SLI Across Languages LING419_21OCT08

SLI Across Languages LING419_21OCT08

Overview Focus on French Syntax in crosslinguistic SLI SLI and aphasia

French SLI Paradis & Crago (2001), (2004) and Parads (2004) 60 minute spontaneous speech samples Group MLU Age 7SLI 3.977 7;6 3TD 3.677 3;3 7TD 5.702 7;3

Finite Verb Morphology donner to give 1st conjugaison person present passé composé futur proche 1 st sing je donne j ai donné je vais donnr 2 nd sing tu donnes tu as donné tu vas donner 3 rd sing il/elle donne il/elle a donné il/elle va donner 1 st plu on donne on a donné on va donner 2 nd plu vous donnez vous avez donné vous allez donner 3 rd plu ils/elles donnent ils/elles ont donné il/elle vont donner

Results Finite verb morphology Present: 7SLI = 3TD = 7TD Passé-composé 7SLI < 3TD < 7TD Futur proche 7SLI < 3TD = 7TD Conclusions: present passé-composé futur proche 7SLI 88.8% 74.3% 64.5% 3TD 95.3% 86.5% 90.7% 7TD 99% 98.6% 99.6%

Determiners Singular Masc/fem Plural articles - definite le/la (l ) les articles - indefinite un/une des possessive pronouns 1 st mon/ma mes possessive pronouns 2nd ton/ta tes possessive pronouns 3rd son/sa ses

Results Determiners No difference for use 7SLI lower scores for correct gender than TD Conclusions: % use of masculine feminine determiner gender correct gender correct 7SLI 94% 97% 86% 3TD 96% 97% 96% 7TD 99% 99% 97%

Direct Object Clitics Direct object pronouns are weak pronouns/clitics (me, te, le, la, les) Object clitics are preverbal/ lexical objects are post-verbal in declaratives and negative imperatives Brigitte regarde sa poupée. Brigitte is looking at her doll Brigitte la regarde. Brigitte is looking at it *Brigitte regarde la. Brigitte is looking at it Ne la regarde pas. don t look at it

Direct Object Clitics Object clitics are postverbal in affirmative imperatives Regarde la. look at it Prends le. take it Object clitics have brief phonetic duration, are not stressed, and undergo elision and re-syllabification before vowel-initial verbs Je le vois. Je l aime. I see it I love him * Je le aime. I love him

Direct Object Clitics Object clitics cannot follow prepositions, be coordinated, dislocated, or appear in isolation; strong pronouns are used (moi, toi, lui, elle, eux, elles) Je les ai donnés à lui/*le. I gave it to him Brigitte et moi/*me, on va y aller. Brigitte and me are going to go there Où va-t-il, lui/*le? where s he going, him? Qui veut y aller? Moi/*me who wants to go? me

Direct Object Clitics Object clitics in French are a complex structure to acquire because Lack of perceptual salience, distributional inconsistencies, and parallel strong pronoun system Object clitics in monolingual and bilingual French acquisition: Late-emerging and not mastered in preschool years

Pronominalization Contexts Context: story about apple picking field trip with class EXP: des pommes sont encore dans ton sac à dos? some apples are still in your knapsack CHI: non. no EXP: elles sont où? They are where CHI: ma mère les a jeté my mother them-threw away

Pronominalization Contexts Lexical object: EXP: des pommes sont encore dans ton sac à dos? some apples are still in your knapsack CHI: non. no EXP: elles sont où? They are where CHI: (?) ma mère a jeté les pommes. my mother threw away the apples

Pronominalization Contexts Strong pronoun object EXP: des pommes sont encore dans ton sac à dos? some apples are still in your knapsack CHI: non. no EXP: elles sont où? They are where CHI: *ma mère a jeté elles. my mother threw away them

Pronominalization Contexts Omission of object EXP: des pommes sont encore dans ton sac à dos? some apples are still in your knapsack CHI: non. no EXP: elles sont où? They are where CHI: ma mère Ø a jeté. my mother threw away

Results Direct Object Clitics Use of clitic: 7SLI < 3TD < 7TD Correct gender/number: 7SLI < 3TD = 7TD Dominance f omission errors: 7SLI > 3TD Conclusions: % use of clitic in pro context % correct gender/number of clitic, if used 7SLI 43% 70% 84% 3TD 83% 98% 67% 7TD 98% 97% N/A % of all omissions as objects when clitics not used

French SLI: Summary Uneven profile across grammatical morphemes Articles and person/number on present tense verbs not problematic in French, but paradigms impoverished compared to Italian and Spanish Pronoun system more complex in French than Italian and Spanish overall Even though paradigm less complex, clitics very problematic in French

Syntax in SLI: Questions Who-object and who-subject questions Who i is the girl chasing t i? Who is talking to the girl? Long distance dependency Who-object less frequent than who subject Object wh questions more often inanimate What is the girl looking at? English SLI: errors with who-object who is the girl chasing someone?

Wong et al. (2004):Cantonese hung4zai2 sek3 zyu1zyu1 Teddy Bear kiss Piglet Teddy Bear kissed Piglet bin1go3 sek3 zyu1zyu1 who kiss Piglet who kissed Piglet? zyu1zyu1 sek3 hung4zai2 Piglet kiss Teddy Bear Piglet kissed Teddy Bear zyu1zyu1 sek3 bin1go3? Piglet kissed who who did Piglet kiss?

Wong et al. (2004) Participants: SLI (5 yr olds), TD-CA and TD-MLU Procedures: Elicited who-object and who-subject questions Game with stuffed toys behind a screen Results: SLI < TD-MLU < TD-CA for who-object No differences for who-subject Conclusions:

SLI and Adult Aphasia Aphasia = acquired disorder Fluent and non-fluent aphasia Broca s / agrammatic = non-fluent Most commonly compared with SLI Omission vs. substitution errors Depends on morphological richness of the language

SLI and Adult Aphasia More complex paradigms lead to more errors German definite articles have 3 genders, singular and plural, and 4 cases French definite articles = le, la, les Semantic importance of a morpheme plays a role Negation less likely to be omitted than subj-verb agreement markers Importance of SLI / aphasia parallels?