Verb-types and Modality in Early Child L2 Root Infinitives*

This paper investigates to what extent child second language (L2) acquisition is similar to first language (L1) acquisition. The focus is on the nature of root infinitives (RIs) produced by children, namely root declarative clauses whose main verb is either a past participle or an infinitive, whereas a finite form is required in the target language (e.g. papa partir 'daddy leave-INF' instead of papa part 'daddy is leaving'). Previous research suggests that there exists a period, starting in the early phases of acquisition, during which RIs are produced by children learning French or German as an L1 (Pierce, 1992; Wexler, 1994) or an L2 (Prévost, 2003; Prévost & White, 1999). At first glance, it seems that child L1 and L2 RIs have several properties in common. First, when RIs occur, they are found along with finite clauses. In both learning contexts, finite and nonfinite forms are observed, with the incidence of RIs decreasing over time. Second, nonfinite verb forms seem to be truly nonfinite, in that they are found in nonfinite positions. Infinitival verbs never precede negation (they always follow it) and they are never used with subject clitics; if they are found with a subject pronoun, the pronoun is a strong pronoun, such as moi 'me' in French, which presumably bears non-nominative default case. Despite these similarities, further investigation is needed in order to establish whether L1 and L2 RIs are of the same nature. In particular, research in early L1 acquisition of languages with overt infinitival morphology reports a double correlation between finiteness and verb type, and between finiteness and modality (e.g. Ferdinand, 1996). Verbs expressing an event, e.g. marcher (‘walk’), are found to be nonfinite, as in (1a), in contrast to state verbs, e.g. être (‘be’), which are always finite, as in (1b).