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Wh-questions in child bilingual acquisition of French: Derivational complexity and cross-linguistic influence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Nelleke Strik
Nelleke Strik*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Abstract

This study investigates the development of wh-questions in French in a group of bilingual French-Dutch children. Fifteen children (aged 4 to 8, mean age 6;03, first exposure to French under age 4 for most of the children) participated in an elicited production task. Their results were compared to those of 4-year-old and 6-year-old monolingual children from a previous study. In order to examine possible influence from Dutch, two main hypotheses with contrasting predictions are proposed: structural overlap and derivational complexity. The results show that the bilingual children exhibited the same developmental course for wh-questions as their monolingual peers. The majority of responses involved wh-fronting without inversion, whereas wh-fronting with inversion, the only possible structure in Dutch, was not frequent. Therefore, the results do not provide clear evidence for influence from Dutch. Instead, they confirm that derivational complexity constrains the development of wh-questions in French.

Résumé

Résumé

Cette étude porte sur les questions wh en français chez des enfants bilingues françaisnéerlandais. Quinze enfants (âgés de 4 à 8 ans, âge moyen 6;03, première exposition au français en dessous de 4 ans pour la majorité) ont participé à une tâche de production induite. Leurs résultats ont été comparés à ceux des enfants monolingues de 4 ans et de 6 ans d’une étude précédente. Pour examiner l’influence possible du néerlandais, deux hypothèses principales sont proposées : le chevauchement structural et la complexité dérivationnelle. Les résultats montrent un développement similaire à celui des enfants monolingues. Les questions à wh antéposé sans inversion sont les plus fréquentes, alors que les questions à wh antéposé avec inversion, la seule structure possible en néerlandais, sont plus rares. Par conséquent, les résultats ne contiennent pas de preuve évidente d’influence du néerlandais. En revanche, ils confirment que la complexité dérivationnelle contraint le développement des questions wh en français.

Keywords

wh-questionsbilingual acquisitioncross-linguistic influencederivational complexitystructural overlapquestions whacquisition bilingueinfluence interlanguecomplexité dérivationnellechevauchement structural
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 133 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2012 

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