Cover not available
Article published In:
Language, Interaction and Acquisition
Vol. 5:2 (2014) ► pp.227–251

Variations dans l’acquisition du marqueur ergatif en basque par des enfants bilingues basque-français

 | Université de Toulouse II
This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study of seven Basque-French bilingual children and three monolingual Basque-speaking children concerning the acquisition of the morphological marking of the ergative case in Basque. Following the hypotheses put forth to account for the development of early bilingualism, the aim of the study was to establish whether bilingual children follow the same developmental sequences as monolingual children during the acquisition of the ergative case. The research protocol we have developed involves relatively unguided as well as constrained data focusing on the production of the ergative case in these two contexts. The data show significant inter-individual and inter-task differences in the production of the ergative case that contribute to some variation in language acquisition. The findings lead us to question classifications of early bilinguals based on age of acquisition alone.
Keywords: language development, early bilingualism, ergative case

Article language: French

Published online: 22 December 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.5.2.03dug
References (53)
Allières, J. (1977). Les basques. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
. (1979). Manuel pratique de basque. Paris: Picard.Google Scholar
Barreña, A. (1993). Haur euskaldunen hizkuntzaren jabekuntza-garapena: INFL eta KONP funtzio kategorien erabileraz (‘L’acquisition et le développement du langage des enfants bascophones: de l’usage des catégories fonctionnelles INFL et KONP’). Thèse de doctorat. Vitoria Gasteiz: Université du Pays Basque.Google Scholar
. (1995). Gramatikaren jabekuntza-garapena eta haur euskaldunak (‘Développement grammatical et enfants bascophones’). Vitoria-Gasteiz: Université du Pays Basque.Google Scholar
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (1987). Competition, variation and language learning. In B. MacWhinney (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (157–193). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Berman, R. & Slobin, D. (1994). Relating events in narrative. A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1996). The origins of children’s spatial semantic categories: Cognitive versus linguistic determinants. In J.J. Gumperz & S.C. Levinson (eds.). Rethinking linguistic relativity (145–176). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (1990). The acquisition of two languages from birth: A case study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2006). Le développement harmonieux ou non harmonieux du bilinguisme de l’enfant au sein de la famille. Langage et société 1161, 29–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2009). Bilingual first language acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delage, H. (2008). Evolution de l’hétérogénéité linguistique chez les enfants sourds moyens et légers: étude de la complexité morphosyntaxique. Thèse de doctorat en linguistique sous la direction de L. Tuller. Tours: Université François-Rabelais.Google Scholar
Döpke, S. (1996). Is the simultaneous acquisition of two languages in early childhood equal to acquiring each of the two languages individually? In E. Clark (ed.), The proceedings of the 28th Annual Child Language Research Forum (95–112).Google Scholar
. (1998). Competing language structures: The acquisition of verb placement by bilingual German-English children. Journal of Child Language 251, 555–584. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2000). Generation of and retraction from cross-linguistically motivated structures in bilingual first language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 31, 209–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dordain, M. & Nespoulous, J.L. (1992). Le traitement des syntagmes nominaux par l’aphasique agrammatique : une illustration des corrélations (directes?) existant entre «complexité structurale» et «complexité procédurale». Revue de Neuropsychologie 2(4), 395–417.Google Scholar
Duguine, I. (2013). Le développement du langage oral chez l’enfant bilingue basque-français en contexte d’acquisition simultanée vs. successive des langues. Etude de la maîtrise du cas ergatif en basque et du genre grammatical en français. Thèse de doctorat. Toulouse: Université Toulouse 2-Le Mirail.Google Scholar
Ezeizabarrena, M.J. & Larranaga, M. (1996). Ergativity in Basque: A problem for language acquisition? Linguistics 341, 955–991. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ezeizabarrena, M.J. & Aeby, S. (2010). Les phénomènes de code-switching dans les conversations adulte-enfant (s) en basque-espagnol: une approche syntaxique, Corpus 91, 53–80.Google Scholar
Ezeizabarrena, M.J. (2012). The (in)consistent ergative marking in early basque: L1 vs. child L2. Lingua 122(3), 303–317. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F. (2002). Portrait of the bilingual child. In V. Cook (eds.), Portraits of the L2 user (167–178). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F. & Nicoladis, E. (2006). Bilingual first language acquisition. In E. Hoff & M. Shatz (eds.), Handbook of language development (324–342). Oxford: B/itlackwell. Google Scholar
Granfeldt, J., Schlyter, S. & Kilhstedt, M. (2007). French as cL2, 2L1 and L2 in pre-school children. In J. Granfelt (ed.), Studies in Romance bilingual acquisition – Age of onset and development of French and Spanish (6–41).Université de Lund: Centre for Languages and Literature.Google Scholar
Hickmann, M. (2002). Espace, langage et catégorisation: le problème de la variabilité inter-langues. In J. Lautrey, B. Mazoyer & P. Van Geert (eds.). Invariants et variabilités dans les sciences cognitives(225–238). Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huarte, M. (2007a). Ergatiboaren jabekuntza : ikerketa esperimental bat eta beraren emaitzak (‘Acquisition de l’ergatif : une recherche expérimentale et ses résultats’). Thèse de doctorat. Vitoria Gasteiz: Université du Pays Basque.Google Scholar
. (2007b). The acquisition of Basque Ergative case. An experimental study. Anuario del Seminario de Filología vasca “Julio de Urquijo” XLI-21, 131–144.Google Scholar
