First indications that further research was imperative comes from the studies of French SLA by authors like Granfeldt and Schlyter (2004), Meisel et al. (2011) and Prévost (2009). Their findings lead to the impression that FLA and adult SLA may differ in several aspects, such as the status of the subject or the rate of verb omissions in yes/no questions. Granfeldt and Schlyter (2004) show that in SLA performance, clitic subjects are sometimes separated from their verbs by means of adverbs and are produced without finite verbs and in post-verbal position.

Taken together, the syntax of questions in German and French differs in several aspects. Whereas German question formation is relatively rigid, leaving little or no room for variability, the French language allows (for) a variety of possible structures . From a cross-linguistic perspective to language acquisition, FLA and SLA differ in several ways with respect to both word order and finiteness. For example, even though French question syntax offers a wide range of possibilities, L1 learners use target-like constructions from the beginning. A parallel picture is found for German, even though the rather strict rules of German question formation may be acquired in a different way. Whereas verbal finiteness is a precursor of wh-questions for FLA in both languages, late L2 learners frequently produce wh-questions with and without inversion, irrespective of the finiteness of the verb. Moreover, non-finite verbs occur in finite questions, again something which is characteristic of L2 acquisition (Prévost 1997; Bartning/Schlyter 2004).

4 The Study

The present study is a cross-linguistic investigation of adult SLA of questions in French and German, focusing on morphological and structural aspects. Both the cross-linguistic perspective and the systematic study of adult SLA of questions in French are novel aspects to the discussion of SLA and FLA.

4.1 Method

We analyse two corpora of SLA, namely the ZISA for German and the Myles-Corpus for French. The grammar of questions is related to the CP-layer, and is therefore particularly informative with respect to investigating fundamental differences in FLA and SLA. Questions in both German and French follow strict regularities, and are obligatorily finite, both on the sentence and on the verbal level. Grouping the learners by exposure time, the analysis thus includes: (i) a counting of all wh- and yes/no-questions in the corpora, (ii) a detailed analysis of question types and tokens in both corpora, and (iii) an analysis of the finiteness and the position of the (finite) verb in questions, and (iv) language-specific features, such as clitics and est-ce que-questions in French. All these aspects are discussed with respect to target-language and language-specific as well as language-unique use.

4.2 Adult SLA of Questions in French

The French adult SLA data were provided by the cross-sectional study conducted by Myles (2001–2002). Since these learners began learning French around the age of 11, we assume that they can already be classified as adult SLA (cf. Meisel 2007). In these data, "three groups of twenty learners in each of years 9, 10 and 11 (in their 3rd, 4th and 5th year respectively of learning French in the UK educational context; age 13–14, 14–15, 15–16 respectively) in a local secondary school have been tested." (Cited from: http://www.flloc.soton.ac.uk/newcastle/index.html, accessed December 14, 2012). We analyzed the data of the 14 learners in year nine 01I9SAR, 02I9FLO, 03I9ADR, 04I9LAR, 05I9JAM, 06I9SAR, 0719FLO, 0819ADR, 0919LAR, 11I9SAR, 12I9FLO, 13I9LAR, 17I9FLO and 20I9ALI, who were chosen because they produced the highest number of questions with verbs. Table 2 offers an overview of the adult SLA data.

Table 2: Data overview and number of questions in French adult second language acquisition

In the preceding section, we have seen from the literature that errors rarely occur in the acquisition of questions in French FLA. This does not hold for adult SLA, however. In the following, we will show some major differences compared to FLA. First, we focus on the use of the subject.

4.3 The status and position of the subject in French adult SLA

Only 45 SCLs out of a total of 228 subjects occur in our adult SLA corpus, i. e. 19.7% of the subjects are clitics, while the other 80.3% are DPs. Five of the 14 learners (01I9SAR, 03I9ADR, 09I9LAR, 10I9JAM, 11I9SAR) do not use SCLs in questions at all. Two other learners use only one SCL, which represents less than 10%. Clitic doubling in questions occurs at a rate of merely 3.1% (7/224). Three of these constructions represent instances of complex inversion, a construction not attested in spoken French (cf. Behnstedt 1973). These occurrences may be due to language instruction. The low rate of SCLs and clitic doublings in adult SLA can be accounted for by assuming that, in contrast to FLA, L2 learners do not analyze SCLs as elements of finiteness but rather as DPs, as proposed in Granfeldt and Schlyter (2004). The authors show that SCLs in adult SLA can be separated from the verbs by means of adverbs and that they are produced without finite verbs. This may also account for the low rate of SCLs and clitic doublings. As clitics are not used as subject-verb agreement-markers, they consequently do not appear as frequently as in FLA. Assuming that SCLs are DPs in adult SLA, one can predict that they will occur without finite verbs and in inversions. Indeed, this is what we find. In fact, some learners produce hardly any SCLs with finite verbs in questions:

