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Article published In:
Internal and External Factors in Child Second Language Acquisition
Edited by Aafke Hulk and Theodoros Marinis
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1:3] 2011
► pp. 238–264

Internal and external factors in the child L2 development of the German determiner phrase

| University of Mannheim

This paper studies the development of the German determiner phrase (DP) in 60 child second-language (L2) learners of German between the ages of 3;5 and 7;0. We consider case and gender marking as well as gender concord and test for effects of internal (age, age of onset) and external (length of exposure) factors. Further, developmental patterns are compared between child L1 and L2 acquisition. The results show no contingency of child L2 performance and age factors, yet strong correlations with length of exposure. Like child L1 acquirers, child L2 learners are found to proceed through similar developmental stages, and they establish lexical gender distinctions before syntactic case distinctions in inflection. These findings are discussed in the context of current generative approaches and the role of age in child and adult L2 acquisition.

Keywords: child L2 acquisition, morphosyntax, determiner phrase, age effects, critical period, input
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The German DP
  • 3.Paths of development in the acquisition of the German DP
    • 3.1Child L1 acquisition
      • 3.1.1Case
      • 3.1.2Gender
    • 3.2Child L2 acquisition
  • 4.The experimental study
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Materials
    • 4.3Procedure and analysis
    • 4.4Results
      • 4.4.1Case marking
      • 4.4.2Gender marking
      • 4.4.3Gender marking and gender concord
      • 4.4.4Consistency
      • 4.4.5Interactions between case and gender: Developmental patterns
      • 4.4.6Gender and case systems: Internal and external factors
      • 4.4.7The morphosyntax of DPs and lexical and syntactic development
        • Lexical development
        • Syntactic development
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 July 2011
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.1.3.02hop
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