The Acquisition of the Morphosyntax-Pragmatic Interface in French L1 : Evidence from reference with articles and pronouns

Abstract

"One of the first uses to which children put language is reference. Reference can be defined as the use a linguistic expression to identify a person or object (Brown and Yule 1983). This is a crucial part of language acquisition, since it is the only way for children to make clear what they want to communicate without having to resort to deictic gestures, such as pointing. The linguistic subfields of morphosyntax and pragmatics are both closely involved in reference. The linguistic form that speakers choose to refer depends on various pragmatic aspects, for example on whether speaker and hearer are both familiar with the referent and on whether the referent is new or given in the current discourse. Thus, in French, an indefinite article indicates newness and cannot be used for referents that are already given in discourse"