Sumários

Acquiring more complex syntax: the acquisition of wh-questions

5 Março 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Acquiring more complex syntax. The relevance of wh-questions, relative clauses and subordinate clauses in general to define language development after 2;0. General results and general observations resulting from the observation of corpus data - observation of spontaneous data from European Portuguese (online search in available corpora), as well as data from Italian corpora (Moscati & Rizzi, to appear) - and data collection using parental reports (CDI). The relevance of these observations for language assessment of young children. 

The complementarity between corpora and experimental studies in the study of more advanced stages of language acquisition: the case of wh- questions. Early spontaneous production of wh- questions; subject - object asymmetries identified by experiments on the comprehension of different types of wh- questions (which vs. who questions). 

What is the structure of early sentences?

26 Fevereiro 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Discussion of the homework (exercises allowing to train the analysis developed in the previous class and allowing to explore new data).Root infinitives (RIs), their distribution across languages and in the languages in which they are identified. A hypothesis accounting for RIs which focus the functional structure of early sentences: the Truncation Hypothesis (Rizzi, 1993/1994). The special case of RIs in atypical development (also attested in null subject languages). 


A note on the discussion centred on functional architecture extended to cases of agrammatism (the "Tree Pruning Hypothesis", Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997). 

What is the structure of early sentences?

19 Fevereiro 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Evidence for V2 in the early grammars of children acquiring German and Dutch. The discussion concerning the projection of CP. 

A more recent hypothesis on language development explained in terms of expansion of functional architecture: the "Growing Trees hypothesis" (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2020).

What is the structure of early sentences?

12 Fevereiro 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Functional architecture and head movement: the "small clause hypothesis"; evidence for verb movement in the early grammars of French and Portuguese (allowing to reject the "small clause hypothesis" and to support the early projection of TP). 

The generative approach to language acquisition vs. the usage-based approach to language acquisition

5 Fevereiro 2021, 14:00 • Ana Lúcia Santos

Two main positions in contemporary research: the generative approach to language acquisition vs. the usage-based approach to language acquisition. Testing the hypotheses: experiments on word order and the Head Direction Parameter.