Wh‐islands in Child Japanese Revisited*
Koji Sugisaki and Keiko Murasugi
Mie University and Nanzan University
1.

Introduction

Linguistic theory within the generative framework attempts to answer “the logicalproblem of language acquisition” (Baker & McCarthy 1981, Hornstein & Lightfoot1981), which refers to the problem of why children are able to acquire the knowledgeof their native languages under the “poverty of the stimulus” situation. The
proposed solution postulates that a human child is innately equipped with Universal
Grammar (UG), which narrowly constrains the space of hypotheses about the target
language. In contrast, the theory of language acquisition aims to answer “thedevelopmental problem of language acquisition,” which refers to a broader questionof how language is acquired in the actual time course.
One of the principal issues in constructing the theory of language acquisition
has been to specify when and how the innate principles of UG start constraining thecourse of acquisition. A number of experimental studies indicated that children
conform to these principles as soon as they become able to use relevant lexical items
and structures (e.g. Otsu 1981, Crain 1991). Prominent among these are the studies
which demonstrated children’s early mastery of the UG principles regulating overt
wh‐movement. For example, Otsu (1981) argued that English‐speaking children are
sensitive to the Complex NP Constraint (Ross 1967), by showing that these children
exclude overt wh‐movement from within a relative clause as in (1).
(1)

* What1 is Jane drawing a monkey [that is drinking milk with t1] ?

In contrast to the acquisition of overt wh‐movement and its restrictions, few
studies have looked at children’s knowledge of the in‐situ wh‐phrases and its UG* We would like to thank Tomohiro Fujii, Collin Philips, Thomas Roeper, Mamoru Saito, William
Snyder, and the audience at the BUCLD 39 Poster Session for valuable comments andsuggestions. A revised experiment, which reflects some of these suggestions, is in preparation.
We are also grateful to Feleisha Reiter for her editorial contributions. The usual disclaimers apply.
The research reported here was supported in part by a NINJAL Collaborative Research Project(Linguistic Variations within the Confines of the Language Faculty: A Study in Japanese First
Language Acquisition and Parametric Syntax, PI: Keiko Murasugi), a JSPS Grant‐in‐Aid for
Scientific Research (C) (Sugisaki: #25370550, Murasugi: #26370515), and a Nanzan University
Pache Research Grant (I‐A 2013‐2014; Murasugi).
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constraints, despite the fact that theoretical investigations into these properties havebeen playing a significant role in formulating the overall architecture of UG.1 In lightof this background, this study builds on a previous study by Otsu (2007) andaddresses the question of whether Japanese‐speaking preschool children exhibit thesame sensitivity to the Wh‐island Condition (Chomsky 1964) as adults. The results ofour experiment, even though preliminary, provides a new piece of evidence from theacquisition of wh‐in‐situ for the early emergence of innate principles.
2.

Wh‐island Condition in English and Japanese

It has been observed at least since Chomsky (1964) that in English, overt
wh‐extraction out of an embedded interrogative clause is not permitted, as illustrated
by the contrast in (2). The constraint that lies behind the degraded status of (2a) iscalled the Wh‐island Condition.
(2)a.

* What1 does John know [ whether Mary bought t1 ] ?

b.

What1 does John know [ that Mary bought t1 ] ?

Watanabe (1992) argues that the corresponding wh‐island effects can also be
detected in Japanese, which is a wh‐in‐situ language. 2 Thus, a wh‐phrase in aninterrogative complement clause as in (3a) is prevented from taking scope in thematrix clause, and hence the sentence is degraded as a wh‐question. In contrast, awh‐phrase in a declarative complement clause as in (3b) can (and must) take scope inthe matrix clause, and the sentence is interpreted as a wh‐question.
(3)

a.

b.

* John‐wa [Mary‐ganani‐okatta

John‐TOP
Mary‐NOM what‐ACCboughtiimasita
ka ?
said
Q
‘What did John say whether Mary bought?’
John‐wa [ Mary‐ga
nani‐okatta
John‐TOP
Mary‐NOM what‐ACCboughtiimasitaka?
said
Q‘What did John say that Mary bought?’

ka dooka]whetherto ]that

1. See Richards (2008) and Watanabe (2003) for an overview of the wh‐island effects in Japanese.
2. See also Nishigauchi (1990) and Lasnik & Saito (1992).
‐2‐

