Abstract
Morphology plays an essential role in written French, especially since many written markers have no corresponding pronunciation (Catach, 1986; Dubois, 1965; Chervel and Manesse, 1989; Girolami-Boulinier, 1984; Jaffré, 1992; Lucci and Millet, 1994). This predominantly silent morphology has two consequences. First the learning of these markers and of their functions by children must be performed without an oral reference (e.g., the absence of phonetic realization of the nominal plural -s in “les poules”/“the hens” and of the verbal plural -nt in “elles picorent”/“they peck”). Second, the implementation and the control of these markers by adults take place only in reference to the written language (Fayol, Largy and Lemaire, 1994; Largy, Fayol and Lemaire, 1996).
*
The studies reported here were supported by the Conseil Régional de Bourgogne (grant to M. Fayol and J.P. Jarousse). Parts of the studies were conducted by M.G. Thevenin and C. Totereau as partial fulfilment of requirements for their respective doctoral dissertations in the Sciences of Education and Psychology Departments at the University of Bourgogne.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anderson, J.R. (1974). Retrieval of propositional information from long term memory. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 451–474.
Anderson, J.R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. New York: Academic Press.
Anderson, J.R. (1992). Automaticity and the ACT* theory. American Journal of Psychology, 105, 165–180.
Anderson, J.R. (1995). Learning and memory. An integrated approach. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Berko, J. (1958). The child’s learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–177.
Beers, C.S. and Beers, J.W. (1992). Children’s spelling of English inflectional morphology. In S. Templeton and D.R. Bear (Eds.), Development of orthographic knowledge and the foundations of literacy (pp. 231–251). Hillsdale, NJ: L.E.A.
Bock, J.K. and Eberhard, K.M. (1993). Meaning, sound and syntax in English number agreement. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 57–99.
Bourdin, B. and Fayol, M. (1994). Is written language production more difficult than oral language production? A working memory approach. International Journal of Psychology, 29, 591–620.
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Catach, N. (1986). L’orthographe française. Paris: Nathan.
Cazden, C.B. (1972). Child language and education. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Chanquoy, L. and Negro, I. (1996). Subject-verb agreement errors in written productions. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 25, 553–570.
Chervel, A. and Manesse, D. (1989). Comparaison de deux ensembles de dictées 1873–1987. Paris: INRP.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
De Villiers, J. and De Villiers, P. (1973). A cross-sectional study of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2, 267–278.
Dubois, J. (1965). Grammaire structurale du Français: Norn et pronom. Paris: Larousse.
Fayol, M., Hupet, M. and Largy, P. The acquisition of subject-verb agreement in written French. From novice to expert errors. Reading and Writing, in press.
Fayol, M., Largy, P. and Lemaire, P. (1994). When cognitive overload enhances subject-verb agreement errors. A study in French written language. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47, 437–464.
Girolami-Boulimier, A. (1984). Les niveaux actuels dans la pratique du language oral et écrit. Paris: Masson.
Graves, M.F. and Koziol, S. (1971). Noun plural development in primary grade children. Child Development, 42, 1165–1173.
Jaffré, J.P. (1992). Didactiques de l’orthographe. Paris: Hachette.
Keeney, T.J., and Smith, N.D. (1971). Young children’s imitation and comprehension of sentential singularity and plurality. Language and Speech, 14, 372–383.
Keeney, T.J. and Wolfe, J. (1972). The acquisition of agreement in English. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 698–705.
Largy, P., Fayol, M. and Lemaire, P. (1996). On confounding verb/noun inflections. A study of subject-verb agreement errors in French. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 217–255.
Logan, G.D. (1988a). Toward an instance theory of automatization. Psychological Review, 95, 492–527.
Logan, G.D. (1988b). Automaticity, resources, and memory. Human Factors, 30, 583–598.
Lucci, V. and Millet, A (1994). L’orthographe de tous les jours. Paris: Champion.
Mervis, C.B. and Johnson, K.E. (1991). Acquisition of the plural morpheme: A case study. Developmental Psychology, 27, 222–235.
Nicolaci-da Costa, A. and Harris, M. (1984). Young children’s comprehension of number markers. British Journal of Psychology, 2, 105–111.
Nunes, T, Bryant, P. and Bindman, M. (1997). Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 637–649.
Tenpenny, P.L. (1995). Abstractionist versus episodic theories of repetition priming and word identification. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
Totereau, C., Fayol, M. and Barrouillet, P. The acquisition of noun, adjective and verb inflections for number in written French, submitted.
Totereau, C., Thevenin, G. and Fayol, M. The development of the understanding of number morphology in written French. In C. Perfetti, M. Fayol and L. Rieben (Eds.), Learning to spell. Mahwah: L.E.A., in press.
Vigliocco, G., Butterworth, B. and Garrett, M.F. (1996). Subject-verb agreement in Spanish and English: Differences in the role of conceptual constraints. Cognition, 61, 261–298.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fayol, M., Geneviève Thevenin, M., Pierre Jarousse, J., Totereau, C. (1999). From Learning to Teaching to Learning French Written Morphology. In: Nunes, T. (eds) Learning to Read: An Integrated View from Research and Practice. Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4826-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4826-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-5992-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4826-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive