Production and comprehension of verb agreement morphology in Spanish and English child L2 learners: evidence for the effects of morphological structure
type: CreativeWork
description: Verbal inflections are problematic for both first language (L1) and second language (L2) learners in both comprehension and production and take a while to develop. Most research has mainly looked at this phenomenon from the perspective of functional features and has tried to ascertain whether or not learners have the grammatical knowledge or representation of the L2. However, although insightful, research has failed to look in greater detail at how the structure of the target-language may affect learners’ production and comprehension of verbal morphemes. In L1 acquisition, it has been found that the structure of the language may have an effect on children’s verbal morphology acquisition. However, it is basically unknown whether this is also true for L2 acquisition or, if in contrast, all child L2 learners show similar patterns of verbal morphology acquisition regardless of the L2. The present study addresses this issue and investigates whether child L2 learners learning typologically distinct languages show similar acquisition of verbal morphology. In order to address the study’s objectives, the acquisition of agreement morphology in school-age children learning Spanish and learning English as L2 was evaluated. Thirty two English-speaking children with ages ranging from 7;5 to 10;11 years (M = 8;9), were tested in the United States. All of these children were enrolled in an immersion program and had started learning Spanish when they were between 4 and 7 years old (M= 4.9). Additionally, 32 Spanish-speaking children, with ages ranging from 7;7 to 9;9 years (M= 9;0), were tested in Puerto Rico. All of these children were enrolled in an immersion program and had started learning English when they were between 4 and 5 years old (M=4.3). The results revealed that the children learning Spanish showed high accuracy in producing Spanish 3rd person plurals and performed native-like in comprehending verbal agreement. In contrast, the children learning English exhibited low a…
abstract: Verbal inflections are problematic for both first language (L1) and second language (L2) learners in both comprehension and production and take a while to develop. Most research has mainly looked at this phenomenon from the perspective of functional features and has tried to ascertain whether or not learners have the grammatical knowledge or representation of the L2. However, although insightful, research has failed to look in greater detail at how the structure of the target-language may affect learners’ production and comprehension of verbal morphemes. In L1 acquisition, it has been found that the structure of the language may have an effect on children’s verbal morphology acquisition. However, it is basically unknown whether this is also true for L2 acquisition or, if in contrast, all child L2 learners show similar patterns of verbal morphology acquisition regardless of the L2. The present study addresses this issue and investigates whether child L2 learners learning typologically distinct languages show similar acquisition of verbal morphology. In order to address the study’s objectives, the acquisition of agreement morphology in school-age children learning Spanish and learning English as L2 was evaluated. Thirty two English-speaking children with ages ranging from 7;5 to 10;11 years (M = 8;9), were tested in the United States. All of these children were enrolled in an immersion program and had started learning Spanish when they were between 4 and 7 years old (M= 4.9). Additionally, 32 Spanish-speaking children, with ages ranging from 7;7 to 9;9 years (M= 9;0), were tested in Puerto Rico. All of these children were enrolled in an immersion program and had started learning English when they were between 4 and 5 years old (M=4.3). The results revealed that the children learning Spanish showed high accuracy in producing Spanish 3rd person plurals and performed native-like in comprehending verbal agreement. In contrast, the children learning English exhibited low a…
author: Morales, Alexandra
language: en
keywords: second language acquisition, children, verbal morphology, English, Spanish
date published: 2014-05-30T16:50:14Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:38Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49565