Early development and relative clause constructions in English as a second language : a longitudinal study

This study examines the development of relative clause (RC) constructions in a child learning English as a second language in a naturalistic environment. Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998, 2005; Pienemann & Kessler, 2011) does not treat RCs, hence the present study looks at four major approaches to RC development and attempts to find points of convergence with PT's developmental stages. In order to trace RCs' development empirically, we audio-recorded at regular intervals the spontaneous and elicited speech production of a Japanese child learning English from age 5;08 to age 7;08. Our study found that infinitival and participial RC constructions, such as those considered by Diessel (2004) as building blocks for RC development in FLA, also emerge early in child ESL.