Home Linguistics & Semiotics Chapter 5. The production of variable number agreement in Brazilian Portuguese
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 5. The production of variable number agreement in Brazilian Portuguese

A procedural and developmental account
  • Ana Paula S.P. Jakubów and Letícia M. Sicuro Corrêa
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
To Publisher Page
L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning
This chapter is in the book L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the production of variable number agreement by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speaking children/adolescents. Number agreement in BP can be redundant, with obligatory morphological plural marking in all the agreeing elements (standard variety), or non-redundant, with obligatory morphological plural marking on the determiner and optional plural marking on the noun and on post-nominal agreeing elements (non-standard variety). The results of an elicited production task are recapped here. A production model of number agreement on the DP is provided. It is argued that an underspecified morphophonological feature [±redundant] in the morphological component of the lexicon is required to account for optionality in number marking and for developmental changes regarding the expression of number agreement in speech.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the production of variable number agreement by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speaking children/adolescents. Number agreement in BP can be redundant, with obligatory morphological plural marking in all the agreeing elements (standard variety), or non-redundant, with obligatory morphological plural marking on the determiner and optional plural marking on the noun and on post-nominal agreeing elements (non-standard variety). The results of an elicited production task are recapped here. A production model of number agreement on the DP is provided. It is argued that an underspecified morphophonological feature [±redundant] in the morphological component of the lexicon is required to account for optionality in number marking and for developmental changes regarding the expression of number agreement in speech.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Syntactic complexity and intervention effects in the L1 acquisition of Romance
  5. Chapter 1. Acquisition of clitic climbing by European Portuguese children 13
  6. Chapter 2. Strategies in the production of PP relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese 39
  7. Chapter 3. Cost-reducing strategies in the production of Brazilian Portuguese relative clauses 67
  8. Chapter 4. Some thoughts on (the acquisition of) control 83
  9. Chapter 5. The production of variable number agreement in Brazilian Portuguese 109
  10. Chapter 6. Assessing children’s syntactic proficiency through a sentence repetition task 133
  11. Part 2. Crosslinguistic influence in 2L1 acquisition and L2 learning
  12. Chapter 7. L1 effects in the L2 acquisition of long-distance binding in European Portuguese 173
  13. Chapter 8. On the nature of crosslinguistic influence 203
  14. Chapter 9. Can explicit instruction help L2 learners overcome persistent L1 interference? 229
  15. Part 3. Language acquisition at the interface in various learning settings
  16. Chapter 10. Combining Focus VS and Topic constructions 259
  17. Chapter 11. Gender marking in L1 and L2 French 289
  18. Chapter 12. The acquisition of disjunction under negation and recursive ni in French 315
  19. Chapter 13. Deriving scalar implicatures with quantifiers by Romanian children 331
  20. Chapter 14. The acquisition of mood in child Spanish 355
  21. Index 379
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.65.05jak

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Syntactic complexity and intervention effects in the L1 acquisition of Romance
  5. Chapter 1. Acquisition of clitic climbing by European Portuguese children 13
  6. Chapter 2. Strategies in the production of PP relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese 39
  7. Chapter 3. Cost-reducing strategies in the production of Brazilian Portuguese relative clauses 67
  8. Chapter 4. Some thoughts on (the acquisition of) control 83
  9. Chapter 5. The production of variable number agreement in Brazilian Portuguese 109
  10. Chapter 6. Assessing children’s syntactic proficiency through a sentence repetition task 133
  11. Part 2. Crosslinguistic influence in 2L1 acquisition and L2 learning
  12. Chapter 7. L1 effects in the L2 acquisition of long-distance binding in European Portuguese 173
  13. Chapter 8. On the nature of crosslinguistic influence 203
  14. Chapter 9. Can explicit instruction help L2 learners overcome persistent L1 interference? 229
  15. Part 3. Language acquisition at the interface in various learning settings
  16. Chapter 10. Combining Focus VS and Topic constructions 259
  17. Chapter 11. Gender marking in L1 and L2 French 289
  18. Chapter 12. The acquisition of disjunction under negation and recursive ni in French 315
  19. Chapter 13. Deriving scalar implicatures with quantifiers by Romanian children 331
  20. Chapter 14. The acquisition of mood in child Spanish 355
  21. Index 379
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 9.11.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/lald.65.05jak/html
Scroll to top button