ISB 6. The 6th International Symposium on Bilingualism.
June 2, 2007 - University of Hamburg
DIMINUTIVES AND GENDER AWARENESS IN BILINGUAL ACQUISITION
Leonie Cornips
Meertens Institute
Royal Netherlands Academy
leonie.cornips@meertens.knaw.nl
1.
Aafke Hulk
University of Amsterdam
aafke.hulk@uva.nl
Susanne Brouwer
Max Planck Institute
Nijmegen
susanne.brouwer@mpi.nl
Problems with the acquisition of neuter definite determiner het
Table 1: Dutch morphology of definite determiners
Definite determiners
Gender of noun Singular
Plural
common
de
de
neuter
de
het
Production data bilingual children (Blom et al. 2006, this talk); (Hulk & Cornips 2006a,b);
(Cornips & Hulk 2006); (Cornips et al. 2006):
 Age of ultimate attainment acquisition het unclear/after age 13;
 Quantity and quality of input seem to be crucial.
Production data monolingual children:
Van de Velde (2004), Policenska (p.c., control groups), Hulk & Cornips (2006a,b), Cornips et
al. (2006), Blom et al. (2006):
 Initially almost only de, later massive overgeneralization of de both with neuter and
common nouns;
 Het comes in slowly and late: no targetlike production before age 6 at the earliest,
errors persist until a more advanced age.
This is different from what happens in the L1 acquisition process of other languages with
gender morphology on the definite determiner. Especially, the difference with German is
striking: in German monolingual children produce articles with the correct gender around age
3 (Mills 1986).
2.
A linguistic analysis of the acquisition of grammatical gender
Hawkins & Franceschina (2004): D has an un-interpretable, grammatical gender feature
which has to be erased/checked by the lexical gender feature of the noun:
Initially children do not have this un-interpretable gender feature on D in their
grammar. Their (non targetlike) use of different forms of the determiner is not based
on grammatical concord with the noun, but on other strategies, related to the
phonological cues;
A point in the development comes when the grammatical u-gender feature on D is
triggered – thereafter their use is targetlike.
1
Possible triggers according to Hawkins & Franceschina (2004):


Paradigmatic link between definite and indefinite articles;
Input above a certain threshold.
What about Dutch – what could be the trigger?
Not much evidence in the input:



No paradigmatic link between definite and indefinite article wrt grammatical gender,
no gender on indefinite articles, no gender on plural definite articles but gender on
single definite articles and demonstratives;
Other gender marked elements: confusing. Gender marking on pronominal elements
are partially based on other features [± count, ± animate];
Frequency differences between neuter (25%) and common (75%) nouns.
HOWEVER
One salient trigger for grammatical gender: the diminutive suffix
In Dutch any noun, regardless of its lexical gender, “becomes” neuter in taking the diminutive
suffix -(t)je:
(1)
a.
b.
c.
(2)
a.
b.
c.
de
tafel
the (COMMON) table
het
tafeltje
the (NEUTER) table + DIM
de
tafel-tje-s
the (PLUR) table (DIM) PLUR
het
boek
the (NEUTER) book
het
boekje
the (NEUTER) book + DIM
de
boek-je-s
the (PLUR) book (DIM) PLUR
3.
Diminutives and the acquisition of grammatical gender
3.1
Experimental production data
Van de Velde (2003, 2004): monolingual children
In an experiment eliciting the definite determiner, Dutch children age 3 make significantly
less errors with diminutives than with other neuter nouns; for 4 and 6 year olds, this difference
is clearly present but not statistically significant.
2
Van Ginkel (2006:49): monolingual production: similar results
Table 2: The determiner production by monolingual children, age 6;0 – 7;6, for neuter nouns
and diminutives in an elicitation task (picture description task based on Blom 2006), target in
grey
PRODUCTION MONOLINGUALS
n=8
age
6;0-7;6
neuter nouns
diminutives
de
39
40.6 %
19
14.8 %
het
47
49 %
103 80.5 %
een ‘a’
10
10.4 %
6
4.7 %
Ø
0
0
%
0
0
%
total
96
100 %
128 100 %
Table 3: The determiner production by monolingual children, age 10;3 – 11;5, for neuter
nouns and diminutives in an elicitation task (picture description task based on Blom 2006),
target in grey
PRODUCTION MONOLINGUALS
n=8
age
10;3-11;5
neuter nouns
diminutives
de
15
15.6 %
6
4.7 %
het
76
79.2 %
117 91.4 %
een ‘a’
4
4.2 %
4
3.1 %
Ø
1
1
%
0
0
%
total
96
100 %
128 100 %
HOWEVER,
Van Ginkel (2006:49): bilingual – Turkish-Dutch production results
Table 4: The determiner production by Turkish-Dutch children, age 6;0 – 7;6, for neuter
nouns and diminutives in an elicitation task (picture description task based on Blom 2006),
target in grey
PRODUCTION BILINGUAL – TURKISH-DUTCH
n=10
age
6;0-7;6
neuter nouns
diminutives
de
63
52.5 %
75
46.9 %
het
55
45.8 %
77
48.1 %
een ‘a’
1
0.8 %
3
1.9 %
Ø
1
0.8 %
4
2.5 %
missing
0
0
%
1
0.6 %
total
120 99.9 %
160 100 %
3
Table 5: The determiner production by Turkish-Dutch children, age 10;0-11;10, for neuter
nouns and diminutives in an elicitation task (picture description task based on Blom 2006),
target in grey
PRODUCTION BILINGUAL – TURKISH-DUTCH
n=11
age
10;0-11;10
neuter nouns
diminutives
de
53
40.2%
58
33%
het
77
58.3%
114 64.8%
een ‘a’
2
1.5%
2
1.1%
Ø
0
0%
1
0.6%
missing
0
0%
1
0.6%
total
132 100%
176 100.1%
The production data of the bilingual children in Table 4 & 5 differ from the monolingual
results in Table 2 & 3.
