The Acquisition of French Relative Clauses by Indonesian Students

Abstract

This paper discusses the acquisition of French relative clauses by Indonesian students learning French at A2 level at a university in West Java. It aims to describe the linguistic competence (grammar and lexicon) in the formation of French relative clauses acquired by students in terms of Universal Grammar of the Minimalist Program of Generative Grammar. Qualitative approach and descriptive method were used. The data collections have been done through grammaticality judgment techniques with the T-F test. The test results showed that (a) each student had already acquired the grammar to derive the abstract structure of CP for relative clauses but (b) each student had different degree of the acquisition of lexical categories in particular the acquisition of Op(erator), complementizer qui/que [that] and relative pronouns and (c) point (b) above became the main factor for the existence of two levels of proficiency i.e., the convergent and the divergent levels. However, those two levels were still in line with Universal Grammar.