STATISTICAL CUES AND MORPHOSYNTATIC INFLUENCES ON THE ACQUISITION OF WH-QUESTIONS IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE
- V. 24, N.1 (2025)
- Submitted: Jun 3, 2025
- Published: Apr 3, 2026
- DOI 10.25189/rabralin.v24i1.2324
Abstract
In Brazilian Portuguese (BrP), WH-fronting in questions is assumed to be optional. If this assumption holds true, we would expect the WH-in situ strategy to be more frequent at early stages of children's linguistic development, since, according to the analysis adopted here, it would require fewer derivational steps. Sikansi (1999) and Grolla (2000, 2009), however, point out that children rarely produce this construction, despite it being frequent in adult speech (Lopes-Rossi, 1996; Oushiro, 2010). Given this asymmetry, the present study aims to examine the production of WH-in situ questions by adults and children using naturalistic data. The analyzed corpus includes approximately 154 hours of recordings, containing WH-questions produced by four children acquiring BrP as their first language, aged between 1;02.28 and 5;06.07, as well as 23 adults interacting with them (Santana-Santos corpus). The results suggest that the WH-in situ structure is not as productive in child-directed speech as it is in adult-to-adult interactions, and that children seem to follow the statistical cues provided by the input, with the WH-in situ strategy comprising less than 2% of their WH-question production.
References
AMBAR, M. How do wh-exclamatives and in situ wh-questions correlate? Comunicação apresentada ao XXVI Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Roma, 2000.
BAUNAZ, L.; BONAN, C. Activation levels: A fresh perspective on French wh in-situ. Isogloss: Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, Barcelona, vol. 9, n.1, p. 1-43, 2023. DOI https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.305.
BIEZMA, M. Givenness and the difference between WH-fronted and WH-in-situ questions in Spanish. In: Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory: Selected papers for Going Romance 29, vol. 29, p. 21-39, 2018. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.13.03bie.
BOD, R.; HAY, J.; JANNEDY, S. (Eds.). Probabilistic Linguistics. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003. Disponível em: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262523387/probabilistic-linguistics/.
BOECKX, C. Decomposing French Questions. In: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, J. Alexander, N.R. Han and M. Minnick Fox (eds.), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, p. 69–80, 1999.
Disponível em: https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/45490.
BONAN, C. From northern Italian to Asian wh-in situ: A theory of low focus movement. Isogloss: Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, v. 7, p. 1-59, 2021. DOI https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.108.
BYBEE, J.; HOPPER, P. (Eds.) Frequency and the Emergence of Language Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.45.
CHANG, H. The Acquisition of Chinese Syntax. Language Processing in Chinese. In: H.C. Chen and O.J.L. Tzeng (eds.), p. 277-311, 1992. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-4115(08)61895-6.
CHANG, L. Wh-in-situ phenomena in French. Dissertação de Mestrado - University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1997. DOI https://doi.org/10.14288/1.0087736.
CHOMSKY, N. Principles and parameters in syntactic theory. In: HORNSTEIN, N.; LIGHTFOOT, D. (Eds.). Explanation in linguistics: The logical problem of language acquisition. London: Longman, p. 32-75, 1981.
CHOMSKY, N. The Minimalist Program. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. Disponível em: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262531283/the-minimalist-program/.
CHOMSKY, N. Derivation by phase. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, n. 18, p. 482-496, 1999.
DEROMA, C. L. Z. Divide et Impera: Separating Operators from their Variables. Tese de Doutorado - University of Connecticut, Connecticut, 2011.
DIESSEL, H.; TOMASELLO, M. The development of relative clauses in spontaneous child speech. Cognitive Linguistics, v.11, n.1-2, p. 131–151, 2000. DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2001.006.
FIGUEIREDO SILVA, M. C.; GROLLA, E. Some syntactic and pragmatic aspects of WH-in-situ in Brazilian Portuguese. In: KATO, Mary A.; ORDÓÑEZ, Francisco (Eds.). The Morphosyntax of Portuguese and Spanish in Latin America, p. 259-285, 2015.
GROLLA, E. Aquisição da periferia esquerda da sentença em português brasileiro. Dissertação de mestrado, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo, 2000.
GROLLA, E. Speculations about the Acquisition of Wh-Questions in Brazilian Portuguese. In: PIRES, A.; ROTHMAN, J. (Eds.). Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition: Case Studies across Portuguese, Mouton deGruyter, p. 85-104, 2009. DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215359.
GUASTI, M. T. An excursion into interrogatives in early English and Italian. In: Friedemann, M. A., & Rizzi, L. (Eds.). The acquisition of syntax: Studies in comparative developmental linguistics, Routledge, p. 105-128, 2014. DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315839899.
HAMLAOUI, F. On the role of phonology and discourse in Francilian French wh-questions. Journal of linguistics, p. 129-162, 2011. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226710000198.
HORNSTEIN, N., NUNES, J.; GROHMANN, K. K. Introduction to Minimalist Program. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
HUANG, C. T. J. Move wh in a language without wh-movement. The linguistic review, vol. 1, n. 4, p. 369-416, 1982. DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/tlir.1982.1.4.369.
HUDDLESTON, R.; PULLUM, G. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/zaa-2005-0209.
HUTTENLOCHER, J.; VASILYEVA, M.; CYMERMAN, E.; LEVINE, S. Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology, n.45, n. 3, p. 337–374, 2002. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0285(02)00500-5.
JIMÉNEZ, M. L. Semantics and pragmatics conditions on word order in Spanish. Tese de Doutorado - Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 1997.
