We investigated the role of number agreement on verb and of animacy in the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses in 51 monolingual Italian-speaking children, mean age 9:33, tested through a self-paced listening experiment with a final comprehension question. A digit span test and a listening span test were also administered to examine the role of memory in comprehension. Subject relative clauses were easier to comprehend than object relative clauses; animacy of the relative clause head improved comprehension of object relative clauses; memory, as measured by the digit span test, modulates comprehension of object relative clauses, both with animate and inanimate heads, as shown in response accuracy. Although all children process number agreement morphology on the verb, only some perform a correct reanalysis, as shown by the accuracy measures. We argue that number agreement disambiguation is particularly taxing for children, as it provides a negative symptom in the sense of Fodor and Inoue (J Psycholinguist Res 29(1):25-36, 2000) and reanalysis requires them to hold two dependencies in memory. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Arosio, F., Guasti, M., Stucchi, N. (2011). Disambiguating Information and Memory Resources in Children's Processing of Italian Relative Clauses. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH, 40(2), 137-154 [10.1007/s10936-010-9160-0].

Disambiguating Information and Memory Resources in Children's Processing of Italian Relative Clauses

AROSIO, FABRIZIO;GUASTI, MARIA TERESA;STUCCHI, NATALE ADOLFO
2011

Abstract

We investigated the role of number agreement on verb and of animacy in the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses in 51 monolingual Italian-speaking children, mean age 9:33, tested through a self-paced listening experiment with a final comprehension question. A digit span test and a listening span test were also administered to examine the role of memory in comprehension. Subject relative clauses were easier to comprehend than object relative clauses; animacy of the relative clause head improved comprehension of object relative clauses; memory, as measured by the digit span test, modulates comprehension of object relative clauses, both with animate and inanimate heads, as shown in response accuracy. Although all children process number agreement morphology on the verb, only some perform a correct reanalysis, as shown by the accuracy measures. We argue that number agreement disambiguation is particularly taxing for children, as it provides a negative symptom in the sense of Fodor and Inoue (J Psycholinguist Res 29(1):25-36, 2000) and reanalysis requires them to hold two dependencies in memory. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Relative clauses, Animacy, Agreement disambiguation, Digit span, Diagnosis and repair model, Self-paced listening
English
2011
40
2
137
154
none
Arosio, F., Guasti, M., Stucchi, N. (2011). Disambiguating Information and Memory Resources in Children's Processing of Italian Relative Clauses. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH, 40(2), 137-154 [10.1007/s10936-010-9160-0].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/18020
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