Structure building in the acquisition of German

Table 4.7 summarises the main developmental milestones described and includes examples from L1 and L2 learners quoted previously for further illustration. Note that this rough characterisation of the major developmental steps leaves enough room for individual variation in the progression toward the target grammar which is deemed necessary in view of the evidence gathered, in particular, concerning finite verb placement (at the left or right periphery of the sentence) prior to the availability of the full sentence structure (i.e. the complementiser phrase or CP layer).

Table 4.7: Structure-building in the acquisition of German.*

Table 4.7: continued

* To illustrate the structure-building process, examples are provided “bottom-up”. With the exception of the L1 Korean example, all other examples are from a learner L2 German with L1 Italian.