Grammar
When do children comprehend the grammar of Spanish? Do they know that words in Spanish are classified into feminine and masculine and that articles in Spanish have a different meaning than in English? Do they know that the verb “to be” in Spanish has two forms, ser and estar? We conducted a series of comprehension-based experiments with pictures and with a methodology that measures eye-movements during comprehension (eye-tracking).
We found that after one or two years of instruction, our children know that Spanish expresses plural (as in English), but have difficulty categorizing masculine and feminine nouns or understanding the different meanings of the Spanish articles and the verbs ser and estar. The children we were able to follow longitudinally for three years started to make these distinctions by the third year. Our preliminary results show that some aspects of grammar take longer to master than pronunciation in young children. However, a recent study conducted by Begoña Arechabaleta using eye tracking to test noun classification by gender showed that with this methodology and technology the children were able to make a distinction between masculine and feminine nouns when hearing the articles, just like native speakers of Spanish and unlike adult L2 learners of Spanish. We are in the process of replicating and expanding this research.
Montrul, S., Ionin, T., Bowles, M., Morales, A. and Cimpian, A. “What is the initial state in child L2 acquisition?” (poster). Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, University of Ottawa, October 17-20, 2013.