Draft of work submitted for publication in the Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics
Draft of work submitted for publication in the Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics
L2 Acquisition of French Object Pronominal Clitics:
acquisition, but also the degree of such difference as measured by frequency and complexity of form.
A Parametric Markedness Account of Crosslinguistic Transfer
Eckman’s Markedness Differential Hypothesis thus claims that crosslinguistic transfer and hierarchies
of acquisitional difficulty are a result of the both L1 form as well as the frequency (i.e. saliency) and
Lance R. Askildson
University of Arizona
complexity of the form being acquired in L2. According to this model, forms that are marked in L1 and
Abstract
unmarked in L2 will be easier to acquire than forms unmarked in L1 yet marked in L2 [See Table 1.1
The acquisition of French object pronominal clitics was investigated from a crosslinguistic transfer and
markedness perspective of parameterization. Native speakers of English (-clitics) and Spanish
(+clitics) were provided with brief training in French lexical items and the cliticization of object pronouns
followed by a grammaticality judgment task including both cliticized and non-pronominal forms.
Results indicated crosslinguistic transfer effects according to markedness constraints with facilitation
for the Spanish group and inhibition for the English group. Additionally, results suggest a syntactic
movement account of object clitic representation in lieu of an idiosyncratic exception to head-first
parameterization. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.
below].
Table 1.1
L1 Form
L2 Form
Assumed Effect on Parameter Acquisition
(+)marked
(-)marked
No transfer from L1 to L2; facilitated acquisition
(-)marked
(+)marked
identical syntactic parameters
I. INTRODUCTION
L1 feature transfers to L2; deleterious acquisition
L1 feature transfers to L2; a priori acquisition
The present small-scale pilot study is an attempt to investigate the effects of crosslinguistic
A fundamental question of SLA research concerns the role of L1 linguistic knowledge in L2
transfer among L2 learners of French object pronominal clitics and from within a contrastive and
acquisition processes. Such inquiry has often centered around the specific role of L1 morpho-syntax
markedness differential perspective. It assumes a principles and parameters account of syntactic
and its effects on the acquisition of parallel or divergent L2 forms. Second language learners and
representation and is predicated upon Chomsky’s (1981, 1982, 1986) Government and Binding Theory
researchers alike have long noted that similar L1-L2 forms are often acquired more easily than some
of syntax and universal grammar. Specifically, the present study examines the acquisition of French
L1 forms that differ significantly from their L2 counterparts. Early attempts to account for this
clitics by two novice L2 learner groups consisting of native speakers of English and Spanish,
phenomenon by Lado (1957) suggested a Contrastive Analysis (CA) approach. Within this framework,
respectively. While English syntax is devoid of any pronominal clitics, Spanish syntax employs the
the learnability of L2 forms was predicted to be uniformly facilitated by similarity of L1 and L2 forms and
same variety of pre-verbal pronominal clitics as French, but with a singular and syntactically marked
uniformly encumbered by divergent forms. Although this 1:1 account was initially couched within an
exception to French cliticization in the form of spurious se. Thus, these particular language groups
empiricist approach of stimulus-response habit formation, it was thereafter adopted by Chomskian
were selected in order to address both the contrastive and markedness claims of crosslinguistic
linguists as a compatible description of parallel-divergent parameter transfer from L1 to L2. In an
transfer. In the case of the former, both English and Spanish speakers are assumed to transfer
expansion of the dichotomous claims in CA, Eckman (1977), building upon work by Jakobson (1954),
existing L1 syntactic knowledge [in the form of syntactic parameters] to their nascent L2 syntax. In the
suggested that it is not simply the difference between L1 and L2 forms that results in barriers to
latter instance, the movement from an unmarked form of (-)cliticization in English to (+)cliticization in
1
2
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Draft of work submitted for publication in the Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics
French predicts the transfer of English parameters for pronominalization with the result of inaccurate
(1) I play soccer / Je joue au foot / [Yo] juego fútbol
(2) I play it / Je le joue / [Yo] lo juego
L2 French syntax. The movement from (+)cliticization in Spanish to (+)cliticization in French, on the
other hand, predicts the transfer of Spanish parameters for pronominalization with a priori acquisition of
(3) I played soccer / I played it
(4) J’ai joué au foot / Je l’ai joué
the correct L2 syntactic form. Moreover, the additional (+)marked spurious se feature of Spanish
(5) I gave the ball to Tom / I gave it to him
(6) J’ai donné un ballon à Tom / Je le lui ai donné
cliticization that is absent in the L2 French syntax is assumed, under this model, to avoid transfer to the
(7) [I] wrote the note / [Yo] escribí la nota
(8) [I] wrote it / [Yo] la escribí
(-) marked L2 syntax, facilitating acquisition of the L2 form. These fundamental assumptions thus form
(9) [I] wrote the note to Sara / [Yo] escribí la nota a Sara
(10) [I] I wrote it to her / [Yo] se la escribí
the focus of the present research.
