+ Intervention effects and the
acquisition of Chinese
relative clauses
Shenai Hu
Anna Gavarró
Mirta Vernice
Maria Teresa Guasti
Feb 14th, 2014, Trento
+
Outline

Background and research questions

Experiment 1: picture-sentence matching task

Experiment 2: character-sentence matching task

Discussion
+ The acquisition of relative clauses
(1) il gatto che colpisce il cane
Subject RC
‘the cat that hits the dog’
(2) il cane che il gatto colpisce
Object RC
‘the dog that the cat hits’
 Subject
relative clauses (RCs) elicit better performance
than object RCs in children speaking a variety of headinitial languages with postnominal RCs (e.g., Catalan,
English, French, Hebrew and Italian)
+ The Relativized Minimality (RM) approach
 Friedmann, Belletti
& Rizzi (2009) claim that the
difficulty of object RCs lies in the structural
similarity between the A’-moved element (relative
head) and the intervening subject.
(3) [DP il canei [CP che il gatto [VP colpisce __i ]]]
(4) D NP …… D NP …… <D NP>
[+R, +NP]
[+NP]
[+R, +NP]
+
 Chinese
is a language which combines SVO order
and prenominal relative clauses (Dryer, 2005, 2008)
(5) 打小狗的小猫
Subject RC
[ _i da xiaogou de ] xiaomaoi
hit dog
DE cat
‘the cat that hits the dog’
(6) 小猫打的小狗
Object RC
[xiaomao da _i de ] xiaogoui
cat
hit
DE dog
‘the dog that the cat hits’
(7) 小猫打小狗。
A declarative sentence
Xiaomao da xiaogou.
cat
hit dog
‘The cat hits the dog.’
+ Predictions of the Relativized Minimality
(RM) approach
 (8)
subject RC
 (9)

object RC
Cheng (1986), Aoun & Li (2003)
+ Contradictory results of previous studies
on Chinese RCs
Studies
Participants
Methods
Results
Chang,1984
N=48
age 6,7,9,11
act-out task
no preference
Lee, 1992
N=61
age 4-8
act-out task
subject preference
Chiu,1996
N=65
age 3-6
act-out task
subject preference
(older children)
object preference
(younger ones)
Cao, Goodluck
& Shan, 2005
N=34
age 4-6
act-out task
no preference
+ Research questions

Does the subject/object asymmetry hold for
the acquisition of Chinese RCs as predicted by
RM?

Does this asymmetry emerge during
development and how?

Does the head-final status of the RC affect its
comprehension?
+ Experiment 1: Picture-sentence matching
task


Participants
80 children aged from 3;0 to 6;11
10 adults
Materials and procedure
(10) Subject RC
Zhichu [_ da xiaogou de] xiaomao.
point to
hit dog
DE cat
‘Point to the cat that hits the dog.’
(11) Object RC
Zhichu [qingwa da _ de] laoshu.
point to frog
hit DE mouse
‘Point to the mouse that the frog hits.’
1
2
+ Results of Experiment 1
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
subject RCs
object RCs
3
73,1%
70,6%
4
80,6%
80%
5
90%
92,5%
6
96,9%
100%
+ Results of Experiment 1 (cont.)

Adults: 100% accurate responses

No significant difference between subject RCs
and object RCs (χ 2(1) = 0.06, p > .05).

Age (categorical variable) yielded a significant
effect (χ 2(3) = 48.43, p < .001).
+
Discussion (1)
(12) da xiaogou de xiaomao
V
O
S
hit
dog
DE cat
Subject RC
(13) xiaomao da de xiaogou
S
V
O
cat
hit DE dog
Object RC
(14) Xiaomao da
S
V
cat
hit
xiaogou.
O
dog
1
2
+
Discussion (2)

Results are an artifact of the task.

Arnon (2005; 2010) and Adani (2009) propose a
character-sentence matching task as an
alternative to the picture-sentence matching task.
+ Experiment 2: Character-sentence
matching task

Participants
120 children aged from 3;0 to 8;11
20 adults

Materials and procedure
(15) Subject RC
Na
yi-ge
shi [_ da xiaogou de] xiaomao?
which one-CL is
hit dog
DE cat
‘Which one is the cat that hits the dog?’
(16) Object RC
Na
yi-ge
shi [qingwa da _ de] laoshu?
which one-CL is frog
hit DE mouse
‘Which one is the mouse that the frog hits?’
+ Results of Experiment 2
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
3
Subject RCs 47,8%
Object RCs 24,8%
4
61,3%
23,1%
5
72,5%
20,6%
6
76,3%
45%
7
99,4%
45,6%
8
100%
95,6%
+ Results of Experiment 2 (cont.)

Adults: 100% accurate responses

A significant difference between subject RCs and
object RCs (χ 2(1) = 50.41, p < .001; Wald Z = 16.88,
p < .001)

A significant effect of Age (e.g., between age
three and age six (χ 2(5) = 145.78, p < .001; Wald Z
= 4.08, p < .001)
Error Types
 Which one is the cat that hits the dog?
Correct



Embedded Error Other Error
Reversal Error
Embedded error: wrong character in the right picture
Reversal Error: right character in the wrong picture
Other Error: wrong character in the wrong picture
+ Analysis of errors in subject RCs (1)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
3
Correct
47,8%
Embedded Error 19%
Reversal Error
15,3%
Other Error
17,8%
4
61,3%
15%
10%
13,7%
5
72,5%
8,7%
7,5%
11,3%
6
76%
11,8%
3%
8,8%
7
99,4%
0,6%
0%
0%
8
100%
0%
0%
0%
+ Analysis of errors in subject RCs (2)

Subject RCs in Chinese were also difficult to
comprehend up to six years of age and elicited a
variety of errors.

Children did not show a tendency to make a
specific mistake (all p > .21).
+ Analysis of errors in object RCs (1)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
3
Correct
24,8%
Embedded Error 37%
Reversal Error
22,9%
Other Error
15,3%
4
23,1%
47,5%
23,1%
6,3%
5
20,6%
73,1%
3,8%
2,5%
6
45%
53,1%
1,3%
0,6%
7
45,6%
53,1%
1,3%
0%
8
95,6%
4,4%
0%
0%
+ Analysis of errors in object RCs (2)

The pattern of errors in Chinese children diverges
from that found in languages with postnominal
RCs.

The ‘Agent’ interpretation error (Embedded
Error) is the most common in Chinese, instead of
the ‘reversal’ error.
+
Discussion (1)
(17)
 The
subject/object
asymmetry is found in
Chinese as in languages
with postnominal RCs
 Subject
RCs are
comprehended at an earlier
age than object RCs.
 This
finding is in line with
RM approach’s predictions.
 Structural
intervention
+
Discussion (2): subject RCs
 Up
to six years of age children show problems
 All
error types are equally distributed
 The
errors reflect different sources of difficulty
(Arnon, 2005)
 Linear
intervention is also taxing for Chinese
children
(18) the cat [that _ hits the dog]
NP
V
NP
(19) [ _ da xiaogou de] xiaomao
V

NP
NP
+
Discussion (3): object RCs
 The
pattern of error differs from that of other
languages: the ‘agent’ interpretation error is the most
common in Chinese.
 Children
choose the character which is the correct
one for the simple declarative sentence.
(20) Na
yi-ge shi [xiaomao da _ de] xiaogou?
which one-CL is cat
hit DE dog
wh-one-CL
V
NP
V
NP
‘Which one is the dog that the cat hits?
(21) Na
yi-ge
shi xiaomao?
which one-CL is cat
Which one is the cat?
+
Conclusions

The subject/object asymmetry holds for the
acquisition of Chinese RCs, consistently with
acquisition studies in other languages.

The results of the picture-sentence matching
task (Experiment 1) are biased, due to
methodological issues.

The character-sentence matching task
(Experiment 2) is a reliable task.

To sum up, structural intervention plays a more
important role than linear intervention in
Chinese RC comprehension.
+
GRAZIE!
o
All the participants in our experiments
o
Flavia Adani, Fabrizio Arosio, Carlo Cecchetto, HU
Shuangling, ZHANG Meilian, and, for the materials,
Candice Coyer, Anamaria Bentea & Stephanie
Durrleman.
o
Project FFI2011-29440-C03-03