Problems with the Appropriation of French Object Clitics in L2A: a  Perceptual and Articulatory Analysis

Although research has clearly demonstrated the existence of the various difficulties associated with acquiring French accusative clitics, the actual source of these difficulties has not yet been fully established. Traditionally speaking - whether in the context of L1 French or L2 French acquisition - the explanations proposed so far insist that the problems arise essentially for syntactic reasons (Jakubowicz et al., 1998; Jakubowicz & Nash, 2001; Herschensohn, 2004; Grüter, 2006). However, two facts suggest that the main reason for these difficulties (particularly on the long term) is not really so much a syntactic one for the following reasons: 1) First, it is a well known fact that child L1 and L2 learners successfully interpret object clitics even though they have difficulty producing them orally (Van der Velde, 2003; Buckley, 2004). 2) In addition, mastery of target language syntax in L2 does not systematically exclude learners from exhibiting non-target behaviour or variability in oral speech (Mercier, 2010). These observations suggest then, that the  phonological properties of clitics must logically have a key impact on clitic development (see also Mercier, 2008). Thus, further studies on the acquisition of French accusative clitics are needed-particularly research that analyses and compares perceptual and articulatory data. And so, the objective of this study is to fill in this methodological gap in clitic research. In order to accomplish this, the L2 adult learner context will be studied. We will see how the problems with the appropriation of French object clitics in L2 can be explained in terms of phonological difficulties in production and, to some extent, in perception.

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