Children’s Wh-questions acrossLanguages: Some Preliminary Results
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Date
2022
Authors
Yatsushiro, K.
Dal Farra, C.
Gonzalez, A.
Hein, J.
Silleresi, S.
Avellana, A.
Huang, A.
Ilọri, J.F.
Krishnan, G.G.
Pintér, L.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press
Abstract
This paper investigates the acquisition of wh-questions in five different languages: German, Hungarian, Malayalam, Mandarin and Yoruba. It does so by focusing on the production of five structures, which were tested across all languages on the basis of (nearly) identical material. These included subject who-questions
(1a) and object who-questions (1b), subject which-questions (1c) and object which-
questions (1d), and object what-questions (1e).
In this paper we will focus only onwho- and which-questions.
(1) a. Who is pushing the ant?
b. Who are the horses pulling?
c. Which ladybug is waking the cats?
d. Which duck is the rabbit pushing?
e. What is the woman drawing?
Acquisition of wh-questions has been extensively investigated in the litera-
ture, but most of the studies focused on the comprehension of these structures
Description
Proceedings of the 46th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD)
Keywords
Citation
Kazuko Yatsushiro, Chiara Dal Farra, Aurore Gonzalez, Johannes Hein, Silvia Silleresi, Alicia Avellana, Aijun Huang, Johnson F. Ilori, Gayathri G. Krishnan, Lilla Pintér, Maria Teresa Guasti, Uli Sauerland 2022. “Children’s Wh-Questions across Languages: Some Preliminary Results”, Ying Gong and Felix Kpogo (ed.) Proceedings of the 46th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD) Volume 2, 890-903, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press