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Part of
L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning: The view from Romance
Edited by Larisa Avram, Anca Sevcenco and Veronica Tomescu
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 65] 2021
► pp. 39–66

Chapter 2
Strategies in the production of PP relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese

| Rio de Janeiro State University
| Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
| University of São Paulo

This study focuses on the production of Prepositional Phrase Relative Clauses (PP RCs) by Brazilian 4-/5-year-olds, aiming at discussing the types of responses children produce, compared to adults, considering competing alternatives pragmatically available in the language. Difficulty with non-subject RCs has been attributed to the presence of interveners between the RC head and the position of the moved element (Friedmann, Belletti, & Rizzi, 2009). Our experiment contrasted the elicitation of PP RCs in two conditions: with and without interveners. Although results show that children provide more target responses to the condition without interveners, alternative responses are also produced in this condition, suggesting that not only intervention, but also the availability of less complex alternatives in the language shape children’s behavior.

Keywords: PP Relative Clauses, intervention, elicitation tasks, Brazilian Portuguese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Alternative structures in the production of RCs
  • 3.Experimental task: Presence vs. absence of a DP subject in PP RCs
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Materials and design
      • 3.1.3Procedure
  • 4.Results and discussion
  • 5.Analysis of the strategies employed
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 17 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.65.02aug
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