This paper presents a longitudinal study on the acquisition of
first,
second, and third person pronouns in twelve French-speaking and
twelve English-speaking children. Comprehension and production data
were collected every two months, beginning when the subjects were
aged 1;6 and ending once pronouns were fully acquired. Three hypotheses
concerning the rules children develop in learning pronouns
were tested: (1) the person-role hypothesis (Charney, 1980), (2) the
speech-role hypothesis (Clark, 1978), and (3) the name hypothesis
(Clark, 1978). An analysis of children's pronominal confusion when
they
were addressed listeners as well as when they were non-addressed
listeners was performed. The results indicated that the mastery of
pronouns did not follow the developmental sequence predicted by the
speech-role hypothesis; they provided evidence for the person-role
hypothesis only when children were speakers, and partially supported
the name hypothesis. The data also suggested that pronominal confusion
is not a rare phenomenon among children tested in a non-addressee
context. Finally, effects of child gender and native language were
observed. Possible interpretations of the data are discussed.