Convergence on finite V2 clauses in L1, bilingual L1 and early L2 acquisition

Abstract:Using the standardized test LiSe-DaZ across four test rounds, we collected elicited production data from 22 typically developing early second language learners (eL2 TD) of German (mean age at T1: 3;7) and 11 older eL2 children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (mean age at T1: 7;1). Focusing on the relation between verb placement and verbal inflectional morphology two questions were addressed: Do eL2 children obey the ban on non-finite verbs in verb-second position (V2) in German, and do eL2 SLI children differ from their eL2 TD peers in their morpho-syntactic behavior? This is the first study on this issue to systematically differentiate between V2 and verb-final position (Vf) and between bare verb forms and infinitives, based on a large sample of elicited production data. Results show that from the first test round onwards verbal inflectional morphology and verb placement were strongly related in the TD and the SLI group. Bare verb forms occurred in V2 only and are argued to be finite; en-infinitives were restricted to Vf. We conclude that a) the restrictions for morphological markings are inextricably tied to specific syntactic positions, b) that this knowledge is still accessible when L2 acquisition starts around age 3, and c) that the ban on non-finite verbs in V2 is invulnerable in eL2 TD and in SLI, indicating that SLI is matter of severe delay.

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Td Childrenmentioning

confidence: 60%

How strong is the ban on non-finite verbs in V2? Evidence from early second language learners of German with and without SLI

Schulz

Schwarze

2017

“…On the whole, ecL2 learners resemble L1 learners (Chilla 2008;Rothweiler 2006;Thoma and Tracy 2006;Tracy and Thoma 2009;Wojtecka et al 2013). Rothweiler (2006) and Chilla (2008) showed that ecL2 learners cope well with SVA, but that there are individual differences in developmental speed.…”

Section: The Acquisition Of Sva In Germanmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Clahsen [1986]; Clahsen and Penke [1992]), and SVA is acquired fast by unimpaired ecL2 learners of German (within 18 months of exposure, cf. Chilla [2008]; Thoma and Tracy [2006]; Tracy and Thoma [2009]), a deficit in SVA may be indicative of SLI in bilingual children who have been acquiring German for more than two years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subject-verb agreement in German in bilingual children with and without SLI

Rothweiler

Schönenberger

Sterner

2017

Abstract:We investigated the acquisition of subject-verb agreement (SVA) in German based on spontaneous speech data from both typically developing (TD) and language-impaired (SLI) children learning German as a second language (L2), and from language-impaired monolingual children. Rothweiler et al. (2012) suggested that SVA is vulnerable in SLI. The intent of our study was to determine whether TD child L2 learners (cL2) in contrast to children with SLI do not have difficulties with SVA. Many studies report that cL2 acquisition can differ from monolingual (L1) acquisition and that the differences look similar to those of impaired L1 learners, which makes it difficult to distinguish cL2 learners who have SLI from those who do not. If such similarities were to be found in the acquisition of SVA in the two bilingual groups, SVA would be ruled out as a possible marker of SLI in cL2 learners. Three groups of children were compared: six Turkish-German early cL2 learners without SLI, and twelve children with SLI -six monolingual German children and six Turkish-German early cL2 learners. As in Rothweiler et al. (2012), all children were advanced learners and were therefore expected to have acquired SVA. We found that the unimpaired early cL2 learners had indeed successfully acquired SVA. In contrast, neither the monolingual nor the bilingual children with SLI succeeded in reliably producing correct SVA.

“…If jeder were regarded as a separable item, it would have to be directly followed by the finite verb. German-speaking children master the verb-second constraint at latest by the age of three (see Tracy 1991;Tracy and Thoma 2009), but their failure rates with universally quantified subjects are parallel to English-speaking children at the age of four and later. Hence, it seems to be safe to exclude that they misidentify alle Autos 'all cars ' 6 A semantic deficiency with the very same confound was the initial presumption.…”

Section: Competing Accounts In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying kids prefer intersecting sets – a pilot study

Haider

Schörghofer-Essl

Seethaler

2017

Abstract:Children between approximately four and five years of age are known to fail in picture matching tasks with verbal stimuli presenting an existentially quantified object NP in the scope of a universally quantified subject NP. In this paper, we suggest an experimentally tested provisional answer to a question that has not been asked in any previous work on the very phenomenon: Would they also fail for the truth-conditionally equivalent stimuli in which the universal quantifier is replaced by a negated existential quantifier (plus a negated predicate, as in Every boy walks with a balloon vs. No boy walks without a balloon).The experimental results indicate that the latter task is indeed much easier. This lends support to the hypothesis that the primary source of the difficulties lies in the acquisition of a special aspect of compositional semantics, that is, in computing the semantic effects of a universal vs. an existential quantifier as subject in combination with an existential quantifier in the predicate. For a universally quantified subject, the relation between the restrictor set of the quantified subject and the set denoted by the predicate is one of set inclusion. For an existentially quantified subject, it is set intersection. At least for the picture matching tasks, the intersection relation seems to be easier to handle than the inclusion relation, even for semantically equivalent stimuli.