The Effect of Subject Person in Auxiliary Movement Acquisition by Korean-English Bilingual Children

Abstract

The present study provides new evidence that Korean-English (K-E) bilingual children show an effect of subject person in their acquisition of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI). Twenty-one preschool-aged K-E bilingual children and 19 English monolingual proficiency-matched children were recruited for an elicitation study testing the effect of person on the use of SAI. Results indicated a main effect for group; the K-E group showed a significant effect for subject person on SAI, while no effect was found for the monolingual children. A generative account of the findings will be provided in the analysis.