The end state in second language acquisition: factors, facts, and fallacies

The end state in second language acquisition: factors, facts, and fallacies
                                      David Birdsong
                               (University of Texas at Austin)

What are the upper limits of attainment among post-adolescent second language (L2) learners?
New perspectives on this question depart from the traditional emphasis on deficiency in favor
of a more neutral approach to late L2 learners’ potential, an approach that considers what
learners are capable of attaining alongside their shortcomings.
        In this light the presentation reviews facts about the upper limits of attainment in an
L2, i.e., findings of selected behavioral and brain-based studies of L2 knowledge and
processing at the end state of acquisition. In addition, the talk recontextualizes well-known
constraining and facilitating factors in L2 acquisition, in particular those that are subsumed
under the macro-variable of age of immersion: L1 entrenchment, maturational state,
experiential and psycho-social factors, biological mechanisms underlying cognitive decline
and maintenance, etc. We also consider conventional, and in some cases fallacious, views on
the relationship of age-related effects to various critical period accounts of L2 attainment.

Similarities and differences between L1, child and adult L2:
                       linguistic and neurological evidence

                                 Matthias Bonnesen
                     (SFB 538 (project E2), University of Hamburg)

In first language acquisition, every child develops a full grammatical competence,
which is not the case for L2 acquisition. A number of researchers have provided
linguistic evidence for the assumption that first language acquisition (L1) differs
qualitatively from second language acquisition (L2). This is known as the
Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH). In this talk, new linguistic and,
additionally, neurological data will be presented supporting the FDH on the basis of
the language combination German and French. According to the Critical Period
Hypothesis, the age of onset of acquisition is one of the most important factors
distinguishing these different types of acquisition. In linguistic terms, L2 learners
frequently commit errors which are never (or hardly ever) attested in L1. An instance
of this type of error is, for example, the placement of non-finite verbs in finite position,
e.g. infinitives in V2 in German. From a neurological perspective, differences in the
processing of an L1 and an L2 are attested by means of neurofunctional imaging
(fMRI): the spatial representation is different, and, furthermore, the activation level in
L2 is significantly higher than in L1. Thus, neurological and linguistic evidence
correlate very well and support the FDH. Assuming that these fundamental
differences between L1 and L2 exist, the question arises up to which age the
acquisition of an L1 competence is still possible. In this presentation I will provide
evidence that at an age of onset of 3-4 years, child L2 language acquisition shares
aspects from both L1 and L2, and thus can be seen as a specific kind of acquisition
in between L1 and L2.

Accuracy in production of English /d/ and /ð/
                    by Catalan-Spanish bilinguals

                             Susana Cortés
              (SFB 538 (project H6), University of Hamburg)

The present study analyses the production of English /d/ and /ð/ by
twenty Catalan-Spanish bilinguals who have learnt English in the classroom
only. They are advanced learners of English, who started learning English at
around age 10 or slightly later.
      The English phonemes under study were chosen because they are
phonetically very similar to two Spanish or Catalan phones, which are
allophones of the /d/ phoneme in both languages. Therefore, the context
where one sound and the other appear in Spanish and Catalan are mutually
exclusive, whereas both sounds can appear in exactly the same contexts in
English. The goal of the study presented here is to check whether adults,
who started learning a foreign language at age 10 and who have not lived in
a country where the target language is spoken, manage to learn to produce
the appropriate English sounds in different contexts, without explicit
phonetic training. Results are discussed according to Flege’s Speech Learning
Model (1995, among others) and within different theoretical phonological
frameworks.

Reference

Flege, J.E. 1995. Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings, and
problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience:
Issues in cross-language research. Timonium, MD: York Press.

