25.5149, Diss: Mandarin Chinese; Language Acquisition, Syntax: Hu: 'Intervention Effects and the Acquisition of Relativization and Topicalization in Chinese'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-5149. Wed Dec 17 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.5149, Diss: Mandarin Chinese; Language Acquisition, Syntax: Hu: 'Intervention Effects and the Acquisition of Relativization and Topicalization in Chinese'

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Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 21:13:18
From: Shenai Hu [huxinai at gmail.com]
Subject: Intervention Effects and the Acquisition of Relativization and Topicalization in Chinese

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Institution: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 
Program: Cognitive Science and Language 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2014 

Author: Shenai Hu

Dissertation Title: Intervention Effects and the Acquisition of Relativization
and Topicalization in Chinese 

Dissertation URL:  https://boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/53875

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): Chinese, Mandarin (cmn)


Dissertation Director(s):
Anna Gavarró
Maria Teresa Guasti

Dissertation Abstract:

This thesis is about the acquisition of relativization and topicalization in
Chinese. 
Through a series of experimental studies, I obtain the following results.
First, a disadvantage of object relatives holds in comprehension and in
production for children from three to seven years of age. Second, subject
relatives are also difficult to comprehend and elicit a variety of errors from
children up to six years of age. Third, a large use of resumptive NPs is
observed in production across age groups (including adults); for many adult
native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, relative clauses with resumptive NPs are
acceptable in spoken Chinese. Fourth, children from three to six years of age
understand sentences featuring object topicalization as well as those
featuring subject topicalization; on both structures children perform at
ceiling at five years of age.
The noted difficulty of object relatives is captured by the Relativized
Minimality approach. I propose that structural intervention of the subject
within the chain connecting the relative head and its copy is the source of
the difficulty. With respect to topicalization, the results are interpreted by
assuming that topicalization in Chinese does not involve A’-movement, but an
anaphoric relation between the empty category pro and the base-generated
topic.







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