Word Order

Abstract

This chapter takes a first look at the comparative French-English acquisition data, examining word order in the two child languages. French and English are traditionally considered to be equivalent with respect to word order in simple declarative sentences. However, there is certainly more pronounced colloquial variability in French than in English in this respect. And, as will be discussed here, there are clearcut differences between the two languages when it comes to acquisition of basic word order. In effect, the predictions of the model for the acquisition of word order in the two languages, as sketched in the previous chapter, appear to be verified. The child acquiring English sticks to SVO with one noteworthy exception. The French child produces VS and VOS structures in abundance, and appears to prefer postverbal subjects to preverbal lexical subjects during an early and enduring phase. This remarkable fact has not previously been explored in any depth. The divergent developmental patterns are shown here to fall out from the VP-internal subject hypothesis, in conjunction with the fact that French has verb raising and English does not. I turn first to English child language.