KRIFKA, M. Questions. In: MAIENBORN, C.; HEUSINGER, K. von; PORTNER, P. (Eds.). Semantics: An international handbook of natural language and meaning, Berlim: Mouton de Gruyter, v. 2, p. 1742-1784, 2011.
LACERDA, R. Middle-field syntax and Information Structure in Brazilian Portuguese. Tese de doutorado - University of Connecticut, Connecticut, 2020.
LESSA-DE-OLIVEIRA, A. S. C. Aquisição de constituintes-QU em dois dialetos do português brasileiro. Dissertação de Mestrado - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo, 2003.
LEVINSON, S. C. Pragmática. Tradução de Luís Carlos Borges e Aníbal Mari. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2007.
LIDZ, J.; GAGLIARDI, A. How nature meets nurture: Universal grammar and statistical learning. Annual Reviews of Linguistics, vol. 1, n. 1, p. 333-353, 2015. DOI https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-125236.
LOPES-ROSSI, M. A. G. A sintaxe diacrônica das interrogativas-Q do Português. Tese de Doutorado - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo, 1996.
MIOTO, C. As interrogações no português brasileiro e o critério-WH. Letras de Hoje, vol. 96, p. 19-33, 1994.
MUNARO, N.; POLETTO, C.; POLLOCK, J. Eppur si muove! On comparing French and Bellunese Wh-movement. Yearbook of Comparative Syntax, p. 147-180, 2001. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.1.07mun.
NGUYEN, A. D.; LEGENDRE, G. The acquisition of wh-questions: Beyond structural economy and input frequency. Language Acquisition, v. 29, n. 1, p. 79-104, 2021. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2021.1968867.
OUSHIRO, L. Condicionamento discursivo-pragmático no uso variável de Interrogativas-Q. Estudos Linguísticos, vol. 39, n. 2, p. 628-639, 2010. Disponível em: https://revistas.gel.org.br/estudos-linguisticos/article/view/453.
OUSHIRO, Livia. Análise sociolinguística da posição variável do constituinte interrogativo. Revista da ABRALIN, v.11, n.2, p. 43-87, 2012. Disponível em: https://revista.abralin.org/index.php/abralin/article/view/1118.
PERKINS, L.; FELDMAN, N.; LIDZ, J. Learning an input filter for argument structure acquisition. Proceedings of the 7th workshop on cognitive modeling and computational linguistics, p. 11–19, 2017. DOI https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W17-0702.
PIRES, A.; TAYLOR, H. The syntax of wh-in-situ and common ground. Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, vol. 43, n. 2, p. 201-215, 2007.
POLETTO, C; POLLOCK, J. Arguing for remnant movement in Romance. In: GREWENDORF, G. (Ed.). Remnant Movement. Mouton De Gruyter, p. 135-178, 2015. DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516330-006.
QUIRK, R.; GREENBAUM, S.; LEECH, G.; SVARTVIK, J. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. New York: Longman, 1985.
REGLERO, L. A’-Dependencies in Spanish and Basque. Tese de doutorado - University of Connecticut, Connecticut, 2004.
REINHART, T. Wh-in-Situ in the Framework of the Minimalist Program. Natural Language Semantics, vol. 6, n. 1, p. 29-56, 1998. Disponível em: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008240014550.
RIZZI, L. The fine structure of the left periphery. In: HAEGEMAN, L. (Ed.). Elements of Grammar: Handbook of Generative Syntax, Kluwer, p. 281-337, 1997. Disponível em: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7.
SANTOS, R. S. Projeto de Aquisição do Ritmo em Português Brasileiro. FAPESP 2003/13565-4, 2005.
SCHNEIDER, J; PERKINS, L; FELDMAN, N. A noisy channel model for systematizing unpredictable input variation. Proceedings of the 44th Annual Boston University conference on Language Development, MA, Cascadilla Press, p. 533-547, 2020. Disponível em: https://www.lingref.com/bucld/44/BUCLD44-43.pdf.
SIKANSI, N. As interrogativas-Q na gramática infantil do PB. Caderno de Estudos Linguísticos, São Paulo, vol. 36, p. 85-103, 1999. Disponível em: https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/cel/article/view/8637106.
SILVEIRA, V. L. A Emergência de Estruturas A-Barra no Contexto da Aquisição do Português Brasileiro como Língua Materna. Tese de Doutorado - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2011.
STALNAKER, R. Assertion. In: COLE, P. (Ed.). Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics. vol. 9, New York, Academic Press, p. 315-332, 1978.
URIBE-ETXEBARRIA, M. In situ questions and masked movement. Linguistic Variation Yearbook, vol. 2, p. 259–303, 2002. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.2.09uri.
VIEIRA, C.; GROLLA, E. The pragmatics of wh-in-situ questions in Brazilian Portuguese: data from child and adult language. Proceedings of the 44th Boston University Conference on Language Development, MA, Cascadilla Press, p. 677-690, 2020. Disponível em: http://www.lingref.com/bucld/44/BUCLD44-54.pdf.
VIEIRA, C. Aquisição do QU-in situ no português brasileiro e no francês. Tese de Doutorado – Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2023. Disponível em: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8139/tde-21112023-140101/.
VLACHOS, C.; CHIOU, M. The syntax, semantics and pragmatics of ‘optional’ wh-in situ in Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics, vol. 20, n. 1, p. 102-131, 2021.
YANG, C. For and against frequencies. Journal of Child Language. Cambridge University Press 42, p. 287-293, 2015. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000914000683.
ZUCKERMAN, S. The Acquisition of “Optional” Movement. Tese de Doutorado. Boston, Massachussetts, 2001. Disponível em https://pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/3089667/c2.pdf.