In an example like (4), the Wh‐island Condition has an effect not on its
grammatical status but on its available interpretation: The wh‐phrase is necessarily
associated with the embedded question marker (the underlined ka) and has to takescope in the embedded clause, which forces the sentence to be interpreted not as awh‐question but as a yes/no question.
(4)

John‐wa [ Mary‐ga
nani‐okatta
John‐TOP
Mary‐NOM what‐ACCboughtiimasita
ka ?
said
Q
?* ‘What did John say whether Mary bought?’ /OK ‘Did John say what Mary bought?’

ka
Q

]

Even though the exact nature of the Wh‐island Condition (as well as thenature of the violation in the Japanese examples) is still under detailed investigation,
the existing parallel paradigm of wh‐questions in English and Japanese suggests that
this constraint reflects some innate principles of UG.3 Then, we can expect thatchildren conform to this condition from the earliest observable stages. In the next
section, we briefly review two studies that evaluated the validity of this prediction.
3.

Wh‐island Condition in Child Languages: Previous Studies

3.1.
Wh‐island Condition in Child English
In order to evaluate the early emergence of the Wh‐island Condition in child English,
de Villiers, Roeper & Vainikka (1990) conducted an experiment with 25
English‐speaking children, ranging in age from 3;07 to 6;11. The task for children was
Question‐after‐Story: Each child was told a story accompanied by a series of pictures,
and at the end of the story, the experimenter asked a question about that story. The
experiment consisted of the following six types of questions, each of which had two
trials (except for (5c) and (6b), which had four trials).
(5)

Argument wh‐questionsa.
No medial wh:
Who did the girl ask t [ to help t ] ?
b.
Argument‐wh medial:
Who did the girl ask t [ what to throw *t ] ?

3. See Richards (2008) for a summary of various approaches to the Wh‐island Condition.
‐3‐

c.
(6)

Adjunct‐wh medial:
Who did Big Bird ask t [ how to paint *t ] ?
Adjunct wh‐questionsa.
No medial wh:
When did the boy say t [ he hurt himself t ] ?
b.
Argument‐wh medial:
How did Kermit ask t [ who to help *t ] ?
c.
Adjunct‐wh medial:
When did the boy know t [ how he hurt himself *t ] ?

These questions were potentially ambiguous, in that the sentence‐initialwh‐phrase could originate either in the matrix clause or in the embedded clause (asindicated by the two trace positions in these sentences). Yet, in adult grammar, theinterpretation in which the wh‐phrase has been extracted from the complement
clause is ruled out for (5b,c) and (6b,c), since that interpretation should stem frommoving the wh‐phrase out of an interrogative clause and hence should induce a
violation of the Wh‐island Condition. Thus, if children have adult‐like knowledge ofthis constraint, they should associate the sentence‐initial wh‐phrase only with thematrix clause, in the case of (5b,c) and (6b,c).
The results of their experiment are summarized in Table 1.4

Question
Types

Argument wh‐questions (5)Adjunct wh‐questions (6)matrixinterpretation

embeddedinterpretation

matrixinterpretation

embeddedinterpretation

No medial wh

68% (34)

32% (16)

50% (25)

44% (22)

Argument‐whmedial70% (35)

2% (1)

23% (23)

8% (8)

Adjunct‐whmedial63% (63)30% (30)

48% (24)

6% (3)

Table 1: Summary of the Results ofde Villiers, Roeper & Vainikka’s (1990) ExperimentChildren preferred to assign ‘short‐distance’ interpretation of thesentence‐initial wh‐phrase (which corresponds to the matrix interpretation of the

