Topicality in L1-acquisition

A contrastive analysis of null subject expressions in child French and German

Nicole Hauser-Grüdl | Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Although the study of human information structure has become a major field of linguistic interest, little research has examined topicality in L1-acquisition. Those studies dealing with topicality in child speech almost all focus on the question if children do or do not possess the adult ability to correctly identify and encode topics. The child’s performance of encoding topical information is thus classified as “correct” if it corresponds to the adult norm or as “deficient” in case it doesn’t. Such a way of interpreting the data does not consider that children’s topic-marking may follow its own rules, which are based on a different understanding of children of what a topic is. This latter possibility will be discussed in this article for the domain of null subjects in child French and German.

Published online: 09 September 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.165.08hau

Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Schmitz, Katrin, Marisa Patuto & Natascha Müller

2012. The null-subject parameter at the interface between syntax and pragmatics: Evidence from bilingual German–Italian, German–French and Italian–French children. First Language 32:1-2 ► pp. 205 ff.

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