Electrophysiological Evidence for Sentence Comprehension - Wings

(C-SLI). Children with C-SLI have difficulties with understanding, but also with the
social use of language. This is sometimes referred to as ‘pragmatic’ language impairment
that is ‘autism-like’ (Bishop & Frazier Norbury, 2005).
Linguistic classification of SLI is the most disputable. It is usually driven by the
linguistic theory and often reflects theoretic views of the researcher who suggests it. In
addition, it is influenced by the language that is being researched. Finally, it is hardly a
classification at all. It is more precise to speak about linguistic account of SLI than about
linguistic classification because it is usually one feature that is singled out as the core of
the deficit with some elements of the language system being more or less affected by it
(depending on what is taken as the deficit or particular language).
One of the first linguistic accounts of SLI was the Extended Optional Infinitive Account
(Rice et al., 1995). While younger children with typical language development pass the
‘optional infinitive’ phase in which they omit morphological markers on verbs, SLI
children treat morphological marking as ‘optional’, not obligatory for an extended period
of time. Other linguistic accounts of SLI follow this line of reasoning, but place the
source of the deficit somewhere else. For example, Clahsen (1989) proposed the Missing
Agreement Hypothesis claiming that the source of the deficit lies in the child’s inability
to establish agreement relations in a sentence. The hypothesis was based on observation
of German children with SLI who had problems especially in number and gender
agreement on articles and determiners. Similar reasoning was applied in van der Lely’s
account of SLI, as well. She tries to apply generativist framework (Government &
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