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Developmental profile: Fuad

Fuad’s file 1 narrative is characterised by short descriptions of the main events of the frog story. His hesitations throughout the narration might be related to several factors. For one, it seems he is concerned with the retelling as such and the succession of activities that are part of the story. Further, he is also thoughtful of the linguistic devices he chooses. Yet, he does not always succeed in producing fully comprehensible utterances, which might be taken as an indication of remaining gaps in his competence of DGS (cf. Table 3.30). On the one hand, at the level of linguistic devices, the story provides evidence for a command of the main properties of DGS, such verb agreement, complex classifier constructions, figure-ground and referential shifts. On the other hand, it seems mechanisms involving the syntax-discourse interface are not fully mastered. Candidates for language contact phenomena include borrowings at the level of word order. The analysis of file 3 reveals that these deficits have disappeared by the time of production of this narrative. Fuad skilfully orchestrates the information from different levels of linguistic analysis to create a coherent narrative.

Table 3.30: Fuad’s DGS profile.

Syntax-discourse interface		[file 3]	Referential shift
		[file 3]	Referential establishment / maintenance
		[file 3]	Reference forms / functions
		[file 1]	Spatial relations
CP	Referential shift (POV)	[file 3]	^a. 1< > CALL++ + ‘(He =the boy) calls...’ ^b. 4<—> DOG₍ TOO CALL+++ 4 ‘The dog calls, too.’
		[file 1]	[Variation in the marking of RS]
	Questions	[file 3]	1< > WHERE [DET_pOSS]₁ FROG ‘Where is my frog.’ [No evidence in file 1]
	Embedded clauses	[file 1]	2< > THEN HEAR : PRONpE_RS CALL ‘The (he = the boy) hears that (he = the frog) is calling.’
IP	pam -agreement	[file 3]	[- dom] swarm THEN CLEAR: WHEN BEE MANY [+ dom] SWARM ALMOST PAM, DOG, 44 ‘Then it is clear that the bees swarm close to the dog.’
	Complex classifier constructions	[file 3]	^a. ^{THEN GO}AROUND ‘Then (he) goes around.’ [- dom] cl:form (tree trunk)_G b. log CL:FORM(trunk)_G [+ dom] climb_on-g‘(He) climbs on the log.’
	^detEXIST^-ag^ree- ment and Verb agreement	[file 1]	^a. 2< ^[.^][DETEX\|_ST^]9 ^FROG9 + + + ‘Down there, there is the frog.’ > b. [- dom] [CL:PALM]_I[pick-up_cJ [+ dom] [puT-ON_CL:p]_ON-I‘(He) picks (him) up and puts (him) on his hand.’
	IP headedness	[file 3]	THEN BEE DISTURB+++ ‘Then (he = the dog) disturbs them (= the bees).’
		[file 1]	Variation: IP-final ^[detloc^]e ^{WATER [fall}clJinto-e ‘There, into the water, (they) fall.’ IP-initial THEN BOY SEARCH+++ [DET_LOC]_\|N FOREST ‘Then the boy searches in the woods.’
VP	VP headedness		- see IP headedness -

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