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Cross-linguistic influence at the level of syntactic ... · • The wh -questions produced by...
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Cross-linguistic influence at the level
of syntactic features:
The case of wh-questions*
SYMPOSIUM ON WH-QUESTIONS IN BILINGUAL ACQUISITION
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF CHILD LANGUAGE
MONTREAL, CANADA | JULY 20, 2011
The case of wh-questions
Lyn Shan Tieu
*Thanks to Diane Lillo-Martin for helpful comments and discussion. This work has been funded in part by SSHRC 752-
2008-2450. This project was also supported in part by Award Number R01DC009263 from the National Institute on
Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (United States). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors
and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders or the National Institutes of Health (United States).
Wh-questions cross-linguistically
• Languages like English exhibit wh-movement.
– In a single wh-question, the wh-phrase must
undergo movement.
• Languages like Chinese and Japanese are wh-• Languages like Chinese and Japanese are wh-
in-situ languages.
– In a single wh-question, the wh-phrase remains in
situ.
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Wh-questions cross-linguistically
• English-type wh-questions involve movement:
(1) What did you eat __?
• Chinese-type wh-phrases remain in situ:• Chinese-type wh-phrases remain in situ:
(2) lei5 sik6-zo2 mat1je5?
you eat-PERF what
‘What did you eat?’(Yip & Matthews, 2000:195)
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Wh-movement languages
• Traditional Minimalist account (Chomsky, 1995):
– The strong Q feature on the matrix C0 must be
checked.
– The wh-feature on the wh-phrase is attracted to C0 . – The wh-feature on the wh-phrase is attracted to C0 .
– The wh-phrase moves to the Specifier of CP to
check the Q feature.
(3) Whati did John buy __i?
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Wh-in-situCG
• Some wh-movement languages exhibit a restricted kind of wh-in-situ that is pragmatically licensed in certain contexts.
• Example: echo questions
(4) A: Mary ate a skunk.
B: Mary ate WHAT?(Pires & Taylor, 2007)
• Wh-in-situ is possible when the information being requested is expected to be part of the Common Ground (Pires & Taylor, 2007).
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Wh-in-situ languages
• One account:
– Languages like Chinese and Japanese typically have
wh-particles.
– Insertion of such a particle (overt or null Q-
morpheme) checks the Q feature on C0 (Cheng, 1991).morpheme) checks the Q feature on C0 (Cheng, 1991).
– The wh-phrase remains in situ.
(5) Zhangsan mai-le shenme (ne)
Zhangsan buy-PERF what PART
‘What did Zhangsan buy?’
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Wh-in-situ languages
• Other accounts:
– Question complementizers in languages like Chinese and
Japanese have a weak Q feature.
– In these languages, the wh-phrase moves covertly at LF
to check the feature (Huang, 1982).
– The wh-phrase is spelled out “in situ”.– The wh-phrase is spelled out “in situ”.
(6) Zhangsan mai-le shenme (ne)
Zhangsan buy-PERF what PART
‘What did Zhangsan buy?’
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Bilingual production of wh-questions
• What kinds of wh-structures will we find in the
production of bilingual children who are
acquiring two languages that differ in their
wh-options?wh-options?
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Sneak peek
• The wh-questions produced by bilingual children
are syntactically permissible in the target language.
• Bilinguals may produce more wh-in-situ than
monolinguals, but only if wh-in-situ is a syntactic monolinguals, but only if wh-in-situ is a syntactic
possibility in the target language.
• Bilinguals may produce more wh-movement
questions than monolinguals, but only if wh-
movement is a syntactic possibility in the target
language.
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What are the empirical facts?
• Case studies in the literature
– Italian / Indonesian
– Korean / English
– Cantonese / English– Cantonese / English
– ASL / English
– Libras / Brazilian Portuguese
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
• Jakarta Indonesian– Wh-movement is optional; most wh-forms stay in situ.
– No evidence for obligatory movement to the beginning of the sentence (Cole et al., in press).*
(7) potong rambut di mana?
cut hair LOC wherecut hair LOC where
‘Where did you cut your hair?’
(8) di mana potong rambut?
LOC where cut hair
‘Where did you cut your hair?’(Soriente, 2007:339)
*There is some evidence that wh-movement in Bahasa Indonesian, a wh-in-situ language, is in fact focus movement (Zavitnevich-Beaulac, 2005). The same may hold for Jakarta Indonesian.
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
• Italian
– Obligatory wh-movement to sentence-initial position, plus subject-auxiliary inversion, except in echo questions.
(9) cosa fa Gianni?
what do-IND.PRES.3SG Gianni
‘What does Gianni do?’
