Language-particular or language-independent factors in acquisition? Children's comprehension of object pronouns in Dutch, French and German

Abstract

Children's comprehension of direct and indirect object pronouns in Dutch, French and German was studied in order to determine the role of language-particular factors in acquisition. The pronoun systems of the three languages differ on a number of dimensions that have been assumed to influence the acquisition process: the phonological proper ties of pronouns (clitic vs. non-clitic); the position of the pronoun in the sentence and the phrasal category in which the pronoun occurs: prepositional ([ppPREP[NP[PRO]]]) vs non-prepositional ([NP[PRO]]). A picture-matching task was used. Three age groups, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children, were tested. The results indicate that language- particular properties, at least in the part of the grammar investigated here, do not play the role assumed in some theories of language development, but that more abstract, language-independent proper ties of the pronouns, such as their function as internal verbal argu ments, are relevant for acquisition. Those language-particular factors which were observed are secondary and restricted to limited domains.