We investigate the production of subject and object who and which-questions in the Italian of 4-5 year olds and report a subject/object asymmetry observed in other studies. We argue that this asymmetry stems from interference of the object copy on the AGREE relation between AgrS and the subject in Spec vP. We show that different avoidance strategies are attempted by the child to get around this interference, all boiling down to a double checking of agreement: AGREE and Spec-Head. Then, we evaluate our approach from a crosslinguistic perspective and offer an account of the differences observed across early languages. As our account seems to call both for a grammatical and a processing explanation, we end with a critical discussion of this dichotomy.

Guasti, M., Branchini, C., Arosio, F. (2012). Interference in the production of Italian subject and object wh-questions. APPLIED PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, 33, 185-223 [10.1017/S0142716411000324].

Interference in the production of Italian subject and object wh-questions

GUASTI, MARIA TERESA;AROSIO, FABRIZIO
2012

Abstract

We investigate the production of subject and object who and which-questions in the Italian of 4-5 year olds and report a subject/object asymmetry observed in other studies. We argue that this asymmetry stems from interference of the object copy on the AGREE relation between AgrS and the subject in Spec vP. We show that different avoidance strategies are attempted by the child to get around this interference, all boiling down to a double checking of agreement: AGREE and Spec-Head. Then, we evaluate our approach from a crosslinguistic perspective and offer an account of the differences observed across early languages. As our account seems to call both for a grammatical and a processing explanation, we end with a critical discussion of this dichotomy.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
domande, acquisizione, AGREE, Spec-head, interferenza, Wh-quastion, acquisition, interference
English
2012
33
185
223
none
Guasti, M., Branchini, C., Arosio, F. (2012). Interference in the production of Italian subject and object wh-questions. APPLIED PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, 33, 185-223 [10.1017/S0142716411000324].
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/9478
Citazioni
  • Scopus 33
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 29
Social impact