(Soriente, 2007:337)
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
• Monolingual Italian-speaking children do not
produce questions without movement.
– Camilla corpus: atypical wh-in-situ structures are never
produced (Antelmi, 1997).
– Analysis of Italian data in CHILDES: very few in-situ – Analysis of Italian data in CHILDES: very few in-situ
questions found (Soriente, 2007).
• Monolingual Indonesian-speaking children prefer
the in-situ structure, especially in object position.
– Acquisition of wh-questions is error-free (Cole et al., 2000a,b;
Soriente, 2007).
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
• Case study of Guglielmo, born in Jakarta,
Indonesia, to Italian mother and Indonesian
father.
• Parents followed one-parent-one-language • Parents followed one-parent-one-language
strategy; more Indonesian input.
• Data: video recording transcriptions (weekly
hour-long recordings from 0;08,00), diary
notes.
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
• Guglielmo’s development of wh-questions in
Indonesian (from 1;07) is comparable to that of
monolinguals.
• In his Italian, Guglielmo reproduces structure of • In his Italian, Guglielmo reproduces structure of
Indonesian questions with wh-forms in situ.
• Such sentences are “very frequent” in the
database and in the diary study, especially
between 3;02 and 4;00 (Soriente, 2007).
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Case study #1: Indonesian-Italian (Soriente, 2007)
(10) l pesci mangiare che cos‘é? [3;02]
DEF-M.PL fish-M.PL eat-INF what thing
‘What are the fish eating?’(Soriente, 2007:346)
(11) Maeldane vuole salutare chi è? [3;07]
Maeldane want-3.SG greet-INF who be-IND.PRES.3SG
‘Who will Maeldane greet?’
(Soriente, 2007:348)
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Case study #2: Korean-English(Park, 2008)
• English– Obligatory wh-movement, except in CG contexts.
• Korean– Wh-in-situ.
(12) What will Betty wear __?
(13) Betty-ka mwu-lul ipulkuya?
Betty-NOM what-ACC wear
‘What will Betty wear?’(Park, 2008:8)
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Case study #2: Korean-English(Park, 2008)
• Monolinguals (English)
– 23 children (2;03-5;05) (data from CHILDES)
• Bilinguals• Bilinguals
– 7 Korean-English bilingual children residing in the US
(3;04-5;05 at onset of study)
– sequential bilinguals (Korean first, English around
3;00 in preschool)
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Case study #2: Korean-English(Park, 2008)
• Monolinguals
– produced target wh-movement constructions
– produced some pragmatically licit wh-in-situ (e.g.,
echo questions)echo questions)
• Bilinguals
– produced target-like wh-in-situ in their Korean
– also target-like in their English (no wh-in-situ
constructions observed in English)
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Case study #2: Korean-English(Park, 2008)
(Park, 2008:72)
(Fig. 3: Percentage
of wh-in-situ to wh-
movement by
group, Park,
2008:72)-20-
Case study #3: Cantonese-English(Tieu, 2010; see also Yip & Matthews, 2000, 2007)
• English is a wh-movement language, except for CG contexts.
• Cantonese Chinese is a wh-in-situ language.
(14) What did you eat __?
(15) lei5 sik6-zo2 mat1je5?
you eat-PERF what
‘What did you eat?’(Yip & Matthews, 2000:195)
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Case study #3: Cantonese-English(Tieu, 2010; see also Yip & Matthews, 2000, 2007)
• Monolinguals
– 4 American English-speaking monolingual children
(CHILDES) (range: 1;02 – 5;02).
• Bilinguals• Bilinguals
– 7 Cantonese-English bilingual children residing in
Hong Kong (1;03-3;06 at onset of study).
– MLU differentials (C/E) range from 0.927 to 1.560; by
MLU differential measure, 6 of 7 children were
Cantonese-dominant.
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Case study #3: Cantonese-English(Tieu, 2010; see also Yip & Matthews, 2000, 2007)
• Monolingual English-speaking children are target-like in their moved wh-questions; some evidence of pragmatically licit wh-in-situ after about 2;11.
• Monolingual Cantonese-speaking children are target-like in their wh-in-situ (Peng, 1998; Yip & Matthews, 2000).
95.23100.00 100.00 99.19
Figure 1: Monolinguals: Proportion of what-object types
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0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Adam Eve Naomi Nina
0.44 0 0 0.274.33
0 00.54
95.23100.00 100.00 99.19
E: Illicit wh-in-situ
E: Licit wh-in-situ
E: Wh-movement
Case study #3: Cantonese-English(Tieu, 2010; see also Yip & Matthews, 2000, 2007)
• Bilinguals produced more wh-in-situ in their English compared to monolinguals (both pragmatically licit and illicit wh-in-situ).
