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Chapter 11. The expression of finiteness by L1 and L2 learners of Dutch, French, and German

  • Clive Perdue✝
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Language Acquisition across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems
This chapter is in the book Language Acquisition across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems

Abstract

Finiteness is traditionally associated with the morpho-syntactic categories of person and tense. The notion of finiteness has however much wider, semantic and pragmatic ramifications, a fact which has led several researchers to make a distinction between M(orphological) and S(emantic) finiteness. We follow this distinction here. Over the last decade language acquisition researchers have analyzed the expression of finiteness from different theoretical standpoints, mainly analyzing learners’ verbal production in comparable tasks, ranging from spontaneous conversation to more guided complex verbal tasks. With the same methodology, we will examine the acquisition of finiteness by adult learners of French L2 in cross-linguistic comparison with learners of Germanic L2s. The adult acquisition process will also be compared to the child’s acquisition of finiteness in the L1 for the same target languages. All languages in the sample mark finiteness by means of verbal morphology. We will describe the acquisitional paths towards the TL system and the various stages learners pass through on the way. Finally, we ask whether the difference in mastery of the target system by these two types of learner – children achieve mastery of the relevant verbal morphology whereas adults often do not – can throw light on the organisation and functioning of finiteness in language in general.

Abstract

Finiteness is traditionally associated with the morpho-syntactic categories of person and tense. The notion of finiteness has however much wider, semantic and pragmatic ramifications, a fact which has led several researchers to make a distinction between M(orphological) and S(emantic) finiteness. We follow this distinction here. Over the last decade language acquisition researchers have analyzed the expression of finiteness from different theoretical standpoints, mainly analyzing learners’ verbal production in comparable tasks, ranging from spontaneous conversation to more guided complex verbal tasks. With the same methodology, we will examine the acquisition of finiteness by adult learners of French L2 in cross-linguistic comparison with learners of Germanic L2s. The adult acquisition process will also be compared to the child’s acquisition of finiteness in the L1 for the same target languages. All languages in the sample mark finiteness by means of verbal morphology. We will describe the acquisitional paths towards the TL system and the various stages learners pass through on the way. Finally, we ask whether the difference in mastery of the target system by these two types of learner – children achieve mastery of the relevant verbal morphology whereas adults often do not – can throw light on the organisation and functioning of finiteness in language in general.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction. New perspectives in the study of first and second language acquisition 1
  4. Part I. Emergence and dynamics of language acquisition and disorders
  5. Chapter 1. A tale of two paradigms 17
  6. Chapter 2. Dynamic systems methods in the study of language acquisition 33
  7. Chapter 3. Early bootstrapping of syntactic acquisition 53
  8. Chapter 4. Language acquisition in developmental disorders 67
  9. Part II. First language acquisition
  10. Chapter 5. Language development in a cross-linguistic context 91
  11. Chapter 6. A typological approach to first language acquisition 109
  12. Chapter 7. Linguistic relativity in first language acquisition 125
  13. Chapter 8. On the importance of goals in child language 147
  14. Chapter 9. Promoting patients in narrative discourse 161
  15. Chapter 10. On-line grammaticality judgments 179
  16. Chapter 11. The expression of finiteness by L1 and L2 learners of Dutch, French, and German 205
  17. Part III. Bilingualism and second language acquisition
  18. Chapter 12. Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism 225
  19. Chapter 13. The development of person-number verbal morphology in different types of learners 249
  20. Chapter 14. Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d) 267
  21. Chapter 15. Foreign language vocabulary learning 285
  22. Chapter 16. Cerebral imaging and individual differences in language learning 299
  23. Chapter 17. The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism 307
  24. Index of languages 323
  25. Index of subjects 325
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.52.14per

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction. New perspectives in the study of first and second language acquisition 1
  4. Part I. Emergence and dynamics of language acquisition and disorders
  5. Chapter 1. A tale of two paradigms 17
  6. Chapter 2. Dynamic systems methods in the study of language acquisition 33
  7. Chapter 3. Early bootstrapping of syntactic acquisition 53
  8. Chapter 4. Language acquisition in developmental disorders 67
  9. Part II. First language acquisition
  10. Chapter 5. Language development in a cross-linguistic context 91
  11. Chapter 6. A typological approach to first language acquisition 109
  12. Chapter 7. Linguistic relativity in first language acquisition 125
  13. Chapter 8. On the importance of goals in child language 147
  14. Chapter 9. Promoting patients in narrative discourse 161
  15. Chapter 10. On-line grammaticality judgments 179
  16. Chapter 11. The expression of finiteness by L1 and L2 learners of Dutch, French, and German 205
  17. Part III. Bilingualism and second language acquisition
  18. Chapter 12. Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism 225
  19. Chapter 13. The development of person-number verbal morphology in different types of learners 249
  20. Chapter 14. Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d) 267
  21. Chapter 15. Foreign language vocabulary learning 285
  22. Chapter 16. Cerebral imaging and individual differences in language learning 299
  23. Chapter 17. The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism 307
  24. Index of languages 323
  25. Index of subjects 325
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