Hulk, A. & Müller, N. (2000). Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 31, 227–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kihlstedt, M. & Schylter, S. (2009). Emploi de la morphologie temporelle en français L2: étude comparative auprès d’enfants monolingues et bilingues de 8 à 9 ans. Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère AILE... LIA 11, 89–115. URL: [URL]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lemay-Catherwood, M.A.L. (2003). Phénomènes interlinguistiques en acquisition de la L1 bilingue: étude de cas. Thèse de doctorat. Burnaby: Université Simon Fraser.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. 3rd Edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Matthews, S. & Yip, V. (2003). Relative clauses in early bilingual development: Transfer and universals. In A.G. Ramat (ed.), Typology and Second Language Acquisition (39–81). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mayer, M. (1969). Frog where are you? New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second-Language acquisition in childhood: Volume 1. Preschool Children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Meisel, J.M. (1990). Grammatical development in the simultaneous acquisition of two first languages. In J.M. Meisel (ed.), Two first languages – Early grammatical development in bilingual children (5–22). Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
. (2001). The simultaneous acquisition of two first languages. Early differentiation and subsequent development of grammars. In J. Cenoz & F. Genesse (eds.), Trends in bilingual acquisition (11–41). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2004). The bilingual child. In T.K. Bhatia & W.C. Ritchie (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism (91–113). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
. (2008). Âge du début de l’acquisition successive du bilinguisme: effets sur le développement grammatical. In M. Kail, M. Fayol & M. Hickmann (eds.), Apprentissage des langues (245–272). Paris: CNRS éditions.Google Scholar
Mishina-Mori, S. (2005). Autonomous and interdependant development of two language systems in Japanese/English simultaneous bilinguals. Evidence from question formation. First Language 251, 291–315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nespoulous, J.L. & Dordain, M. (1985). L’agrammatisme : Trouble syntaxique et/ou déficit morphématique? Une étude de cas. Rééducation orthophonique 231, 163–175.Google Scholar
Nespoulous, J.L. (1997). Invariance et variabilité dans la symptomatologie linguistique des aphasiques agrammatiques: le retour du comparatisme? In C. Fuchs & S. Robert (eds.), Diversité des langues et représentations cognitives (227–239). Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Niklas-Salminen, A. (2011). Le bilinguisme chez l’enfant. Etude d’un cas de bilinguisme précoce simultané français-finnois. Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence.Google Scholar
Oyharçabal, B. (2003). Le basque. In B. Cerquiglini (ed.), Les langues de France (59–68). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
. (2011). La langue basque. In E. Bonvini, J. Busuttil & A. Peyraube (eds.), Dictionnaire des langues (857–869). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Pacton, S. & Perruchet, P. (2006). L’apprentissage implicite au labo et à l’école. In P. Dessus & E. Gentaz (eds.), Comprendre les apprentissages, vol. 2 1(59–73). Paris: Dunod.Google Scholar
Paradis, J. & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: Autonomous or interdependent? Studies in second language acquisition 61, 91–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sahraoui, H. & Nespoulous, J.L. (2012). Across-task variability in agrammatic performance. Aphasiology 26(6), 785–810. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlyter, S. (2011). Tense and aspect in early French development in aL2, 2L1 and cL2 learners. In E. Rinke & T. Kupisch (eds.), The development of grammar. Language acquisition and diachronic change. In honour of Jürgen M. Meisel (47–74). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serratrice, L. (2007). Referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual English-Italian children and monolingual peers. Journal of Pragmatics 391, 1058–1087. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soroli, E., Hickmann, M., Tran, T.M., Nespoulous, J.L. & Boudre, H. (2010). Expression du mouvement et pathologie du langage: Perspective typologique en aphasie. In F. Neveu, V. Muni Toke, J. Durand, T. Klinger, L. Mondada & S. Prévost (eds.), Actes du Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française - CMLF 2010 (1575–1590). Paris: EDP Sciences. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vasquez Carranza, L.M. (2007). Autonomy in simultaneous bilingualism: Evidence from an English-Spanish bilingual child. Káñina, Revista Artes y Letras de la Universidad de Costa Rica 33(2), 97–143.Google Scholar
Volterra, V. & Taeschner, T. (1978). The acquisition and the development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 51, 311–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yip, V. & Matthews, S. (2000). Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese-English bilingual child. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 31, 193–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zubiri, J.J. (1997). Izen sintagmaren determinazioa eta kasuen jabekuntza eta garapena hiru urte arte (‘Acquisition et développement de la détermination du syntagme nominal et des cas jusqu’à trois ans’). Thèse de doctorat. Vitoria Gasteiz: Université du Pays Basque.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Duguine, Isabelle & Barbara Köpke
2019. Processing strategies used by Basque-French bilingual and Basque monolingual children for the production of the subject-agent in Basque. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 9:4-5 ► pp. 514 ff. DOI logo
Duguine, Isabelle & Barbara Köpke
2021. Processing strategies used by Basque-French bilingual and Basque monolingual children for the production of the subject-agent in Basque. In Psycholinguistic Approaches to Production and Comprehension in Bilingual Adults and Children [Benjamins Current Topics, 117], ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Duguine, Isabelle
2016. Gestion des cas absolutif et ergatif en basque par des bilingues précoces basques-français. Lapurdum :19 ► pp. 201 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.