Scholars of language development have long been challenged to understand the development of functional categories. Traditionally, it was assumed that children's language development initially relies on lexical elements, while functional elements become accessible only at later periods; and that it is lexical growth which bootstraps grammatical…

The two possible positions for "wh"-words (i.e., in situ or preposed) represent a long-standing area of research in French. The present study reports on statistical analyses of a new seminaturalistic corpus of child L1 French. The distribution of the "wh"-words is examined in relation to a new verb tripartition: Free…

This article questions how two very similar sets of experiments can yield such very different findings, and comments on the differences between the studies. Here Annamarie Kerkhoff presents a commentary on some perceived differences between the studies in areas such as age groups and group sizes evaluated. Kerkhoff also comments on some…

This study investigates how derivational complexity interacts with first language (L1) properties, second language (L2) input, age of first exposure to the target language, and length of exposure in child L2 acquisition. We compared elicited production of "wh"-questions in French in two groups of 15 participants each, one with L1 English…

In French, the acquisition of object clitics seems delayed, and omissions are documented. In this article, we look at the experimental paradigm traditionally used to elicit object clitics and propose a new elicitation procedure that is closer to how clitics are produced in spontaneous production. We show that under the proposed new experiment, the…

Linguists use the concept of "diglossia" to describe any sociolinguistic situation where a low-prestige dialect coexists with a high-prestige one and these dialects are used in different social spheres. Recent observations on Reunion Island have challenged this view because people mix French and Creole extensively in the same utterance…

The research presented here uses theoretical constructs of formal syntax to account for performance data in agreement production. The phenomenon examined is object interference in French, i.e., incorrect agreement of the verb with the object. In the first experiment, interference is shown to occur in object relative clauses despite the absence of…

Experimental studies demonstrate that contrast helps toddlers to extend the meanings of novel adjectives. This study explores whether antonym co-occurrence in spontaneous speech also has an effect on adjective use by the child. The authors studied adjective production in longitudinal speech samples from 16 children (16-36 months) acquiring eight…

Repetition is used for a range of functions in conversation. In this study, we examined all the repetitions used in spontaneous conversations by 41 French adult-child dyads, with children aged 2 ; 3 and 3 ; 6, to test the hypotheses that adults repeat to establish that they have understood, and that children repeat to ratify what adults have said.…

The acquisition of reference involves both morphosyntax and pragmatics. This study investigates whether Dutch, English and French two- to three-year-old children differentiate in their use of determiners between non-specific/specific reference, newness/givenness in discourse and mutual/no mutual knowledge between interlocutors. A brief analysis of…

Bilingualism is often considered an inappropriate developmental choice for children with specific language impairment (SLI) because, according to a widespread belief, these children's limited capacity for language would be overtaxed by learning two linguistic systems. However, there has not been adequate empirical investigation of SLI in bilingual…

The goal of this article is to give a survey of the literature and theoretical trends relevant to language acquisition. Developments in the fields of psychology, psycholinguistics, sociology, sociolinguistics and in various interdisciplinary studies are discussed. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Special issue devoted to research and the teaching of French in the elementary school. (VM)

This article proposes an explanation for the use of resumptives in child language based on the feature of the nominal system. A cross-linguistic comparison shows no significant difference in resumptive use between child French, child English, and child Spanish. (50 references) (JL)