This phenomenon is also observed in ditransitive constructions, as in 5-6. However, in the case of
Spanish, an additional operation is required if the indirect object is pronominalized alongside a direct
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
English, French and Spanish syntax share a common parameter setting for the syntactic
principle of headedness as well its derivative of canonical word order. That is, all three exhibit headfirst phrase structure in which complements follow and specifiers precede the head to produce
orthodox SVO sequencing. This is illustrated in Figure 1.1 and item 1 below. However, in the case of
pronominal clitics, French and Spanish reveal an exception to this rule. Rather than placing the
accusative NP turned pronoun after the finite verb head that it complements—conforming to the headfirst parameter—French and Spanish clitics appear before their heads in a position immediately
object clitic. This procedure is known as spurious se cliticization and requires that the typical object
pronominal clitics (e.g. le/les) be transformed into se, as in 7-10 above.
If a principles and parameters framework is assumed, these French and Spanish deviations
from an otherwise head-first SVO syntactic pattern is a significant anomaly, inconsistent with axioms of
universal grammar. Furthermore, it suggests one of two possible interpretations: 1) French/Spanish
object pronominal clitics exhibit an idiosyncratic exception to the headedness parameter of head-first
sequencing [Figure 2.1] or 2) French/Spanish pronominal clitics are generated in a base position that is
post-verbal and head-first, yet are moved via an overt syntactic operation to a pre-verbal head-last
preceding the verb (2) and any accompanying auxiliary (3-4) as seen in Figure 1.2.
position [Figure 2.2]. Ignoring the mechanism of difference for the moment, however, one can
Fig. 1.1
English pronoun: Head-first & SVO
Fig. 1.2
French & Spanish: Head-last & SOV
nonetheless assume that if English L2 learners of French/Spanish are attempting to internalize its
syntax with an expectation of universal parameter setting constraints, incongruent input in the form of
XP
XP
X’
Specifier
[subject]
Specifier
[subject]
head-last idiosyncrasies OR a movement operation is bound to confound such attempts. And indeed,
X’
this appears to be the case.
Head
[verb]
Complement
[object pronoun]
Complement
[object pronoun clitic]
Head
[verb]
3
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Draft of work submitted for publication in the Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics
Fig. 2.1 Idiosyncratic head-last positioning [French]
Draft of work submitted for publication in the Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics
Fig. 2.2 Movement from head-first position
NP
Specifier
I [subject]
NP
Complement
le [clitic]FR
lo [clitic]SP
(11) I play it / *Je joue le
(12) I play it / *Je joue __
(13) I play that / Je joue ça
(14) I play it / Je joue au foot
VP
VP
NP
Specifier
I [subject]
V’
V
Head
joue [verb]FR
juego [verb]SP
V’
V
NP
___
NP
Complement
le [clitic]FR
lo [clitic]SP
V
Head
joue [verb]FR
juego [verb]SP
However, the difficulty in the acquisition of French (and perhaps Spanish1) clitics is not limited
to L2 acquisition. In fact, native French speakers also appear to exhibit difficulty in acquiring this
linguistic feature. In a 10-month longitudinal study of a French monolingual child, Hamann, Rizzi &
Frauenfelder (1996) found that while subject clitics that conform to head-first parameter settings and an
Drawing on 27-months of orally elicited data of English speaking children learning L2 French,
SVO word order were acquired to a minimum of fluency at age 2.0 years, object clitics were not
for example, White (1996) found that the appearance of pronominal clitics was preceded by post-verbal
acquired to such a threshold until 2.6 years. Hamann et al. conclude, therefore, that subject and object
pronoun placement errors (corresponding to head-first parameterization), obligatory pronoun omission
clitics are distinct structures and that the latter requires more acquisitional effort on the part of the
errors, avoidance strategies employing the non-clitic pronoun ça (that) and conspicuous use of overt
learner. In a more nuanced finding, Paradis and Crago (2003) examined the development of
NPs in place of pronouns all together—illustrated in 11-15 below. In a case study of similar emphasis,
