WH-Movement in Children with Grammatical SLI: A Test of the RDDR Hypothesis  

Oleh:

Lely, Heather K.J. van der ; Battell, Jackie

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language (ada di JSTOR) vol. 79 no. 1 (2003), page 153-181.
Fulltext: Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 153-181.pdf (3.8MB)

Isi artikel

This article presents a test of the proposal that a subgroup of children with GRAMMATICAL- SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT (G-SLI) have optional movement (the REPRESENTATIONAL DEFICIT FOR DEPENDENT RELATIONS (RDDR) account, van der Lely 1998) by investigating wH-movement in fifteen G-SLI subjects and twenty-four younger children matched on language abilities (LA controls). The RDDR/optional movement account predicts that G-SLI subjects would have deficits with both wH-operator and Q-feature movement and therefore would have particular problems producing object questions. We elicited 36 questions balanced for subject and object questions and WH-words (who, which, what). The G-SLI subjects were significantly impaired in producing WH-questions, showing particular difficulties with object questions in relation to the control chil- dren. The majority of G-SLI subjects (80%) evinced both WH-operator and T/Q-feature movement errors whereas only one control child (4%) did so, yet on occasion all the G-SLI subjects used appropriate movement operations to satisfy the WH-criterion. We conclude that the RDDR account whereby movement is optional is consistent with the findings of correct and incorrect wH-question formation. Thus, this first test of the RDDR account of G-SLI is supported by the findings. We discuss the possible underlying nature of a grammar that could cause such optionality, the implications for normal and impaired language acquisition, and the generalizability of the findings to other groups of children with SLI. We propose that in the face of no movement, the WH-word and, on occasion, do are merged in situ in the CP, and function as an interrogative adjunct.*

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