Subject–verb agreement in Specific Language Impairment: A study of monolingual and bilingual German-speaking children

• MONIKA ROTHWEILER ^[1] ; SOLVEIG CHILLA ^[2] ; HARALD CLAHSEN ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Bremen

     University of Bremen

     Kreisfreie Stadt Bremen, Alemania

     
  2. [2] University of Erfurt

     University of Erfurt

     Kreisfreie Stadt Erfurt, Alemania

     
  3. [3] University of Potsdam

     University of Potsdam

     Kreisfreie Stadt Potsdam, Alemania

     

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• Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 15, Nº 1, 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment), págs. 39-57
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This study investigates phenomena that have been claimed to be indicative of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in German, focusing on subject–verb agreement marking. Longitudinal data from fourteen German-speaking children with SLI, seven monolingual and seven Turkish–German successive bilingual children, were examined. We found similar patterns of impairment in the two participant groups. Both the monolingual and the bilingual children with SLI had correct (present vs. preterit) tense marking and produced syntactically complex sentences such as embedded clauses and wh-questions, but were limited in reliably producing correct agreement-marked verb forms. These contrasts indicate that agreement marking is impaired in German-speaking children with SLI, without any necessary concurrent deficits in either the CP-domain or in tense marking. Our results also show that it is possible to identify SLI from an early successive bilingual child's performance in one of her two languages.