abstract: This study explores the acquisition of the determiner phrase (DP) in monolingual (L1) and bilingual (2L1) French. I investigate the acquisition of DP structures and features in the speech of two monolingual French and two bilingual French-English subjects from the CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) corpus. I perform a thorough, longitudinal examination of the children's data, from the ages of 1;10 to 4;00, focusing on the description and analysis of their development of DP elements, words, and structures such as the definite and indefinite articles, demonstratives, and numerals, as well as the DP features of gender, number, and definiteness. I also consider the Adjective Phrase (AP) and its interaction with the DP. This study complicates the traditional view of discrete, simplified stages of DP acquisition, arguing instead for an ongoing and complex process. Application of the Minimalist model of syntactic analysis provides essential insights into the underlying processes of child grammar, and suggests a number of previously unaddressed characteristics and patterns in French DP development. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2015

Previous research about the acquisition of the case-marking systems of ergative languages suggests that children acquire ergative and accusative languages equally easily (Van Valin 1992), depending on the degree to which the case morphology is consistently ergative or accusative and the degree to which adults use the morphology (Pye 1990). However, split-ergative languages incorporate both accusative and ergative systems, some in the midst of a shift away from ergativity, thus providing variable and inconsistent input for children. Yet previous research suggests that children can acquire variable linguistic forms at early stages, reflecting frequencies in which the forms occur in caregiver input (Henry 1998, 2002, Miller 2006, 2007, Westergaard 2009). This study examines the acquisition of split-ergativity in Kurmanji Kurdish, where the direct case is used with both present-tense agents and past-tense patients and the oblique case is used with past-tense agents and present-tense patients. However, recent research suggests the weakening of ergativity in Kurmanji (Dorleijn 1996), resulting in variable use of case-marking. This study examines the acquisition of split-ergativity in Kurmanji when considering the split systems and inconsistent adult input. Data from children (n=12) and caretakers (n=24) include spontaneous speech samples and results from a modified Agent-Patient test (Slobin 1985). Four children from three age groups, 1;6, 2;6, and 3;6, were recorded interacting with caretakers every three months for one hour over a 12-month period. Statistical analyses were conducted focusing on adult patterns (input for children) and children’s production at different ages. Results suggest that Kurmanji may be shifting away from a split-ergative system, with the past tense extending to a double oblique pattern and nouns gradually losing oblique case-marking altogether, resulting in variable case-marking. Data show that children first use ergative case as early as 2;0 and show evidence of repeated use of split-ergative case-marking by 2;6. Even at these early ages, children use similar variability and frequency in case-marking as their caretakers, closer to usage of younger adults versus older adults. Thus children seem to use ergative case-marking early, and when faced with inconsistent input, they ultimately conform to the patterns modeled by the adult community. / text

This paper aims to examine caregiver responses to children's utterances and how the caregiver's responding speech varies during the child's three critical years of language development. The methodology of this paper is a longitudinal study that focuses on how the caregiver uses the language during the child's first three and most important language-wise years. The data comprised three video recordings downloaded from the CHILDES database. The process of analyzing the caregiver's language was then based on Lieven's (1978) semantic categories. These results demonstrated the importance of the caregiver in L1 development.

This thesis investigates the first language acquisition (L1A) of pronominal object clitics in Cypriot Greek (CG) by typically developing (TD) children, focusing on an exceptional form of non–adult–like clitic placement attested in early data. The aim of the present study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to sketch the developmental stages in the course of L1A of CG in relation to other clitic languages. On the other, it investigates whether and to what extent syntactic (Agouraki 2001, Terzi 1999a, 1999b), prosodic (Condoravdi and Kiparsky 2001) and interface approaches (Mavrogiorgos 2012, Revithiadou 2006) can account for early clitic production. Research on L1A of clitic pronouns has demonstrated both clitic realisation and omission in child languages. However, no instances of clitic misplacement have been reported for early European languages, with the interesting exceptions of CG (Petinou & Terzi 2002) and European Portuguese (Lobo & Costa 2012). The present thesis examines the L1A of CG in the age range 2−4 on the basis of spontaneous and experimental data, cross−sectional as well as longitudinal, with a focus on clitic placement. Spontaneous speech data were collected from 8 children, and one of the children was also followed longitudinally for a period of 6 months. An elicited production task performed by 50 children was used to generate 3rd person singular accusative object clitics. The results of the study indicate that, for CG: (i) clitic placement in enclisis environments is adult–like from the onset in structures involving single clitics and clitic clusters, as well as in Clitic Doubling and Clitic Left Dislocation; (ii) clitic misplacement is attested in proclisis contexts in a subset of children aged 2;6 to 3;0; (iii) clitic misplacement does not correlate with early non–finite forms; (iv) occasional realisation of two copies of the clitic is attested in some children aged 2;6 to 3;0; (v) by age 3;6, TD children manifest adult–like clitic placement. These findings raise issues regarding the acquisition of clitics in different classes of languages (Tobler–Mussafia, finiteness–sensitive languages, languages exhibiting second position restrictions), as well as the role of syntax, prosody and the syntax–phonology interface in clitic L1A. The current study suggests that only Tobler–Mussafia languages display clitic misplacement, as attested in the L1A of CG. Clitic misplacement in CG is interpreted within an interface account in line with Revithiadou (2006) and, following the spirit of Bošković (2000), it is assumed that the placement requirement imposed on CG clitics “can be captured in its entirety through a filtering effect of the phonology on the syntax” (2000:105). Clitic placement in CG is an interface phenomenon: the syntax provides two copies of clitic pronouns (Franks 1998) and the syntactic outcome is filtered through a phonology–controlled procedure.

This thesis examines the issue of cross-linguistic influence (CLI), i.e. language interaction, in context of the bilingual first language acquisition of French and English. It establishes itself in the current line of research that aims to refine the language-internal and language-external predictors of CLI (Hulk & Müller, 2000; Nicoladis, 2006; Serratrice, Sorace, & Paoli, 2004). A large body of research has shown that referential markers of discourse-pragmatics (i.e. determiners, pronouns, dislocations) are ideal candidates to investigate CLI (Hacohen & Schaeffer, 2007; Kupisch, 2007; Müller & Hulk, 2001; Notley, van der Linden, & Hulk, 2007; Serratrice, Sorace, Filiaci, & Baldo, 2009; Unsworth, 2012b). The study of the local and global markers of old and new information is particularly interesting in the context of French-English bilingualism as it provides a unique opportunity to examine a range of variables that may affect CLI. The first two studies investigate the role of typological differences and similarities on CLI by examining whether the contrasting distribution of determiners (i.e. presence vs. absence of definite articles in generic noun phrases), and the comparable pronominal systems (i.e. two non-null argument languages) in French and English predict this phenomenon. The analyses are based on the longitudinal corpus of two French-English children (Anne 2;4-3;4 and Sophie 2;6-3;7). At the determiner level, the results indicate the existence of bi-directional CLI that is determined by both structural overlap (Hulk & Müller, 2000) and economical considerations (Chierchia, 1998) as a function of language proficiency. At the pronominal level, the data indicates that CLI does not occur for structurally similar constructions. Aside from moving the issue of CLI from local referential expressions to the sentence level (i.e. dislocations), the third study investigates the role of input quality, language dominance, frequency, and structural complexity on CLI in the longitudinal corpus. The findings clearly show that input quality does not affect this phenomenon. In fact, the data displays a rather complex picture for CLI. It suggests that a multitude of variables interact with one another and drive this phenomenon. In particular, two measures of language dominance (i.e. children’s language exposure and their expressive skills) affect CLI differently as a function of the frequency and complexity of the structure vulnerable to this phenomenon (i.e. determiners vs. dislocations). Finally, the corpus-based analyses are supplemented by two experimental studies using the priming paradigm to investigate the role of language processing and language exposure on CLI. The findings indicate that (i) bilingual children’s mental representation of syntactic structures is affected by the simultaneous acquisition of two languages; and that (ii) language exposure plays a role on the degree of activation of a particular structure in bilingual children’s processing. Ultimately, the present research shows that CLI is caused by the interaction of a multitude of variables (i.e. language processing, language dominance, frequency, structural complexity) rather than being the consequence of a combination of two factors (e.g. structural overlap, discourse-pragmatics interface) (Hulk & Müller, 2000).

