Finiteness and Verb Placement in Early Child Grammars: Evidence from Simultaneous Acquisition of French and German in Bilinguals

Abstract

Early child language exhibits a number of properties, e.g. a lack of case and agreement markings, word order patterns deviating from the adult norm, etc., which seem to indicate that child grammars differ in crucial ways from their adult counterparts. This observation might lead to the conclusion that child grammars do not conform to the principles of Universal Grammar (UG) which, according to linguistic theory, shape the grammars of natural languages. Although it is conceivable that these principles are subject to maturation, it is preferable to first explore explanations which will account for the noted particularities of child language without forcing us to assume a difference in kind between developing and mature grammars.