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Part of
Perspectives on Input, Evidence, and Exposure in Language Acquisition: Studies in honour of Susanne E. Carroll
Edited by Lindsay Hracs
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 69] 2024
► pp. 54–87

Chapter 3
Acquisition of morpho-syntactic features in a bilingual Italian child

An integrated approach to gender

| University of Wuppertal
| University of Wuppertal
| University of Wuppertal

The present study investigates the interaction of gender with (declension) class in the acquisition data of one bilingual child (from two to five years old) who develops Italian as a weak language in combination with German in Germany. As reported in the literature, the Italian child acquires gender with ease, reflected in the nearly exceptionless target-like gender marking on determiners. Of the two possible errors, omission and commission, the Italian child vastly omits determiners. Nouns are inflected according to (declension) classes in adult Italian, most of which correspond to one gender. If the gender feature can be derived by class, as proposed by Lowenstamm (2007) for adult French, a different and integrated approach to gender acquisition is possible.

Keywords: bilingual first language acquisition, Italian, gender feature, declension classes
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Gender, number, and declension class in Italian
    • 2.1Gender acquisition in Italian
  • 3.Parameter hierarchies in language acquisition
    • 3.1Parameter hierarchies in language acquisition: Declension classes in Italian
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1The Italian-German child Ja_di
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Classes I and II
    • 5.2Class III
    • 5.3Classes IV, V, VI, and VII
    • 5.4Classes VIII and IX
    • 5.5Summary of the Italian data
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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