Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation investigates (direct) object clitics and object omission in the acquisition of French as a first language. It reports on two original empirical studies which were designed to address aspects of object omission in child French that have remained unexplored in previous research. Study 1 investigates the incidence of object omission in the spontaneous speech of French-speaking children aged three and above, an age group for which no analysis, and only little data, have been available so far. Findings show that object omission continues to occur at non-negligible rates in this group. A comparison with age- and language-matched groups of English- and Chinese-speaking children (from Wang, Lillo-Martin; Best & Levitt 1992) suggests that French-speaking children omit objects at higher rates than their English-speaking peers, yet at lower rates than children acquiring a true null object language, such as Chinese. Study 2 was designed to investigate whether French-speaking children would accept null objects on a receptive task, an issue that has not been previously investigated. A series of truth value judgment experiments is developed, adapting an experimental paradigm that has not been used previously in the context of null objects. Results from English- and French-speaking children show that both groups consistently reject null objects on these tasks, a finding that constitutes counterevidence to proposals which attribute object omission in production to a genuine null object representation sanctioned by the child grammar. Overall, the pattern of results turns out not to be consistent with any developmental proposals made in the literature, suggesting that a novel approach is required. Proposing a minimalist adaptation of Sportiche's (1996) analysis of clitic constructions, and taking into consideration the recent emphasis on 'interface' requirements imposed by language-external systems, I put forward a hypothesis for future research, the Decayed Features Hypothesis (DFH), which locates the source of object (clitic) omission in child French in a specific language-external domain, namely the capacity of working memory.

Mémoire (M.Ed.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2000. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-150).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-150).

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This study partially replicates and re-explores specific dimensions of a textbook analysis of the presentation and use of specific grammatical elements and sociolinguistic variants in textbooks published in the United States for learners of French. Authenticity is situated as a central construct in the analysis of interrogatives, relative pronouns, and the negative particle ne in selected textbooks and ancillary materials. The findings reveal that little progress has been made over the past twenty years in integrating authentic representations of discourse into French-as-a-foreign-language textbooks.

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In this thesis, the three hypotheses on the nature of early L2 acquisition (the Full Transfer/Full Access view of Schwartz and Sprouse (e.g., 1996), the Minimal Trees view of Vainikka and Young-Scholten (e.g., 1996), and the Valueless Features view of Eubank (e.g., 1996)), are discussed. Analysis of the early French production by two native speakers of Moroccan Arabic is done to determine if the L1 grammar is transferred onto the L2 grammar. In particular, the phenomena of verb-raising (as determined by the verb's position vis-a-vis negation) and finiteness are examined. The results of this study indicate that the relevant structures of Moroccan Arabic do not transfer onto the emerging French grammar.