| In this dissertation, we investigate the development of relative clauses in Korean speaking children, focusing on relative clauses with an object/dative/oblique gap, head-internal relative clauses, and relative clauses containing the Complex Noun Phrase Constraint that may occur rarely or even not at all in children's speech. In order to collect data, we make use of experimental studies, many of them using techniques especially developed for this research.;In our experiments, it was found that children exhibit respect for the Complex Noun Phrase Constraint in relative clauses from as early as 3. This confirms other findings that children's early grammars are sensitive to universal constraints on movement. It was also found that relative clauses with a subject gap were easier to comprehend and produce than relative clauses with an object, dative, or oblique gap, and that relative clauses with an oblique gap were the hardest. This is attributed to the fact that subject gaps are easier to link to their head than are object, dative, and oblique gaps, and that the oblique gaps are hardest according to the 'structural distance' strategy suggested by O'Grady (1997). In addition, it was found that head-internal relative clauses followed by the complementizer kes developed earlier than relative clauses headed by a lexical noun (i.e., head-external relative clauses). The preference of younger children (aged 4 and 5) for head-internal relative clauses over head-external relative clauses may be explained in terms of an economy principle called Procrastinate in the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). |
