The Issue of Grammaticalization in Early German Second Language

Abstract

This paper treats the development of the expression of grammatical categories in German in the early second language acquisition of Turkish and German children attending a bilingual day-care center in a multilingual speech community in Berlin. We examine case and gender marking on noun phrases and pronouns and tense/aspect and agreement marking on verb phrases. These are examined in light of the following general issues: (a) Do grammatical markers develop from independent lexical items in child language as well as in diachronic development? (b) Do the markers initially mark pragmatic categories before being grammaticalized as syntactic functors? (c) Do grammaticalizations of the first language influence the development of the second language?We find no evidence that pragmatic precede syntactic categories; however, some evidence indicates that grammatical markers develop first as independent words—for example, pronominal use preceding definite article use ofder, die, das, and main verb use preceding auxiliary use ofsein(‘be’) andhaben(‘have’). Some evidence that the categories of the first language (Turkish) play a role in the development of German second language is found in compound verb constructions.

SLA for the 21st Century: Disciplinary Progress, Transdisciplinary Relevance, and the Bi/multilingual Turn

“…A second observation can be made by moving up to the right of the octagon in Figure 1: The parameter of timing of learning seems more open to ambiguity than the parameter of number of languages involved in the learning task. Namely, children can be extremely young when an additional language enters their lives (e.g., see Pfaff, 1992, for a study of children starting their L2 at age 2 and Paradis, 2011, for a study of children starting their L2 between 4 and 7 years of age). The nature of this successive but very early learning of two languages eludes an easy definition of what should count as L1 or L2 for a given young speaker.…”

Second Language Acquisition in Early Childhood

“…Moreover, different ages of onset have been examined. The fact is, however, that even very young cL2 learners encounter major problems with gender and may fail to acquire anything remotely resembling the target system, as concluded by Pfaff (1992), studying Turkish L1 children acquiring German in early childhood (AOA around 2;0). Möhring (2001) studying German children acquiring French also noted problems with gender assignment as of AOA 3;7, approximately; and Hulk & Cornips (2006) found quantitative and qualitative differences in gender markings, as compared to L1, in children acquiring Dutch who, at that point of development, did not exhibit problems with the acquisition of verb placement in subordinate clauses.…”

Bilingual language acquisition and theories of diachronic change: Bilingualism as cause and effect of grammatical change

“…A study which makes a particularly strong empirical argument that gender acquisition by children resembles that of adult L2 learners is the one by Pfaff (1992). She analyzed language acquisition by Turkish and by German children, as well as by children of mixed marriages, all attending a bilingual day-care center (Kita) in Berlin.…”