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SUMMARY:Interference effects in the production of wh-questions in early It
 alian - Teresa Guasti\, Universita di Milano Bicocca
DTSTART:20081125T160000Z
DTEND:20081125T173000Z
UID:TALK14826@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Susan Rolfe
DESCRIPTION:Italian wh-questions represent a peculiar object of investigat
 ion in that they display the same order of elements both in subject and ob
 ject questions: Wh V DP\, as shown in (1a) and in (1b) respectively\, bein
 g the position for subjects in Italian wh-questions postverbal.\n\n1a. Chi
  insegue i cavalli?  \n\n    Who chases the horses?\n\n1b. Chi inseguono i
  cavalli?  \n\n    Who chase-pl the horses?\n\nIt is agreement on the verb
  that disambiguates between the two options: a subject question if the ver
 b agrees with the wh- trace\, an object question if the verb agrees with t
 he postverbal subject. \n\n\nMy presentation\, based on an elicited produc
 tion experiment of wh-questions administered to Italian children and adult
 s\, capitalizes on two main findings:\n\nalthough Italian children master 
 wh-questions very early (Guasti\, 1996)\, object questions are significant
 ly more difficult than subject questions (see De Vincenzi et al. 1999 for 
 similar results on comprehension)\; \nchildren partly resolve the difficul
 ties posed by object questions by producing object questions not displayin
 g the expected Wh V DP order but using different legitimate strategies sha
 ring one crucial feature: the subject DP occupies a preverbal position (wi
 th one exception).  \n\nCapitalizing on the work by Franck et al. (2006) w
 e propose that the difficulties children experience in the production of w
 h- object questions result from the intervention of the object copy on the
  Agree relation between the postverbal subject and the verb. The strategie
 s children adopt are a mean to get rid of the interference effect and to s
 trengthen the Agree relation between the verb and the subject by raising t
 he latter to a preverbal position.\n\nThese findings have implications for
  the analysis of some facts concerning Icelandic\, lack of number agreemen
 t when a dative quirky subject intervenes (Holmberg and Sigurdson\, 2008).
 \n
LOCATION:GR-06/07\, English Faculty Building
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