The purpose of this study is to see how preschool teachers can support multilingual children and promote their development in their first languages. It was chosen to look at a specific municipality to see how the preschool teachers there work with multilingual children. By using the method of structured interviews, it was learnt that they do, in fact, work actively with multilingual children. The preschool teachers interviewed received the same questions in order to make the answers as comparable and measurable as possible. The results seem to indicate that more resources are needed to fulfil the needs of children with another first language than Swedish. The representatives of the municipality have chosen to concentrate on the two foreign languages that are the most common among the multilingual children in the municipality, viz. Arabic and Somali. Children who have other first language receive no formal training in their first language in preschool. One reason for the modest number of first-language teachers in the municipality – one in Arabic and one in Somali – is the fact that it is hard to find and recruit qualified first-language teachers. / Syftet med denna undersökning är att se hur några pedagoger på förskolan kan stötta flerspråkiga barn och främja deras språkutveckling i modersmålet. En kommun valdes ut för att se hur de arbetar med flerspråkiga barn. Genom att använda metoden strukturerade intervjuer framkom att pedagogerna faktiskt arbetar aktivt med de flerspråkiga barnen. Resultaten verkar tyda på att det skulle behövas mer resurser för att tillgodose behoven hos de barn som har ett annat förstaspråk än svenska. Kommunens representanter har valt att koncentrera sig på de två språk som är vanligast bland kommunens flerspråkiga barn, nämligen arabiska och somaliska. Barn med andra förstaspråk får ingen formell undervisning i sina förstaspråk i förskolan. En anledning till det blygsamma antalet modersmålslärare i kommunen – en i arabiska och en i somaliska – är det faktum att det är svårt att hitta och rekrytera kvalificerade modersmålslärare.

abstract: Codeswitching, or the bilingual practice of switching between two languages, is a frequently misunderstood phenomenon in many fields, including education. Given the growing number of bilingual students and English Language Learners in U.S. schools, it is imperative that the field of education be informed by current research in bilingualism and language acquisition, including codeswitching. Codeswitching that occurs within a sentence is subject to specific rules derived from the languages involved in the switching. Furthermore, a codeswitcher's intuitions about the grammatical acceptability of certain switches over others, called grammaticality judgments, provide linguists with a unique window into how the language systems interact. In current codeswitching research, it is sometimes claimed that simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals provide more accurate grammaticality judgments than late sequential bilinguals. Although this claim is largely motivated by Critical Period Hypothesis research, the grammaticality judgments of the three groups of bilinguals have yet to be systematically compared to determine if there is indeed a difference in judgments. This dissertation investigates potential differences in intrasentential codeswitching patterns of simultaneous, early sequential and late sequential Slovak-English bilinguals (N = 39) through a comparison of grammaticality judgments. Analysis of potential differences is grounded in generative approaches to first and second language acquisition. Grammaticality judgments from Slovak-English bilinguals were elicited through a survey of constructed items. Chi square results are analyzed to determine variation in judgments attributable to bilingual group based on age of onset of exposure to English. In addition, a sub-study of data from the Welsh-English Siarad Corpus (http://www.siarad.org.uk/siarad.php) is presented. Normed token means for English and mixed tokens for simultaneous, early sequential, and late sequential bilinguals are compared using ANOVA tests, and variability is discussed in light of relevant theoretical considerations. Results from this study indicate that there are few differences attributable to age of onset of exposure, thus helping to clarify current practices in codeswitching research methodology, particularly in terms of identifying characteristics of participants. The study also addresses issues surrounding the critical period hypothesis and the effect of age of onset of exposure in bilingualism, topics which are both directly relevant to the field of education. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2010

