Communicative potential vs. structural constraints

Explanatory factors for the acquisition of scope particles

Sandra Benazzo | University Paris VIII & CNRS-UMR 5596 Dynamique du langage

This study investigates the acquisition of scope items such as ‘only’, ‘even’, ‘also’, ‘still’, ‘again’, ‘already’ etc. in the longitudinal data of untutored second language learners of English, French and German. These items are found to appear in a fixed sequence: additive/restrictive > iterative > contrastive, which correlates crosslinguistically with the development of learner varieties from a prebasic to a postbasic level. Analysis of the discourse behaviour of these particles suggests that while the communicative potential of these items justifies their early appearance, their use is constrained by the global organisation of learner varieties. In other words, appearance of particular items is constrained by the learner’s developmental stage.

Published online: 08 August 2002
https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.2.12ben

Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Gayraud, Frédérique

2004. Emergence et développement du placement des particules de portée. Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère :20 ► pp. 173 ff.

Watorek, Marzena, Pascale Trévisiol & Rebekah Rast

2021. The Emergence of Determiners in French L2 from the Point of View of L1/L2 Comparison. Languages 6:2 ► pp. 73 ff.

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