Sumários

The acquisition of the passive (cont.)

16 Abril 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Other approaches and other factors that may play a role in the acquisition of the passive: syntactic complexity explanations (Hyams & Snyder, 2015) vs. processing explanations (incremental processing and the first NP as agent hypothesis, Huang et al., 2013). The relevance of considering incremental processing when considering children's results in comprehension tasks, according to Omaki & Lidz (2015).

Exercise allowing to introduce the main topic of next class: control structures.

The acquisition of the passive

9 Abril 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Classic studies and well-known facts concerning the acquisition of the passive (the contrast between short and long passives and the contrast between actional and non-actional passives).

Different types of explanation for the difficulty with passives: frequency effects; syntactic complexity; cue-based accounts and incremental processing accounts.
(i) Frequency effects (Demuth, 1898, Gordon & Chafetz, 1990) and recently explored priming effects (Bencini & Valian, 2008); 
(ii) Syntactic complexity explanations: A-Chain deficit hypothesis (Borer & Wexler, 1987) (to be continued).

(The same topic will be explored in the next class, considering other approaches to the acquisition of the passive.)

No class (conference)

26 Março 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

There was no class, as announced in the beginning of the semester: the teacher participated in the   I Encontro em Linguística Aplicada, Escola Superior de Saúde da Universidade de Aveiro (online).

The students were invited to the following conference (also online):
26 / 03 / 2021,14.30 (WET)/ 15.30 (CET)
Petra Schulz (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), What never goes wrong in early second language acquisition of German: finiteness in verb-second clauses​ (Universidade do Minho)


The students were also given papers related to the topics discussed in the last classes, to read and summarize.

Hierarchical vs. linear definition of intervention effects: bridges between language acquisition and language processing

19 Março 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Hierarchical vs. linear definition of intervention effects (bridges between language acquisition and language processing): the case of clefts and an argument for a hierarchical definition of intervention effects.


The relevance of comprehension and production of relative clauses and wh- questions in the assessment of children diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder (and Specific Language Impairment), as well as Autism Spectrum Disorders (with linguistic impairment).

The acquisition of relative clauses

12 Março 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

The acquisition of relative clauses: classic studies and more recent approaches. Subject / object asymmetries in relative clauses (on a pair with other A-bar movement structures, namely wh- questions). The structure of subject and object relative clauses (raising analysis) and the interpretation of the delay in production and comprehension of object relatives (and D-linked wh- questions) as the  result of intervention effects (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009).