Functional Categories in Learner Language

Research on spontaneous processes of language acquisition has shown that early learner systems are based on lexical structures. At some point in acquisition this lexical-semantic system is given up in favour of a target-like functional category system. This work deals with the driving forces behind the acquisition of the functional properties of inflection, word-order variation, definiteness and agreement.


Christine Dimroth, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Peter Jordens , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.