• Their Cantonese wh-questions were target-like (in-situ).
98.70
Figure 2: Bilinguals: Proportion of what-object types in
EnglishE: Illicit wh-in-
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3.17 1.30 4.44 6.67 3.33 3.67
51.43
0.00 0.00 4.44 0 0 3.6710.48
96.83 98.7091.11 93.33 96.67
92.66
38.10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Alicia Charlotte Janet Kathryn Llywelyn Sophie Timmy
E: Illicit wh-in-
situ
E: Licit wh-in-
situ
E: Wh-
movement
Case studies #4-5: ASL-English / Libras-BP(Lillo-Martin, Quadros, and Chen Pichler, ongoing work)
• American Sign Language (ASL) and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) allow wh-initial, wh-in-situ, wh-final, and doubling constructions (Petronio & Lillo-Martin, 1997).
• Wh-final and doubling are analyzed as emphatic focus constructions (Nunes & Quadros, 2005). constructions (Nunes & Quadros, 2005).
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(Lillo-Martin & Quadros, 2006)
• Monolingual ASL/Libras signing children
– Wh-initial and wh-in-situ structures are prevalent
in spontaneous signing from early on (1;09) (Lillo-
Martin & Quadros, 2006).
Case studies #4-5: ASL-English / Libras-BP(Lillo-Martin, Quadros, and Chen Pichler, ongoing work)
Martin & Quadros, 2006).
– In elicited production, high proportion of wh-final
and wh-double structures observed in ASL by 5-6
years (Lillo-Martin, 2000).
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• Spontaneous production of younger ASL-English / Libras-BP bimodal bilingual children (1 ASL, 1 Libras, age range 1;0-3;0):
– ASL/Libras
• preliminary data so far show examples of target-like wh-structures (initial, in situ, doubling) by around 1;11
Case studies #4-5: ASL-English / Libras-BP(Lillo-Martin, Quadros, and Chen Pichler, ongoing work)
wh-structures (initial, in situ, doubling) by around 1;11
– English/BP
• wh-in-situ constructions appear earlier compared to monolinguals (around 1;11 compared to 2;11 for English, 3;09 for BP)
• wh-doubling (before 3;0)
• preference for wh-initial questions (after 3;0)
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• Spontaneous production (English):
(16) Where airplane where? (2;00)
‘Where is the airplane?’
Case studies #4-5: ASL-English / Libras-BP(Lillo-Martin, Quadros, and Chen Pichler, ongoing work)
‘Where is the airplane?’
(17) Mommy where? (2;00)
‘Where is Mommy?’
(Quadros, Lillo-Martin, & Chen Pichler, in prep.)
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• Elicited production of wh-questions from older ASL-
English / Libras-BP bimodal bilinguals (3 ASL, 13
Libras, age range 5;0-7;0):
– ASL/Libras
Case studies #4-5: ASL-English / Libras-BP(Lillo-Martin, Quadros, and Chen Pichler, ongoing work)
– ASL/Libras
• very high proportion (nearly 100%) of wh-initial
structures for all wh-question types
– English/BP
• target-like wh-initial structures
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Summarizing the findings
Table 1. Wh-questions in bilingual development
Language pair 1 Language pair 2 Language pair 3 Language pairs 4-5
Indonesian Italian Korean English Cantonese English ASL/Libras English/BP
Target /
Monolingual
findings
wh-in-situ;
movement
optional (for
focus?)
obligatory
movement;
wh-in-situ
in ‘common
ground’
wh-in-situ obligatory
movement;
wh-in-situ
in ‘common
ground’
wh-in-situ obligatory
movement;
wh-in-situ
in ‘common
ground’
wh-movement;
wh-in-situ; wh-
final and
doubling in
focus
obligatory
movement;
wh-in-situ in
‘common
ground’ ground’
contexts
ground’
contexts
ground’
contexts
focus
constructions
ground’
contexts
Bilingual
findings
target-like increased
wh-in-situ
compared
to
monolings.
target-like target-like target-like increased
wh-in-situ
compared
to
monolings.
younger:
target
structures incl.
movement, in
situ, and
doubling
older:
increased wh-
movement
compared to
monolings.
earlier wh-in-
situ
compared to
monolings.,
some
doubling
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Summarizing the findingsTable 1’. Wh-questions in bilingual development
Language pair 1 Language pair 2 Language pair 3 Language pair 4 Language pair 5
A B A B A B A B A B
Target /
Monoling.
findings
IN SITU MVMT
*IN SITU
IN SITU MVMT
*IN SITU
IN SITU MVMT
*IN SITU
MVMT
IN SITU
FINAL
DOUBLING
MVMT
*IN SITU
MVMT
IN SITU
FINAL
DOUBLING
MVMT
*IN SITU
Bilingual
findings
IN SITU ↑ IN SITU IN SITU MVMT IN SITU ↑ IN SITU younger:
MVMT
earlier IN
SITU
younger:
MVMT
earlier IN
SITUfindings MVMT
INSITU
DOUBLING
older:
↑ MVMT
SITU MVMT
INSITU
DOUBLING
older:
↑ MVMT
SITU
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• If language A is unambiguously in situ, bilinguals are target-like in A (they produce wh-in-situ and not wh-movement).
