Acquisition of morphology by L2 children in naturalistic environments: a case of Japanese case markers

Abstract

Abstract This study investigated the second language (L2) acquisition of Japanese case markers among children in naturalistic environments. L2 Japanese children with Chinese backgrounds (n = 187) and monolingual Japanese children (n = 280) were tested on their productive knowledge of four case markers: ga, o, ni, and de. Test scores correlated more strongly with length of residence (LOR) than age of acquisition in the current L2 group (LOR mean = 4.98 years). Most L2 children reached age-matched monolingual norms after an LOR of 2–5 years, although some did not reach the norms within this time frame. The nominative and accusative case markers, ga and o, were generally easier than the other two case markers, even though there are no equivalent morphological markers in Chinese. This indicates that the absence of these markers in the first language is not always a determining factor for the difficulty in naturalistic child L2 acquisition.