Object clitics , definite articles and genitive possessive clitics in Greek specific language impairment ( SLI

Nine Greek preschool children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) were compared to age-matched (CA) and language-matched (LA) typically-developing children on their production of a) third person object clitic pronouns, b) definite articles and c) genitive possessive clitics, through novel picture-based elicitation tasks. The aims were to examine whether these structures are impaired in Greek SLI, and whether the findings can be explained by domain-general or domain-specific accounts of SLI (Surface Hypothesis (SH) Leonard 1989; Interpretability Hypothesis (IH), Tsimpli & Stavrakaki 1999; Representational Deficit for Dependent Relations (RDDR), van der Lely 1998). The findings revealed a particular impairment on object clitics in the SLI group, evidenced by a significantly lower rate of correct responses and higher omission rates compared to both control groups; a relatively higher performance on definite articles, on which the SLI group differed from only the CA group; and no impairment on genitive possessive clitics. The findings are partially consistent with those of previous studies in Greek SLI. None of the accounts reviewed could fully account for the pattern of deficits. An alternative proposal combining the notions of interpretability and movement is proposed instead.