Language related brain activation in children, adult L1 and L2

                               Angela D. Friederici
 (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany)

In first and second language processing, syntax appears to be the major issue. In a
series of experiments using event-related brain potential (ERP) measures, we found
that semantic processes as reflected in a particular ERP component (N400) are quite
similar in L1 and L2 and are present in children around the age of 2 years. Syntactic
processes which in native adults are reflected in an early left anterior negativity
(ELAN for automatic local phrase structure building) and a centro-parietal positivity
(P600 for late integration processes) have a different developmental pace. In children
the P600 is present (at 2 years) before the ELAN (at 2; 8 years) and in L2 the P600 is
usually present whereas the ELAN is absent. Thus in particular automatic syntactic
processes appear to require specific conditions under which they establish.
Functional imaging (fMRI) studies on syntax processing support this view. They
reveal that children and L2 users show activation patterns in the prefrontal cortex
which are different from those of native adults. In children and L2 learners brain
activation goes far beyond the posterior portion of Broca's area (BA44), normally
seen for syntax processing in adults, and extends to more anterior portions
(BA45/47) which are normally observed for semantic and strategy-related processes.
Thus it appears that for syntactic processes there is a preferred period during which
they establish neurally. Later acquisition of syntactic parameters is possible, but most
likely not based on an identical neural basis.

Cliticisation in the acquisition of child French L2: a cross-learner comparison

                                      Jonas Granfeldt
                   (Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University)

Adult L2 learners (aL2) of French have great difficulties acquiring cliticisation and the clitic
properties of French pronouns (Granfeldt & Schlyter, 2004). Adult L2 learners of French
could place the clitic in a post-verbal position (*Je vois le), separate a subject pronoun from
the verb with an adverb (*je seulement habite…) and they rarely used clitic-doubling
constructions. At the same time they could easily place long and contrastive stress on subject
pronouns (*JE comprendre et la dame comprendre) and they had persistent difficulties with
reduction in elision contexts (*Je aime…). These errors were not found in a group of
simultaneously bilingual children (2L1) to which the adults were compared, suggesting that
the 2L1 children develop the clitic properties of subject and object pronouns through a
different developmental sequence (Granfeldt & Schlyter, 2004).

In our 2004 paper we argued in favour of a general age effect, rather than a specific effect of
L1 influence, to explain the different developmental sequences.

At the time for our previous study, no child L2 data (cL2) from the same language
combination (Swedish-French) were available so the presumed age effect could not be
properly evaluated. In a new and recently started project at Lund University, Age of onset and
development of French, we therefore collect new data from cL2, 2L1 and L1 children. The
cL2 children have varying ages of onset. Some pilot recordings started in 2006/2007 and for
some of the children we now have documented longitudinally their language development
over 2-3 years, both in French and Swedish.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a qualitative cross-learner comparison of the
acquisition of cliticisation in French in this new data. I will especially focus on the cL2
children with different AOs: (3;5, 4;8 and 6;5), evaluate the clitic status of subject and object
pronouns in their production and compare their production with the 2L1 and L1 children.

The main empirical questions are:
   a) Will the distributional patterns of subject and object pronouns in the cL2 children
      pattern more with the aL2 learners or with the (2)L1 children previously studied?
   b) Will the properties of clitics at different linguistic levels cluster together in cL2
      children (as they did in aL2 and 2L1)?
   c) Will the developmental sequences be the same in (2)L1, cL2 and aL2?
   d) Will there be differences between children with AO around 3-4 years and AO around
      6;5 years?

Preliminary results on object pronouns suggest indeed a resemblance between cL2 and aL2
(cf. also Meisel, 2008) but also, and more surprisingly, a greater than expected resemblance
between the new 2L1 children and the cL2 children (Granfeldt, Schlyter & Kihlstedt, 2007).

The results will be discussed in the light of the ongoing discussion on the one hand between
critical period effects (Kroffke & Rothweiler, 2006, Granfeldt, Schlyter & Kihlstedt, 2007,
Meisel, 2008 etc.) and similarities between 2L1 and cL2 on the other (Hamann & Belletti,
2008).

References

Cardinaletti, A. and Starke, M. (1999) “The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes
      of pronouns”. In H. van Riemsdijk (ed.) Clitics in the Languages of Europe, 145-233. Berlin: Mouton de
      Gruyter.
Granfeldt, J., Schlyter, S. & Kilhstedt, M. (2007) “French as cL2, 2L1 and L2 in pre-school children”. In J.
      Granfeldt (ed.) Studies in Romance Bilingual Acquisition - Age of Onset and Development of French and
      Spanish, 6-41. PERLES No 24. Centre for Languages and Literature, University of Lund.
Hamann, C. and Belletti, A. (2008) Developmental patterns in the acquisition of complement clitic pronouns:
      comparing different acquisition modes with an emphasis on French. Rivista di Grammatica
      Generativa 31, 39-78.
Kroffke, S. & Rothweiler, M. (2006) “Variation im frühen Zweitspracherwerb des Deutschen durch Kinder mit
      türkischer Erstsprache” [Variation in the early L2 acquisition by children with Turkish L1]. In M. Vliegen
      (ed.) Variation in Sprachtheorie und Spracherwerb. Akten des 39. Linguistischen Kolloquiums.
      Amsterdam. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang.
Meisel, J.M. (2008) “Child second language acquisition or successive first language acquisition?” In B.
      Haznedar & E. Gavruseva (eds.) Current Trends in Child Second Language Acquisition: A Generative
      Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamin

Interpretation of generic plural NPs in German-Italian bilinguals

       Tanja Kupisch, Cristina Pierantozzi, Katja Hailer, Maria Makarova & Jeanette Thulke
                          (SFB Mehrsprachigkeit, Universität Hamburg)

Recently, Montrul (2008) has proposed that even simultaneous bilinguals may end up having
incomplete knowledge of their heritage language in adulthood, provided they had insufficient
input during a critical period covering the age before puberty.
        The past few decades have seen much work on the acquisition of articles in L1, 2L1
and L2 acquisition. However, few studies have looked at generic utterances, although
generics provide an interesting study ground for cross-linguistic influence. Languages with
articles differ in terms of whether they use bare plurals (German) or definite marked plurals
(Italian) for generic reference, as shown in (1) and (2).

(1)    a. Ge. Affen   essen Bananen.                              (generic)
              monkeys eat bananas
       b. It. *Scimmie mangiano banane.
              monkeys eat       bananas

(2)    a. Ge. Die Affen essen Bananen.                            (specific/*generic)
              the monkeys eat bananas
       b. It. Le scimmie mangiano banane.                         (specific/generic)
              the monkeys eat     bananas

        Our study investigates the interpretation of generic reference with plural noun phrases
in children acquiring Italian and German simultaneously. Research on acquisition has shown
that the interface between syntax and semantics is particularly vulnerable for cross-linguistic
influence (in L2 and 2L1) or even language loss (adult heritage speakers). Given partially
overlapping properties of the two languages (both languages have bare nouns and definite
articles) and given the interface nature of this domain, we expect the interpretation of these
domains to be particularly vulnerable.
        A specific task was designed to test whether children are influenced by their
knowledge of Italian when speaking German and vice versa. Subjects are shown pictures of
animals, objects or people with anomalies, e.g. a witch on a vacuum cleaner (Figure 1). They
are then asked a generic question, e.g. (3).

(3)    Le streghe volano sulla scopa?              (expected answer: sì ‘yes’)
       the witches fly    on-the broom
       ‘Do witches fly on brooms?’

Our task was modelled after a similar study by Pérez-Leroux et al. (2004), who found
a bias towards generic utterances with monolingual English and Spanish children. We used a
different story and changed the type of questions, distractor and control items to specifically
address the question of cross-linguistic influence. We counterbalanced yes- and no-responses.
In a pilot test, monolingual adult Italian speakers interpreted such questions generically
despite the strong focus on a specific story and picture. Our study will test German-Italian
bilinguals aged between 6 and 10 years. We compare children differing in their amount of
exposure to Italian, examining whether the ability to interpret generic sentences correctly
coincides with the amount of exposure to Italian during the first years of schooling. We
predict a lower number of generic responses for children who go to a German school.

References

Montrul, S. 2008. Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism. Re-examining the Age Factor.
     [Series on Studies in Bilingualism] Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., A. Munn, C. Schmitt & M. DeIrish. 2004. Learning definite
     determiners: genericity and definiteness in English and Spanish. Boston University
     Conference on Language Development 28, Proceedings Supplement.

On some phonological overlap between a weak L1 and an L2

                       Conxita Lleó, Martin Rakow and Marta Saceda
                   (SFB 538 (projects E3 and T4), University of Hamburg)

Schlyter (1993)’s proposal that the weak language of a child that is exposed to two languages
from birth resembles L2 has been corroborated in various studies. However, Meisel (2007)
argues that most of the cases of weak languages presented in the literature on early bilingual
acquisition involve quantitative rather than qualitative differences between the weak language
of a bilingual child and the L1 of a monolingual, and thus the “language making faculty” is
not involved in such a weakness, as in fact the weak language shows the same phenomena in
its development as L1 does, but with higher percentages of ungrammatical usage.
Morphology is suggested as one area, though, that might be a possible source for qualitative
differences between bilinguals and monolinguals, as according to Pfaff (1992) the bilingual
Turkish child studied by her had not acquired the category GENDER in German.
        This debate has to my knowledge hardly brought any evidence from the area of
phonology, in spite of the numerous studies that deal with the acquisition of the phonology of
a weak language in bilingual children. It is important to note that although articulatory
phonetics can be interpreted as an external system, according to the tenets of the Minimalist
Program, Phonology lies at the interface with the cognitive system and deals with the
specification of lexical items, as they are represented in the mental lexicon. The present
contribution focuses on the following questions: a) Does the phonology of a cL2 differ from
the phonology of L1? b) Is the phonology of a weak L1 different from the phonology of a
strong L1 in the bilingual context? Assuming that these two questions are answered
affirmatively, c) does the phonology of a weak L1 resemble the phonology of L1 or that of
cL2?
        In order to answer these three questions, several sets of data are drawn upon: Spanish
and German data from balanced and unbalanced bilingual children between 2 and 3 years of
age; Spanish data from unbalanced children (German dominant) between 7 and 8 years of
age; Spanish data from German monolinguals and German data from Spanish monolinguals,
exposed to Spanish or German, respectively, after 3;0, as well as monolingual Spanish and
monolingual German child data as controls. Preliminary results show that simultaneous
bilingual acquisition may lead to a strong language (generally the community language) and a
weak language, which tends to resemble an L2 in some phonological aspects, and which may
be identical to a cL2 in several respects. That is, our results in the area of phonology point to a
continuum between L1 and L2, rather than categorical differences. The phonological areas in
which wL1 and cL2 overlap involve complex categories, and especially categories, which in
the two target languages of the bilingual are saved with different specifications, as in the case
of voiced stops and nasal consonants, where adult Spanish saves them with a default feature
and German with a specified feature (Lleó & Rakow 2005, 2006).

References
Lleó, C. & M. Rakow (2005). Markedness Effects in Voiced Stop Spirantization in Bilingual
      German-Spanish Children. In J. Cohen, K.T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, and J. MacSwan
      (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB4), 1353-
      1371. CD Rom: Cascadilla Press.
Lleó, C. & M. Rakow (2006). Nasalassimilation und Prosodische Hierarchie im
      monolingualen und bilingualen Erwerb des Spanischen und des Deutschen. In
      Christliebe El Mogharbel und Katja Himstedt (eds.), Phonetik und Nordistik. Festschrift
      für Magnús Pétursson zum 65. Geburtstag, 95-117. Frankfurt am Main: Theo Hector.

Meisel, J.M. (2007). The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first
      language as a second language? Applied Psycholinguistics 28, 495–514.
Pfaff, C. W. (1992). The issue of grammaticalization in early German second language.
      Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 273–296.
Schlyter, S. (1993). The weaker language in bilingual Swedish–French children. In K.
      Hyltenstam & A. Viberg (Eds.), Progression and regression in language: Sociocultural,
      neuropsychological and linguistic perspectives, 289–308. Cambridge: Cambridge
      University Press.

Article use and article omission in German by successive bilingual children with
                                     L1 Turkish

                               Manuela Schönenberger
                     (SFB 538 (project E4), University of Hamburg)

The acquisition of clause structure and verb placement has received much attention in
the acquisition literature on both L1 and L2 German, while the acquisition of the DP in
L2 German is less well documented. The focus of this talk is on the acquisition of articles
in German by six successive bilingual children with L1 Turkish – two with SLI – who
start to acquire German at the age of 3.
        Besides marking definiteness and indefiniteness, German articles contain
information on gender, case, and number, which, however, will not be considered here.
As opposed to German, Turkish does not have an article system. It lacks a definite article
and uses the numeral bir 'one' as a marker of indefiniteness only optionally (von
Heusinger & Kornfilt 2005). Since the children of this study only start to acquire German
at the age of 3, the question arises whether their article use in German more closely
resembles that of monolingual German children or that of L2 learners. In a study of three
of the successive bilingual children (without SLI) discussed here, it has been shown that
the acquisition of clause structure and verb placement is comparable to that of
monolingual German children (Rothweiler 2006).
        Studies on L1 German show that young children frequently omit articles at an
early stage, but cease to omit them in obligatory contexts by the age of 3 (cf. Eisenbeiss
2000, 2002, Penner & Weissenborn 1996). A study on L2 German focussing on the
acquisition of the German DP by adults with different L1s (Romance, Turkish, Korean)
shows that the speakers of a language without articles omit articles more often than the
speakers of a Romance language (Parodi, Schwartz & Clahsen 2004). Research on article
acquisition by bilingual children (2L1, Italian and German) even point to a potential
beneficial effect of Romance on German, accelerating the use of articles in obligatory
contexts in German (Kupisch 2007). Various studies independently document that
articles start to be used earlier in the Romance languages and are less often dropped
than in Germanic languages (cf. Chierchia, Guasti & Gualmini 1999, Guasti, De Lange,
Gavarrò & Caprin 2004, Lléo & Demuth 1999, Lléo 2001).
        Given that Turkish does not have an article system, possible transfer effects from
Turkish to German could result in a prolonged period of article omission in German,
thus slowing down the acquisition of articles. However, after 24 months of exposure to
German, four of the children examined here drop articles in obligatory contexts only
about 10% of the time, and when they use an article, they generally use the correct one.
Thus they appear to be successfully acquiring the German article system. In contrast,
even after 6 years of exposure to German, the two successive bilingual children with SLI
show a high rate of article omission (about 30%).
        These data support the hypothesis that the DP is a vulnerable domain for
children with SLI, but that it can be aquired by successive bilingual children exposed to
the L2 at the age of 3.

References

Chierchia, G., M.T. Guasti & A. Gualmini. 1999. Nouns and articles in child grammar and
      the syntax/semantics map. Presentation given at GALA, Potsdam, Germany.
Eisenbeiss, S. 2000. "The acquisition of the DP in German child language". In M.A.
      Friedemann & L. Rizzi (eds.) Acquisition of syntax. Issues in comparative
      developmental linguistics, 26-62. London: Longman.
Eisenbeiss, S. 2002. Merkmalsgesteuerter Grammatikerwerb. Eine Untersuchung zum
      Erwerb der Struktur und Flektion von Nominalphrasen. Ph.D. dissertation, Heinrich-
      Heine Universität, Düsseldorf.
Guasti, M.T., J. De Lange, A. Gavarrò & C. Caprin. 2004. "Article omission: Across child
      languages and across special registers". In J. Van Kampen & S. Baauw (eds.),
      Proceedings of GALA 2003 (vol. 1), 199-210. Utrecht: Lot Occasional Series.
Kupisch, T. 2007. "Determiners in bilingual German-Italian children: What they tell us
      about the relation between language influence and language dominance".
      Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 10 (1), 57-78.
Lléo, C. 2001. "The interface of phonology and syntax: The emergence of the article in
      the early acquisition of Spanish and German": In J. Weissenborn & B. Höhle (eds.)
      Approaches      to Bootstrapping: Phonological,            lexical,   syntactic and
      neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition (vol. 2), 23-44.
      Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lléo, C. & K. Demuth. 1999. "Prosodic constraints on the emergence of grammatical
      morphemes: Cross-linguistic evidence from Germanic and Romance languages". In
      A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield & C. Tano (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Boston
      University Conference on Child Language Development, 407-418. Somerville, MA:
      Cascadilla Press.
Parodi, T., B. Schwartz & H. Clahsen. 2004. "On the L2 acquisition of the morphosyntax of
      German nominals". Linguistics 42-3., 669-705.
Rothweiler, M. 2006. "The acquisition of V2 and subordinate clauses in early successive
      acquisition of German". In C. Lléo (ed.) Interfaces in Multilingualism: Acquisition
      and representation, 91-113. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
von Heusinger, K. & J. Kornfilt. 2005. "The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics,
      syntax and morphology". Turkic languages 9, 3-44.

