Cover not available

In:L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning: The view from Romance
Edited by Larisa Avram, Anca Sevcenco and Veronica Tomescu
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 65] 2021
► pp. 39–66

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 2
Strategies in the production of PP relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese

 | Rio de Janeiro State University
 | Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
 | University of São Paulo
Published online: 17 November 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.65.02aug
Abstract
This study focuses on the production of Prepositional Phrase Relative Clauses (PP RCs) by Brazilian 4-/5-year-olds, aiming at discussing the types of responses children produce, compared to adults, considering competing alternatives pragmatically available in the language. Difficulty with non-subject RCs has been attributed to the presence of interveners between the RC head and the position of the moved element (Friedmann, Belletti, & Rizzi, 2009). Our experiment contrasted the elicitation of PP RCs in two conditions: with and without interveners. Although results show that children provide more target responses to the condition without interveners, alternative responses are also produced in this condition, suggesting that not only intervention, but also the availability of less complex alternatives in the language shape children’s behavior.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Alternative structures in the production of RCs
  • 3.Experimental task: Presence vs. absence of a DP subject in PP RCs
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Materials and design
      • 3.1.3Procedure
  • 4.Results and discussion
  • 5.Analysis of the strategies employed
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (55)
References
Adani, F., Sehm, M., & Zukowski, A. (2012). How do German children and adults deal with their relatives. In S. Stavrakaki, M. Lalioti, & P. Konstantinopoulou (Eds.), Advances in language acquisition (pp. 14–22). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adani, F., van der Lely, H. K. J., Forgiarini, M., & Guasti, M. T. (2010). Grammatical feature dissimilarities make RCs easier: A comprehension study with Italian children. Lingua, 120, 2148–2166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Augusto, M. R., Rodrigues, E. dos S., & Costa, I. (2020). “Topic Subject” structure and agreement with weather verbs within relative clauses: Experimental evidence from adult and children Brazilian Portuguese speakers. In A. Cardinaletti, C. Branchini, G. Giusti, & F. Volpato (Eds.), Language acquisition, processing and bilingualism: Selected papers from the Romance Paper VII (pp. 241–262). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Avelar, J. & Galves, C. (2011). Tópico e concordância em PB e PE [Topic and Agreement in Brazilian Portuguese and in European Portuguese]. In J. Costa, P. Barbosa, & I. Falé (Eds.), XXVI Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Textos selecionados (pp. 49–65). APL.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 390–412. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, A., & Contemori, C. (2010). Intervention and attraction. On the production of subject and object relatives by Italian (young) children and adults. In J. Costa, A. Castro, M. Lobo, & F. Pratas (Eds.), Language acquisition and development: Proceedings of GALA 2009 (pp. 39–52). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Subjects in children’s object relatives in Italian. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, LVII(2), 117–142.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, A., Friedmann, N., Brunato, D., & Rizzi, L. (2012). Does gender make a difference? Comparing the effect of gender on children’s comprehension of RCs in Hebrew and Italian. Lingua, 122, 1053–1069. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bențea, A. (2012). Subject vs. object relatives: What can Romanian children tell us about their acquisition? Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, LVII(2), 203–218.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bențea, A., Durrleman, S., & Rizzi, L. (2016). Refining intervention: The acquisition of featural relations in object A-bar dependencies. Lingua, 169, 21–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabral, A. F. V., Leitão, M. M., & Kenedy, E. (2015). A influência da animacidade no processamento das cláusulas relativas em português brasileiro [The influence of animacy on relative clause processing in Brazilian Portuguese]. Letras de Hoje, 50, 102–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corrêa, L. M. S. (1995). An alternative assessment of children’s comprehension of relative clauses. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 24(3), 183–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Costa, I., Augusto, M. R. A., & Rodrigues, E. dos S. (2014). Verbos meteorológicos flexionados no plural e a hipótese da inacusatividade biargumental: explorando a sintaxe do Português Brasileiro [Weather verbs in the plural and the unnacusativity hypothesis: Aspects of Brazilian Portuguese syntax]. Veredas (UFJF. Online), 18, 257–280.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Costa, J., Friedmann, N., Silva, C., & Yachini, M. (2014). The boy that the chef cooked. Acquisition of PP relatives in European Portuguese and Hebrew. Lingua, 150, 386–409. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). The acquisition of PP relatives in Hebrew and European Portuguese: Another window into the atoms of intervention. In C. Hamann & E. Ruigendijk (Eds.), Language acquisition and development: Proceedings of GALA 2013 (pp. 35–48). Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Villiers, J., Tager-Flusberg, H., Hakuta, K., & Cohen, M. (1979). Children’s comprehension of relative clauses. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 8, 499–518. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Villiers, P. (1988). Assessing English syntax in hearing-impaired children: Elicited production in pragmatically motivated situations. Journal of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology: Monograph Supplement 21, 41–71.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fadlon, J., Morgan, A. M., Meltzer-Asscher, A., & Ferreira, V. S. (2019). It depends: Optionality in the production of filler-gap dependencies. Journal of Memory and Language, 106, 40–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferreira, V. S. (1996). Is it better to give than to donate? Syntactic flexibility in language production. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 724–755. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferreiro, E., Othenin-Girard, C., Chipman, H., & Sinclair, H. (1976). How do children handle relative clauses? Archives de Psychologie, 45, 229–266.