Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential acquisition: Null subjects and null objects in Polish-German bilingualism

Abstract

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The topic of cross-linguistic influence regarding the overt or null expression of arguments has been frequently considered regarding bilinguals acquiring language pairs in which the null option is licensed by one and not both of the two languages. The goal of this study is to investigate whether simultaneous and sequential bilinguals differ from monolinguals in the case of the acquisition of Polish and German; that is, languages which both license null subjects and null objects, but in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differs. We focus on the acquisition of null arguments as silent but syntactically active bundles of features. Design/methodology/approach: We compare the use of null subjects and null objects by 72 bilingual and 45 monolingual children in experimental setting: acceptability judgement and sentence repetition. Data and analysis: The distribution of null arguments in production and judgement data of simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals was compared to the data of monolinguals. Findings/conclusions: The study has revealed that early sequential Polish-German bilinguals avoid null subjects in L2 German at an advanced stage of acquisition, even though null subjects are quite frequent in their L1. The slower acquisition of null subjects in early L2 German in comparison to null objects in the case of Polish-German bilinguals demonstrates that the dissimilarity between the null subjects in both languages may lead to the delay effect in the acquisition. The findings suggest that the cross-linguistic influence is due to the increased complexity inherent to the integration of syntactic and pragmatic information in case of null arguments. Originality: Unlike previous studies, we focus on the acquisition of null arguments in a language pair, Polish and German, in which the null option is licensed by both grammars, and in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differ.