Chapter published in:
Complement Clauses in Portuguese: Syntax and acquisition
Edited by Ana Lúcia Santos and Anabela Gonçalves
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 17] 2018
► pp. 261–294

The acquisition of control in European Portuguese

| University of Lisbon
| University of Lisbon
| University of Lisbon

We offer a new insight on the acquisition of control, by considering data from Portuguese. We explore two main issues: (i) the distinction between obligatory control and non-obligatory control and (ii) choice of controller. Our results show that children distinguish certain obligatory and non-obligatory control contexts: children accepted a sentence-external antecedent in infinitival subjects but not in infinitival complements. Additionally, our study confirms previous results suggesting that subject control in promise-type contexts is delayed. However, it equally shows that there is no absolute bias for object control at early stages. We evaluate predictions made by contemporary accounts of control, namely the movement theory of control (Hornstein, 1999) and the theory of control as Agree (Landau, 2000, and subsequent work).

Keywords: control, infinitival complements, acquisition of syntax, European Portuguese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.On the nature of control: Accounting for EP data
  • 3.Previous studies on the acquisition of control and complementation
  • 4.Research questions
  • 5.The experimental task
  • 6.Results
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.17.09ago
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