Download - Child Language Acquisition - Neal Snape · 'Children's use of null auxiliaries in this type of structure is an overexten- sion of a phenomenon found in colloquial adult Engl ish whereby

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ChildLanguageAcquisition

Week11

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Wh underspecification

• Schütze andWexler(1996)arguethatTcanbeunderspecifiedfortense/agreementfeatures.

• MaybeTcanalsobeunderspecifiedfor[wh]feature.

• WhenTisspecifiedfora[wh]feature,theauxiliaryinTmovestoCtocheckthe[wh]feature.

Wh underspecification

• ButwhenTisnotspecifiedfor[wh]featuretheauxiliaryinTwillremaininsitu (nomovement)becausethereisno[wh]featuretocheck.

• Thereisnomovementoftheauxiliaryin14.

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Summary

• Children’sunderlyinggrammaristhesameasadults.

• TheCP/VPanalysisisofCP/questionsisconsistentwiththeContinuityview(orFunctionalanalysis)ofchildgrammars.