Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time
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Vincenzo Moscati
Abstract
The paper presents novel findings on young children’s processing of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in Italian in preverbal position. This is a syntactic environment in which their interpretation is equivalent to the English Negative pronouns “Nobody/Nothing”. Eye movements show that by the age of 5 children have little troubles in accessing the correct interpretation of preverbal NCIs. However, their processing time lags behind positive universal quantifiers used as controls. This result is discussed in relation to a documented overgeneralization of Negative Concord in early grammars.
Abstract
The paper presents novel findings on young children’s processing of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in Italian in preverbal position. This is a syntactic environment in which their interpretation is equivalent to the English Negative pronouns “Nobody/Nothing”. Eye movements show that by the age of 5 children have little troubles in accessing the correct interpretation of preverbal NCIs. However, their processing time lags behind positive universal quantifiers used as controls. This result is discussed in relation to a documented overgeneralization of Negative Concord in early grammars.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
-
Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
-
Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
-
Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
-
Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
-
Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
-
Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
