Acquisition of French adjectives in Quebec French as revealed by elicitation data

This study presents data from an elicitation study on French size and color adjectives in noun phrases (DPs), both early acquired structures. Thirty-two francophone children aged 3–5 years participated in the study. Adjectives were elicited using specially designed puzzles and spontaneous speech corpora. We observed that errors in French variable adjectives are produced in the early acquisition stages, especially in the context of feminine colour DPs. We propose that the source of difficulty for feminine variable adjectives is the retrieval of a lexicalized form that competes with the masculine adjective denoting the same concept

Partitivity, atomization, and noun-drop : a longitudinal study of french child

This article examines noun-drop constructions in French-speaking children. French being interme- diate between English (which rarely allows noun-drop) and Spanish (which freely allows it) with respect to the richness of their respective morphological systems, it provides a fertile testing ground for various agreement-based analyses of noun-drop. We conclude, along with Snyder, Senghas, & Inman (2001) that agreement is not a factor in the licensing of these constructions. Moreover, limitations on the occurrence of this phenomenon (i.e., not all adjective types allow it) in French lead us to propose that semantic, rather than syntactic, factors are responsible for noun-drop in French, i.e., partitivity and atomization (in the sense of Bouchard 2002). This in turn assigns the determiner a more important role than had previously been assumed in the licensing of noun- drop. Ultimately, our analysis illustrates how child language can be used to discriminate between competing analyses of a given syntactic process

Uninflected structure in genetic dysphasic speech: evidence from French

We present the results of 20 French subjects with familial language impairment (FLI) on a linguistic battery task, with an emphasis on verb production. The results show strong qualitative differences between the verb production of FLI subjects and that of controls. Language-specific factors do not seem to determine the production of verbs in French FLI individuals. Rather, verb frequency and the inflectional status (uninflected vs. inflected) of the form seem to be determining factors in correct/incorrect production of a verb in a sentence context. The phonetic structure of French inflection provides additional arguments against the hypothesis of a processing deficit in FLI subjects. French tense morphemes are stressed and salient, and should therefore be produced without problems, according to the processing hypothesis. We found evidence contrary to this postulate. We therefore submit that the morphological deficit hypothesis is supported by the French data

Are second language learners just as good at verb morphology as first language learners?

We addressed whether children learning French as a first (L1) and multilingual children (MUL, for whom French is a second or third language) are sensitive to sub-regular verb conjugation patterns (i.e., neither default, nor idiosyncratic) (e.g., Albright, 2002; Clahsen, 1999). Some argue that children with other first languages have more difficulty learning verb conjugation patterns due to their lesser exposure to the language (e.g., Nicoladis, Palmer, & Marentette, 2007). We hypothesized that older children would perform better than younger children and that L1 and MUL children learning French would process verb inflection patterns differently based on their default status (-er verbs), and reliability (e.g., sub-regular -ir verbs), with MUL children showing weaknesses in non-default types (Royle, Beritognolo, & Bergeron, 2012). We elicited verbs in 169 children (aged 67 to 92 months) attending preschool (n = 105) or first grade (n = 64), who were L1 or MUL learners of Québec French, using 24 verbs with regular, sub-regular, and irregular participle forms (6 of each, ending in /e/, /i/, /y/ or IDiosyncratic) in the passé composé (perfect past). Using our Android application Jeu de verbes, verbs were presented with images (see Figure 1) to each child in an infinitival form (infinitival complements or the periphrastic future, e.g., Marie va cacher ses poupées ‘Mary will hide her dolls’) and present tense contexts (e.g., Marie cache toujours ses poupées ‘Mary always hides her dolls’). Children were prompted to produce the passé composé by answering the question ‘What did she do yesterday, Marie?’. Preliminary analyses (n = 94, 70 in preschool, 31 L1 and 39 MUL; 24 in first grade, 13 L1 and 11 MUL) reveal a Verb conjugation group effect, F(3, 88) = 52.31, p < .001 as well as a Verb conjugation group*Language group*Age group interaction, F(3, 88) = 3.35, p < .05. Moreover, trends toward significant effects were found for Age group, F(1, 90) = 3.07, p = .08, and for the interaction of factors Verb conjugation group*Language group, F(3, 88) = 2.36, p = .08. These results indicate that responses to verb conjugation groups differ according to verb conjugation, age and language group (see Figure 1). Overall, children’s responses to verb conjugation groups highlight morphological productivity and reliability effects on mastery of French conjugation. Results also show higher target productions in the first grade than in preschool and varying response patterns depending on language background. In depth analyses comparing all 169 children including language group analyses (L1 vs MUL) will further inform us on children’s mastery of French passé composé, while non-parametric analyses on frequency of response types should reveal a clearer picture of children’s response strategies by verb or language group. These data will show that MUL children who have lesser exposure to oral French language, rapidly master verb conjugation patterns to the same level as L1 children (and might even do better) in immersive (school) contexts

The French noun phrase in preschool children with SLI: morphosyntactic and error analyses

We studied spontaneous speech noun-phrase production in eight French-speaking children with SLI (aged 5;0 to 5;11 months) and controls matched on age (4;10 to 5;11 months) or MLU (aged 3;2 to 4;1 months). Results showed that children with SLI prefer simple DP structures to complex ones while producing more substitution and omission errors than controls. The three groups also showed distinct error patterns. Children with SLI appeared to have difficulty with phonological processes involved in liaison, elision, and contraction, whereas control children tended to make more lexical errors. These data support models of reduced morphosyntactic and syntactic abilities in this population, and suggest that morphophonological processes should also be integrated into descriptive models of SLI

Elicited and spontaneous determiner phrase production in french-speaking children with developmental language disorder

We contrast elicitation and spontaneous speech data in French-speaking children with developmental language disorder and controls, with a focus on determiner phrase and gender agreement. Eight French-speaking children with developmental language disorder and age-matched or languagematched controls were compared on an elicitation task for complex noun-phrases with one or two adjectives (e.g., la petite maison verte ‘the small green house’) and a spontaneous speech sample of 200 utterances containing determiner phrases. Elicitation and spontaneous speech data revealed different profiles in French children with developmental language disorder compared to controls: elicitation tasks revealed specific difficulties with adjective agreement as well as high levels of global error, while spontaneous speech revealed mostly omission and substitution errors, often on determiners. Ultimately, both approaches to evaluating language abilities are complementary, but elicitation tasks might be the most useful tool for rapid identification of difficulties with determiner phrases and agreement in young French-speaking children.Nous comparons les données recueillies dans des tâches de production induite avec celles provenant d’un échantillon de langage spontané chez des enfants francophones ayant un trouble développemental du langage et des enfants de groupes contrôles, en mettant l’accent sur les syntagmes nominaux (determiner phrase) et leur accord en genre. Les productions de 8 enfants francophones ayant d’un trouble développemental du langage, provenant d’un échantillon de 200 énoncés spontanés contenant des syntagmes nominaux ou recueillies dans des tâches de production induite de syntagmes nominaux complexes contenant un ou deux adjectifs (p. ex. la petite maison verte), ont été comparées avec celles de participants contrôles appariés sur l’âge ou sur les habiletés langagières. Les données recueillies dans les tâches de production induite et celles provenant de l’échantillon de langage spontané ont révélé que le profil des enfants francophones ayant un trouble développemental du langage différait de celui des enfants des groupes contrôles. Les résultats aux tâches de production induite ont révélé que les enfants ayant un trouble développemental du langage avaient des difficultés spécifiques avec l’accord des adjectifs et produisaient, de façon générale, un plus grand nombre d’erreurs. Les résultats provenant de l’échantillon de langage spontané ont révélé que les enfants ayant un trouble développemental du langage faisaient principalement des erreurs d’omission et de substitution, et ce, souvent avec les déterminants. Ultimement, les deux approches utilisées sont complémentaires pour évaluer les habiletés langagières des enfants. Néanmoins, les tâches de production induite semblent davantage utiles pour identifier rapidement les difficultés qu’ont certains enfants francophones avec les syntagmes nominaux et leur accord

Palatalization in the Russian verb system: a psycholinguistic study

In this paper, we present experimental data on the processing of loanwords and nonce words that focuses on morphonological alternations in Russian. This study addresses the issue of how stem allomorphy involving palatalization of the velar/palatal and dental/palatal types in the Russian verb system is processed in adults. Processing of morphonological alternations is shown to be quite variable (and probably unproductive) and to depend, on the one hand, on the distribution of allomorphs within the verb paradigm, and on the other hand, on verb class productivity. We hypothesize that these differences should be reflected in child language acquisition

Experimental methods to study atypical language development

In this chapter we present current issues on experimental methods in the study of atypical language development with a focus on developmental language disorders (DLD). We first present a short history of terminology surrounding DLD and follow this with a discussion of critical topics related to DLD assessment including cross-linguistic research, multilingualism, persisting disorders in teenagers, age-differences (pre-school, school age, adolescence, and adults) in manifestations and domains studied, language comprehension versus production, and cognitive assessment. We also bring focus to the question of matching control groups in the study of atypical language development. We present the most common methods used in the investigation of language impairments from the behavioural and neurocognitive perspectives. We provide an overview of the issues related to establishing equivalence between groups with and without language impairments. We conclude with recommendations for practice and future directions in the study of atypical language development