Week 12: Relative Clauses Lecture Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards defining types of relative clauses, child error patterns, and theoretical accounts of language acquisition based on the Week 12 lecture transcript.

Restrictive relative clause

A clause that modifies a noun to narrow down a set of possible referents and helps identify which specific entity is being referred to.

SS (Subject–Subject)

A relative clause structure characterized by a subject gap inside the RC and a head noun in the subject position of the main clause.

SO (Subject–Object)

A relative clause structure characterized by an object gap inside the RC and a subject head noun.

OS (Object–Subject)

A relative clause structure characterized by a subject gap inside the RC and an object head noun.

OO (Object–Object)

A relative clause structure characterized by an object gap inside the RC and an object head noun.

Role reversal errors

A key error pattern in child language acquisition where an object relative clause is interpreted as a subject relative clause.

Conjoined clause analysis

A proposed explanation by Tavakolian (1978) suggesting children do not represent RCs as embedded, but instead treat them as two separate clauses in order of mention.

Competence account

The view that children's errors in relative clause interpretation reflect their underlying grammar and syntactic knowledge being different from adults.

Performance account

The view that children possess adult-like grammar but make errors due to memory limitations, task difficulty, or pragmatic and context issues.

Presupposition (of relative clauses)

The requirement that there must be multiple entities (e.g., a set of possible referents) from which the head noun is being selected or singled out.