Subject–object asymmetries in the acquisition of Portuguese relative clauses: Adults vs. children

Several studies reveal an asymmetry between the acquisition of subject and object relative clauses (Adams, 1990; Berman, 1997; Brown, 1972; Correa, 1982, 1995; de Villiers et al., 1994; de Vincenziʹs, 1991; Friedmann et al., 2009; Friedmann and Novogrodsky, 2004; Håkansson and Hansson, 2000; McKee et al., 1998; Roth, 1984; Sheldon, 1974; Tavakolian, 1981; Vasconcelos, 1991). The goal of this paper is to show that a similar asymmetry is found in the acquisition of European Portuguese. Following Belletti and Contemori (2010), we show that, in production, the adult control group also fails to produce object relative clauses. However, similarly to what was found for Italian by Belletti and Contemori, a closer look into the types of productions made by adults and children reveals that only the latter fail to produce relatives. Adults, instead, opt for other grammatical alternative strategies.