QUESTIONS
Is there awareness of grammatical gender at all? More specifically, do the bilingual
children recognize the ‘diminutive’ as trigger for grammatical gender?
4.
Knowledge awareness experiments
4.1
Experimental design (see Brouwer 2006)
An experimental design is set up to “tap the knowledge” in monolingual and bilingual
children with respect to their gender system of definite determiners of diminutives. Spoken
items are paired with an identical image on the screen of a laptop monitor. The subjects have
to decide as soon as possible whether the spoken item is correct or incorrect in Dutch. They
responded by pressing buttons on a button box. One button had a happy smiley face that the
subjects pressed to indicate they believed the sentence to be correct Dutch, and another button
had a sad smiley face that the subjects pressed if they believed the sentence to be incorrect
Dutch.
After the practice session, two lists with each 32 spoken experimental items, are
offered (see table 6). Every experimental item consists of correct: Ik zie het hondje ‘I see theN
dog-DIMN; and incorrect: Ik zie *de hondje ‘I see theC dog- DIMN. In other words, each
presented diminutive is paired with a correct and an incorrect definite determiner. Moreover, a
distinction is made between 8 common and 8 neuter nouns.
4
Table 6: Overview of all presented items
Grammatical form
Practice items
3
Experimental items 16
common noun
8
e.g.
Ik zie het lepeltje
‘I see the spoonC-DIM’
neuter noun
8
e.g.
Ik zie het paardje
‘I see the horseN-DIM’
Fillers
4
Ungrammatical form
*3
* 16
*8
* Ik zie de lepeltje
* ‘I see the spoonC-DIM’
*8
* Ik zie de paardje
* ‘I see the horseN-DIM’
*4
Total
6
32
16
16
8
Examples:
Ik zie het hondje; *Ik zie de hondje
‘I see the dog-common-DIM’
4.2
Ik zie het schaapje; *Ik zie de schaapje
‘I see the sheep-neuter-DIM’
Results diminutives (Van Ginkel 2006)
Table 7: Accuracy rates (% correct) of *DE+DIM and HET+DIM by monolingual children in
two age groups, target in grey
input
L1
L1
n=8
n=8
age
6;0-7;6
10;3-11;5
correct
incorrect correct
incorrect
judgment judgment judgment judgment
correct
116
12
123
5
HET+DIM 90.6%
9.4%
96.1%
3.9%
incorrect
56
72
97
31
DE+DIM 43.7%
56.3%
75.8%
24.2%
Table 8: Accuracy rates (% correct) of DE+DIM and HET+DIM by bilingual TurkishDutch children in two age groups, target in grey
input
bilingual
bilingual
n=10
n=11
age
6;0-7;6
10;3-11;5
correct
incorrect correct
incorrect
judgment judgment judgment judgment
correct
145
15
153
23
HET+DIM 90.6%
9.4%
86.9%
13.1%
incorrect
26
34
96
80
DE+DIM 16.2%
83.8%
54.5%
45.5%
5
•
Bilinguals of both age groups reveal much lower accuracy rates for incorrect
*DE+DIM than monolinguals; high accuracy rates for correct HET+DIM may be due to
‘yes’-strategy (cf Brouwer et al.); Question: is diminutive a trigger?
However:
•
Bilinguals reveal development between age groups 6-7;6 and 10;3-11;5. The
accuracy-rates for incorrect *DE+DIM increase from 16.2% to 54.5%, respectively.
5.
Discussion
bilingual children age 6;0 – 7;6
do not produce more correct het with diminutives (45.8%) than non-diminutives
(48.1%; see Table 4);
are not ‘aware’ of neuter gender with respect to diminutives (accuracy rate of incorrect
*de + diminutives is 16.2 %, see Table 8).
•
•
-
bilingual children age 10;3 -11;5
produce some more correct het with diminutives (64.8%) than with non-diminutives
(58.3%; see Table 5);
show some ‘awareness’ of neuter gender with respect to diminutives (accuracy rate of
incorrect *de + diminutives is 54.5 %, see Table 8). Although 54.5% is around chance
level, it’s a much higher percentage than in the younger bilingual group (16.2%).
JUST DELAY?
However, with respect to the acquisition of neuter gender in Dutch, even 11-13 years old
bilinguals are still non-targetlike and significantly different from monolinguals of the same
age both in production (see Cornips et al. 2006) and ‘awareness’ (see Brouwer et al. 2006).
QUESTION
•
Do bilinguals need another trigger than diminutives? OR
•
Do they fossilize?
6
References
Berkum, J.J.A. van (1996). The psycholinguistics of grammatical gender. Studies in
language comprehension and production. Nijmegen: Nijmegen University
Press.
Blom, E. (2005). Dutch adjectival inflection: L1, child L2 and adult L2 learners. Talk
presented at the Radboud University.
Blom, E., D. Polisenská & F. Weerman. (2006). Effects of age in the acquisition of
gender: a three-way distinction between child L1, child L2 and adult L2 acquisition.
Talk presented at Amsterdam Gender Colloquium, Vrije Universiteit, 16 September
2006.
Bol, G.W., and Kuiken, F. (1988). Grammaticale analyse van taalontwikkelingsstoornissen.
Phd. Dissertation. University of Amsterdam.
Brouwer, S. (2006). An experimental study about possible dissociation between
representation and processing definite determiners of L1 and child L2 Dutch in
different sociolinguistic contexts. Trainee report Meertens Institute/University of
Utrecht.
Brouwer, S., L. Cornips & A. Hulk. (2007). Misrepresentation of Dutch neuter gender in older
bilingual children? ms. University of Utrecht, Meertens Instituut & University of
Amsterdam.
Cornips, L. & A. Hulk. (2006). Bilingual and bidialectal language development:
grammatical gender in Dutch. Lefebvre, C., L. White & C. Jourdan (eds).The
Montreal Dialogues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cornips, L., M. van der Hoek & R. Verwer (2006). The acquisition of grammatical
gender in bilingual child acquisition of Dutch (by older Moroccan and Turkish
children). The definite determiner, attributive adjective and relative pronoun.
Linguistics-in-The Netherlands, 2006. B. Los & J. van de Weijer (eds): 40-51.
Gillis, S., Schaerlaekens, A.M. (eds.). Kindertaalverwerving. Een handboek voor het
Nederlands. Groningen: Martinus Nijhoff.
Ginkel, B. van (2006). “De verwerving van lexicaal en morfologisch bepaald geslacht. Een
onderzoek naar tweede taalverwerving bij eentalige Nederlandse kinderen en
tweetalige Turks-Nederlandse kinderen”. Master thesis Meertens Instituut/University
of Utrecht.
De Houwer, A. and S. Gillis. 1998. The acquisition of Dutch. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Hawkins, Roger & Florencia Franceschina. (2004). “Explaining the acquisition and nonacquisition of determiner-noun gender concord in French and Spanish”. The
acquisition of French in Different Contexts ed. by P. Prévost & J. Paradis, 175–205.
Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Hulk, A. to appear. Deviance in early child bilingualism. LSRL
Hulk, A. & L. Cornips (2006a) ‘Neuter gender and interface vulnerability in child
L2/2L1 Dutch. In: Sharon, U. et. al. (eds.), Paths of Development in L1 and L2
acquisition: In honor of Bonnie D. Schwartz. 2006. p. 107–134.’
Hulk, A. & L. Cornips. (2006b). Between 2L1 - and child L2 acquisition: an
experimental study of bilingual Dutch. Interfaces in Multilingualism:
Acquisition and representation. Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism Vol 4.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. C. Lleo (ed), pp. 115-137.
Hulk, A. C. J. and N. Müller 2000. Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface
between syntax and pragmatics'. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3 (3):
227-244.
Meisel, J. 1989. "Early differentiation of language in bilingual children." In
7
Bilingualism across a lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and loss, K.
Hyltenstam and L. Obler (eds.), 13-40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mills, A.E. (1986). Mills, A. (1986) The acquisition of gender. A Study of English and
German. Berlijn-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag,.
Müller, N. & A. Hulk 2001. "Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual first language
acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages." Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition 4 (1): 1-21.
Sabourin, L.L., and Haverkort, M. (2003). Neural substrates of representation and
processing of a second language. In: R. van Hout, A. Hulk, F. Kuiken, R.
Towell (eds.). The lexicon-syntax interface in second language acquisition.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sabourin, L.L. (to appear). Grammatical gender agreement in L2 processing.
Research Proposal. University of Groningen.
Unsworth, S. (2006). "On the acquisition of noun gender in 2L1A/child L2 Dutch."
Talk presented at the Linguistic in the Netherlands day, 4 February.
Unsworth, S. (in press). Age and input in early child bilingualism: The acquisition of
grammatical gender in Dutch.’ In A. Belikova, L. Meroni and M. Umeda (eds.). Galana 2Proceedings of the Conference on generative Aprroaches to langzame Acquisition North
America 2. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Velde, M. van der (2004). L'acquisition des determinants en L1: une etude
comparative entre le Francais et le Néerlandais. Acquisition et interaction en
langue etrangere, 21, 9 - 46.
Velde, M. van der (2002). Determiner acquisition in Dutch and French. TIN-dag
(Linguistics in the Netherlands). University Utrecht.
8