In the entire corpus, 12 (26.7%) SCLs in questions appear without a finite verb. Note that these constructions (as in (11)) are also incorrect in their L1, English, and that direct transfer is thus very improbable as the cause for this kind of error. In (12b), the verb is omitted. The learners possibly omit the verb in order to avoid difficulties associated with inversion. Eight of the 14 adult French learners produce questions without verbs. In summary, the verb is omitted in 11 of 84 (13.1%) yes/no-questions and in one of 140 (0.7%) wh-questions.

In addition to the occurrences of SCLs without a finite verb, inversions with subject clitics and complex inversions are also attested:

All in all, 14 (31.1%) of the 45 SCLs are located in post-verbal position. In sum, 26 of 45 (57.8%) SCLs do not occur in the position before and adjacent to the finite verb (12 clitics without a finite verb and 14 clitics in post-verbal position).

4.4 Yes/no-questions adult SLA of French

Two of the L2 learners always produce est-ce que (01I9SAR: 4, 0719FLO: 2), while another consistently uses est-ce que or qu'est-ce que (04I9LAR: 10) when constructing yes/no-questions:

Learner 0919LAR produces an invalid phonetic form (is) instead of est-ce que which may be transfer from English due to the phonetic similarities between est-ce que and is.

Seven out of ten yes/no-questions produced by 0919LAR are constructions such as that in (15). DPS inversion occurs in the remaining three yes/no-questions, which is incorrect. Another learner uses il y a instead of est-ce que as a question marker (16).

In (14)–(16), the learners produce est-ce que-questions without finite verbs. The learners simply add an item to a declarative in order to mark the construction as a question and thus avoid the difficulty of inversion (cf. Clahsen et al. 1983). In summary, correct or phonetically incorrect forms of est-ce que are produced in 34 (40.5%) of a total of 84 yes/no-questions. Considering only questions with subjects and verbs, the intonation question is used in 32 (38.1%) cases, while inversion appears in 11 (13.1%). Note that the numbers do not add up to 84 (100%), as there are also questions without a subject or a verb. Both clitic and non-clitic subjects occur in inversion and intonation questions: eight DP inversions and three SCL inversions, 24 DP intonation questions and seven clitic intonation questions are produced. DPS inversion is grammatically incorrect in written and spoken French. In contrast, SCL inversion is possible in written French, but hardly ever appears in spoken language. Inversion could also be considered to be a transfer from English. However, more important than speculating about possible transfer is the fact that we find all possible word orders with both clitic and non-clitic subjects and with finite and non-finite verbs. While inversion with subject clitics might occur due to formal language instruction, DPS-inversion is incorrect in both written and spoken French.

4.5 wh-questions adult SLA of French

The subject is omitted in only one of the 140 wh-questions in the corpus:

Two of the 14 learners produce infinite verbs in each of their qu'est-ce que-questions (0219FLO: 4, 0719FLO: 5), while another (13I9LAR) produces four infinite verbs in his five qu'est-ce que-questions:

Wh-questions other than qu'est-ce que do not occur with non-finite verbs. Each of these three learners produces finite verbs in other constructions.

Another type of error appearing in qu'est-ce que-questions is the subject-verb inversion. 03I9ADR produces inversion in each of his four qu'est-ce que-questions. This type of error also occurs in the data of learners 05I9JAM and 12I9FLO.

The different error types in qu'est-ce que-questions again clearly show that transfer cannot account for certain errors. Furthermore, we find a rich variety of different word orders. The learners produce qu'est-ce que-questions with and without inversion, with the verb being finite and non-finite in both contexts. Both the use of inversion and the occurence of non-finite verbs in qu'est-ce que-questions cannot be accounted for by language instruction. Feature checking mechanisms as motivation for movement do obviously not operate. The learners do not adhere to one basic structure. The subject and the verb are combined in a rather free manner. As we have shown above, the learners produce non-finite verbs in finite positions as in inversion and in qu'est-ce que-questions. Thus, the production of wh-questions is further evidence that L2 learners do not employ the same hierarchical structures as native speakers. Table 3 provides a summary of the differences between FLA and adult SLA of French.

Table 3: Different types of errors in questions in French FLA and adult SLA

4.6 Adult SLA of Questions in German

In the following, we present findings from our own analysis of the adult SLA of questions. We chose longitudinal (Zita, Ana) and cross-sectional (Sita, Miguel, Rosemarie, Francisco, Michele) data from the ZISA-study (Zweitspracherwerb italienischer, portugiesischer und spanischer Arbeiter – second language acquisition (of German) of Italian, Portuguese and Spanish workers, cf. Clahsen et al. 1983), and investigate the first four years of acquisition. All learners were adult immigrants with a romance language background and an age of onset over 15 years of age (Portuguese: Sita, Zita; Spanish: Ana, Miguel, Rosemarie; Italian: Michele). The spontaneous speech samples of approximately 40 minutes each were recorded with a monolingual German interlocutor (Clahsen et al. 1983). With respect to Ana and Zita, we included only the recordings made in Germany and excluded those recorded after remigration. Furthermore, we considered all recordings that contained questions with verbs. Table 4 offers an overview of the German L2 data.

Table 4: Data overview and number of questions in German adult second language acquisition

All learners except Sita produce wh-questions in their first year of exposure to German. Group 1 produces 80 questions, 67 of which are yes/no-questions (83.8%). In the second year, the rate of wh-questions increases from 16.3% to 44.3%.

The SVA correctness rate falls consistently below 75% (cf. table 5), and the SVA correctness rates in questions do not increase significantly throughout the first three to four years of exposure to German. This finding is even more important, because both cross-sectional and longitudinal data are considered. The individual correctness rates do not contradict this trend: Ana and Zita, for example, reach 61.1% and 80.5%, respectively, in their first year of exposure, 63.2% and 75.0% in their second, and 72.7% correctness in Zita's third year.

Table 5: Question types in German adult SLA, in brackets: no SVA on verb

4.7 Yes/no-questions in German adult SLA

All learners produce yes/no-questions from the beginning of the recordings, but also employ a large number of different constructions. The learners in their first year of exposure to German produce only 16.4% (11/67) target-like yes/no-questions (20 a,b), and in two cases, SVA is incorrect. Questions without inversion dominate the production with a rate of 55.2% (37/67), cf. 20 (b). The verb does not necessarily agree with the subject (20 c) in these constructions, and in 9% of these, the verb appears in the infinitive, a structure very rarely attested in FLA (19 c, f). Furthermore, 11 of 67 questions (16.4%) lack an overt subject (20 f). Some learners also produce V3/V4 questions (3%), with one producing a single question with a verb-final structure.

In the second year, intonation questions are still preferred over target-language questions (52.3% versus 18.2%), and the L2 learners produce questions with subject omissions (9%) and non-finite verbs (4.5%).

These learners produce yes/no-questions with great structural variability. Furthermore, they utter a significant number of questions without inversion (55%; 61/101). As table 5 reveals, the dominant pattern in yes/no-questions is the SVX-structure. None of the participants produce yes/no-questions in year 3-4.

4.8 Wh-questions in adult SLA of German

In the first year of exposure to German, wh-questions are not very frequent (17.2%) (cf. table 5 and table 6). However, most of them are target-like (64.3%), as they appear with the obligatory inversion and with an overt subject. The verbs in these structures are not consistently marked correctly for SVA. Furthermore, and especially for Ana, these inverted structures may be seen as unanalyzed patterns, as in was is + X and wie heiße(n) + X from example 22 (a).

In these first 12 months of exposure to German, 23.1% of all questions appear with an infinitive. In the second and third year of German, the productivity of wh-questions increases; V3/V4 as well as V-final sentences are still structural possibilities and occur with verbs in the infinitive form (17/59; 22.8%) and some wh-questions with a finite verb in final position (cf. examples in 23 a–g).

As in yes/no-questions, L2 learners omit the subject in wh-questions with a rate of up to 17.1% (6/35) in the second year of exposure.

To conclude, adult L2 learners produce several kinds of errors in their acquisition of German yes/no and wh-questions. For an overview of the differences between FLA and adult SLA see table 6.

Table 6: Different types of errors in the acquisition of questions in German FLA and adult SLA

5 Discussion

The cross-linguistic comparison of the acquisition of questions in German and French offers a new perspective to differences and similarities between FLA and adult SLA. With our analysis, we bring forward both a new analysis of L2 syntax of French, and broaden the perspective to similar SLA interlanguages concerning different second languages. The comparative study on a Germanic and a Romance L2, differing not only in their overall linguistic properties (such as i. e. OV/VO, V2, clitics), but explicitly in the formation and regularities of questions, shows striking similarities in adult SLA, and irrespective of the first and the second languages and of instructed versus non-instructed learning. The investigation of the adult SLA of morphological and structural aspects of questions in French and German strengthens the assumption that the acquisition of morphology and syntax (on the CP-layer) is connected in French and German FLA but is disentangled in adult SLA. By including all wh- and yes/no-questions in the corpora, we show that learners of both German and French show a high structural variability in their questions formation. From a cross-linguistics perspective, it is astounding that adult SLA of both German and French shows non-target-like structures to a high extent. Moreover, both groups of learners produce questions that should not appear in the (spoken) target language. French, if compared to German, being less rigid in question syntax, seems to be equally difficult for adult SLA, whereas both German and French L1 learners produce hardly any errors. Adult SLA of French and German leads furthermore to antidromic errors: The German L2 learners avoid inversion in yes/no questions (where inversion is obligatory), and the French L2 learners produce sentences with inversion (where it is excluded/ungrammatical). Both groups of adult SLA show difficulties with finiteness on verbs, and produce finite questions without finite verbs. Hence, we found ungrammatical inversions and non-inversions in questions in both languages only in the adult SLA data. They moreover produce subject omission errors in both second languages, and make use of questions that are neither accounted for by transfer from the L1 or the learning contexts. In French, for example, we document a correct or phonetically incorrect form of est-ce que, all possible word orders with both clitic and non-clitic subjects, and with non-finite verbs. In German, they make use of V3- and V4-questions, and -besides using non-finite verbs in finite contexts- omit the obligatory subject. Obviously, both learners of French and German L2 produce non-target constructions which they probably never heard or read, and, what is even more important, which do not occur in FLA.

Our results are particularly relevant since the L2 contexts of our learner groups are different. The L2 learners of German acquire the language in a natural setting without being instructed, whereas the L2 learners of French are exposed to language teaching. In this respect, one could have expected to obtain different results. However the error types are quite similar in both groups: we find many errors which cannot be accounted for by feature checking as a motivation for movement, such as all possible word orders and no clear distinction between finite and non-finite verbs is attested. This result is in accordance with those of Pienemann (1986), who proposes similar adult SLA patterns for all learners, regardless of their learning context.

With respect to adult SLA modelling, Prévost/White (2000) propose the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH), claiming that "variability in adult L2 performance does not reflect a deeper lack of functional categories or features associated with tense and agreement. Rather, L2 learners have difficulties with the overt realization of morphology" (ibid.: 104), but "syntactic consequences of finiteness are known to learners" (ibid.: 119). As a consequence, both wh- and yes/no questions could bear a verb – in form of an infinitive, a bare stem or as stem +suffix – can appear in a raised position or in situ. Whenever adult L2 leraners produce inflected verbs, these are largely correct and appear in a finite position, because features and feature-checking mechanisms are present – but uninflected verbs may appear in non-finite and finite (raised) positions as well, since they "are not in fact non-finite but are being used as default forms exhibiting properties of finite verbs" (ibid.: 109). In our study, most of the finite verbs in finite positions appear to be finite, indeed. What may be problematic, though, are our cross-linguistic findings about difficulties with question syntax. An evidence generative grammar with movement and checking operations is provided by native language use. The observation that morphological finiteness is located in a specific syntactic position is the basic argument for feature checking in a certain projection (TP, CP). Assuming that subject-verb agreement/finiteness motivates the movement of the verb to a functional category (TP), but postulating on the other hand that this movement also takes place when the verb does not carry the necessary features, as the MSIH states, is questionable. The entire mechanism loses plausibility if morphological finiteness must be visible in FLA, but may remain invisible in adult SLA, i. e. a non-finite verb may finite features. According to the MSIH, the verbs are finite, even though finiteness is morphologically invisible. But even if this claim could be accepted by the fact that adult L2 learners produce most questions with finite verbs, the proposal predicts question syntax being intact. Since only the morphological feature for finiteness is lost in the MSIH, the syntactic position of finiteness should not bar any difficulties for second language learners. Our data of French and German adult SLA however reveal such variability of question syntax, and with the syntactic position of the verb in particular, that an intact CP is hardly to be accounted for. Instead of discovering the correct position of the verb at a certain stage of acquisition which can be accounted for by parameter setting in FLA, the adult learners gradually approach the target word order but still exhibit a great deal of variation after several years of exposure to the L2. Or data contradict the predictions of the MSIH, for not only morphological features, but syntactic finiteness is problematic in adult SLA. Our adult SLA data can hardly be accounted for by a tree structure of VP-TP-CP and feature checking. Instead, the L2 learners try different positions for the verb, also in later stages of acquisition, which can better be accounted for by a linear phrasal order.

The cross-linguistic perspective on the acquisition of questions in adult SLA shows evidence for a clear-cut difference between FLA and adult SLA in this specific aspect of grammatical development. The low rate of subject clitics and clitic doublings in adult SLA of French can be accounted for by assuming that, in contrast to FLA learners, adult L2 learners do not analyze subject clitics as elements of finiteness. These findings support the view that subject clitics are not analyzed as bound elements but rather as NPs/DPS. As with German, adult L2 learners of French adopt strategies to avoid difficulties with inversion, like omitting the verb. Some always make use of the est-ce que or qu'est-ce que option or employ il y a instead of est-ce que as a question marker when constructing yes/no questions, even without finite verbs. They then simply add an item to a declarative utterance in order to mark it as a question (another strategy to avoid the difficulties with inversion). Qu'est-ce que questions are produced with inversion and with infinite verbs. Both clitic and non-clitic subjects are observed in inversion and intonation questions, and are attested in L2 speech with a variety of word order patterns. The L2 learners employ a variety of structures with a preference for SVO order irrespective of the language. The Impairment Representation Hypothesis (IRH) (Beck 1998; Eubank 1993/1994; among others) accounts for these differences in first and second language acquisition. IRH and FDH mirror our findings, by predicting the use of (domain-general) strategies instead of agreement or feature checking mechanisms. This may lead to the conclusion that the adult L2 learners use specific phrasal surface structures (cf. Clahsen et al. 1983) rather than adhering to the restrictions of the target language; that is, the obligatory inversion in questions, which is, in a generative interpretation, motivated by the need for feature checking in a specifier-head-relation in the CP. Assuming that checking mechanisms do not operate in L2, the learners do not need to move the verb to the position before the subject (C°). The adult SLA learners use non-finite and finite verbs regardless of the syntactic position. This can be considered as further evidence that the learners do not use the same hierarchical structures and feature checking mechanisms as seen in FLA, where the verb is always morphologically finite in an inversion. The connection between syntax and morphology found in FLA is obviously not present in the L2 learners' use.

The learners are aware of lexical categories and certain projections which are used for notions such as subject and object. However, in contrast to FLA, their word order of subject, verb(s), object and wh-phrase is generated by linear rules, as proposed in Clahsen et al. (1983). In the first acquisition stage, they use rules like those in (24) for both declaratives and questions:

Although this kind of phrase-structure-grammar is a common approach to SLA, its implications are still most adequate to the data presented than a movement and feature checking apporach. The rules in (24) account for the L2 learner's awareness that a sentence S is comprised of smaller units such as DPs. Rule (24a) explains why the learners initially do not produce inversions. This stage corresponds with Pienemann's (1998) 4^th stage, in which SVO is used exclusively, but in which an element can already precede the subject. In later stages, the learners recognize that a question can have a word order which cannot be generated by rule (24a), thus adding (26):

This stage is the 5^th stage ("inversion") described in Pienemann (1998). Thus, the attested development is in accordance with his studies. Still, the learners do not incorporate feature checking in their structures. Thus, both finite and non-finite verbs can be inserted in the position V. In contrast, since hierarchical structures are used in FLA in accordance with the CP-TP-VP tree, the errors which could be generated by rules (24) and (26) are excluded. In French, the learners have additional rules stating that est-ce que can be inserted after the wh-phrase. In contrast, the question morpheme est-ce que occupies C° in FLA (Rooryck 1994) with the CP carrying the question feature. Since inversion is analyzed as the movement of the verb to C°, inversion is not possible in est-ce que-questions, the C° position being occupied by the question morpheme. In contrast, the rule-based system in adult SLA allows inversion with est-ce que.

To conclude, the cross-linguistic comparison of first and second language learning of question syntax and morphology study provided here prevails further evidence for FLA and SLA being fundamentally different, and allows for further discussion of the underlying mechanisms of adult SLA and its modelling.

References

Bartning, Inge/Schlyter, Suzanne (2004): "Itinéraires acquisitionnels et stades de développment en français L2". Journal of French Language Studies 14: 281–299.

Beck, Maria-Luise (1998): "L2 acquisition and obligatory head movement: English-speaking learners of German and the local impairment hypothesis". Studies in Second Language Acquisition 20: 311–348.

Behnstedt, Peter (1973): Viens-tu? Est-ce que tu viens? Tu viens? Formen und Strukturen des direkten Fragesatzes im Französischen. Tübingen: Narr. (= Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 41).

Bley-Vroman, Robert (1989): "What is the logical problem of foreign language learning?". In: Gass, Susan M./Schachter, Jacquelyn (eds) (1989): Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 41–68.

Bonnesen, Matthias (2008): Spracheinfluss oder Sprachtrennung an der Schnittstelle Syntax-Pragmatik? Der Erwerb der linken Satzperip herie bei Französisch/Deutsch bilingual aufwachsenden Kindern. Saarbrücken: VDM.

Bonnesen, Matthias/Meisel, Jürgen M. (2005): "Die 'Subjekt-Verb Inversion' in: Interrogativkonstruktionen des gesprochenen Französischen: Zum Problem der syntaktischen Variation". In: Kaiser, Gerog A. (ed.) (2005): Deutsche Romanistik – generativ. Tübingen, Narr: 31–48.

Chee, Michael W./Tan, Edsel W./Thiel, Thorsten (1999): "Mandarin and English single word processingstudied with functional magnetic resonance imaging". Journal of Neuroscience 19: 3050–3056.

Chomsky, Noam (1957): Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky, Noam (1986): Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use. London: Praeger.

Chomsky, Noam (1995): The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Clahsen, Harald (1988): "Parametrized grammatical theory and language acquisition. A study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults". In: Flynn, Susanne/O'Neil, Wayne (eds.) (1988): Linguistic Theory in Second Language Acquisition. Dordercht, Kluver: 47–75.

Clahsen, Harald/Meisel, Jürgen M./Pienemann, Manfred (1983): Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Narr.

Clahsen, Harald/Muysken, Pieter (1986): "The accessibility of Universal Grammar to adult and child learners. A study of the acquisition of German word order". Second Language Research 2: 93–119.

Clahsen, Harald/Muysken, Pieter (1989): "The UG paradox in L2 acquisition". Second Language Research 5: 1–29.

Clahsen, Harald/Penke, Martina (1992): "The Acquisition of Agreement Morphology and its Syntactic Consequences: New Evidence on German Child Language from the Simona-Corpus". In: Meisel, Jürgen M. (ed.) (1992): The Acquisition of Verb Placement. Functional Categories and V2 Phenomena in Language Acquisition. Dordrecht, Kluwer: 181–223.

Clahsen, Harald/Penke, Martina/Parodi, Teresa (1993/94): "Functional categories in early child German". Language Acquisition 3: 395–429.

Confais, Jean-Paul (1980): Grammaire Explicative. Ismaning: Max Hueber.

Coveney, Aidan (2002): Variability in spoken French. A sociolinguistic study of interrogation and negation. Bristol: Bank.

Crisma, Paola (1992): "On the acquisition of Wh-questions in French". Geneva Generative Papers 1: 115–122.

De Cat, Cécile. (2000): Left- and right dislocations as adjunctions in early child French. Manuscript. Durham and Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 47–61.

Den Besten, Hans (1977): "On the interaction of root transformations and lexical deletive rules". Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik 20: 1–78.

Diehl, Erika/Chirsten, Helen/Leuenberger, Sandra/Pelvat, Isabelle/Studer, Thérèse (2000): Grammatikunterricht: Alles für der Katz? Untersuchungen zum Zweitspracherwerb Deutsch. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Eubank, Lynn (1993/1994): "On the transfer of parametric values in L2 development". Language Acquisition 3: 183–208.

Felix, Sascha W. (1978): Linguistische Untersuchungen zum Zweitspracherwerb. München: Fink.

Fritzenschaft, Agnes/Gawlizek-Maiwald, Ira/Tracy, Rosemarie/Winkler, Susanne (1990): "Wege zur komplexen Syntax". Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 9: 52–134.

Granfeldt, Jonas/Schlyter, Suzanne (2004): "Cliticisation in the acquisition of French as L1 and L2". In: Prévost, Philippe/Paradis, Johanne (eds.) (2004): The acquisition of French in different contexts, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins: 333–337.

Hamann, Cornelia (2000): "The acquisition of constituent questions and the requirements of interpretation". In: Friedemann, Marc Aaurel/Rizzi, Luigi (eds.) (2000): The Acquisition of Syntax. London/New York, Longman: 170–201.

Haznedar, Belma (2003): "The Status of Functional Categories in Child Second Language Acquisition: Evidence from the Acquisition of CP". Second Language Research 19: 1–41.

