The Acquisition of French in Different Contexts: Focus on Functional Categories (Language Acquisition and Language Disorders)

The development of functional categories has been the topic of intense research in the past decade in each of the acquisition domains, to the extent that acquisition of functional categories has become the dominant line of enquiry in the research on syntactic development in the generative framework. This volume aims to bring together generative research on the nature of the grammars developed by French learners in different acquisition contexts, namely first language acquisition, second language acquisition, bilingual first language acquisition and specifically-language impaired acquisition. The Acquisition of French in Different Contexts......Page 2 Editorial page......Page 3 Title page......Page 4 LCC page......Page 5 Table of contents......Page 6 List of contributors......Page 8 Functional categories in the acquisition of French......Page 10 1. Functional categories and their role in acquisition......Page 11 2. Why conduct cross-learner comparisons?......Page 15 3. Generalizations about functional category acquisition across learner contexts......Page 18 4.1. Chapters on L1 acquisition, with and without SLI......Page 19 4.2. Chapters on L2 and bilingual L1 acquisition......Page 23 References......Page 30 Part 1. L1 and SLI......Page 34 1. Introduction......Page 36 2.1. Floated quantifiers (FQ)......Page 37 2.2. Quantification at a distance (QAD)......Page 39 3. Experiments......Page 41 3.1. Experiment 1 - beaucoup......Page 43 3.2. Experiment 2 - chacun......Page 47 4. Discussion and conclusion......Page 50 Notes......Page 53 Appendix 1 - Experiment 1 with beaucoup......Page 54 Appendix 2 - Experiment 1 with chacun......Page 55 References......Page 57 1. Introduction and background......Page 60 2. Data and methods......Page 63 3. Hypothesis 1: Pronominal AHSs are true subjects in the default case......Page 65 3.1. Patterns of Agreement and Tense specification in child French......Page 66 3.2. Predictions of the ATOM for child French......Page 73 3.3. Child French does not behave as predicted under the ATOM......Page 75 4.1. There are clear dislocated pronominal subjects in child French......Page 78 4.2. Predictions of the dislocation analysis of AHSs......Page 79 4.3. Acoustic evidence......Page 80 4.4. Distributional evidence......Page 88 4.5. Additional evidence......Page 89 Notes......Page 90 References......Page 94 Comparing L2 and SLI grammars in child French: Focus on DP......Page 98 1.1. DP in French and English......Page 101 1.2. DP Acquisition in SLI Romance......Page 103 1.3. DP Acquisition in L2 Romance......Page 104 1.4. Predictions for French L2 and French SLI......Page 105 2.1. Participants and procedures......Page 106 2.2. Coding and analysis......Page 107 3. Results......Page 108 4. Discussion......Page 111 References......Page 114 1. Introduction......Page 118 2.1. Observations on the development of functional categories in French unimpaired children......Page 120 2.2. Observations on the development of functional categories in French children with SLI......Page 122 2.3. Theoretical approaches to determiner omission in (normal) language development......Page 124 2.4. Structure of this chapter......Page 126 3.1. Participants......Page 127 3.2. Data analysis......Page 130 4.1. Normally developing French children......Page 133 4.2. French children with SLI......Page 135 5.1. Normally developing French children......Page 139 5.2. French children with SLI......Page 141 6.1. Unexpected subjects......Page 142 6.3. Initial/non-initial and subject/object contexts......Page 145 7. Problems with free or with bound morphology?......Page 146 8. Conclusion......Page 148 Acknowledgements......Page 149 References......Page 150 Part 2. SLA and bilingualism......Page 154 1. Introduction......Page 156 2.1. Overview......Page 157 2.2. German pronouns and clitics......Page 159 3.1. Exposure......Page 160 3.2. Preference for target or source language......Page 161 4.1. Functional categories, root infinitives and null subjects......Page 163 4.2. Transfer phenomena......Page 167 5. Conclusion......Page 177 Notes......Page 178 Appendix......Page 180 References......Page 181 1. Introduction......Page 184 2. Gender concord in the French and Spanish DP......Page 185 3. A generative model of gender concord in the DP......Page 187 4.1. The development of D-N