4. Errors were observed with sufficient frequency in which children answered the medial
wh‐phrases (the underlined wh‐phrases in (5) and (6)). See de Villiers, Roeper & Vainikka (1990)
for the discussion as to why this type of errors could have happened.
‐4‐wh‐phrase) even when there was no intervening wh‐phrase as in (5a) and (6a). Still, asharp contrast was found in the case of (5b) and (6c): In the case of argument
wh‐questions such as (5b), in which the complement clause is introduced by anargument wh‐phrase, 70% of children’s answers were ‘short‐distance’ answers, while
only 2% of their answers were ‘long‐distance’ answers (which should stem from theembedded interpretation of the sentence‐initial wh‐phrase). Similarly, in the case of
adjunct wh‐questions such as (6c), in which the complement clause is introduced byan adjunct wh‐phrase, children provided ‘short‐distance’ answers 48% of the time,
while they provided ‘long‐distance’ answers only 6% of the time. Given that the‘long‐distance’ answers to these questions should involve a violation of the Wh‐island
Condition, the scarcity of the ‘long‐distance’ answers is consistent with the view that
English‐speaking preschool children have knowledge of the Wh‐island Condition.5
3.2.
Wh‐island Condition in Child Japanese
The promising findings from child English naturally led to the question of whether
Japanese‐speaking preschool children also exhibit the wh‐island effects. In order toanswer this question, Otsu (2007) conducted an experiment with 40 children (20three‐year‐olds and 20 four‐year‐olds). This experiment employed a Truth‐Value
Judgment Task (Crain & Thornton 1998). In this task, children listened to a story witha puppet named John (manipulated by another experimenter). After the story, theexperimenter asked a series of questions to the puppet, and the puppet answeredeach of these questions. The task for children was to evaluate whether the responses
from the puppet were appropriate or not. A sample story and the questions that
followed this story were given in (7) and (8).
(7)

Sample Story:
Taro and Hanako were watching TV together in the living room. Their mothercame home, and brought them some snacks. And she asked Taro, “Taro, who’s
your favorite?” Taro replied, “Of course, I like Doraemon.” Mother asked
Hanako, “And you?” Hanako likes Nobita, but felt a bit shy and replied“That’s a secret.”

5. An important question remains as to why the contrast was less sharp in the case of (5c) and(6b). See de Villiers, Roeper & Vainikka (1990) for the relevant discussion.
‐5‐

(8)

Questions to John and John’s Replies:6a.
Okaasan‐wa Hanako‐ni[ dare‐ga
suki kamother‐TOP Hanako‐DAT
who‐NOM
like
Q
kikimasita
ka ?
asked
Q
‘Did Mother ask Hanako who she likes?’
John’s Reply:
Hai. ‘Yes’b.
Okaasan‐wa Taro‐ni‐mo[ dare‐ga
suki kamother‐TOP Taro‐DAT‐also
who‐NOM
like
Q
kikimasita
ka ?
asked
Q
‘Did Mother also ask Taro who he likes?’
John’s Reply:
Hai. ‘Yes’c.
Hanako‐wa[ dare‐ga
suki ka ] iimasitad.

Hanako‐TOP
who‐NOM
likeQ
said?* ‘Who did Hanako say whether she likes?’ /OK ‘Did Hanako say who she likes?’
John’s Reply:
Hai. ‘Yes’
Taro‐wa[ dare‐ga
suki to ] iimasita
Taro‐TOP
who‐NOM
likethat said‘Who did Taro say he likes?’
John’s Reply:
Hai. ‘Yes’

]

]

ka ?
Q

ka ?
Q

When presented with the questions illustrated in (8), the puppet always
responded ‘Yes’. This answer is appropriate for the questions in (8a‐b), but not for thequestions in (8c‐d). In the case of (8c), a wh‐phrase is contained within an embedded
interrogative clause introduced by the question marker ka. Thus, in this sentence, thewh‐phrase only takes scope in the embedded clause, and the entire sentence receives
an interpretation as a yes/no question. Then, the puppet’s yes answer is simply false,
because Hanako did not tell her mother who she likes. In the case of (8d), awh‐phrase appears within a declarative complement clause and hence takes scope inthe matrix clause. Thus, the sentence can only be interpreted as a wh‐question, whichmakes the puppet’s yes response an inappropriate answer to (8d). If children were notable to distinguish between the interrogative complementizer ka and the declarativecomplementizer to, they should misinterpret the question in (8d) as a yes/no question.
Then, those children should judge the puppet’s yes answer as appropriate, since inthe story Taro actually told his mother who he likes (i.e. Doraemon).
6. dare‐ga ‘who‐NOM’ in these sentences is a nominative object.
‐6‐

Otsu (2007) reasoned that, if Japanese‐speaking preschool children haveknowledge of the Wh‐island Condition, they should be able to judge the puppet’s yes
response as inappropriate both for questions like (8c) and for questions like (8d),despite the fact that these sentences contain embedded clauses introduced bydifferent types of complementizers (interrogative ka in (8c) and declarative to in (8d)).
The main results of Otsu’s (2007) experiment are summarized in Table 2.
Children’s Judgments on the Puppet’s YES Response
Judged as Appropriate

Judged as Inappropriate[wh … Q] … Q ? as in (8c)

0% (0/80)

