BILINGUAL CHILDRENS STORIES - FRENCH PASSE COMPOSE IMPARFAIT AND THEIR CORRESPONDENCES IN SWEDISH

In this study, the question of possible corresponding devices in Swedi sh for the French aspectual opposition passe compose-imparfait was stu died, in the language of Swedish-French bilingual children. The speech of four children aged three to seven years old was investigated. It w as hypothesized that there was a relation between French PC and a Swed ish construction consisting of Temporal connector + Subject-Verb inver sion (= TVS construction) for foregrounding, and between IMPF and SV w ord order for backgrounding. These devices appeared at roughly the sam e time, at about age three, though first without text-structuring func tions. At ages 6 and 7, parallels between the postulated devices could be found, in both elicited and spontaneous narratives.