Subject-verb agreement marking by Ghanaian learners of French

Abstract

In learning French as a foreign language, mastery of agreement marking is indicative of learner progression. In this article, I focus on how subject-verb agreement markers are acquired by Ghanaian learners of French. Based on written data collected from examination scripts, I attempt to present a coherent explanation for the trends noted. The results show that allomorphy that characterises the verb stem influences the production of agreement markers. While verbs with a single stem are strongly associated with first person singular marking, verbs without an identifiable stem are more strongly associated with third person singular marking. Interpreting this within the item-learning/rule-learning dichotomy, it is argued that both strategies are simultaneously deployed. Consequently, it is suggested that the dichotomy between rule-based versus item-based learning can be impacted by the modality of language.