Complimentary Author PDF: Not for Broad Dissemination JSLHR Article Past Tense Production by English Second Language Learners With and Without Language Impairment Elma Bloma and Johanne Paradisb Purpose: This study investigated whether past tense use could frequency predicted accuracy with regular and irregular verbs. differentiate children with language impairment (LI) from their Children omitted regular past tense marking most often after typically developing (TD) peers when English is children’s second alveolar stops, dropping the allomorph /Id/; L2-TD children language (L2) and whether L2 children’s past tense profiles followed omitted /t/ more often than /d/. Finally, first language typology the predictions of Bybee’s (2007) usage-based network model. predicted past tense accuracy. Method: A group of L2 children with LI (L2-LI) and a matched Conclusions: Past tense use could potentially differentiate between group of L2-TD peers were administered the past tense probe English L2 children with and without LI. The impact of vocabulary, from the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (Rice & Wexler, frequency, and phonological factors supported the network model 2001) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, and indicated profile differences between L2-LI and L2-TD 1997). A representative input corpus provided distributional children. information for each verb used. Background information was obtained via parent questionnaire. Results: The L2-LI group used fewer tense-marked verbs than Key Words: child second language acquisition, language did the L2-TD group. In both groups, vocabulary size and word impairment, English past tense, usage-based theory uch research has focused on investigating the re- of this particular aspect of the language constitutes a reli- lationship between the developmental profiles of able clinical marker, that is, it discriminates well between M monolingual children with language impairment TD children and children with LI (Rice, 2003; Rice & (LI) and their typically developing (TD) peers regard- Wexler, 2001). Because speech-language pathologists ing the acquisition of verb inflection in English (Bedore & in North America often work with children who are learn- Leonard, 1998; Bishop, Adams, & Norbury, 2006; Conti- ing English as a second language (L2; Goldstein, 2004; Ramsden, 2003; Redmond & Rice, 2001; Rice, Wexler, & Gutiérrez-Clellen, 1996; Jacobson & Schwartz, 2005), in- Hershberger, 1998; Rice, Wexler, Marquis, & Hershberger, creasing our understanding of how TD children and chil- 2000). This research has shown that English-speaking dren with LI acquire tense inflection when English is children with LI have profound difficulties in acquiring their L2 could be relevant to clinical practice. On the one tense-marking verbal inflection. Hence, their development hand, research comparing L2-TD children to their mono- lingual peers with LI has shown overlap in their difficulties with tense-marking morphology in English, suggesting aUniversity of Amsterdam, the Netherlands that use of tense morphology might not differentiate be- bUniversity of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada tween affected and unaffected children among L2 learners Correspondence to Elma Blom, who is now at Utrecht University, (Paradis, Rice, Crago, & Marquis, 2008). On the other the Netherlands: [email protected] hand, research comparing the use of tense morphology Editor: Janna Oetting by English L2 learners with and without LI suggests Associate Editor: Lisa Bedore that accuracy with tense has the potential to be a clinical Received May 10, 2011 marker in L2 English (Jacobson & Schwartz, 2005; Paradis, Revision received October 28, 2011 2008). The primary goal of this study was to determine Accepted May 29, 2012 the extent to which English L2 children with and with- DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0112) out LI differ in their acquisition of the past tense. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research • Vol. 56 • 281–294 • February 2013 • D American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 281 Complimentary Author PDF: Not for Broad Dissemination The secondary goal of the study was to investigate LI performed below TD language-matched children with what factors predict past tense learning in the context regular past tense and thus that regular verbs differen- of L2 acquisition according to Bybee’s usage-based net- tiate between TD children and children with LI (Leonard, work model (Bybee, 1995, 2001, 2007) and, in so doing, to Bortolini, Caselli, McGregor, & Sabbadini, 1992; Oetting & examine the broader past tense acquisition profiles of Horohov, 1997; Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995). These studies L2 children, with and without LI, beyond simple accuracy. did