simultaneous French-English bilinguals and found that English object pronouns were produced
Paradis, Crago and Genessee (2003) found an analogous incidence of difficulty and developmental
significantly more frequently and accurately than French object pronouns—despite similar levels of
sequencing for L2 French clitic acquisition among child English L2 learners of French. While
language development. Moreover, and in a helpful interpretive implication for the Hamann et al. (1996)
comparing the L2 group with child monolingual French NS’s, Paradis et al. found that despite two years
findings, the disparity in object clitic performance observed by Paradis et al. (2003b) was nonexistent in
of exposure to French, L2 learners only produced object clitics in obligatory contexts 42% of the time,
the case of subject clitics. Although hardly definitive, these two studies of L1 French acquisition, taken
whereas NS participants correctly produced the clitic 98% of the time. Further evidence comes from
together, strongly suggest that object pronoun clitics are uniquely difficult for both French monolinguals
Selinker, Swain and Dumas (1975)—in their seminal study of interlanguage development among
as well as English L2 learners of French. In addition, they segue into another important finding in the
English L2 learners of French—and their observation of significant difficulty in learners’ acquisition of
area of comparative acquisition of French/Spanish pronouns that suggests French and Spanish
pronominal clitics and instances of the same post-verbal pronoun placement, pronoun omissions and
learners of L2 English have little difficulty identifying English syntactic patterns (parameters) for
avoidance strategies found by White (1996). In the case of English L2 learners of Spanish, similar
pronoun placement.
obstacles to acquisition of pronominal clitics have been observed by Parodi (2002) and Jacobson &
Schwartz (2002).
1
Research in L1 Spanish acquisition provides conflicting evidence. While some researchers have argued for a Strong Continuity Hypothesis
(Dominguez, 2002) in which acquisition of clitics is assumed to occur very early and with relative ease (Kaiser, 1995; Torrens, 1995), others have
noted a slow and more difficult developmental pattern similar to French (Radford, 1990).
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Zobl (1980), for instance, examined the development of French and Spanish learners of
task, the researchers found that the two groups of L2 learners performed at nearly the same rate and
English and found no error patterns that would indicate transfer of French or Spanish object pronoun
with near-native accuracy. They concluded, therefore, that there was no crosslinguistic transfer effect
placement in a pre-verbal position. This is significant because the head-first parameter of English
and that both learner groups drew upon universal grammar in the form of base universal categories
matches that of French and Spanish in all cases except the pronoun in question. Most significantly,
and features (i.e. not associated with their L1 per se) in order to acquire the clitic construction. While
however, the fact that French and Spanish learners of English are able to acquire head-first object
such evidence would appear to deal a significant blow to any claim of crosslinguistic transfer, the
pronoun placement with absolute ease, while English learners of French or Spanish struggle to acquire
design of the Duffield & White study is critically flawed in two distinct respects and their conclusions are
pronoun clitic placement, strongly suggests that the syntactic representation of object pronoun clitics
thus, once reinterpreted, largely unfounded. Indeed, the dual defect in their design lies entirely with the
are the result of a complex movement operation [Figure 2.2] instead of a simple idiosyncratic exception
study’s participants. Although the authors’ stated purpose was the investigation of linguistic transfer
to headedness constraints [Figure 2.1]. That is, one would expect a similar ease of acquisition among
via contrasting language groups (English and French) with and without object pronoun clitics, nearly
Spanish/French learners of L2 English and English learners of L2 French if each language group were
ALL participants in the Duffield & White study were either bilingual English-French or bilingual French-
simply adapting their parameter setting for pronoun headedness. However, given the observed
