Loading…

Possession in a New Language

During the early stages of the language acquisition process, learner varieties necessarily consist of a restricted set of linguistic devices which the learner has to use as efficiently as possible in daily interactions with other speakers of the target language. This paper deals with the untutored a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied linguistics 1992-03, Vol.13 (1), p.100-118
Main Author: Broeder, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:During the early stages of the language acquisition process, learner varieties necessarily consist of a restricted set of linguistic devices which the learner has to use as efficiently as possible in daily interactions with other speakers of the target language. This paper deals with the untutored acquisition of possessive constructions in Dutch by two Turkish and two Moroccan adults during the first three years of their stay in The Netherlands. The main questions are how adult language learners start out encoding possessive relationships between people and objects, how their repertoire develops, and why they make the choices they make. The focus is on the order of the owner and the possession in possessive constructions. The hypothesis is that the order preferences of adult learners in the target language are strongly influenced by ordering conventions in the source systems.
ISSN:0142-6001
1477-450X
DOI:10.1093/applin/13.1.100