100% (0/80)[wh … that] … Q ? as in (8d)

8% (6/80)

92% (74/80)

Table 2: Summary of the Results of Otsu’s (2007) Experiment
As we can see in Table 2, children rejected the puppet’s yes response toquestions such as (8c) 100% of the time, and also they rejected the yes response toquestions such as (8d) more than 90% of the time. Otsu interpreted these results as
indicating that Japanese‐speaking preschool children have the knowledge that (8c)should be interpreted as a yes/no question, as well as the knowledge that (8d) canonly be interpreted as a wh‐question. Since the interpretation for (8c) a yes/noquestion has its basis on the wh‐island effects, Otsu (2007) concluded that children as
young as three years old can be shown to obey the Wh‐island Condition in Japanese.
4.

Wh‐island Condition in Child Japanese: A New Experiment

4.1.
Limitation of Otsu’s (2007) Experiment
The experiment by Otsu (2007), if successful, would have large theoreticalsignificance, in that it was the very first attempt to show that the wh‐island effects canbe observed even in the acquisition of a wh‐in‐situ language. However, theexperiment has an obvious limitation in its design, and fails to demonstrate
Japanese‐speaking children’s knowledge of the Wh‐island Condition. Let us recall thewh‐island effects in Japanese, illustrated in (3a) and (4) (and repeated here in (9)).
(9)

a.

* John‐wa [ Mary‐ga
nani‐okatta
John‐TOP
Mary‐NOM what‐ACCboughtiimasita
ka ?
said
Q
‘What did John say whether Mary bought?’‐7‐

ka dookawhether]b.

John‐wa [ Mary‐ga
nani‐okatta
John‐TOP
Mary‐NOM what‐ACCboughtiimasita
ka ?
said
Q
?* ‘What did John say whether Mary bought?’ /OK ‘Did John say what Mary bought?’

ka
Q

]

As these examples suggest, the Wh‐island Condition does not permit a wh‐phrase
contained within an interrogative complement clause to take scope in the matrix
clause. In other words, what this condition dictates is that these sentences aredegraded as a wh‐question: In (9a), the sentence becomes ill‐formed since it only has
an interpretation as a wh‐question, while in (9b), the sentence itself is still
grammatical because the sentence has an alternative interpretation as a yes/noquestion.
In light of this discussion, let us now go back to the crucial test sentence usedin Otsu’s (2007) experiment.
(10) (=(8c))

Hanako‐wa[ dare‐ga
suki ka ] iimasita
Hanako‐TOP
who‐NOM
likeQ
said?* ‘Who did Hanako say whether she likes?’ /OK ‘Did Hanako say who she likes?’
John’s Reply:
Hai. ‘Yes’ka ?
Q

Much like the case of (9b), the Wh‐island Condition rules out from this sentence aninterpretation as a wh‐question. Then, if we are to determine that Japanese‐speaking
children have knowledge of the wh‐island effects, we have to demonstrate thatchildren disallow the sentence in (10) as a wh‐question. In order to achieve this, thedesign of the experiment has to undergo a small but quite significant modification inwhich the puppet incorrectly interprets the question in (10) as a wh‐question andprovides an answer like Nobita. If wh‐island effects are indeed in the grammar ofJapanese‐speaking children, they should judge this type of response as
inappropriate.
In order to provide a more convincing piece of evidence for the early
emergence of wh‐island effects, we incorporated this modification and conducted a
new experiment, which is discussed below.
4.2.
Subjects and Method
The subjects of our experiment were 28 Japanese‐speaking preschool children,‐8‐ranging in age from 3;09 to 5;05 (mean age 4;07). The task for the children was a
combination of (i) Question‐after‐Story and (ii) an Appropriateness Judgment Task.
In this task, each child was told a story, which was accompanied by a series ofpictures presented on a laptop computer. At the end of each story, an experimenter
asked the child two questions about the story. After the child responded to thesequestions, the same questions were posed to a puppet, and the child was asked tojudge whether each of the puppet’s response to the questions was appropriate or not.
A sample story and the sample test sentences that follow this story are givenin (11) and (12), respectively.
(11)

Sample Story:
Today, Monkey is visiting Elephant’s house. On the table, they had a choice of
pancakes and fruits, and they decided to have some fruits. Elephant asked
Monkey, “What is your most favorite fruit?”, and Monkey replied,“Strawberries!” Then, Elephant’s father came back home from work, andasked Elephant, “What is your most favorite fruit?” Elephant felt a bit shy,and hesitated to answer it. However, Elephant got a toy train from Father, so
he replied, “Grapes!”(12)

Sample Test Sentences:a.
Osarusan‐wa [nani‐gaichibansuki tomonkey‐TOP
what‐NOM best
like
that
Zousan‐ni
ittakana ?
elephant‐tosaid Q‘What did Monkey say to Elephant [ that he likes t best ] ?
Puppet’s Answer: Ichigo ! (Strawberries!)