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Friedmann, N., Belletti, A., & Rizzi, L. (2009). Relativized relatives. Types of intervention in the acquisition of A-Bar dependencies. Lingua, 119(1), 67–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, E., Desmet, T., Grodner, D., Watson, D., & Ko, K. (2005). Reading relative clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(2), 313–353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodluck, H. & Tavakolian, S. (1982). Competence and processing in children’s grammar of relative clauses. Cognition, 11(1), 1–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., & Johnson, M. (2001). Memory interference during language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(6), 1411–1423.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Effects of noun phrase type on sentence complexity. Journal of Memory and Language, 51(1), 97–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., & Levine, W. H. (2002). Memory-load interference in syntactic processing. Psychological Science, 13(5), 425–430. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grolla, E., & Augusto, M. (2016). Absolutive constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Relativized Minimality effects in children’s productions. In L. Perkins, R. Dudley, J. Gerard, & K. Hitczenko (Eds.), Proceedings of GALANA VI – Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America (pp. 36–47). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grolla, E., Rodrigues, E., & Augusto, M. (in preparation). Differential demands in production and comprehension of relative clauses by children.
Guasti, M. T., & Cardinaletti, A. (2003). Relative clause formation in Romance child production. Probus, 15(1), 47–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamburger, H. & Crain, S. (1982). Relative acquisition. In S. Kuczaj (Ed.), Language development: Syntax and semantics (pp. 245–274). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmberg, A. (2010). Null subject parameters. In T. Biberauer, A. Holmberg, I. Roberts, & M. Sheehan (Eds.), Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory (pp. 88–124). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hornstein, N. (2001). Move! A Minimalist Theory of Construal. Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hwang, H., & Kaiser, E. (2014). Having a syntactic choice is not always better: the effects of syntactic flexibility on Korean production. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29(9), 1115–1131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kato, M. A., & Nunes, J. (2009). A uniform raising analysis for standard and nonstandard relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese. In J. Nunes. (Ed.) Minimalist essays on Brazilian Portuguese syntax (pp. 93–120). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keenan, E. L., & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase accessibility and Universal Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8(1), 63–99.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kidd, E., Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Object relatives made easy: A cross-linguistic comparison of the constraints influencing young children’s processing of RCs. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22(6), 860–897. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labelle, M. (1988). Predication et mouvement: Le developpement de la relative chez les enfants Francophones (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Ottawa.
(1990). Predication, wh-movement and the development of relative clauses. Language Acquisition, 1(1), 95–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lobo, M., & Vaz, S. (2017). Does the animacy of the antecedent play a role in the production of relative clauses? Matraga, 24(41), 266–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mak, W., Vonk, W., & Schriefers, H. (2002). The influence of animacy on relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 50–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myachykov, A., Scheepers, C., Garrod, S., Thompson, D., & Fedorova, O. (2013). Syntactic flexibility and competition in sentence production: The case of English and Russian. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(8), 1601–1619. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T. (1995). Resumptives in the acquisition of relative clauses. Language Acquisition, 4, 105–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from [URL]
Rangel, M. (2017). O traço de animacidade e as estratégias de relativização em português brasileiro infantil: Um estudo experimental [The animacy feature and the relativization strategies in child Brazilian Portuguese: An experimental study] (Unpublished master thesis). Universidade de São Paulo.
Rispoli, M., & Hadley, P. (2001). The leading edge: The significance of sentence disruptions in the development of grammar. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 1131–1143. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1990). Relativized Minimality. The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rouveret, A. (2011). Introduction. In A. Rouveret (Ed.), Resumptive pronouns at the interfaces (pp. 1–62). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schad, D., Hohenstein, S., Vasishth, S., & Kliegl, R. (2019). How to capitalize on a priori contrasts in linear (mixed) modes: A tutorial. arXiv:1807.10451v4 [stat.ME] 17 Jul 2019. Retrieved from: [URL]
Sevcenco, A., & Avram, L. (2012). Romanian-speaking children’s comprehension of relatives. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, LVII(2), 219–239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traxler, M. J., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E. (2002). Processing subject and object relative clauses: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory & Language, 47(1), 69–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Utzeri, I. (2007). The production and the acquisition of subject and object relative clauses in Italian: A comparative experimental study. Nanzan Linguistics (Special Issue 3). Papers from the Consortium Workshops on Linguistic Theory. 2006–2007, 1, 283–313.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vasilyeva, M., & Waterfall, H. (2012). Beyond syntactic priming: Evidence for activation of alternative syntactic structures. Journal of Child Language, 39(2), 258–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wanner, E., & Maratsos, M. (1978). An ATN approach to comprehension. In M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. A. Miller (Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality (pp. 119–161). The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Warren, T., & Gibson, E. (2002). The influence of referential processing on sentence complexity. Cognition, 85, 79–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Lira, Thainá Amador & Marina Augusto
2024. Relative clauses and intervention effects. In Language Acquisition in Romance Languages [Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 18], ► pp. 146 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue