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Strong and clitic pronouns in monolingual and bilingual acquisition of French and Italian*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

KATRIN SCHMITZ  and
NATASCHA MÜLLER
KATRIN SCHMITZ*
Affiliation:
University of Wuppertal
NATASCHA MÜLLER
Affiliation:
University of Wuppertal
*
Address for correspondence: Dr. Katrin Schmitz, c/o University of Wuppertal, Gaußstraße 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germanykschmitz@uni-wuppertal.de
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Abstract

The present article investigates the acquisition of the pronominal systems by French and Italian monolingual children and by bilingual German–French and German–Italian children, demonstrating a stable asymmetry: object and reflexive clitics are acquired later than nominative clitics and strong subject and object pronouns. We will widen the scope of former investigations to include the acquisition of strong pronouns and argue that the observed asymmetry can be accounted for if we combine the external (categorial status) and internal syntax of pronouns (internal structure). In particular, we argue for the relevance of the absence/presence of a nominal layer (N-layer) in the internal structure of a pronoun. This approach can account for the observation that pronouns containing an N-layer, i.e., strong subject pronouns, subject clitics and strong object pronouns, are acquired simultaneously and earlier than pronouns which lack the N-layer, i.e., object clitics and reflexive clitics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 19 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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Footnotes

*

We are grateful for the comments of the anonymous reviewers. We would also like to thank Jeff Richards for correcting our English.

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