The contributions in this volume are based on an analysis of data from bilingual children acquiring French and German simultaneously. The longitudinal studies started at approximately age one year and six months and continued till age six.
The papers focus on the development of specific grammatical phenomena; explanations are given within the framework of the Principle and Parameter approach. The study is primarily concerned with the acquisition of so-called 'functional categories' and the consequences of their acquisition for the development of grammar. Specific points dealt with in these papers include: gender, number and case and their internal structure (DP vs NP); inflection and its consequences for agreement marking; and word order phenomena (subject-raising constructions (incl. passives), word order in subordinate clauses).
The basic hypothesis underlying this study is that early child grammars consist only of lexical categories and that functional categories are implemented later in the child's grammar. How this happens exactly is the central issue explored in this book.
2025. The Role of Environmental Factors on Grammatical Development in French–English Bilinguals Attending a Dual Language Programme in France. Languages 10:1 ► pp. 6 ff.
Silva Colaço, Isabel, Dinah Hoffmann, Laura D’Aurizio & Natascha Müller
2025. Acceleration in multilingual children: the case of French. International Multilingual Research Journal 19:4 ► pp. 352 ff.
2024. AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF CODE-SWITCHING IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL. JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE STUDIES 8:6 ► pp. 77 ff.
Guo, Qiang & Ruying Qi
2024. A Study of Bilingual Acquisition of Wh-Questions of a Mandarin-English Bilingual Preschool Child from China to Australia. Education Sciences 14:9 ► pp. 978 ff.
Müller, Natascha
2023. AAiMLL: Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners: The Case of the Multilingual Child. Languages 9:1 ► pp. 8 ff.
Sagarra, Nuria & Nicole Rodriguez
2022. Subject–Verb Number Agreement in Bilingual Processing: (Lack of) Age of Acquisition and Proficiency Effects. Languages 7:1 ► pp. 15 ff.
Stahnke, Johanna
2022. The Acquisition of French Determiners by Bilingual Children: A Prosodic Account. Languages 7:3 ► pp. 200 ff.
Sopata, Aldona, Kamil Długosz, Bernhard Brehmer & Raina Gielge
2021. Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential acquisition: Null subjects and null objects in Polish-German bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism 25:3 ► pp. 687 ff.
Stahnke, Johanna, Laia Arnaus Gil & Natascha Müller
2021. French as a Heritage Language in Germany. Languages 6:3 ► pp. 122 ff.
Iverson, Michael
2020. Unbridled attrition?. Second Language Research 36:2 ► pp. 183 ff.
Qi, Ruying & Bruno Di Biase
2020. The influence of the environmental language (Lε) in Mandarin-English bilingual development: The case of transfer in wh- questions. International Journal of Bilingualism 24:4 ► pp. 691 ff.
Szeto, Pui Yiu, Stephen Matthews & Virginia Yip
2019. Bilingual children as “laboratories” for studying contact outcomes: Development of perfective aspect. Linguistics 57:3 ► pp. 693 ff.
Ezeizabarrena, Maria-José & Iñaki Garcia Fernandez
2018. Length of Utterance, in Morphemes or in Words?: MLU3-w, a Reliable Measure of Language Development in Early Basque. Frontiers in Psychology 8
Kupisch, Tanja & Jason Rothman
2018. Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism 22:5 ► pp. 564 ff.
Putnam, Michael T., Tanja Kupisch & Diego Pascual y Cabo
2015. An Outline of Processability Theory and Its Relationship to Other Approaches to SLA. Language Learning 65:1 ► pp. 123 ff.
KUPISCH, TANJA, TATJANA LEIN, DAGMAR BARTON, DAWN JUDITH SCHRÖDER, ILSE STANGEN & ANTJE STOEHR
2014. Acquisition outcomes across domains in adult simultaneous bilinguals with French as weaker and stronger language. Journal of French Language Studies 24:3 ► pp. 347 ff.
2013. Gender in Italian–German bilinguals: A comparison with German L2 learners of Italian. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16:3 ► pp. 538 ff.
Jasinska, K.K. & L.A. Petitto
2013. How age of bilingual exposure can change the neural systems for language in the developing brain: A functional near infrared spectroscopy investigation of syntactic processing in monolingual and bilingual children. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 6 ► pp. 87 ff.
KANG, SANG-GU
2013. The role of language dominance in cross-linguistic syntactic influence: A Korean child's use of null subjects in attriting English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16:1 ► pp. 219 ff.
Wei, Li
2012. Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Bilingualism and Multilingualism Research. In The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, ► pp. 26 ff.
Haznedar, Belma
2010. Transfer at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Pronominal subjects in bilingual Turkish. Second Language Research 26:3 ► pp. 355 ff.
Ruying Qi
2010. Pronoun acquisition in a Mandarin— English bilingual child. International Journal of Bilingualism 14:1 ► pp. 37 ff.
Abels, Klaus & Ad Neeleman
2009. 4 Universal 20 without the LCA. In Merging Features, ► pp. 60 ff.
Arosio, Fabrizio, Flavia Adani & Maria Teresa Guasti
2009. 8 Grammatical features in the comprehension of Italian relative clauses by children. In Merging Features, ► pp. 138 ff.
BONNESEN, MATTHIAS
2009. The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12:2 ► pp. 177 ff.
José M. Brucart, Anna Gavarró & Jaume Solà
2009. 1 Merge and features: a minimalist introduction. In Merging Features, ► pp. 1 ff.
José M. Brucart, Anna Gavarró & Jaume Solà
2009. Merging Features,
Csirmaz, Aniko
2009. 13 Homogeneity and flexibility in temporal modification. In Merging Features, ► pp. 235 ff.
Emonds, Joseph
2009. 11 Valuing V features and N features: What adjuncts tell us about case, agreement, and syntax in general. In Merging Features, ► pp. 194 ff.
Guilliot, Nicolas & Nouman Malkawi
2009. 9 When movement fails to reconstruct. In Merging Features, ► pp. 159 ff.
Heinat, Fredrik
2009. 2 Probing phrases, pronouns, and binding. In Merging Features, ► pp. 25 ff.
Herschensohn, Julia
2009. FUNDAMENTAL AND GRADIENT DIFFERENCES IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 31:2 ► pp. 259 ff.
Kayne, Richard S.
2009. 15 Some silent first person plurals. In Merging Features, ► pp. 276 ff.
Leu, Thomas
2009. 16 From Greek to Germanic: Poly‐(*in)‐definiteness and weak/strong adjectival inflection. In Merging Features, ► pp. 293 ff.
MaruŠIČ, Franc
2009. 10 If non‐simultaneous spell‐out exists, this is what it can explain. In Merging Features, ► pp. 175 ff.
Miller, Karen & Cristina Schmitt
2009. 7 Variable vs. consistent input: comprehension of plural morphology and verbal agreement in children. In Merging Features, ► pp. 123 ff.
MONTANARI, SIMONA
2009. Multi-word combinations and the emergence of differentiated ordering patterns in early trilingual development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12:4 ► pp. 503 ff.
Munn, Alan, Xiaofei Zhang & Cristina Schmitt
2009. 17 Acquisition of plurality in a language without plurality. In Merging Features, ► pp. 310 ff.
RÁkosi, GyÖrgy
2009. 12 The diversity of dative experiencers. In Merging Features, ► pp. 215 ff.
Schneider‐Zioga, Patricia
2009. 3 Wh‐agreement and bounded unbounded movement. In Merging Features, ► pp. 46 ff.
Schütze, Carson T.
2009. 5 What it means (not) to know (number) agreement. In Merging Features, ► pp. 80 ff.
2009. Bilingual children's sensitivity to specificity and genericity: Evidence from metalinguistic awareness. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
Taylor, Heather Lee
2009. 14 The syntactically well‐behaved comparative correlative. In Merging Features, ► pp. 254 ff.
Villiers, Jill De & Sandile Gxilishe
2009. 6 Number agreement in the acquisition of English and Xhosa. In Merging Features, ► pp. 104 ff.
Meisel, Jürgen M.
2006. The Bilingual Child. In The Handbook of Bilingualism, ► pp. 90 ff.
MEISEL, JÜRGEN M.
2011. Bilingual language acquisition and theories of diachronic change: Bilingualism as cause and effect of grammatical change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14:2 ► pp. 121 ff.
Qi, Ruying, Bruno di Biase & Stuart Campbell
2006. The transition from nominal to pronominal person reference in the early language of a Mandarin-English bilingual child. International Journal of Bilingualism 10:3 ► pp. 301 ff.
Serratrice, Ludovica
2005. Language mixing and learning strategy. International Journal of Bilingualism 9:2 ► pp. 159 ff.
2004. First language attrition and syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism 8:3 ► pp. 257 ff.
Chaudron, Craig
2003. Data Collection in SLA Research. In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, ► pp. 762 ff.
Lanvers, Ursula
2001. Language alternation in infant bilinguals: A developmental approach to codeswitching. International Journal of Bilingualism 5:4 ► pp. 437 ff.
Hulk, Aafke
2000. L’acquisition des pronoms clitiques français par un enfant bilingue français-néerlandais. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 45:1-2 ► pp. 97 ff.
1999. Cross-linguistic influences on the placement of negation and modal particles in simultaneous bilingualism. Language Sciences 21:2 ► pp. 143 ff.
Noyau, Colette
1998. Temporalité et récit dans l’acquisition du langage en situation bilingue. Linx :38 ► pp. 7 ff.
Sinka, Indra & Christina Schelletter
1998. Morphosyntactic Development in Bilingual Children. International Journal of Bilingualism 2:3 ► pp. 301 ff.
Lanza, Elizabeth
1997. Language Contact in Bilingual Two-Year-Olds and Code-Switching: Language Encounters of a Different Kind?. International Journal of Bilingualism 1:2 ► pp. 135 ff.
Archibald, John, Eithne Guilfoyle & Elizabeth Ritter
1996. Functional categories in L2 acquisition: Evidence of presence is not necessarily presence of evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 714 ff.
Bhatt, Rakesh M. & Barbara Hancin-Bhatt
1996. Transfer in L2 grammars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 715 ff.
Bickerton, Derek
1996. A dim monocular view of Universal-Grammar access. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 716 ff.
Birdsong, David
1996. Full access to the evidence for falsification. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 717 ff.
Bley-Vroman, Robert
1996. What we have to explain in foreign language learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 718 ff.
Borer, Hagit
1996. Access to Universal Grammar: The real issues. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 718 ff.
Carroll, Susanne E.
1996. Parameter-setting in second language acquisition – explanans and explanandum. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 720 ff.
Clahsen, Harald & Pieter Muysken
1996. How adult second language learning differs from child first language development. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 721 ff.
DeGraff, Michel
1996. UG and acquisition in pidginization and creolization. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 723 ff.
Epstein, Samuel David, Suzanne Flynn & Gita Martohardjono
1996. Second language acquisition: Theoretical and experimental issues in contemporary research. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 677 ff.
Epstein, Samuel David, Suzanne Flynn & Gita Martohardjono
1996. Universal Grammar and second language acquisition: The null hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 746 ff.
Eubank, Lynn
1996. Methodological problems with Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono's research. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 724 ff.
Freidin, Robert
1996. Adult language acquisition and Universal Grammar. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 725 ff.
Gregg, Kevin R.
1996. UG and SLA: The access question, and how to beg it. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 726 ff.
Grewendorf, Günther
1996. Does second language grow?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 727 ff.
Hale, Ken
1996. Can UG and L1 be distinguished in L2 acquisition?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 728 ff.
Hale, Mark
1996. Competence and performance in language acquisition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 730 ff.
Harrington, Michael
1996. L2 access to UG: Now you see it, now you don't. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 731 ff.
Kanno, Kazue
1996. In support of the early presence of functional categories in second language acquisition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 732 ff.
Li, Ping
1996. Why don't L2 learners end up with uniform and perfect linguistic competence?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 733 ff.
Liceras, Juana M.
1996. To “grow” and what “to grow,” that is one question. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 734 ff.
Lieberman, Philip
1996. Universal Grammar and critical periods: A most amusing paradox. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 735 ff.
MacWhinney, Brian
1996. Language is learned. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 735 ff.
Newmeyer, Frederick J.
1996. Some incorrect implications of the fullaccess hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 736 ff.
O'Grady, William
1996. Syntactic representations and the L2 acquisition device. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 737 ff.
Otero, Carlos P.
1996. Language growth after puberty?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 738 ff.
Schwartz, Bonnie D.
1996. Now for some facts, with a focus on development and an explicit role for the L1. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 739 ff.
Smith, M. A. Sharwood
1996. Metalinguistic ability and primary linguistic data. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 740 ff.
Sorace, Antonella
1996. On gradience and optionality in non-native grammars. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 741 ff.
Sprouse, Rex A.
1996. Appreciating the poverty of the stimulus in second language acquisition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 742 ff.
Thomas, Margaret
1996. “Full access” and the history of linguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 743 ff.
Torrego, Esther
1996. Towards characterizing what the L2 learner knows. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 744 ff.
Vainikka, Anne & Martha Young-Scholten
1996. Partial transfer, not partial access. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 744 ff.
White, Lydia
1996. UG, the L1, and questions of evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19:4 ► pp. 745 ff.
Schlyter, Suzanne
1995. Introduction. Acquisition et interaction en langue étrangère :6 ► pp. 3 ff.
Zobl, Helmut & Juana Liceras
1994. Functional Categories and Acquisition Orders. Language Learning 44:1 ► pp. 159 ff.
Zobl, Helmut & Juana Liceras
1994. Functional Categories and Acquisition Orders. Language Learning 44:1 ► pp. 159 ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. Abbreviations. In Merging Features, ► pp. xii ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. Copyright Page. In Merging Features, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. List of figures. In Merging Features, ► pp. vii ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. List of tables. In Merging Features, ► pp. viii ff.
[no author supplied]
2009. Notes on contributors. In Merging Features, ► pp. ix ff.
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Any errors therein should be reported to them.