English speakers. To quote their own reporting of participants’ language competence: “Almost all the
disparity in acquisition rates according to markedness differences, it is much more likely the result of a
English-speaking subjects knew French, and almost all the French-speaking subjects knew English”
complex movement operation. Such a movement account is also much preferable from a principles
(p.143). Such a uniform subject pool is absolutely contradictory to the integrity and validity of the two
and parameters perspective in that it allows uniform application of the head-first parameter. It would
experimental groups. Specifically, the fact that the English native speakers had already acquired
also appear that French and Spanish learners do not transfer this feature from their native languages
French clitics seriously undermines both the validity and relevance of the results. In addition to this, all
to L2 English—a (+)marked feature that would be predicted not to transfer under the markedness
participants had already attained an advanced level of proficiency in Spanish at the time of testing and
differential hypothesis. Moreover, research by Novakovic (2004) indicates that at least French learners
their specific exposure to the language in general and clitics in particular cannot be determined. Thus,
of Serbo-Croatian (a language with some of the same cliticization as French) do transfer their
their high performance says nothing of the initial development and potential facilitation/inhibition
knowledge of object clitics, while learners of English struggle to acquire this feature in a developmental
caused by L1 transfer effects at novice proficiency levels, where they would be most expected to
sequence reminiscent of L2 French acquisition patterns—again, the predicted pattern via markedness
occur.
In a follow-up study to Duffield and White (1999), Duffield et al. (2002) conducted a nearly
constraints.
In an attempt to address this central issue of crosslinguistic transfer of object pronoun clitic
analogous investigation into pronoun clitics with English and Spanish learners of L2 French. Their
structures, Duffield and White (1999) examined the L2 acquisition of Spanish clitics by French and
results, once again, suggested that both L2 participant groups performed at/near native levels and
English native speakers. Employing both a sentence matching task and a grammaticality judgment
were thus interpreted as confirmation of a lack of crosslinguistic transfer juxtaposed with an availability
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of direct access to categories and features in UG. While it appears that the participants were not
comprehension check for all fifteen items to ensure uniform lexical acquisition, and 4) training that
bilingual in this case, they were of advanced proficiency in French. Moreover, the results upon which
repeated a subset (7) of the same sample sentences from previous sentence training, but with the
the authors draw several strong conclusions in favor of their predictions were largely insignificant
object pronoun criticized sentence form (7) presented independently after each non-pronominalized
statistically. In light of both the advanced proficiency of participants and the lack of statistically
sentence. All nominal items were controlled for definite article usage and article/noun gender (only
significant results therefore, the question of crosslinguistic transfer in the case of object pronominal
masculine form ‘le’). French verbs were controlled for person-number (3sg) as well as the standard ‘–
clitics remains decidedly unresolved. The present research is thus an attempt to address this
er’ verb-ending variety. During initial training for SVO sentences without pronoun usage, each nominal
ambiguity in the form of a tertiary experimental study of the acquisition of such clitic constructions by
item was repeated at least once and each verb form was repeated at least twice. Grammaticality
novice English and Spanish learners of L2 French.
judgment test items consisted of twenty single clause sentences. Ten of these contained object
pronoun clitics, while the remaining ten contained no form of pronominalization. In addition, each of
these two sentence varieties contained 5 grammatically correct forms and 5 grammatically incorrect
III. THE STUDY
forms. All training and test items have been included in Appendix A.
