The acquisition of nominal factor in French: a progressive and interactive grammar

This article presents a partial synthesis of our work on the acquisition of nominal determiners by French children between about one and three years. The goal of this research is to give support to the functional hypothesis of a progressive construction of grammar, in interaction with the other components of the child's language ability and with the environment. Our studies draw on the analysis of spontaneous production data collected in natural situations of interaction with relatives. Three series of analysis are presented here as arguments, concerning respectively: the "graduality" of determiners' acquisition, the role of prosodic and lexical factors in this process and finally the role of the input. Adapted from the source document