Hernandez, Arturo E./Martinez, Antigona/Kohnert, Kathryn (2000): "In search of the language switch: An fMRI study of picture naming in Spanish-English bilinguals". Brain & Language 73: 421–431.

Hirschbühler, Paul/Labelle, Marie (1994): Syntaxe du français – L'universel et le particulier dans la langue française. Unpublished manuscript. University of Montréal, Québec.

Hyltenstam, Kenneth/Abrahamsson, Niclas (2003): "Maturational Constraints in SLA". In: Doughty, Catherine J./Long, Michael H. (eds.) (2003): The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Malden, MA/Oxford, Blackwell: 539–588.

Ionin, Tania/Wexler, Kenneth (2002): "Why is 'is' easier than '-s'?: acquisition of tense/agreement morphology by child second language learners of English". Second Language Research 18: 95–136.

Jakubowicz, Celia/Strik, Nelleke (2008): "Scope-marking strategies in the acquisition of long-distance wh-questions in French and Dutch". Language and Speech 51, 1/2: 101–131.

Kaiser, Georg (1994): "More about INFLection and agreement. The acquisition of clitic pronouns in French". In: Meisel, Jürgen M. (ed.) (1994): Bilingual First Language Acquisition: French and German Grammatical Development, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins: 131–159.

Kaiser, Georg/Meisel, Jürgen M. (1991): "Subjekte und Null-Subjekte im Französischen". In: Fanselow, Gisbert/Olsen, Susan (eds.) (1991): "Det, Comp und Infl": Zur Syntax funktionaler Kategorien und grammatischer Funktionen. Tübingen, Niemeyer: 110–136. ( Linguistische Arbeiten 263).

Van Kampen, Nelly Jacqueline (1997): First steps in Wh-movement.PhD thesis, Utrecht University.

Knudsen, Eric I. (2003): "Early experience and critical periods". In: Squire, Larry R./Berg, Darwin/Bloom, Floyd E./Du Lac, Sascha/Ghosh, Anirvan/Spitzer, Nicholas C. (eds.) (2003): Fundamental neuroscience. Amsterdam, Academic Press: 555–573.

Knudsen Eric I. (2004): "Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16:1412–1425.

Lardière, Donna (1998): "Dissociating syntax from morphology in a divergent L2 end-state grammar". Second Language Research 14: 359–375.

Lardière, Donna (2003): "Second language knowledge of [+/-past] vs. [+/-finite]". In: Liceras, Juana M./Zobel, Helmut/Goodluck, Helen (eds.) (2003): Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference GASLA 2002. Somerville/MA, Cascadilla: 176–189.

Lenneberg, Eric H. (1967): Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley.

Locke, John L. (1997): "A Theory of Neurolinguistic Development". Brain and Language 58: 265–326.

Meisel, Jürgen M. (1991): "Principles of Universal Grammar and strategies of language use: On some similarities and differences between first and second language acquisition". In: Eubank, Lynn (ed.) (1991): Point, Counter-point: Universal Grammar in the second language acquisition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins: 231–276.

Meisel, Jürgen M. (1995): "Parameters in acquisition". In: Fletcher, Paul/MacWhinney, Brian (eds.) (1995): Handbook of Child Language. Oxford, Blackwell: 10–35.

Meisel, Jürgen M. (1997): "The acquisition of the syntax of negation in French and German: contrasting first and second language development". Second Language Research 13: 227–263.

Meisel, Jürgen M. (2007): Exploring the limits of the LAD. A collection of four papers. Hamburg. (= Working Papers in Multilingualism 80).

Meisel, Jürgen M. (2008): "Child second language acquisition or successive first language acquisition?". In: Haznedar Belma/Gavruseva, Elena (eds.) (2008): Current trends in childsecond language acquisition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins: 55–80.

Meisel, Jürgen M. (2009): "Second language acquisition in early childhood. Resources to sustain or remove epistemic asymmetry". Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft. Themenheft 28/1: 5–34.

Meisel, Jürgen M./Elsig, Martin/Bonnesen, Matthias (2011): "Delayed grammatical acquisition in first language development: subject-verb inversion and subject clitics in French interrogatives". Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1/4: 347–390.

Müller, Natascha (1993): Komplexe Sätze. Der Erwerb von COMP und von Wortstellungsmustern bei bilingualen Kindern (Französisch/Deutsch). Tübingen: Narr.

Myles, Florence (2001–2002): http://www.flloc.soton.ac.uk/newcastle/index.html, accessed December 14, 2012.

