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Relatives and passive object relatives in Italian-speaking children and adults: Intervention in production and comprehension

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2013

CARLA CONTEMORI  and
ADRIANA BELLETTI
CARLA CONTEMORI*
Affiliation:
University of Siena
ADRIANA BELLETTI
Affiliation:
University of Siena
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Carla Contemori, Interdepartmental Center of Cognitive Studies on Language, University of Siena, Italy. E-mail: contemori7@unisi.it
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Abstract

We investigate the production of relative clauses in Italian children aged 3 years, 4 months to 8 years, 10 months and in adults, focusing on object relatives (ORs). For both adults and older children, we test the production of passive ORs (PORs) as an alternative to the production of active ORs. We also test the comprehension of active ORs and PORs in older children, showing that the comprehension of the latter is significantly more accurate than the former. The persistent difficulty that children experience with ORs is interpreted as due to intervention, following Friedmann, Belletti, and Rizzi (2009). We assume Collins’ (2005) approach to passive and account for the increasing use and more accurate comprehension of PORs as a consequence of lack of intervention, as in Belletti (2009a).

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 35 , Issue 6 , November 2014 , pp. 1021 - 1053
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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