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Part of
Language Acquisition in Romance Languages
Edited by Vicenç Torrens
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 18] 2024
► pp. 114–143

Chapter 5
Parameter setting in multilingual children with special reference to acceleration in French

 | University of Wuppertal
Linguistic theorizing has revised the switch metaphor of parameters as being part of Universal Grammar. Within an epigenetic approach to language (Biberauer et al., 2014; Roberts, 2019), parameters result from the interaction of innate (linguistic) knowledge and universal non-language-specific cognitive optimization strategies, which are set in relation to the child’s experience. Languages vary at different levels of granularity (Baker, 2014), which is expressed in a parameter taxonomy, more particularly in parameter hierarchies (Roberts, 2019) distinguishing macro-, meso-, micro-, and nanoparameters (Biberauer et al., 2014). In the context of multilingualism, Mac Swan (2000) has argued that some components of the architecture of the language faculty are duplicated in multilingual children, while others are not. Parameter hierarchies, defined as previously, belong to the non-duplicated components. Therefore, multilingual children set the parameters simultaneously for all their different languages at the relevant level of variation. Taken together, these assumptions can account for acceleration effects exceeding monolingual limits in multilingual French as a non-null-subject language, if (one of) the other language(s) is a null-subject language like Italian or Spanish for example. The results reported come from longitudinal studies of balanced as well as unbalanced multilingual children during early stages of language development (from 1;6 until the age of 5) and cross-sectional studies of multilingual children at similar ages.
Keywords: parameter, null-argument hierarchy, Rizzi-Chomsky cluster applied to French, acceleration, null-subject, postverbal subject, language dominance
Article outline
  • 1.The notion of parameter in linguistic theorizing and in acquisition
    • 1.1Parameters in the framework of principles and parameters
    • 1.2Parameters in the framework of the minimalist program
    • 1.3The co-existence of macro- and micro-variation
    • 1.4The epigenetic approach: Parameters as cognitive subroutines
    • 1.5Parameter hierarchies
      • 1.5.1The null-argument hierarchy under a monolingual perspective
      • 1.5.2The null-argument hierarchy under a multilingual perspective
  • 2.Null arguments (with a focus on French)
    • 2.1Prediction according to economy (with special reference to French)
  • 3.The acquisition of French in a monolingual and multilingual context
    • 3.1Acquisition of subjects in monolingual French children (as opposed to Basque, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and German)
    • 3.2Acquisition of subjects in multilingual French children (in combination with a CNSL or a partial null-subject language)
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Acceleration effects in multilingual children in relation to language dominance
    • 4.2Just a grammar rule?
    • 4.3Goals for further research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.18.05mul
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