Predication, WH-Movement, and the Development of Relative Clauses

French is generally considered to be fundamentally identical to English with respect to relative clause formation. However, I show that up to at least 6 years of age, French-speaking children, although they do have WH-movement in questions, show no evidence of having a WH-movement strategy for constructing relative, clauses. This contrasts with English-speaking children, who seem to acquire WH-movement in relative clauses relatively early. As noted by various researchers, children of 4 and 5 years of age produce relatives headed by the WH word what (The dog what bit him) in areas where the local dialect does not have what as a relative pronoun (cf. Flynn & Lust, 1980; Goodluck, personal communication, February 1988; Menyuk, 1969).