Paradis J, Crago M
McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2000 Aug;43(4):834-47. doi: 10.1044/jslhr.4304.834.
This study compares the morphosyntax of children with SLI to the morphosyntax of children acquiring a second language (L2) to determine whether the optional infinitive phenomenon (M. Rice, K. Wexler, & P. Cleave, 1995; K. Wexler, 1994) is evident in both learner groups and to what extent cross-learner similarities exist. We analyzed spontaneous production data from French-speaking children with SLI, English-speaking L2 learners of French, and French-speaking controls, all approximately 7 years old. We examined the children's use of tense morphology, temporal adverbials, agreement morphology, and distributional contingencies associated with finiteness. Our findings indicate that the use of morphosyntax by children with SLI and by L2 children has significant similarities, although certain specific differences exist. Both the children with SLI and the L2 children demonstrate optional infinitive effects in their language use. These results have theoretical and clinical relevance. First, they suggest that the characterization of the optional infinitive phenomenon in normal development as a consequence of very early neurological change may be too restrictive. Our data appear to indicate that the mechanism underlying the optional infinitive phenomenon extends to normal (second) language learning after the primary acquisition years. Second, they indicate that tense-marking difficulty may not be an adequate clinical marker of SLI when comparing children with impairment to both monolingual and bilingual peers. A more specific clinical marker would be more effective in diagnosing disordered populations in a multilingual context.
本研究将特定语言障碍儿童的形态句法与学习第二语言(L2)的儿童的形态句法进行比较,以确定选择性不定式现象(M. 赖斯、K. 韦克斯勒和P. 克利夫,1995年;K. 韦克斯勒,1994年)在这两组学习者中是否明显,以及学习者之间的相似程度如何。我们分析了来自说法语的特定语言障碍儿童、将法语作为第二语言的英语学习者以及说法语的对照组儿童(年龄均约为7岁)的自发语言产出数据。我们考察了儿童在时态形态、时间状语、一致形态以及与限定性相关的分布性条件方面的使用情况。我们的研究结果表明,特定语言障碍儿童和学习第二语言的儿童在形态句法的使用上有显著的相似之处,尽管也存在某些特定差异。特定语言障碍儿童和学习第二语言的儿童在语言使用中均表现出选择性不定式效应。这些结果具有理论和临床意义。首先,它们表明,将正常发育中的选择性不定式现象归因于非常早期的神经变化的特征描述可能过于局限。我们的数据似乎表明,选择性不定式现象背后的机制在主要习得阶段之后延伸到了正常(第二)语言学习中。其次,它们表明,在将有语言障碍的儿童与单语和双语同龄人进行比较时,时态标记困难可能不是特定语言障碍的充分临床指标。在多语言环境中,一个更具体的临床指标在诊断有语言障碍的人群时会更有效。