Cover not available
Article published In:
The role of input on early first language morphosyntactic development: Le rôle de l’input sur le développement morphosyntaxique précoce en langue maternelle
Edited by Sophie Kern, Frédérique Gayraud and Florence Chenu
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 5:1] 2014
► pp. 100–116

Peut-on expliquer l’acquisition de l’alternance de l’adjectif en français à partir de l’input ?

| EA 1483 – RFC Université Sorbonne Nouvelle–Paris 3, France
This article proposes to study the acquisition of the placement of attributive adjectives by French-speaking children between the ages of 3;9 and 4;6. It examines the possibility to account for children’s uses and evolution on the basis of the model provided by the input, considering that there is a mismatch between speakers’ abstract knowledge of alternation and their behaviour in usage. The study consists of a comparison between the productions of three children at two points in their development, and the uses of their interlocutors, in situations of games. Results show that alternation appears late and develops slowly in children’s productions, suggesting a very long process of acquisition. They also indicate that children heavily rely on the input in their choices of placement, which influences how they come to master alternation. This supports a usage-based approach to the acquisition of word order and of the Adjective category.
Keywords: Corpus, Alternance adjectivale, Acquisition — L1, Français, Approche basée sur l’usage

Article language: French

Published online: 7 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.5.1.05fox
References (26)
Abeillé, A. & Godard, D., (1999). La position de l’adjectif épithète en français, le poids des mots. RLV 281, 9–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blackwell, A. (2005). Acquiring the English adjective lexicon: relationships with input properties and adjectival semantic typology. Journal of Child Language 321, 535–562. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bod, R. (2009). From exemplar to grammar: a probabilistic analogy-based model of language learning. Cognitive Science 331, 752–793. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, D. (2002). Adjectives, number and interfaces. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2006). From usage to grammar: the mind’s response to repetition. Language 821, 711–733. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Boston: MIT PressGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. (1982). Where have all the adjectives gone? And other essays in semantics and syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forsgren, M. (1978). La place de l’adjectif épithète en français contemporain : étude quantitative et sémantique. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wilksell.Google Scholar
Fox, G. (2009). L’acquisition de l’adjectif épithète: un apprentissage basé sur des probabilités d’usage? Actes du colloque AcquisiLyon 091, 74–77.Google Scholar
. (2012). L’acquisition des modifieurs nominaux: le cas de l’adjectif du français. Thèse de doctorat, Paris: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.Google Scholar
Goes, J. (1999). L’adjectif : Entre nom et verbe. Paris: Duculot.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kilani-Schoch, M. & Xanthos, A. (2013). The adjective petit ’small,little’ in french acquisition data. Journal of Pragmatics 561, 113–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knittel, M-L. (2005). Some remarks on adjective placement in the French NP. Probus 171, 185–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mintz, T. & Gleitman, L. (2002). Adjectives really do modify nouns: the incremental and restricted nature of early adjective acquisition. Cognition 841, 267–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. (1999). Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development and the question of prototypical transitivity. Journal of Child Language 261, 619–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peters, A. (1985). Language segmentation: operating principles for the perception and analysis of language. In D. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (1029–1068). New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Riegel, M., Pellat, J-C. & Rioul, R. (1998). Grammaire méthodique du français, 4e éd. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Snow, C. (1981). The uses of imitation. Journal of Child Language 81, 205–212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Kruger, A. & Ratner, H. (1993). Cultural learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 161, 495–552. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thuilier, J., Fox, G. & Crabbé, B. (2012). Prédire la position de l’adjectif épithète en français: approche quantitative. Linguisticae Investigationes 351, 28–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wagner, R. & Pinchon, J. (1962). Grammaire du français classique et moderne. Paris: Hachette.Google Scholar
Waugh, L. (1977). A semantic analysis of word order: Position of the adjective in French. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Wilmet, M. (1981). La place de l’épithète qualificative en français contemporain: étude grammaticale et stylistique. Revue de linguistique romane 451, 17–73.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Geveler, Jasmin, Laia Arnaus Gil & Natascha Müller
2018. The acquisition of variation. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13 [Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory, 13], ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.