‐9‐

]

b.

Zousan‐wa[
nani‐gaichibansuki kaelephant‐TOP
what‐NOM bestlike
Q
Otoosan‐ni itta
kana ?
father‐to
said Q‘Did Elephant say to his father [ what he likes t best ] ?’Puppet’s Answer: * Budou ! (Grapes!)]

The test sentence in (12a) contains a declarative complement clause and hence thesentence should be interpreted as a wh‐question. In contrast, the test sentence in (12b)
involves an interrogative complement clause, which should induce wh‐island effects
and hence should disallow the sentence to have an interpretation as a wh‐question.7
Notice that in our experiment, the puppet interpreted both of the questions in (12) asa wh‐question and provided an answer like “Ichigo!” (Strawberries!) or “Budou!”(Grapes!) to these wh‐questions, thereby confirming that we are indeed testing
wh‐island effects in children’s grammar.
The experiment consisted of two target stories and two filler stories. The orderof presentation of these stories was pseudo‐randomized.
4.3.

Results and Discussion
The number and percentages of correct responses for each type of questions
are summarized in Table 3.
When presented with a question such as in (12a), children interpreted thequestion as a wh‐question, and provided an answer like Strawberries more than 96%
of the time. These children also judged the puppet’s response of Strawberries asappropriate more than 96% of the time. In sharp contrast, when presented with aquestion such as in (12b), children interpreted the question as a yes/no question, andprovided the yes response more than 83% of the time. In addition, these children
7. William Snyder (personal communication) points out that the answer to the matrix‐scope (andhence island‐violating) question interpretation of (12b) may not be felicitous in the context of thecurrent story. Let us consider the full‐fledged answer to (12b), which should be as in (i):[budou‐gaichiban
suki
ka
]
(i)
Zousan‐wa
elephant‐TOP
grape‐NOM
best
like
Q
Otoosan‐niitta.
father‐to
said‘Elephant told his father [whether he liked the grapes best].’As Snyder correctly observes, this answer presupposes that the father asked a question about
whether the elephant likes the grapes the best, which actually did not happen in the story. Thus,in order for the above answer to be felicitous, the story has to be modified in a way that the father
asked the elephant, “What is your favorite fruit? Do you like grapes the best?”.
A revised experiment that incorporates this modification is now in preparation. We thankWilliam Snyder for valuable suggestions.
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judged the puppet’s response of Grapes as inappropriate more than 82% of the time.
These results suggest that Japanese‐speaking children have the knowledge that
sentences such as in (12b), in which a wh‐phrase appears within an embedded
interrogative clause, does not have an interpretation as a wh‐question. These findings
argue for the view that the UG principle which is responsible for the wh‐island effects
is indeed in the grammar of Japanese‐speaking preschool children.
[ wh … that] … Q ? as in (12a)[ wh … Q] … Q ? as in (12b)Children’s
AnswerChildren’s
Judgment

Children’s
AnswerChildren’s
Judgment#correct

54/56

54/56

47/56

46/56

%correct

96.4

96.4

83.9

82.1

Table 3: Summary of the Experimental Results
5.

Conclusion

In this study, we addressed the question of whether Japanese‐speaking preschool
children already have knowledge of the UG principle responsible for the wh‐islandeffects. Considering Otsu’s (2007) limitation with the design of his experiment, we
conducted a new experiment which circumvented this problem. Results obtained,though preliminary, are consistent with the view that the relevant principle is indeed
in the grammar of Japanese‐speaking children. Since Japanese is a wh‐in‐situ
language and the wh‐island effects are typically reflected only on the available
interpretation for a question with an embedded interrogative clause, it would bereasonable to suspect that the input for children would contain little relevant
information to “learn” the relevant condition. Thus, the findings reported in thisstudy lend further support from the acquisition of wh‐in‐situ in Japanese for the viewthat the principle behind the wh‐island effects constitutes part of the innate language
faculty.

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