The Acquisition of Grammatical Gender by French as a Second Language Learners Enrolled in French Immersion

In Study 1, the relationship between morphophonological cues and gender assignment in French was examined among a group of 148 French L2 children (M = 114.66 months, SD = 19.69). Study 2 investigated gender-marking ability in French among a subset of 27 children from the first study (M = 120.74 months, SD = 16.14). In the determiner task, participants assigned the indefinite article unMASC or uneFEM to pseudowords whose endings were typically masculine, feminine or neutral. In the picture task, children pointed to the picture of a female or male Martian that best personified each spoken pseudoword. The results provided evidence that correct gender assignment improved across grade. More ending-consistent responses were given to feminine endings than to masculine endings. Children whose L1 marked gender were better at gender-marking in French than children whose L1 did not mark gender. Finally, there was evidence of a default subclass for gender-neutral nouns.M.A