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Gender Agreement in SLI: A Study on Production and Inflection of Articles in German
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Ruberg, Tobias – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2021
This study addresses the question of whether gender agreement is impaired in SLI German. Article production and gender marking on articles were examined in three groups of German-speaking children: 10 children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), 10 age-matched typically developing (TD) children, and 10 TD children who were on average two…
Descriptors: Grammar, German, Language Impairments, Form Classes (Languages)
Structural Diversity Does Not Affect the Acquisition of Recursion: The Case of Possession in German
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Pérez-Leroux, Ana T.; Roberge, Yves; Lowles, Alex; Schulz, Petra – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2022
Languages vary according to which morphosyntactic forms of embedding are present in the grammar as well as to which of these forms allow recursive embedding. The present study examines how German-speaking children discover which forms of embedding are recursive. In German, possessive modifiers are expressed by several structural options (i.e.,…
Descriptors: German, Native Language, Language Acquisition, Phrase Structure
The Study of Children with Developmental Language Disorder beyond English: A Tutorial
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Laurence B. Leonard; Mariel L. Schroeder – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2024
The main goal of this tutorial is to promote the study of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) across different languages of the world. The cumulative effect of these efforts is likely to be a set of more compelling and comprehensive theories of language learning difficulties and, possibly, of language acquisition in general.…
Descriptors: English, Language Acquisition, Developmental Delays, Morphology (Languages)
Gender Processing in Simultaneous and Successive Bilingual Children: Cross-Linguistic Lexical and Syntactic Influences
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Lemmerth, Natalia; Hopp, Holger – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2019
To investigate cross-linguistic lexical and syntactic influences in grammatical gender in early bilingualism, we tested 12 simultaneous, 12 early successive bilingual Russian-German children, and 15 monolingual German children aged 8-9 years. An elicited production task in German shows that all bilingual children assign target gender to nouns,…
Descriptors: German, Bilingualism, Syntax, Russian
Production of Referring Expressions by Children with ASD: Effects of Referent Accessibility and Working Memory Capacity
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Stegenwallner-Schütz, Maja; Adani, Flavia – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2020
This study examines the discourse basis for referent accessibility and its relation to the choice of referring expressions by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typically developing children. The aim is to delineate how the linguistic and extra-linguistic context affects referent accessibility to the speaker. The study also examines…
Descriptors: Short Term Memory, Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Syntax
Early Articles in English Child Language: Impostors or Overt Instantiations of a Nominal Functional Category?
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Joo, Kum-Jeong; Yoo, Isaiah WonHo – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2018
Children's development of the functional category of articles can be explained in two ways. One approach assumes that children are equipped with innate knowledge of the category, while the other assumes that children's early articles are limited-scope formulae. Using Eisenbeiss's (2000) criteria for determining the status of DPs, developed for a…
Descriptors: Form Classes (Languages), English, Databases, German
Unclogging the Bottleneck: The Role of Case Morphology in L2 Acquisition at the Syntax-Discourse Interface
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Lecouvet, Mathieu; Degand, Liesbeth; Suner, Ferran – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2021
The Bottleneck Hypothesis argues that properties of inflectional morphology explain why second-language learners may face persistent difficulties in articulating meaning in target-language forms. In particular, the acquisition task proves even harder when first and second languages differ in the way they organize the mapping of functional features…
Descriptors: Morphology (Languages), Second Language Learning, Native Language, Syntax
Inflectional Morphology in Bilingual Language Processing: An Age-Of-Acquisition Study
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Bosch, Sina; Veríssimo, João; Clahsen, Harald – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2019
This study addresses the question of how age of acquisition (AoA) affects grammatical processing, specifically with respect to inflectional morphology, in bilinguals. We examined experimental data of more than 100 participants from the Russian/German community in Berlin, all of whom acquired Russian from birth and German at different ages. Using…
Descriptors: Age Differences, Second Language Learning, Morphology (Languages), Syntax
Selective Effects of Age of Acquisition on Morphological Priming: Evidence for a Sensitive Period
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Veríssimo, João; Heyer, Vera; Jacob, Gunnar; Clahsen, Harald – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2018
Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming…
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Age Differences, Grammar, Bilingualism
Typological and Developmental Considerations on Specific Language Impairment in Monolingual and Bilingual Children: A Processability Theory Account
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Håkansson, Gisela – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2017
This article suggests a method to deal with cross-linguistic differences in children with Specific Language Impairment. The differences in vulnerable structures reflect typological properties of the surrounding language (e.g., Leonard 2014a, 2014b). This article adds a developmental perspective to the discussion by interpreting the vulnerable…
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Language Acquisition, Second Language Learning, Bilingualism
A Cross-Linguistic Study of the Acquisition of Clitic and Pronoun Production
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Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Belletti, Adriana; Costa, João; Friedmann, Naama; Gavarró, Anna; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Tuller, Laurice; Lobo, Maria; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argemí, Núria; Avram, Larisa; Berends, Sanne; Brunetto, Valentina; Delage, Hélène; Ezeizabarrena, María-José; Fattal, Iris; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; de López, Kristine Jensen; Katsos, Napoleon; Kologranic, Lana; Krstic, Nadezda; Kraljevic, Jelena Kuvac; Miekisz, Aneta; Nerantzini, Michaela; Queraltó, Clara; Radic, Zeljana; Ruiz, Sílvia; Sauerland, Uli; Sevcenco, Anca; Smoczynska, Magdalena; Theodorou, Eleni; van der Lely, Heather; Veenstra, Alma; Weston, John; Yachini, Maya; Yatsushiro, Kazuko – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2016
This study develops a single elicitation method to test the acquisition of third-person pronominal objects in 5-year-olds for 16 languages. This methodology allows us to compare the acquisition of pronominals in languages that lack object clitics ("pronoun languages") with languages that employ clitics in the relevant context…
Descriptors: Language Research, Contrastive Linguistics, Form Classes (Languages), Morphology (Languages)
Working Memory Effects in the L2 Processing of Ambiguous Relative Clauses
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Hopp, Holger – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2014
This article investigates whether and how L2 sentence processing is affected by memory constraints that force serial parsing. Monitoring eye movements, we test effects of working memory on L2 relative-clause attachment preferences in a sample of 75 late-adult German learners of English and 25 native English controls. Mixed linear regression…
Descriptors: Short Term Memory, Language Research, Second Language Learning, Language Processing
Syntax at Age Two: Cross-Linguistic Differences
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Phillips, Colin – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2010
The 1990s witnessed a major expansion in research on children's morphosyntactic development, due largely to the availability of computer-searchable corpora of spontaneous speech in the CHILDES database. This led to a rapid emergence of parallel findings in different languages, with much attention devoted to the widely attested difficulties in…
Descriptors: Sentences, Speech, Verbs, Syntax
On the "Vulnerability" of Syntactic Domains in Swedish and German
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Bohnacker, Ute – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2007
This article investigates the L2 acquisition of clausal syntax in postpuberty learners of German and Swedish regarding V2, VP headedness, and verb particle constructions. The learner data are tested against L2 theories according to which lower structural projections (VP) are acquired before higher functional projections (IP, CP), VP syntax is…
Descriptors: Verbs, Swedish, Native Speakers, German