• Bilinguals may be non-target-like in producing more wh-in-situ OR in producing more wh-movement.
• Having in situ in language A and both in language B does notnecessitate non-target-like rates of in situ in language B.
Generalizing the syntax across languages
• Wh-movement involves movement of the wh-
phrase to Spec,CP to check a strong feature on C0.
– Italian, English, Brazilian Portuguese, ASL, Libras
• Wh-in-situ involves selection of a question • Wh-in-situ involves selection of a question
complementizer bearing a weak Q feature (+LF
movement of the wh-phrase) OR the insertion of
a null question particle.
– Indonesian, Korean, Cantonese, ASL, Libras
– CG: Italian, English, Brazilian Portuguese
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Generalizing wh-in-situ
• Wh-in-situ is syntactically licensed in
languages like English, just as it is in languages
like Chinese.
• The difference is that wh-in-situ in English is • The difference is that wh-in-situ in English is
pragmatically constrained, i.e. subject to
discourse-pragmatic conditions (that don’t really
concern us here).
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What do bilingual children do?
• They produce wh-questions that are
syntactically well-formed – even when they
appear at non-target-like rates.
– Their wh-movement questions are syntactically– Their wh-movement questions are syntactically
well-formed in the target language.
– Their wh-in-situ questions are syntactically well-
formed in the target language.
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What do bilingual children not do?
• They do not produce wh-questions are that syntactically ill-formed.
• What is syntactically ill-formed?
– A wh-movement question in a wh-in-situ language.– A wh-movement question in a wh-in-situ language.
• Syntactic explanations?
– e.g., insertion of null question particle prevents movement of wh-phrase;
– e.g., weak Q feature on C0 cannot trigger overt movement, and movement must be feature-driven.
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What have we defined?
• What is permissible vs. impermissiblei.e. where can and can’t we observe ‘cross-linguistic influence’?
– Bilinguals (observed so far) may produce more wh-movement questions or more wh-in-situ questions in languages that allow both options because these are syntactically permissible in the target language.
– Bilinguals (observed so far) do not produce wh-movement – Bilinguals (observed so far) do not produce wh-movement questions in wh-in-situ languages because these are syntactically impermissible in the target language.
• Some predicted overlaps with accounts that appeal to surface overlap (cf. Hulk & Müller, 2000).– But the present account relies on an overlap at the level of
grammatical features, rather than a surface overlap between the two languages.
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Why?
• We have defined possible ‘transfer/CLI’
contexts (in terms of what is syntactically
permissible in the target language).
• But transfer/CLI does not arise everywhere it • But transfer/CLI does not arise everywhere it
is possible.
• Why does it occur when it does?
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Select
C[weak-Q] C[strong-Q]� ��
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wh-in-situ questions
LANGUAGE A(e.g., Indonesian, Korean, Cantonese)
wh-movement questions
wh-in-situ questions
LANGUAGE B (e.g., Italian, English, BP, ASL, Libras)
Source of the developmental delay
• The option available to both target languages (C[weak-Q]) is arguably Selected more often; the bilingual child with a less discriminating Select might tend to rely more heavily on it.– processing demands– processing demands
– inability to inhibit one of the two options
• If the target language (syntactically) permits both options, the bilingual child might not be as discerning until she masters the discourse-pragmatic constraints on the use of the in-situ option.
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Conclusions• “Cross-linguistic influence” in the case of wh-questions
refers to increased rates of a particular wh-structure compared to monolingual rates – crucially that wh-structure is found in the target language, i.e. it is syntactically permissible.
• Bilingual children produce wh-questions that are syntactically permissible in the target language.
• Bilingual children produce wh-questions that are syntactically permissible in the target language.
• Non-target-like productions by bilinguals still fall within the realm of syntactically permissible structures. – But these structures may not be pragmatically appropriate.
• The source of the developmental delay (e.g., weaker Select operation, discourse-pragmatic delay, etc.) remains to be precisely identified and experimentally tested.
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