Fokale Ellipsen in Erwachsenen- und Kindersprache

Focal ellipses are questions with an interrogative hiatus, such as »You were born on...?« This volume is the first to regard this phenomenon in terms of grammar theory and language acquisition theory. Among its most notable findings are the fact that, syntactically, focal ellipses are based on incomplete declarative sentences and are not wh-questions with the interrogative pronoun missing. From the acquisition viewpoint it is notable that focal ellipses appear earlier than wh-questions in the process of language acquisition. They can thus be said to play a cardinal role in the acquisition of interrogative forms in general and of focal structures in particular.