PI: Elaine Grolla

CNPq productivity researcher grant 2021-2023:

Research Project: A-bar Dependencies in Adult and Child Brazilian Portuguese: Data from Espontaneous Productions

Pre-school children exhibit a peculiar behavior with regard to the production of structures with A-bar dependencies, such as relative clauses or long-distance Wh-questions. In studies of elicited production, structures with a reduplicated element are produced. In the case of questions, the reduplicated element is the Wh-word, which appears in the matrix specCP and the embedded specCP. In the case of the relative clauses, it is the relativized DP that is repeated as a resumptive DP in the thematic position within the relative. Such structures are impossible in the adult languages ​​being acquired. This research aims to investigate the production of such structures in monolingual children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese as their mother tongue.

Our research aims at investigating the production of such structures by 5 monolingual children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese as their mother tongue in naturalistic data of spontaneous speech. Our objective is to observe the production rate of Wh-questions (both simple and long distance) and relative clauses (with and without resumptive pronouns) by both children and their adult interlocutors. We will observe whether structures with reduplication, the focus of our research, are present in the child's speech when there is no pressure from the experimental context. We also aim to observe the frequency of long-distance WH-questions and relative clauses in children's input in order to better understand the relationship between the frequency of complex structures in the input and their emergence in children's productions.