title: Older age of onset in child L2 acquisition can be facilitative: evidence from the acquisition of English passives by Spanish natives.
abstract: We report a longitudinal comprehension study of (long) passive constructions in two native-Spanish child groups differing by age of initial exposure to L2 English (young group: 3;0-4;0; older group: 6;0-7;0), where amount of input, L2 exposure environment, and socioeconomic status are controlled. Data from a forced-choice task show that both groups comprehend active sentences, not passives, initially (after 3·6 years of exposure). One year later, both groups improve, but only the older group reaches ceiling on both actives and passives. Two years from initial testing, the younger group catches up. Input alone cannot explain why the younger group takes five years to accomplish what the older group does in four. We claim that some properties take longer to acquire at certain ages because language development is partially constrained by general cognitive and linguistic development (e.g. de Villiers, 2007; Long & Rothman, 2014; Paradis, 2008, 2010, 2011; Tsimpli, 2014).
authors.affiliation: University of Reading, and UiT,the Arctic University of Norway.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rothman
authors.affiliation: Duval County Public Schools,Florida.
authors.forename: Drew
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: Indiana University.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iverson
authors.affiliation: Wake Forest University.
authors.forename: Tiffany
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Judy
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lingwall
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins University.
authors.forename: Tushar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chakravarty
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D012660:Semantics