gender concord in L1 French and Spanish......Page 190 4.2. The development of D-N gender concord in L2 French and Spanish......Page 196 5. Further evidence for the proposal from language processing, code-switching and language impairment......Page 201 6. Discussion......Page 206 Notes......Page 208 References......Page 211 Introduction1......Page 216 1.1. French and English pronouns......Page 217 1.2. Theoretical analysis......Page 218 1.3. L2 Functional categories......Page 221 2.1. Previous L2 studies......Page 225 2.2. L1 studies......Page 229 2.3. Current study......Page 230 3.1. Structure Building vs. FT/FA......Page 235 3.2. Availability of UG......Page 239 Notes......Page 243 Appendix 1: Tokens of object pronouns/clitics, Emma and Chloe......Page 245 References......Page 247 1. Introduction......Page 252 2. Methodology......Page 254 3.1. Frequency......Page 255 3.2. Order of appearance......Page 257 3.3. Number and gender errors......Page 260 3.4. The internal structure of the DP......Page 262 4.2. Object clitics and definite determiners in Anouk......Page 266 4.3. Root Infinitives and determiners in Anouk's data......Page 267 5.1. Acquiring two languages from birth......Page 271 5.2. From bare N to full DP in monolingual child French......Page 272 5.3. The internal structure of the DP and the position of adjectives......Page 274 5.4. Developmental links between the nominal and the clausal domain.......Page 275 5.5. Cross-linguistic influence?......Page 276 6. Conclusion......Page 278 Notes......Page 279 References......Page 281 1. Introduction......Page 284 2. Language separation and crosslinguistic influence......Page 285 3.1. Adult German......Page 286 3.2. Child German......Page 287 3.3. Adult French......Page 289 3.4. Child French......Page 291 3.5. Summary and discussion of the monolingual data......Page 292 4.1. Previous studies......Page 295 4.2. The bilingual child Céline......Page 298 4.3. Objects......Page 302 4.4. Subjects......Page 305 4.5. Comparison with monolingual French children......Page 306 4.6. Discussion......Page 308 Notes......Page 309 References......Page 310 Introduction......Page 314 1. Semantic and aspectual properties of RIs in L1 acquisition......Page 316 2. RIs in early child SLA......Page 319 3. Predictions......Page 320 4. The study......Page 321 5.1. Finiteness and verb-type......Page 322 5.2. Finiteness and modality......Page 326 5.3. DP and strong pronoun subjects in root declaratives......Page 331 5.4. Verb-forms in subject questions......Page 333 6. Discussion and conclusion......Page 334 References......Page 338 1. Introduction......Page 342 2.1. Pronouns and articles......Page 344 2.2. Previous studies on the acquisition of clitics......Page 350 2.3. Rationale and hypothesis......Page 354 3. Corpus - the children and adults studied......Page 355 4.1. Acquisition of subject pronouns......Page 357 4.2. Acquisition of object pronouns......Page 361 4.3. Acquisition of the definite article......Page 366 5. Cliticisation and not - some possible explanations......Page 369 6. General discussion and conclusion......Page 372 Notes......Page 374 References......Page 376 Name index......Page 380 Subject index......Page 386 The series LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LANGUAGE DISORDERS......Page 392 "This volume is a collection of studies by some of the foremost researchers of French acquisition in the generative framework. It provides a unique perspective on cross-learner comparative research in that each chapter examines the development of one component of the grammar (functional categories) across different contexts in French learners: i.e. first language acquisition, second language acquisition, bilingual first language acquisition and specifically-language impaired acquisition. This permits readers to see how similar issues and morphosyntactic properties can be investigated in a range of various acquisition situations, and in turn, how each context can contribute to our general understanding of how these morphosyntactic properties are acquired in all learners of the same language. This state-of-the-art collection is enhanced by an introductory chapter that provides background on current formal generative theory, as well as a summary and synthesis of the major trends emerging from the individual studies regarding the acquisition of different functional categories across different learner contexts in French."--Jacket