Participial Constructions in Child Grammar: Correlations with Verb Movement Properties

Abstract

"In this paper, we investigate the development of participial constructions, specifically the present perfect construction, from a cross-linguistic perspective. We will account for previously unobserved differences regarding auxiliary omission within this construction in the acquisition of monolingual Spanish, German, Italian, and French. A quantitative analysis of the data of 10 children (age range 1;6-2;8) acquiring these four languages shows substantial differences with regard to the types of participial constructions that are produced, i.e. full-fledged present perfect forms (containing both an inflected auxiliary and a past participle) versus bare past participles, in which the auxiliary has been omitted"