Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France
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Larisa Avram
Abstract
This study investigates the production of subject and object restrictive relatives in child heritage Romanian in contact with French. The main goal is to evaluate the effect of schooling in the societal language, over a longer period of time, on the acquisition of these complex syntactic structures. Thirty-two child Romanian heritage speakers (ages 5–15), divided into two groups who – at testing time – had been in a French school for 1 to 3 years and for 5 to 8 years, respectively, completed an elicited production task. Their responses were compared to those of 32 age-matched monolingual Romanian children and 20 Romanian adults living in the homeland. The results indicated overall progress after onset of schooling. Child heritage speakers who had been in a French school for a longer period of time produced more relative clauses than the younger ones and the number of errors decreased with age. They went through the same qualitative stages as age-matched monolinguals but at a slower pace, with object relatives being more problematic than subject relatives. This vulnerability was reflected in a preference for less computationally costly but target-like structures and in the relatively prolonged use of non-target-like structures whose elimination from the grammar requires inspection of a higher amount of input.
Abstract
This study investigates the production of subject and object restrictive relatives in child heritage Romanian in contact with French. The main goal is to evaluate the effect of schooling in the societal language, over a longer period of time, on the acquisition of these complex syntactic structures. Thirty-two child Romanian heritage speakers (ages 5–15), divided into two groups who – at testing time – had been in a French school for 1 to 3 years and for 5 to 8 years, respectively, completed an elicited production task. Their responses were compared to those of 32 age-matched monolingual Romanian children and 20 Romanian adults living in the homeland. The results indicated overall progress after onset of schooling. Child heritage speakers who had been in a French school for a longer period of time produced more relative clauses than the younger ones and the number of errors decreased with age. They went through the same qualitative stages as age-matched monolinguals but at a slower pace, with object relatives being more problematic than subject relatives. This vulnerability was reflected in a preference for less computationally costly but target-like structures and in the relatively prolonged use of non-target-like structures whose elimination from the grammar requires inspection of a higher amount of input.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
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Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
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Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
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Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. The acquisition of pronouns
- Chapter 1. Anaphora resolution in L2 European Portuguese 12
- Chapter 2. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety 34
-
Section 2. The acquisition of or empty categories
- Chapter 3. The acquisition of generic null subjects under the Borer-Chomsky conjecture 58
- Chapter 4. The acquisition of object drop in L2 Spanish by German speakers 86
- Chapter 5. Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French 114
-
Section 3. The development of locality
- Chapter 6. Relative clauses and intervention effects 146
- Chapter 7. On the production of subject and object relative clauses by child speakers of heritage Romanian in France 168
-
Section 4. The development of quantifiers
- Chapter 8. “Nobody” isn’t in time 198
- Chapter 9. Quantifier comprehension in Brazilian Portuguese and the extra-object visual effect 212
-
Section 5. Language impairment
- Chapter 10. On the production and omission of dative and accusative clitics in Italian children with learning difficulties 232
- Chapter 11. The narrative abilities of Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals with Prader–Willi syndrome 253
- Chapter 12. Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental Language Disorder 283
- Index 307
