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The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2015

SHENAI HU ,
ANNA GAVARRÓ ,
MIRTA VERNICE  and
MARIA TERESA GUASTI
SHENAI HU*
Affiliation:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain and University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
ANNA GAVARRÓ
Affiliation:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
MIRTA VERNICE
Affiliation:
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
MARIA TERESA GUASTI
Affiliation:
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
*
Address for correspondence: Shenai Hu, Dipartimento di Psicologia, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy. e-mail: shenai.hu@unimib.it
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Abstract

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character–sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Many thanks are due to all the participants in the experiments reported. We also wish to acknowledge the China Scholarship Council and the project FFI 2011-29440-C03-03 (CLT, UAB) for funding; Fabrizio Arosio, Carlo Cecchetto, Shuangling Hu, Meilian Zhang, and, for the materials, Candice Coyer, Anamaria Bentea, and Stephanie Durrleman. Our deep thanks also go to the action editor and Professor Helen Goodluck for their valuable comments and advice.

References

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