Oiry, Magda/ Demirdache, Hamida (2006): "Evidence from L1 acquisition for the syntax of wh-scope marking in French". In: Torrens, Vincent/Escobar, Linda (eds) (2006): The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamin: 289–318.

Parodi, Teresa (1998): Der Erwerb funktionaler Kategorien im Deutschen. Eine Untersuchung zum bilingualen Erstspracherwerb und zum Zweitspracherwerb . Tübingen: Narr.

Pienemann, Manfred (1986): "Is language teachable?". Applied Linguistics 10: 52–79.

Pienemann, Manfred (1998): Language Processing and Second Language Development. Processability Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Prévost, Philippe (1997): Truncation in second language acquisition. Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University.

Prévost, Philippe (2009): The Acquisition of French. The Development of Inflectional Morphology and Syntax in L1 Acquisition, Bilingualism and L2 Acquisition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins.

Prévost, Philippe/White, Lydia (2000): "Missing Surface Inflection or Impairment in second language acquisition? Evidence from tense and agreement" . Second Language Research 16/2: 103–133.

Rizzi, Luigi (1992): "Early null subjects and root null subjects". Geneva Generative Papers 1: 102–114.

Rizzi, Luigi (1996): "Residual verb second and the Wh-criterion". In: Belletti, Adriana/Rizzi, Luigi (eds.) (1996): Parameters and Functional Heads. Essays in Comparative Syntax. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 63–99.

Rizzi, Luigi/Roberts, Ian (1989): "Complex inversion in French". Probus 1: 1–33.

Roberge, Yves (1986): "On doubling and null argument languages". Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistic Society 16: 388–402.

Rooryck, Johan (1994): "On two types of underspecification: Towards a feature theory shared by syntax and phonology". Probus 6: 207–233.

Rothweiler, Monika (1993): Der Erwerb von Nebensätzen im Deutschen. Eine Pilotstudie. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Rothweiler, Monika (2006): "The acquisition of V2 and subordinate clauses in early successive acquisition of German". In: Lleó, Conxita (ed.) (2006): Interfaces in multilingualism: Acquisition, representation and processing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins: 91–113.

Rüschemeyer Shirley-Ann/Fiebach, Christian/Kempe, Vera/Friederici, Angela, D (2005): "Processing lexical semantic and syntactic information in first and second language: fMRI evidence from German and Russian". Human Brain Mapping 25: 266–286.

Sankoff, Gillian (1982): "Usage linguistique et grammaticalisation: Les clitiques sujets en français". In: Dittmar, Norbert/Schlieben-Lange, Brigitte (eds.) (1982): Die Soziolinguistik in romanischsprachigen Ländern. Tübingen, Narr: 81–85.

Saur, Dorothee/Baumgaertner, Annette/Moehring, Anja/Büchel, Christian/Bonnesen, Matthias/Rose, Michael/Musso, Mariachristina/Meisel, Jürgen M. (2009): "Word order processing in the bilingual brain". Neuropsychologia 47: 158–168.

Tracy, Rosemarie (1994): "Raising questions: Formal and functional aspects of the acquisition of Wh-questions in German". In: Tracy, Rosemarie/Lattney, Elsa (eds.) (1994): How Tolerant is Universal Grammar? Essays on Language Learnability and Language Variation. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Tracy, Rosemarie (2009): "Beyond maturation". Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 28: 59–67.

Wartenburger, Isabell/Heekeren, Hauke R./Abutalebi, Jubin/Cappa, Stefano F./Villringer, Arno/Perani, Daniela (2003): "Early setting of grammatical processing in the bilingual brain". Neuron 37: 159–170.

Wexler, Kenneth (1994): "Optional infinitives, head movement and the economy of derivations". In: Lightfoot, David/Hornstein, Norbert (eds.) (1994): Verb movement. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 305–351.

White, Lydia (2003): Second language acquisition and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wode, Henning (1983): "Some stages in the acquisition of questions by monolingual children". In: Wode, Henning (ed.) (1983): Papers on Language Acquisition, Language Learning and Language Teaching. Heidelberg, Groos: 47–93.

Zisa Group (1983–1985): Exkurs zur Interrogation. Unpublished Manuscript. University of Hamburg.

Zuckerman, Shalom/Hulk, Aafke (2001): "Acquiring optionality in French Wh-questions. An experimental study". Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 30, 2: 71–97.

Notes

^* This study was carried out as a cooperation of two research projects directed by Jürgen M. Meisel and Monika Rothweiler within the Collaborative Research Center on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation). We thank Jürgen Meisel, Monika Rothweiler and the (anonymous) reviewers for their useful comments. back