Abstract
Syntactic structures are complex objects whose form can apparently vary considerably from one phrase to another and from one language to another, while respecting certain general constraints. Mapping syntactic structures is a vast project that sets out to map these complex configurations as accurately and systematically as possible across languages, identifying general properties and parameters of variation (Cinque and Rizzi, 2010; Rizzi and Cinque, 2016).
Mapping studies provide a detailed picture of the richness and complexity of syntactic structures. This raises questions for acquisition : how and when are these complex configurations mastered by the learner ?
In order to address the question of acquisition, we need, on the basis of our retrospective strategy, a clear framework of the adult system. As the analysis will concern the acquisition of the fine structure of the left periphery (or complementor system: Rizzi, 1997; Rizzi and Bocci, 2017), we must first illustrate the structure of this system in the adult. In this lesson, I have therefore presented a synthesis of some 25 years of work on this initial zone of the sentence.
As with all cartographic representations, the map of this system specifies a hierarchy of functional heads. This functional sequence is delimited by the heads of force (the highest, specifying the illocutionary force in main sentences and the type of sentence in subordinates : declarative, question, exclamatory...) and finiteness (the lowest), which specifies whether the sentence is finite (with a conjugated verb) or not. Empirical analysis leads to the postulation of other heads in the upper zone of this system: Int, the position that shelters certain interrogative elements such as why, and Top, the head that attracts topicals and gives rise to the topical - comment articulation, fundamental to the interface between sentence grammar and discourse. The lower zone of the left periphery includes the focus head, which attracts other interrogative elements(who, where, when, etc.), and the Mod(ification) head, which attracts anteposed adverbs(Quickly, John left the room). We thus arrive at the functional hierarchy in (1) :
Force > Int > Top > Foc > Mod > Fin > IP
where the head of Fin delimits the complementor system downwards and is followed by the structure of the sentence itself, the IP (which may have the cartographic complexity discovered by Cinque [1999], and which therefore in turn raises questions of acquisition that have not been addressed in this lecture).
With this in mind, we were able to tackle the question of acquiring the complex configuration mapped in (1).
