complements into their

head adjectives, head nouns, head verbs and head prepositions by determining the direction of the heads correctly by

being for example exposed to these pleasant relaxing lullabies. If we believe the Language Acquisition Device as

responsible for language learning, the children then can effortlessly set their language head parameters in a relatively

short period of time by these exposures.

As Chomsky claimed, there are two types of evidence available for the language learner, namely positive and

negative evidence. Since children's' speech inputs here the lullabies were made up of structures in which heads either

was followed or preceded by their complements, then this can provided children with positive evidence and by this

positive evidence, they can be able to set the head parameter appropriately. To sum up listening to such lullabies have

effects on children early parameter setting. It should be taken into account that in non-configurationally language like

Persian, children may be exposed to some other orders of head and complements too for example when Persian children

hear the above lullaby and there, not only verb can be preceded by complements but also can be followed by them

respectively in "Nʊneʃ dɑ:dæm" and "Bemiræn duʃmɑ:nɑ:ϳe tu", then they set the VPs of their language as 1- V' →

Complement V (in unmarked sentences), as well as 2- V' → V complement (in marked sentences).

References

Brand M, 1985. Lullabies that Awaken Musicality in Infants. Music Education Journal. pp. 28-31.

Chang M, 2008. Effects of music therapy on psychological health of women during pregnancy. Journal of Clinical

Nursing. 17: 2580-2587.

Cook VJ, Newson M, 1996. Chomsky's Universal Grammar (An introduction), 2nd

ed. Oxford: Blackwell Press.

Cook VJ, Newson M, 2007. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.

Crystal D, 2003. A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics, 5th

ed. Oxford: Blackwell Press.

Dabir-Moghaddam M, 1992. On the (In) dependence of Syntax and Pragmatics: Evidence from the Postposition "râ" in

Persian. In Cooperating with Written Texts: The Pragmatics and Comprehension of Written Texts, 549-576.

Dieter Stein (ed.). New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rahmani Z, 2011. A head parameter survey on Mazandarani dialect and its effect(s) on learning English from CA

perspective (on the basis of X-bar syntax), MA thesis, University of Birjand, Iran.

Richards JC, Schmidt R, 2002. Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics third edition, Longman

Press. pp. 152.

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