The influence of finiteness and lightness on verb placement in L2 German: Comparing child and adult learners

Abstract

In this study, verb placement with respect to negation is investigated in elicited production and elicited sentence imitation data collected with child second language (L2) learners of German. These data are compared to published data from adult L2 learners, which were collected with the same elicitation materials and were re-analysed for the current study. Results show that similar developmental stages can be observed in child and adult learners. In particular, contrary to previous findings, child L2 learners who had not yet fully acquired finiteness (subject–verb agreement) showed a preference for placing lexical verbs to the right of negation, rather than in a raised position to the left of negation. This pattern was observed for nonfinite and finite lexical verbs, but not for finite auxiliaries, suggesting that children, like adults, may pass through a phase where lightness influences verb placement preferences more strongly than does finiteness.