Dummy auxiliaries in child and adult second language acquisition of Dutch

Abstract

In previous research it has been observed that second language (L2) learners of Dutch and German use analytic verbs in contexts where the target language requires synthetic verbs. These analytic verbs consist of a semantically empty auxiliary (dummy auxiliary) that selects a lexical infinitive. In this study it is found that like in Dutch first language (L1) acquisition, the use of dummy auxiliaries in L2 Dutch varies across word orders and is related to derivational complexity. The relation between dummy auxiliaries and derivational complexity is supported by the outcomes of a sentence-completion task that examined how frequently L1 Turkish and L1 Moroccan-Arabic L2 Dutch learners used dummy auxiliaries across different clause types. Child L2 learners used more dummy auxiliaries than L2 adults. This difference may result from delayed or deviant syntactic development among adults due to a later age of onset.