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CATEGORIES:RCEAL Tuesday Colloquia
SUMMARY:Interference effects in the production of wh-quest
 ions in early Italian - Teresa Guasti\, Universita
  di Milano Bicocca
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20081125T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20081125T173000
UID:TALK14826AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/14826
DESCRIPTION:Italian wh-questions represent a peculiar object o
 f investigation in that they display the same orde
 r of elements both in subject and object questions
 : Wh V DP\, as shown in (1a) and in (1b) respectiv
 ely\, being the position for subjects in Italian w
 h-questions postverbal.\n\n1a. Chi insegue i caval
 li?  \n\n    Who chases the horses?\n\n1b. Chi ins
 eguono i cavalli?  \n\n    Who chase-pl the horses
 ?\n\nIt is agreement on the verb that disambiguate
 s between the two options: a subject question if t
 he verb agrees with the wh- trace\, an object ques
 tion if the verb agrees with the postverbal subjec
 t. \n\n\nMy presentation\, based on an elicited pr
 oduction experiment of wh-questions administered t
 o Italian children and adults\, capitalizes on two
  main findings:\n\nalthough Italian children maste
 r wh-questions very early (Guasti\, 1996)\, object
  questions are significantly more difficult than s
 ubject questions (see De Vincenzi et al. 1999 for 
 similar results on comprehension)\; \nchildren par
 tly resolve the difficulties posed by object quest
 ions by producing object questions not displaying 
 the expected Wh V DP order but using different leg
 itimate strategies sharing one crucial feature: th
 e subject DP occupies a preverbal position (with o
 ne exception).  \n\nCapitalizing on the work by Fr
 anck et al. (2006) we propose that the difficultie
 s children experience in the production of wh- obj
 ect questions result from the intervention of the 
 object copy on the Agree relation between the post
 verbal subject and the verb. The strategies childr
 en adopt are a mean to get rid of the interference
  effect and to strengthen the Agree relation betwe
 en the verb and the subject by raising the latter 
 to a preverbal position.\n\nThese findings have im
 plications for the analysis of some facts concerni
 ng Icelandic\, lack of number agreement when a dat
 ive quirky subject intervenes (Holmberg and Sigurd
 son\, 2008).\n
LOCATION:GR-06/07\, English Faculty Building
CONTACT:Susan Rolfe
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