Abstract
The aim of this article is to discuss the role of input characteristics in the development of French verb morphology. From a usage-based perspective, several cognitive and linguistic factors contribute to the ease or difficulty of processing input in L2 acquisition. This article concentrates on frequency, salience, and form–function association, factors that might influence what aspects of input are available to the learners’ attention. A presentation of French verb morphology from this perspective shows how these factors can contribute to the use of the regular -er verb paradigm as a default. A review of empirical studies confirms the influence of input characteristics. The results suggest that the dominant pattern of regular verbs and the scarcity of salient clues from irregular verbs contribute to the specificity of L2 French development. The conclusion addresses the question of enriching L2 classroom input with irregular verbs. Such an input could facilitate the perception of form–function association, and thus, contribute to a more efficient development of French verb morphology. The article concludes by suggesting other ways of studying the influence of input as well as avenues for future research.
Highlights
This contribution to the special issue on the acquisition of French will focus on the role of input in the development of L2 French
This section is devoted to a short introduction of some linguistic factors that contribute to input processing: frequency, salience, and form–function association
This article presented a review of studies that examined the relationship between input characteristics and the L2 development of verb morphology
Summary
This contribution to the special issue on the acquisition of French will focus on the role of input in the development of L2 French. Schmidt (2001) presented the basic assumptions of attention, which, besides controlling access to consciousness, is limited and selective His assertion that “SLA is largely driven by what learners pay attention to and notice in target language input and what they understand the significance of noticed input to be.” I will mainly focus on linguistic factors that interact with the attentional processes, making a specific phenomenon of the target language more or less available to the focus of attention, and more or less available as input to the learner Some of these factors are presented .
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