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
Mostrar afiliaciones +
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.