Participants
A total of 12 participants ranging in age from 24 to 31 years were recruited for the present
study. Seven of these participants were adult native speakers of Spanish taking beginning level
Procedures
English classes and who reported no previous learning of French. The remaining five were
As indicated above, the experiment was administered to participants via two distinct training
undergraduate monolingual speakers of English who had limited foreign language learning
and testing components over a period of approximately 25-35 minutes. In the first part of the training
experiences with German, yet had never studied Spanish or French.
component, participants were required to learn ten French nouns and five French verbs. Each
noun/verb was shown on the computer screen in its French form and accompanied by an illustrative
image [see Appendix A]. Participants pressed a key when they were ready to continue on to the next
Materials
Participants were tested using the DMDX psycholinguistic software package. Experimental
item. In order to dispel any potential for ambiguity, the English/Spanish translation (depending on the
sequencing consisted of a brief French language training component and a grammaticality judgment
participant’s L1) of the lexical item was displayed for two seconds after the key was pressed.
task immediately afterwards. The French language training component consisted of three distinct
Participants were then shown twelve single clause sentences that incorporated only these lexical
parts: 1) Training in ten simple nouns, three transitive verbs and two intransitive verbs using both
items. Following this, participants were tested on their acquisition of the lexical items via a true/false
images and post-display translations, 2) training in twelve single clause SVO sentences [without
task in which they decided if the image shown on the screen matched the lexical item below. All fifteen
pronouns] consisting only of the fifteen lexical items learned in the previous stage, 3) a vocabulary
items were tested. If a participant failed any of the comprehension test items, they were shown the
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initial lexical item training again and then retested. After demonstrating acquisition of the fifteen lexical
Hypothesis 2: It is predicted that the Spanish spurious se feature will not transfer according to
items, participants were trained in French pronominal clitics. Using seven of the simple SVO
markedness predictions; thus confirming a markedness differential account of crosslinguistic transfer.
sentences previously displayed in the second stage of training, and all five verb items, participants
Research Question 3: Do English learners of L2 French exhibit analysis of object clitic placement as an
were first shown one of these sentences and then, after pressing the continuation key, they were
idiosyncratic instance of head-last positioning in the form of judgments that license head-last
shown the cliticized form of that same sentence. Thus, a total of fourteen sentences were displayed.
positioning of NP verbal arguments in addition to object pronoun clitics?
In the case of ditransitive constructions, participants first saw only one pronoun clitic accompanied by a
Hypothesis 3: It is predicted that English learners will not demonstrate a head-last analysis for NP
regular post-verbal noun, and then saw the same sentence with both objects in cliticized form. After a
arguments and that this will suggest a syntactic movement analysis in its stead.
five minute break, participants were then administered a twenty-item grammaticality judgment test
including both pronominal clitics and non-pronominal forms as well as grammatical and ungrammatical
constructions of each. Participants were thus shown each sentence item individually and judged it as
either 1) grammatical or 2) ungrammatical. Responses were recorded along with responses times as
IV. RESULTS
Group means for correct participant responses on the grammaticality judgment test are
reported in the chart below:
measured in milliseconds.
Grp Means for Correct Judgm ents
12
Research Questions
10
8
The present study seeks to answer the following three research questions and confirm their
associated hypotheses:
6
Cor r Resp
4
2
Research Question 1: Do English and Spanish learners of L2 French show evidence of transfer from
0
( -) Clit ics [ SP]
( -) Clit ics [ EN]
( +)Clit ics [ SP]
( +)Clit ics [ EN]
their respective native languages in the case of object pronoun clitics?
Hypothesis 1: It is predicted that both L2 learner groups will show evidence of transfer with facilitation
The results demonstrate a clear mean difference between the performance of Spanish (M=9.2) and
effects for Spanish NS’s and inhibition effects for English NS’s.
English participants (M=4.8) on cliticized (+)clitics sentences and a nearly equivalent performance by
Research Question 2: Is crosslinguistic transfer governed by markedness effects with the prediction
Spanish (M=9.6) and English (M=9.0) groups on non-pronominalized (-)clitics sentences. Although the
that the (+)marked spurious se feature in Spanish will not transfer to the (-) marked French pronoun
small sample size prevents the meaningful use of any inferential statistics in this case, the reported
operation?
means demonstrate clear trends of divergence and equivalence under each condition. In addition, and
despite the small sample size in each group, participant scores showed minimal variability within each
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group and resulted in a standard deviation among Spanish participants of SD=0.4 on the (-)clitics items
instances of head-last positioning of non-pronominalized objects were uniformly rejected as
and an SD=0.7 on the (+) clitics items, while English participants performed with an SD=0.6 on the
ungrammatical.
(-)clitics items and SD=1.1 on the (+)clitics items. In addition, English participants performed
significant worse that their Spanish counterparts on specific instances of clitics with ditransitive verbs.
VI. CONCLUSION
Among the twenty test items, seven employed ditransitive verbs, of which four included cliticization of
The findings in the present study roundly confirm a crosslinguistic transfer account of French
some form. While Spanish participants averaged a M=3.6 rate of accurate judgments on these four
object pronoun clitic acquisition among novice English and Spanish learners of L2 French.
items, English participants averaged only M=1.4.
Furthermore, this crosslinguistic transfer appears to be dependent on markedness constraints as
outlined in the Markedness Differential Hypothesis and the result of overt syntactic movement in lieu of
V. DISCUSSION
anomalous parameterization of the headedness principle. These findings suggest, therefore, that
The results reported above clearly distinguish between Spanish and English participant
crosslinguistic comparisons are indeed appropriate indices of barriers to language acquisition and thus
performance and thereby significantly confirm the postulated hypotheses of Research Questions 1-3.
salient pedagogical tools for teachers of language. Nonetheless, the limited scope of the present pilot
Given the similar SVO syntax and clitic pronoun phenomena of Spanish and French, the highly
study leaves significant room for further and more rigorous research. The limited sample sizes and
accurate performance of Spanish participants on both (-)clitic and (+)clitic items suggests that they
small number of training and testing items seriously limits the reliability and thus generalizability of its
transferred their L1 syntax in the acquisition of the French forms. Analogously, in light of the SVO
results. Future research must examine both the underlying syntactic representations of object
syntax and lack of clitic phenomena in English, the highly accurate performance on (-)clitic items by
cliticization as well as its acquisition over time in order provide a definitive account of language transfer
English participants, coupled with their highly inaccurate performance on (+)clitic items, suggests that
in the acquisition of French clitics.
they too transferred L1 structures and parameters to their acquisition of French. Furthermore, the fact
that Spanish participants accurately judged the grammaticality of ditransitive forms of dual
cliticization—which would normally require the additional syntactic operation of spurious se in
Spanish—suggests that they did not transfer this (+)marked form from Spanish to French, as was
predicted via the Markedness Differential Hypothesis. Finally, it appears that English participants did
not analyze object pronoun clitics as idiosyncratic exceptions to the SVO head-first parameter setting,
but as an S-structure operation likely characterized by the movement account in Figure 2.2. This is
evidenced by the highly accurate judgments of English participants on non-clitic items in which
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VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Paradis, J., Crago, M. & Genesee, F. (2003). Object clitics as a clinical marker of SLI in French:
Evidence from French-English bilingual children. Proceedings for the Annual Boston
University Conference on Language Development, 27, 638-649.
Dominguez, L. (2003). Interpreting Reference in the Early Acquisition of Spanish Clitics. In Montrul,
S. & Ordóñez, F. (Eds.) Linguistic Theory and Language Development in Hispanic
Languages. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.
Duffield, Nigel & Lydia White (1999). Assessing L2 knowledge of Spanish clitic placement:
converging methodologies. Second Language Research, 15, 133-160.
Paradis, J. & Crago, M. (2003). What Can SLI Tell Us About Transfer in SLA? In Liceras, J.M.
(Ed). Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition
Conference (GASLA 2002), 219-226.
Parodi, T. (2002). Optionality in developing grammars: Pronouns and clitics in L2 acquisition.
University of Cambridge Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 7, 57-80.
Duffield, N., White, L., DeGaravito, J., Montrul, S. & Prevost, P. (2002). Clitic placement in L2
French: evidence from sentence matching. Journal of Linguistics, 38, 487-525.
Eckman, F. R. (1977). Markedness and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Language Learning,
27, 315–330.
Ellis, Rod (1991). Grammaticality judgments and second language acquisition. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition,13,161-86.
Selinker, L., Swain, M. & Dumas, G. (1975). The interlanguage hypothesis extended to
children. Language Learning, 25, 139-152.
White, Lydia (1996). Clitics in L2 French. In Clahsen, Harald (ed.), Generative perspectives on
language acquisition : empirical findings, theoretical considerations, crosslinguistic
comparisons. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 335-368.
