Variations dans l’acquisition du marqueur ergatif en basque par des enfants bilingues basque-français

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study of seven Basque-French bilingual children and three monolingual Basque-speaking children concerning the acquisition of the morphological marking of the ergative case in Basque. Following the hypotheses put forth to account for the development of early bilingualism, the aim of the study was to establish whether bilingual children follow the same developmental sequences as monolingual children during the acquisition of the ergative case. The research protocol we have developed involves relatively unguided as well as constrained data focusing on the production of the ergative case in these two contexts. The data show significant inter-individual and inter-task differences in the production of the ergative case that contribute to some variation in language acquisition. The findings lead us to question classifications of early bilinguals based on age of acquisition alone.