AUTHOR=Xu Rattanasone Nan , Kim Jae-Hyun TITLE=Acquisition pattern and the role of vocabulary and language experience in the acquisition of inflectional grammar by Mandarin-English speaking preschoolers JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=15 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1302044 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1302044 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Australian Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers must acquire linguistic structures that occur only in the community language (e.g., English inflectional grammar). This study investigated how they acquire such structures and any relationship between linguistic knowledge and language experience on their performance. Twenty 4–6-year-olds showed known monolingual acquisition patterns with good performance for producing the progressive, developing ability for plurals, but only emerging ability for past and present tense. Better performance was related to a larger English vocabulary, more mixed language input and use, but less Mandarin input and use. On average, these children received less than 50% input in English and were performing behind monolinguals.