Resumptives in the Acquisition of Relative Clauses

This article proposes an explanation for the use of resumptives in child language based on the [±variable] feature of the nominal system. It has been suggested that resumptive pronouns in children's relatives are an indication of nonmovement or of an incompletely developed trace theory. These approaches are problematic, because resumptives appear concurrent with a stage in which there is extensive evidence that children's grammar contains successive cyclic wh-movement and obeys the different constraints that regulate its derivation. New experimental evidence on production and comprehension shows that, contrary to previous findings, resumptives in relatives are present in child English at the ages of 4 and 5. A cross-linguistic comparison shows no significant difference in resumptive use between child French, child English, and child Spanish.