Negation as a formal flexible feature in children's grammar: A case study investigating cross-linguistic transfer in a German-English bilingual child

This paper investigates the occurrence and resolution of non-adult like negative utterances in a case study focussing on a German-English bilingual child. In line with the Interface Hypothesis (IH), the data show that initially word order properties of German interfere with the placement of the negative marker in English. In accordance with the Formal Flexible Feature Hypothesis (FFFH), I propose that children initially treat all negation as adverbial, before incorporating a head form of negation into their grammar. This entails that there is no a priori availability of a functional projection NegP in children's grammar, making negation a formal flexible feature.