Wh -in-situ in child French: Deictic triggers at the syntax-semantics interface

This article investigates the development of wh -in-situ questions in French by examining a three-year kindergarten dataset of spontaneous productions with 16 children between 2;5 and 5;11. The distribution of the wh -phrases is statistically examined in relation to age, verb form (Fixed be form c’e...

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Published in:Journal of French language studies Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 273 - 298
Main Authors: Palasis, Katerina, Faure, Richard, Meunier, Fanny
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.11.2023
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subjects:
Adults
Adverbs
Children
Children & youth
Classification
Deixis
French language
Grammatical categories
Humanities and Social Sciences
Kindergarten
Language
Linguistics
Pronouns
Questions
Semantics
Syntax
Syntax semantics relationship
Verbs
français
L1
copula
quoi/que alternation
copule
verbes lexicaux
questions wh
alternance quoi/que
French
lexical verbs
acquisition
wh-questions
deixis
ISSN:0959-2695, 1474-0079
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article investigates the development of wh -in-situ questions in French by examining a three-year kindergarten dataset of spontaneous productions with 16 children between 2;5 and 5;11. The distribution of the wh -phrases is statistically examined in relation to age, verb form (Fixed be form c’est ‘it is’ vs. Free be forms vs. Free lexical verbs), and grammatical category of the wh -word (Pronoun vs. Adverb). Results show that wh -in-situ remains prevalent throughout the period despite a steady increase in wh -ex-situ. Verb form (Fixed vs. All free forms) is a discriminating variable for the wh -position in all three years, and it interacts with the category of the wh -word. The Fixed be form c’est favours in-situ wh -pronouns ( c’est qui Taz ? ), whereas the Free forms favour wh -ex-situ questions, and massively co-occur with wh -adverbs ( combien ça coûte ? ). The emergence of the ex-situ qu’est-ce que ‘what is it that’, as opposed to the in-situ quoi ‘what’, is identified as a factor accounting for the gradual increase in wh -ex-situ. Finally, most outliers ( wh -in-situ with Free forms) are shown to belong to the same paradigm as c’est in-situ questions: non-presuppositional questions, which are visible from the frequent use of là ‘there’, like c’est , a deictic item.
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ISSN:0959-2695
1474-0079
DOI:10.1017/S0959269523000030