Unravelling competence, performance and pragmatics in the speech of young children*

Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically based on spontaneous speech. This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also involved in speech production. Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use complex subject NPs. Is this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need complex subjects. An extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position indicates that pragmatics may account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.