LINGUIST List 10.1177

Mon Aug 9 1999

Qs: Acquisition Order, French dialects

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Arash Behazin, Acquisition Order of Formal Features
2. NANCY MAE ANTRIM, French dialects

Dear linguists,

I wonder if there has been any reports about acquisition order of
formal features in the field? I suppose last year professor Roger
Hawkins (University of Essex) gave a paper at Pacslrf in which he
proposed that L2 learners have particular problems with
uninterpretable features. The title was "The inaccessability of formal
features of functional categories in second language
acquisition". Unfortunately I don't have access to such papers, would
you be kind enough to provide me with any related information? Please
let me know more about interpretability of formal features,
learnability of formal features and studies which have been carried
out with direct reference to Checking Theory and Second Language
Acquisition if possible. All my heartiest thanks to you in advance.

 Arash Behazin

I have several questions about clitics in different dialects of French.
Roberge (1990) reports subject and/or object doubling in certain dialects.
In the Pied Noir French of North Africa both the suject and object can be
doubled, as in (1).

1. a. Marie elle vient.
 b. Marie l'aime a Jean.

In the French of Quebec, the subject can be doubled, as in (1a), while in
Montaigne and Moliere (South west France) the object can be doubled, as in
(2).

2. Que je t'escoute a toy.

In Standard French the 3rd person pronoun can be used to disambiguate the
possessive form, as in (3).

3.a. sa maison a lui
 b. sa maison a elle

Because this looks like clitic doubling, Valois (1991) suggests that the
possessive is a clitic in French. I am pursuing this argument and would
like to know if this "doubling" is possible with 1st and 3nd person, as in
(4).

4. ma maison a moi

In those dialects mentioned how productive is doubling with the
possessive. (I am assuming that the possessive would be doubled in these
dialects, although that may not be the case.) Are there other dialects of
French that have this doubling?

Thank you for any assistance you can give me. 

Nancy Mae Antrim

*****************************************************************************
Nancy Mae Antrim, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Languages and Linguistics
University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, Texas 79968-0531
Tel: (915) 747-7045
Fax: (915) 747-5292
e-mail: nantrimmail.utep.edu