'Is' Als Voorloper Van Finietheid

The acquisition of fmiteness, more particularly the morphological marking of finiteness is a well-known obstacle in L2 acquisition by adult learners. This paper deals with an interlanguage stage in the acquisition of Dutch by Turkish and Moroccan learners producing a remarkable pattern that occurs neither in the target language, nor in the learners' native language. These learners use lexical markers (free morphemes) as precursors of fully inflected thematic verbs. In this pattern, the lexical marker is (copula 3SG) is linked either to an infinitival, an inflected form, or to a second, identical form is. This pattern is considered from different perspectives: functional-semantic, syntactic, and developmental. It is argued that this lexical marker is deprived of meaning and that its function is primarily syntactic. The inference is that syntax precedes morphology, especially free morphology in adult L2 acquisition.