Developmental profile: Muhammed

Muhammed’s narratives at the beginning of the study are characterised by a succession of short sentences that describe some of the main events of the picture book story. Temporal, causal, and spatial relations remain implicit in the first two narratives, in which structural and lexical gaps become apparent. As of file 3, Muhammed skilfully uses linguistic means available for narrative purposes, describing characters’ emotions and activities in more detail than in files 1 and 2. Text length varies between 20 to 50 propositions.

By assumption, the structure available to Muhammed at the onset of the study consists of a VP (cf. Table 4.1). Word order variation in Muhammed’s first file is indicative of how he exploits the basic sentential pattern at his disposal (the VP) to also convey complex meanings despite the structural limitations.

The expansion of the elementary VP structure by an additional IP layer is documented in file 3. In this file, Muhammed produces target-like sequences with periphrastic verb forms (auxiliary and modal verbs). However, he does not fully exploit the IP structure as he continues to produce more basic sentential formats with main verbs, and sequences with verb drop. The latter are indicative of remaining lexical gaps and a potential influence of DGS. By assumption, the IP structure is used to accommodate target V2 word order in file 5. Complemen- tiser introduced embedded clauses produced as of file 4 indicate that the structure available to Muhammed includes the CP layer. However, verb placement in embedded clauses is not mastered by the end of the recording time covered in the present study. Verb inflection also remains a domain which is not fully mastered by the end of the recording time. There is evidence of a rule-based formation of verb forms, but this is not applied across the board.

Table 4.11: Muhammed’s German profile.