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Constructing verb paradigms in French: adult construals and emerging grammatical contrasts

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Abstract

Children acquiring French at first use just one form of each verb, where the meaning identifies only the event-type. How and when do they add additional forms, with the appropriate meanings? In this paper, we explore the information available to children from adult reformulations of these early verb-form uses, and show how adult construals contribute to children’s learning to distinguish between the homophonous infinitival (donner ‘give-Inf’) and participial (donné ‘give-PP’) forms, both /done/, of class 1 verbs. We argue that conversational exchanges, with the construals adults contribute, enable children to differentiate the meanings of homophonous forms, and so begin to construct verb paradigms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Margaret Jacks Hall – Bldg 460, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Eve V. Clark & Marie-Catherine de Marneffe

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  1. Eve V. Clark
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  2. Marie-Catherine de Marneffe
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Correspondence to Eve V. Clark.

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Clark, E.V., de Marneffe, MC. Constructing verb paradigms in French: adult construals and emerging grammatical contrasts. Morphology 22, 89–120 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-011-9193-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-011-9193-6

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