not find a between-group difference for irregular past Regarding past tense learning, the network model as- tense. Also, the advantage of regular past tense over irreg- sumes that regular and irregular past tense are learned ular past tense, found for TD children, does not generalize to inthesameway.Afirstpredictiontestedinthisstudyis children with LI (Van der Lely & Ullman, 2001). Other stud- that the same factors that influence children’s accuracy ies have established that children with LI used higher pro- with irregular past tense marking should also have an im- portions of zero marking than did TD children, for example, pact on their accuracy with regular past tense. Although “he fall” (Leonard et al., 1992, Marchman et al., 1999; Oetting some studies on monolingual children with LI have con- & Horohov, 1997; Redmond & Rice, 2001), whereas TD chil- firmed that vocabulary size and word frequency predict dren overregularized more often, for example, “catched” accuracy with both regular and irregular past tense (Leonard et al., 1992, Oetting & Horohov, 1997; Redmond & (Marchman, Wulfeck, & Ellis Weismer, 1999; Oetting & Rice, 2001; Van der Lely & Ullman, 2001). Such differences Horohov, 1997; Van der Lely & Ullman, 2001), other stud- in error types suggest more productive use of inflection by ies have not (Redmond & Rice, 2001; Rice et al., 2000), TD children—a possibility we investigate in this study. prompting the need for further research on this issue. A Two studies have compared tense marking in En- second prediction that follows from network model glishL2childrenwithandwithoutLI.Jacobsonand assumptions is that the phonological form of the verb Schwartz (2005) investigated English past tense use in could play a role in acquiring past tense marking. Previ- TD children who spoke Spanish as their first language ous research on monolingual English-speaking children (L1; N = 15) and Spanish L1 children with LI (N = 12) with LI has found evidence for this hypothesis (Eyer & with regular verbs, irregular verbs, and novel verbs. Over- Leonard, 1994; Johnson & Morris, 2007; Norbury, Bishop, all accuracy was higher for TD children on all verb types. & Briscoe, 2001; Oetting & Horohov, 1997; Rice et al., 2000). The TD children were more accurate at existing regular What is largely unknown is whether vocabulary size, word verbs than at existing irregular verbs or novel verbs. frequency, and phonological form also influence L2 past Children with LI were more accurate at existing irregu- tense acquisition. lar verbs than at existing regular verbs or novel verbs. Third, we also apply the network model to reveal Overregularizations were only 1% of the errors in chil- profile differences between L2-TD children and L2 chil- dren with LI (versus 26% for the TD children), suggesting dren with LI. From network model assumptions, it fol- that the L2 children with LI lacked a productive past lows that past tense development is a function of building tense system, similar to the findings for monolingual chil- a lexicon, and hence, deficits in building a lexicon, as ob- dren. Paradis (2008) compared the longitudinal develop- served in children with LI, would be expected to affect ment of be morphemes, the third person singular, and the ’ these children s past tense use (Edwards & Munson, past tense in English L2 children with language delay or 2009). By combining lexical deficits in children with LI impairment (N = 2) to the development of TD English L2 with the frequently reported observation that these chil- children (N = 9), all with Chinese languages as their L1. dren have limited processing abilities (Leonard et al., 2007; The affected children had much lower accuracy with the Miller, Kail, Leonard, & Tomblin, 2001; Windsor & Huang, past tense –ed than the TD children, in particular when 1999), we tentatively propose a usage-based approach compared with the difference between the groups in accu- that can account for the unique profile of children with racy with be morphemes. Overregularization was not ex- LI regarding morphological acquisition. amined in this study. Both Jacobson and Schwartz’s (2005) and Paradis’s (2008) studies suggest that similar profiles emerge between affected and unaffected children Past Tense Acquisition: Accuracy when English is their L1 or their L2. However, both stud- and Error Types ies had a small number of children, and neither study ex- amined factors that might predict past tense acquisition Research has shown that English-speaking children in L2 learners. Other research has examined factors with LI have profound difficulties using tense-marking influencing morphological learning by L2 children, but inflection on verbs when compared with their TD age peers, they have not included L2 children with LI (Blom, Paradis, particularly in the early elementary