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Chapter 3. Cost-reducing strategies in the production of Brazilian Portuguese relative clauses

Language impairment in the syntactic domain
  • Letícia M. Sicuro Corrêa and Marina Rosa Ana Augusto
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L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning
This chapter is in the book L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning

Abstract

This paper investigates the production of relative clauses (RCs) by Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children/adolescents, focusing on cost-reducing RCs strategies that may circumvent syntactic language impairment. Different types of RCs are elicited from participants at risk of language impairment (LI) and an age-matched control group. The results support the differential demands of these structures. Group differences are restricted to moderate-severe LI participants on standard direct object (DO) RCs. The greater demands of indirect object/prepositional phrase (IO/PP) RCs in relation to DO RCs can be nevertheless noticed in the use of resumptive pronouns predominantly in IO/PP RCs. More truncated/inappropriate responses appear in the LI group. Although cost-reducing strategies can largely circumvent LI effects, the overall quality of responses can distinguish LI children.

Abstract

This paper investigates the production of relative clauses (RCs) by Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children/adolescents, focusing on cost-reducing RCs strategies that may circumvent syntactic language impairment. Different types of RCs are elicited from participants at risk of language impairment (LI) and an age-matched control group. The results support the differential demands of these structures. Group differences are restricted to moderate-severe LI participants on standard direct object (DO) RCs. The greater demands of indirect object/prepositional phrase (IO/PP) RCs in relation to DO RCs can be nevertheless noticed in the use of resumptive pronouns predominantly in IO/PP RCs. More truncated/inappropriate responses appear in the LI group. Although cost-reducing strategies can largely circumvent LI effects, the overall quality of responses can distinguish LI children.

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.65.03cor

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
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