Syntactic revision in wh-questions: developmental trajectory and the role of cognitive control

In our study, we examine children's and adults' interpretation of argument wh-questions requiring syntactic revision using a questions-after-stories procedure, leading to three major findings. First, children aged 7–8 years, but not 5–6-year-olds, were found to preferably attach the fronted wh-element to the first available gap, rather than the second, indicating an adultlike incremental parsing strategy of active gap filling. Second, older children show a similar rate of revision as adults, higher than younger children, although a substantial rate of misinterpretations remains. Third, we find a significant link between the rate of revision and cognitive control skills measured with an N-back task. Implications for theories of language development and parsing are discussed.