German monolinguals? The data presented in this chapter allow us to map
the development of gender in German and in Welsh, and can be analysed in
relation to theories of possible transfer (see below).
The next section outlines the typical word order patterns found in
German and Welsh, and children’s performance on tasks relating to this
knowledge.
Word Order
German and Welsh differ in terms of word order patterns. Welsh allows
Verb − Subject − Object (VSO) sentences, as in 1(a):
1(a) gwelodd Siôn y gath
saw-Siôn-the-cat
‘Siôn saw the cat’However, the predominant pattern in colloquial speech is (auxiliary)
Subject − Verb − Object (see, e.g. Gathercole et al., 2005), as in 1(b):
1( b) na’th Siôn weld y gath
did-Siôn-see-the-cat
‘Siôn saw the cat’German, on the other hand, is known as a V2 language, where finite verbs
appear in the second clausal position (SVO):
2(a) Stefan sah die katze
‘Stefan saw the cat’with non-finite verbs appearing in sentence final position (SOV):
2(b) Stefan hat die katze gesehen
Stefan-has-the-cat-seen
‘Stefan has seen the cat’which is also required in subordinate clauses (SOV), as shown below:
2(c) Stefan sah die katze, obwohl sie sich versteckte
Stefan-saw-the-cat-although-it-itself-hid
‘Stefan saw the cat although it was hiding’.But what do we know about children’s attempts at learning these
patterns?
Cross-linguistic Influence and Patterns of Acquisition 47