“Which mouse kissed the frog?” Effects of age of onset, length of exposure, and knowledge of case marking on the comprehension of wh-questions in German-speaking simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children

AbstractStudies examining age of onset (AoO) effects in childhood bilingualism have provided mixed results as to whether early sequential bilingual children (eL2) differ from simultaneous bilingual children (2L1) and L2 children on the acquisition of morphosyntax. Differences between the three groups have been attributed to other factors such as length of exposure (LoE), language abilities, and the phenomenon to be acquired. The present study investigates whether four- to five-year-old German-speaking eL2 children differ from 2L1 children on the acquisition of wh-questions, and whether these differences can be explained by AoO, LoE, and/or knowledge of case marking. The 2L1 children outperformed the eL2 children in terms of accuracy; however, both bilingual groups exhibited similar error patterns. This suggests that 2L1 and eL2 bilingual children are sensitive to the same morphosyntactic cues, when comprehending wh-questions. Finally, children's performance on the different types of wh-questions was explained by a combination of knowledge of case marking, LoE, and AoO.

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Subject–verb agreement in Specific Language Impairment: A study of monolingual and bilingual German-speaking children

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s136672891100037x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 39-57 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

MONIKA ROTHWEILER ◽

SOLVEIG CHILLA ◽

HARALD CLAHSEN

Keyword(s):

Language Impairment ◽

Specific Language Impairment ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Specific Language ◽

Complex Sentences ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Verb Forms ◽

Wh Questions ◽

German Speaking ◽

Embedded Clauses

This study investigates phenomena that have been claimed to be indicative of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in German, focusing on subject–verb agreement marking. Longitudinal data from fourteen German-speaking children with SLI, seven monolingual and seven Turkish–German successive bilingual children, were examined. We found similar patterns of impairment in the two participant groups. Both the monolingual and the bilingual children with SLI had correct (present vs. preterit) tense marking and produced syntactically complex sentences such as embedded clauses and wh-questions, but were limited in reliably producing correct agreement-marked verb forms. These contrasts indicate that agreement marking is impaired in German-speaking children with SLI, without any necessary concurrent deficits in either the CP-domain or in tense marking. Our results also show that it is possible to identify SLI from an early successive bilingual child's performance in one of her two languages.

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Production of Subject-Verb Agreement in Spanish as a Second Language

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1026//1617-3169.50.3.196 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 50 (3) ◽

pp. 196-203 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Janet Nicol ◽

Delia Greth

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Error Patterns ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Different Types ◽

Semantic Variables ◽

Advanced Proficiency

Abstract. In this paper, we report the results of a study of English speakers who have learned Spanish as a second language. All were late learners who have achieved near- advanced proficiency in Spanish. The focus of the research is on the production of subject-verb agreement errors and the factors that influence the incidence of such errors. There is some evidence that English and Spanish subject-verb agreement differ in susceptibility to interference from different types of variables; specifically, it has been reported that Spanish speakers show a greater influence of semantic factors in their implementation of subject-verb agreement ( Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996 ). In our study, all participants were tested in English (L1) and Spanish (L2). Results indicate nearly identical error patterns: these speakers show no greater influence of semantic variables in the computation of agreement when they are speaking Spanish than when they are speaking English.

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Embodied displacements in young German children’s storytelling

Research on Children and Social Interaction ◽

10.1558/rcsi.37311 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1-2) ◽

pp. 168-195 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Vivien Heller

Keyword(s):

Picture Book ◽

Book Reading ◽

Lexical Resources ◽

Narrative Space ◽

Multimodal Analysis ◽

Different Types ◽

German Speaking ◽

Picture Book Reading ◽

The Given

This paper is concerned with embodied processes of joint imagination in young children’s narrative interactions. Based on Karl Bühler’s notion of ‘deixis in the imagination’, it examines in detail how a 19-month-old German-speaking child, engaged in picture book reading with his mother, brings about different subtypes of deixis in the imagination by either ‘displacing’ what is absent into the given order of perception (e.g. by using the hand as a token for an object) or displacing his origo to an imagined space (e.g. by kinaesthetically aligning his body with an imagined body and animating his movements). Drawing on multimodal analysis and the concept of layering in interaction, the study analyses the ways in which the picture book as well as deictic, depictive, vocal and lexical resources are coordinated to evoke a narrative space, co-enact the storybook character’s experiences and produce reciprocal affect displays. Findings demonstrate that different types of displacement are in play quite early in childhood; displacements in the dimension of space and person are produced through layerings of spaces, voices and bodies.

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English Past Tense Use in Bilingual Children With Language Impairment

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ◽

10.1044/1058-0360(2005/030) ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 313-323 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

Peggy F. Jacobson ◽

Richard G. Schwartz

Keyword(s):

Language Impairment ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Past Tense ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Language Differences ◽

Error Patterns ◽

History Of ◽

English Speaking ◽

Irregular Verbs ◽

Verb Categories

Grammatical measures that distinguish language differences from language disorders in bilingual children are scarce. This study examined English past tense morphology in sequential bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children, age 7;0–9;0 (years;months). Twelve bilingual children with language impairment (LI) or history of LI and 15 typically developing (TD) bilingual children participated. Thirty-six instances of the past tense including regular, irregular, and novel verbs were examined using an elicited production task. By examining English past tense morphology in sequential bilinguals, we uncovered similarities and differences in the error patterns of TD children and children with LI. The groups differed in the overall accuracy of past tense use according to verb type, as well as the characteristic error patterns. Children with LI performed lower than their TD peers on all verb categories, with an interaction between verb type and group. TD children were better at producing regular verbs and exhibited more productive errors (e.g., overregularization). Conversely, children with LI performed relatively better on irregular verbs and poorest on novel verbs, and they exhibited more nonproductive errors (e.g., bare stem verbs). The results have important clinical implications for the assessment of morphological productivity in Spanish-speaking children who are learning English sequentially.

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German children’s processing of morphosyntactic cues in wh-questions

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716418000334 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 39 (6) ◽

pp. 1279-1318 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

ATTY SCHOUWENAARS ◽

PETRA HENDRIKS ◽

ESTHER RUIGENDIJK

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Selection Task ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Garden Path ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Case Marking ◽

Wh Questions ◽

German Children

ABSTRACTTwo experiments investigated the effects of case and verb agreement cues on the comprehension and production of which-questions in typically developing German children (aged 7–10) and adults. Our aims were to determine (a) whether they make use of morphosyntactic cues (case marking and verb agreement) for the comprehension of which-questions, (b) how these questions are processed, and (c) whether the presence and position of morphosyntactic cues available for the listener influence the speaker’s production of which-questions. Performance on a picture selection task with eye tracking shows that children with low working memory make less use of morphosyntactic cues than children with high working memory and adults when interpreting object questions. Gaze data of both groups reveal garden-path effects and revisions for object and passive questions, which can be explained by a constraint-based account. Furthermore, children’s difficulties with object questions are related to the type of disambiguation cue. In a question elicitation task with patient-initial items, children overall prefer production of passives, whereas adults’ productions depend on the availability of disambiguation cues for the listener.

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Comprehension of Welcher -Questions in German-Speaking Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00121 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Anne Dorothée Roesch ◽

Vasiliki Chondrogianni

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Language Disorder ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Question Type ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Developmental Language Disorder ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Phonological Working Memory ◽

Case Marking ◽

German Speaking

Purpose This study examined whether monolingual German-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were facilitated by the presence of case-marking cues in their interpretation of German subject and object welcher (“which”)-questions, as reported for their typically developing peers. We also examined whether knowledge of case-marking and/or phonological working memory modulated children's ability to revise early assigned interpretations of ambiguous questions. Method Sixty-three monolingual German-speaking children with and without DLD aged between 4;0 and 5;11 (years;months) participated in an offline picture selection task targeting the comprehension of welcher -questions in German. We manipulated question type (subject, object), case-marking transparency, and case-marking position within the question (sentence-initial/-final). Results The typically developing children outperformed the children with DLD across conditions, and all children performed better on subject than on object wh -questions. Transparent and early cues elicited higher accuracy than late-arriving cues. For the DLD children, their working memory capacity explained their inability to revise early assigned interpretations to ambiguous questions, whereas their knowledge of case did not. Conclusions The results suggest that disambiguating morphosyntactic cues can only partly facilitate comprehension of German welcher -questions in children with DLD, whose poor phonological working memory rather than their knowledge of case-marking mediates performance on these structures.

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Factors of success and failure in the acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658308090182 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 267-295 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Leonie Cornips ◽

Aafke Hulk

Keyword(s):

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Success Factors ◽

Age Of Onset ◽

Structural Similarity ◽

Grammatical Gender ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Two Factors ◽

Gender System

The goal of this article is to examine the factors that are proposed in the literature to explain the success—failure in the child L2 (second language) acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch definite determiners. Focusing on four different groups of bilingual children, we discuss four external success factors put forward in the literature: (1) early age of onset, (2) lengthy and intensive input, (3) the quality of the input and (4) the role of the other language. We argue that the first two factors may indeed contribute to explaining the differences in success between the less and more successful bilingual children. However, the influence of the quality of the input in (standard) Dutch appears to be inconclusive, whereas the (structural) similarity of the gender systems in the two languages may reinforce the children's awareness of the grammatical gender category. Moreover, it appears that individual bilingualism vs. societal bilingualism, that is the sociolinguistic context in which Dutch is acquired, is not a factor for failure or success with respect to the acquisition of grammatical gender. In the final part of this article, we hypothesize that the important role of the input is related to a language internal factor, which distinguishes the Dutch gender system of the definite determiner from that of other languages, resulting in different acquisition paths.

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