Development of Dutch children’s comprehension of subject and object wh -questions
The role of topicality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19437221 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Iris Strangmann (University of Groningen), Iris M Strangmann (0000-0003-3266-2028, University of Groningen), Anneke Slomp (University of Groningen), Annemarie Van Hout (0000-0002-4971-7243, University of Groningen), Angeliek Van Hout |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Pages | 129-144 |
| Publication date | 2014-11-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Linguistics in the Netherlands (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0929-7332 • E-ISSN: 1569-9919 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/avt.31.10str |
| OpenAlex | W2041744887 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
While Dutch welke ‘which’-questions are structurally ambiguous, number agreement cues can disambiguate them. Despite such agreement cues, children misinterpret object questions as subject questions (Metz et al. 2010, 2012; Schouwenaars et al. 2014). We investigated if adding another cue, specifically, topicality in a discourse context, helps the interpretation of which -questions in two groups of Dutch children (5;5, n = 15 and 8;5, n = 21). Using a referent-selection task, we manipulated number on the verb and postverbal NP to create unambiguous wh- questions. Moreover, the questions were preceded by a discourse which established a topic, relating either to the wh- referent or the postverbal NP referent. Nevertheless, both 5- and 8-year-olds misinterpreted object questions as subject questions, ignoring the number and topicality cues to resolve the (local) ambiguity of which- questions. Our results confirm the effect of a subject-first bias in children’s interpretation of wh- questions. We conclude that topicality, in combination with number agreement, is not strong enough to overrule this subject-first bias
Agreement · Ambiguity · Cognitive psychology · Comprehension · Linguistics · Referent · Verb · Computer Science · History · Language Development and Disorders · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Artificial Intelligence
The kindergarten-path effect
Parsing WH-constructions
Filler driven parsing
Information Structure and Sentence Form
Topic Continuity in Discourse
Coherent discourse solves the pronoun interpretation problem
How do 5-year-olds understand questions? Differences in languages across Europe
Subject–Object asymmetry in Dutch children’s comprehension of wie -questions
Subject interpretation of object questions by Dutch 5-year-olds
Cognition and the Development of Language
Relativized relatives
Grammatical feature dissimilarities make relative clauses easier
Which questions are most difficult to understand
Measuring derivational complexity
Comprehension of Questions by Children Between 5 and 9
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.1 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2016 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |