Lecture | Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series
Pronoun interpretation and processing in Dutch and German
- Date
- Thursday 20 October 2022
- Time
- Series
- Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 208
Abstract
It is well-known that Dutch-speaking children, like English-speaking children, make mistakes in the interpretation of pronouns until age 7 (originally called Delay of Principle B Effect, Chien & Wexler, 1990), whereas German-speaking children already interpret pronouns correctly from age 4 (Ruigendijk et al, 2010). This cross-linguistic difference is not yet fully understood. Explanations have been sought in differences in the pronominal systems of the languages. In this talk, I will present the original child data as well as a discussion of the puzzle this provides us: why do German children not have problems in the comprehension of pronouns? After this, I will discuss processing studies (reaction time and eyetracking studies) with data from Dutch- and German speaking adults that confirm the idea that there are subtle but relevant differences between the pronominal systems of Dutch and German. I will argue that this may be an explanation as to why the Delay of Principle B Effect is not found in German. Should there be time left, I will present recent data from bilingual Dutch-German children on their performance on pronoun comprehension in their two languages.