Sensitive phases for L1 and L2 acquisition:
    Behavioural-electrophysiological studies of German and German Sign Language

  Nils Skotara 1 2, Uta Salden1 2, Monique Kügow 1 2, Barbara Hänel-Faulhaber 1 3, Brigitte Röder 1 2
                                       (University of Hamburg)

           1 Sonderforschungsbereich 538 Mehrsprachigkeit, Universität Hamburg
           2 Biologische Psychologie & Neuropsychologie, Universität Hamburg
           3 Erziehungswissenschaften , Sektion II: Wahrnehmung & Kommunikation, Universität Hamburg

Most studies investigating sensitive or critical periods for language acquisition have
compared native speakers and second language (L2) learners. A possible sensitive or critical
period for the acquisition of a first language (L1) can be investigated by comparing deaf
people born to hearing parents (lS) who are unable to use a natural language with their
children, and deaf people born to deaf parents (nS) who had learned a sign language as their
L1. Both groups learned their second language written German at about school enrolment.
        Written German sentences and naturally signed German Sign Language sentences
were presented in two different sessions to both groups of congenitally profound deaf adults.
The electroencephalogram was recorded throughout the experiment. The task of the
participants was to decide whether or not the just seen sentence had been correct. The
sentences were either correct, contained a semantic violation (implausible object), or a
syntactic violation (verb agreement violation).
        Results in language tests showed, nS outperformed the lS both in GSL and in German.
        For German Sign language, semantic violations were followed by an N400 in the nS
only. Syntactic violations in the nS group elicited a fronto-central negativity and a late
posterior positivity. lS also showed a late positivity but did not show a syntactic negativity.
        In German for both lS and nS semantic violations elicited an N400 followed by a late
positivity. Syntactic violations elicited a P600 in both groups. Differences between groups
were found in the time epoch of the negativity following syntactic violations.
        These data suggest that language deprivation seems to result in a different cerebral
organization of language processing for an L1 as well as for an L2.

Verbal inflection and sentence structure in successive child language acquisition

                                    Aldona Sopata
                       (Adam-Mickiewicz-University, Poznan, Poland)

One of the central issues of second language acquisition research are effects associated with
the age at which learners are first exposed to a non-native language (L2). Adult second
language acquisition (aL2) is claimed to differ in fundamental ways from first language
development (L1). Lenneberg (1967) claimed that the ability to acquire a language through
mere exposure to a given language disappears after puberty. It is, however, still very much an
open question up to which age L1 strategies remain accessible to young successive learners.
        The question examined in this study is whether the acquisition of German as child L2
(cL2) leads to structures different from those observed in L1 acquisition. The specific
grammatical phenomenon investigated here is the acquisition of verbal inflection and
sentence structure. In L1 German the acquisition of verb placement is closely related to the
acquisition of verb morphology. Once finite verbs are used productively, they are placed in
the V2 position, as required by the adult norm. Non-finite verbs are never raised to the V2
position after subject verb agreement has been acquired in L1 acquisition of German. If child
L2 follows the same pattern as in first language acquisition, infinitives in the V2 position and
finite verbs in V3 position would be expected to disappear as soon as subject verb agreement
is acquired.
        The present study investigates the longitudinal data from five children, who were first
exposed to their second language German at the ages of 2;6, 3;8, 4;0, 4;7 and 9;1. The
variable of the age of onset is the main variable differentiating them. In other respects, they
constitute a homogeneous group as the L1 of all the children is Polish and their input-situation
is qualitatively and quantitatively very similar. Their language development was investigated
in a period of several months at different developmental stages, i.e. before and after the
acquisition of subject verb agreement.
        The data deliver the evidence for the claim that the innate ability to acquire a language
from mere input starts fading out at the age of three. The results show that children acquiring
their second language after the age of three use morpho-syntactic patterns which differ from
L1, resulting in a type of acquisition in which both elements from L1 and L2 are found.