Null and Overt Subjects in the Acquisition of Modern Standard Arabic as a First Language by Bilingual Moroccan Children
Résumé
Goal. In Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the subject can be null or overt, occurring preverbally (VSO) and postverbally (SVO). The current acquisitional study presents results from picture description task with 24 Moroccan child learners of MSA (aging between 5;1 and 9;1). Further, it explores the extent to which learners employ the economy principle in their acquisition of null and overt subjects, and what structure is preferably produced by children. The results. The analysis of the results reveals that the child initial state is constrained by the economy principle in that children overused the null subject constructions. The results also show that both VSO and SVO structures are used in the second acquisitional stage. The results are interpreted in light of the Derivational Complexity Hypothesis (Jakubowicz, 2011). Implementations of the results are included at the end of this article. The current study had implications for the status of MSA as an L1. The results suggested that children’s grammar was constrained by the three factors at play in natural L1 acquisition (Chomsky, 2005). Further, Moroccan child learners of MSA assume the same acquisitional paths replicated in other studies of null and overt subjects in other languages, including the Arabic varieties. This behavior was evidence in support of the claims that MSA is acquired as an L1 by Moroccan, and, thus, all the Arab learners. To this end, further research and evidence is needed to examine the acquisition of other aspects of MSA by Arab children.
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