Development stages of verb finiteness in FSL

Abstract

A central concept in the grammaticalization process in the acquisition of French as a second language is the progressive command of verb morphology and its use to express tense, mood and aspect (Klein & Perdue, 1997; Véronique, 2009). The acquisition of finiteness – the production of inflected verbs which allows distinctions in person, number and later in tense, aspect, et cetera – plays a prominent part in the progressive development of verb morphology and was the subject of numerous studies (Prévost & White, 2000 ; Bartning & Schlyter, 2004). A central concept in the grammaticalization process in the acquisition of French as a second language is the progressive command of verb morphology and its use to express tense, mood and aspect (Klein & Perdue, 1997; Véronique, 2009). The acquisition of finiteness – the production of inflected verbs which allows distinctions in person, number and later in tense, aspect, et cetera – plays a prominent part in the progressive development of verb morphology and was the subject of numerous studies (Prévost & White, 2000 ; Bartning & Schlyter, 2004).Is the acquisition of finiteness identical for lexical and non-lexical verbs (auxiliaries)? Does the morphological class of a verb have an impact on the acquisition of finiteness? Does the development of the lexical richness (variety of used lexemes) influence the development of finiteness?