Zobl, Helmut (1980) The formal and developmental selectivity of L1 influence on L2 acquisition.
Language Learning, 30, 43-57.
Flynn, Suzanne (1987). A Parameter-Setting Model of Language Acquisition. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Haegeman, L. (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Hamann, C., Rizzi, L. & Frauenfelder, U. (1996). On the acquisition of Subject and Object clitics in
French. In Clahsen, H. (Ed.). Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition.
Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing, 309-334.
Hawkins, R. (2001). Second Language Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.
Jacobson, P. & Schwartz, R.G. (2002). Morphology in incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking
preschool children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 2341.
Jakobson, R. (1941). Child Language, Aphasia, and Phonological Universals. The Hague: Mouton,
46-89.
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures, applied linguistics language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Mueller, N. (1998). Transfer in bilingual first language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 1, 151-171
Novaković, N. (2004): Language Transfer in the Acquisition of Serbo-Croatian Object Clitics by
French and English Learners of Serbo-Croatia. University of Cambridge Working Papers in
Applied Linguistics, 10, 197-244.
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2). TRAINING SENTENCES USING VOCAB ABOVE
All nouns repeated at least 1x; All verbs repeated 2x
APPENDIX A:
EXPERIMENTAL ITEMS
Le garcon regarde le foot
Le homme envoye le livre à le garcon
Le homme le envoye à le garcon
Le homme trouve le ballon
1.) FRENCH VOCABULARY TRAINING
Controls: only definite articles; only masc. gender; only 3sg verb forms; only regular –er verb types
Note: Translation for each word appeared for 2 seconds after the image + French item
Simple Nouns
Victor mange le poulet
Le garcon donne le pomme à Charles
Charles donne le ballon à Victor
Le garcon le lui donne
Le homme envoye le livre à le garcon
Transitive Verbs
Le homme envoye le ballon à le garcon
Victor regarde le stylo
the boy / le garcon2
Le garcon trouve le manteau
to watch / regarder
Le homme le lui envoye
Charles mange le fromage
Victor regarde le foot
5). GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENT TEST
20 new sentences: 10 (+)clitics (5grammatical / 5
ungrammatical) & 10 (-)clitics (5grammatical / 5
ungrammatical)
Le garcon donne le pomme à Charles
*Mange Victor le pomme
Le homme envoye le ballon à le garcon
Le garcon regarde le homme
Le homme donne le chapeau à Victor
the man / le homme3
to find / trouver
the ball / le ballon
Charles le trouve [p]
to eat / manger
*Le garcon le fromage mange
the book / le livre
Victor le envoye à le garcon [p]
Ditransitive verbs
3). VOCABULARY COMPREHENSION CHECK
25 True/False items; picture-word matching judments
the pen / le stylo
*Le homme donne le à Victor [p]
to give to / donner à
Charles envoye le manteau à le garcon
the coat / le manteau
the hat / le chapeau
soccer / le foot
the cheese / le fromage
*Charles regarde le [p]
Victor le mange [p]
4). TRAINING WITH PRONOUN CLITICS
Using same sentences from #2). above
to send to / envoyer à4
Le garcon regarde le foot
Le garcon le regarde
Le garcon regarde le foot
*Le homme trouve lui [p]
Charles le lui envoye [p]
*Victor trouve le [p]
Proper Nouns
Victor
[no image]
Charles
[no image]
Le homme trouve le ballon
*Le garcon le chapeau donne à Victor
Le homme le trouve
*Victor le fromage regarde
Victor mange le poulet
the apple / le pomme
Victor le mange
Le homme le regarde [p]
*Le garcon le mange pomme
Charles mange le fromage
The ç in garçon was replaced with a simple c for the sake of
consistency and controls
3 The contacted form of l’homme has been ignored in favor of le
homme for the sake of consistency and controls
2
conjugated as envoyes instead of envoie for the sake of
conistency among 3sg verb forms
4
17
Charles donne le ballon à Victor
*Le garcon envoye le lui [p]
Charles lui donne le ballon
Victor donne le stylo à Charles
18