@misc{AdaniForgiariniGuastietal.2014, author = {Adani, Flavia and Forgiarini, Matteo and Guasti, Maria Teresa and Van der Lely, Heather K. J.}, title = {Number dissimilarities facilitate the comprehension of relative clauses in children with (Grammatical) Specific Language Impairment}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {525}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41545}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-415453}, pages = {811 -- 841}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This study investigates whether number dissimilarities on subject and object DPs facilitate the comprehension of subject-and object-extracted centre-embedded relative clauses in children with Grammatical Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI). We compared the performance of a group of English-speaking children with G-SLI (mean age: 12; 11) with that of two groups of younger typically developing (TD) children, matched on grammar and receptive vocabulary, respectively. All groups were more accurate on subject-extracted relative clauses than object-extracted ones and, crucially, they all showed greater accuracy for sentences with dissimilar number features (i.e., one singular, one plural) on the head noun and the embedded DP. These findings are interpreted in the light of current psycholinguistic models of sentence comprehension in TD children and provide further insight into the linguistic nature of G-SLI.}, language = {en} } @misc{HoehleHoernigWeskottetal.2014, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and H{\"o}rnig, Robin and Weskott, Thomas and Knauf, Selene and Kr{\"u}ger, Agnes}, title = {Effects of focus and definiteness on children's word order}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {511}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41569}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-415695}, pages = {31}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Two experiments tested how faithfully German children aged 4; 5 to 5; 6 reproduce ditransitive sentences that are unmarked or marked with respect to word order and focus (Exp1) or definiteness (Exp2). Adopting an optimality theory (OT) approach, it is assumed that in the German adult grammar word order is ranked lower than focus and definiteness. Faithfulness of children's reproductions decreased as markedness of inputs increased; unmarked structures were reproduced most faithfully and unfaithful outputs had most often an unmarked form. Consistent with the OT proposal, children were more tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for focus; in conflict with the proposal, children were less tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for definiteness. Our results suggest that the linearization of objects in German double object constructions is affected by focus and definiteness, but that prosodic principles may have an impact on the position of a focused constituent.}, language = {en} }