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Language, Plasticity and Learning: Developmental Issues: Langage, Plasticité et Apprentissage : enjeux développementaux
Edited by Michèle Kail and Frédéric Isel
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 12:1] 2021
► pp. 157–184

Parameter setting and acceleration

Subject omissions in a trilingual child with special reference to French

| Wuppertal University | Wuppertal University
| Wuppertal University | Wuppertal University
| Wuppertal University | Wuppertal University
The present contribution analyzes the acquisition of subjects in French based on a longitudinal case study of a trilingual child aged 2;8–3;2 who acquired French, Italian and Spanish simultaneously. The three languages vary with respect to the null-subject property; French is traditionally characterized as a non-null-subject language, while Italian and Spanish are prototypical null-subject languages. Argument subject omissions in French are ungrammatical but frequently observed in monolingual children in early acquisitional phases, as are ungrammatical postverbal subjects which cluster with null-subjects. Bilingual children acquiring French produce fewer subject omissions and postverbal subjects. The present study also finds an acceleration effect in the trilingual child. The results are interpreted in light of a parameter setting which accounts for different verb classes at different locations with which the null-subjects occur, giving rise to ‘categorial CS’ or ‘congruent categorialization.’
Keywords: null-subjects, parameter setting, acceleration, trilingualism, French
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Contact phenomena in multilingual language acquisition: Crosslinguistic influence and code-mixing
  • 3.The acquisition of the null-subject parameter
    • 3.1Pronominal subjects in French (and other Romance languages)
    • 3.2Acquisition of pronominal subjects in French
    • 3.3Parameter hierarchy
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Hypotheses
    • 4.2Results
      • 4.2.1Quantitative aspects of subject realizations and omissions
      • 4.2.2Qualitative aspects of subject realizations
      • 4.2.3Position of subjects
      • 4.2.4Qualitative analysis of empty subjects
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.20011.sca
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