The present study investigates the relevance of fundamental frequency in speech segmentation models intended to simulate infants. Speech from three different conditions (infant-directed speech to 3- and 12-month-olds, and adult-directed speech) was segmented based on fundamental frequency information, using a variant of the dpn-gram segmenting technique (highlighting similar segments as lexical candidates). The spectral distance between segments that were found based on fundamental frequency similarity was calculated, and compared to the spectral distance between segments that were found using transcription as basis for segmentation, as well as to the spectral distance between randomly paired segments from the same speech materials. The results show the greatest within-condition difference in speech directed to 3-month-olds, in which segmenting based on fundamental frequency similarity generated segment pairs with smaller spectral distance than did transcription-based segmentation or random segment pairs. Speech directed to 12-month-olds resulted in a somewhat smaller difference when using fundamental frequency data compared to when using transcriptions. For adult-directed speech, no difference was found in spectral distance between pairs generated by the different bases for segmentation. Neither segmenting speech by highlighting similar segments as lexical candidates, nor using fundamental frequency as basis for segmentation is optimal for a speech segmentation model intended to simulate 12-month-olds or adults. These groups are more likely to segment speech based on their already present or growing linguistic experience than on acoustic similarity only. However, for a model simulating a 3-month-old infant, the present segmentation procedure and its basis for segmentation are more plausible. When modeling speech segmentation in an infant-like manner it is important to take into account both that the cognitive abilities of infants develop rapidly during the first year of life, and that some aspects of their linguistic environment vary during this period.

This thesis investigates the relationship between speech production and speech perception in the early stages of phonological and lexical acquisition. Previous studies have mainly focused on independent investigations of speech production and perception abilities in language acquisition. This thesis connects the individual speech production capacities to the child's perception and is organized around three major studies: Study I explores methodological alternatives such as the combination of EEG and eye-tracking in different Swedish participant groups: adults, 17-month-olds, and 24-month-olds. Visual and auditory stimuli, as well as the connection between word production and word perception are explored. Study II investigates phonological capacities in terms of consonant inventory, percentage of correctly pronounced words, segmental errors, as well as phonological templates in relation to vocabulary size in a group of Swedish 18-month-olds. Study III studies the influence of the children's individual phonological and lexical capacities in speech production on their word recognition in a group of Swedish toddlers with a productive vocabulary size above 100 words. The general results show that children accept mispronounced word forms as appropriate word candidates when the word forms are related to their individual word production. The occurrence of segmental errors increases with vocabulary size, and phonological templates are more likely to be observed in children with a productive vocabulary size above 100 words. The results thus indicate an influence of the individual child's production on word recognition, and a relationship between phonological capacities and lexical knowledge. These insights contribute to theoretical debates in linguistics regarding the abstractness of phonological word form representations and reveal a closer relationship between production and perceptual abilities in toddlers than what has previously been shown.

The thesis presents an overview of the layers on which speech develo- pment can be studied and a brief account of the main theoretical branches within these layers. It accounts for the periodization of a child's speech development according to Czech and foreign authors. In the thesis, a syllable is introduced as a phonological unit. Attention is also paid to the related layer of phonotactics; important works concerning the phonotactics of child's speech are mentioned. The target of the experimental part is a longitudinal case study of a child acqui- ring Czech as her mother tongue. For the purpose of the study, a corpus of the child's utterances in her natural environment between the ages of 7 to 27 months was built. The utterances have been analyzed with respect to the frequency of occurrence of different syllable types, with closed syllables and syllables with con- sonant clusters in the center of interest. The found consonant clusters and their reductions have been further analyzed with respect to the findings of the phono- tactic studies mentioned in the theoretical part, in order to confirm or dismiss their relevance for Czech. Most importantly, two theories have been checked, the frames theory commenting on the combinatory potential of the front/middle/back vowels and coronal/labial/dorsal...