Phenomena in French normal and impaired language acquisition and their implications for hypotheses on language development

This paper examines the spontaneous productions of 3 normal and 11 French children with SLI, focussing on infinitives, subject and complement clitics, and determiners. The 3 normal children (1.8–2.10) appear to show roughly concomitant use of infinitives and omission of determiners or pronominal clitics. However, determiner omission and the use of infinitives are different in some respects. Moreover, complement clitics appear much later than subject clitics or determiners. For the SLI children (3.10–7.10), opposite patterns in the development of infinitives and determiners could be established, and complement clitics rarely occur even if determiners are used correctly and infinitives are no longer produced. The data from French SLI thus indicate that infinitive use does not necessarily coincide with determiner omission or the absence of complement clitics. Under the assumption that SLI children show parallel but delayed development, these findings imply that theories of development should not assume too close a link between these phenomena.