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This thesis explores the diachrony of clitic placement with infinitives (both in re-structuring and other infinitival clauses) in French in a corpus of legal texts from the mid-12th to the mid-19th century which was built as part of this research project. We find enclisis in non-restructuring clauses until ca. 1300, and clitic climbing (CC) in restructuring clauses until the late 18th century. The two orderings are subsequently replaced by proclisis. These findings challenge the view that enclisis and CC are necessarily found within the same system, as Middle French is a language with proclisis and CC. Furthermore, CC is the major ordering found in restructuring clauses in Old French, and its frequency tops 100% from the 14th to the early 17th century. This finding reveals that the construction was not optional in Middle French. This thesis develops a theory of cliticisation based on verb movement: we account for the shift from enclisis to proclisis in non-restructuring clauses with the loss of V-to-T movement with infinitives. Independent evidence for this hypothesis stems from the loss of infinitival suffix -r in early Middle French, which we show acted as a movement trigger in Old French. This proposal is further supported by the consideration of the crosslinguistic picture: Romance languages that have enclisis also have infinitival suffixes and V-movement to a high position (e.g. Standard Italian). Regarding CC, the analysis we propose is one of mono-clausal restructuring with cliticisation on the higher v-head. We argue that from the early 17th century on, the lower v-head is reanalysed as a cliticisation site, yielding proclisis. The diachrony of other Romance languages supports the view that cliticisation on the lower v is an innovation of late Medieval Romance. Unlike other canonical languages however, French did not retain the optionality of cliticisation on the higher v and proclisis generalised to all infinitival clauses.

Differences in bilingual language acquisition are often associated with variation in individual difference factors such as chronological age, quantity and quality of exposure, and cognitive capacities. Previous findings on the impact of these factors are mixed. However, factors are often confounded by other variables, tasks used, or divergent first language backgrounds. The present study aims to consider the impact of individual difference factors on sequential bilingual acquisition by taking a novel and multi-pronged approach to the analysis of issues that clearly demand a complex research paradigm. This includes incorporating the following measures: inclusion of a number of individual difference factors with separate measures of fine-grained input, analyses to reduce dimensionality between correlated variables; measurement of interdependencies between predicting factors; controlling the participants' L1 background; measuring the impact of factors on both complex and non-complex language features; and the use of a novel experimental task comprising a simple and interactive format designed to reduce processing costs and age bias. Participants were 40 Arabic-speaking children acquiring English as a second language (L2) (5;7 to 12;2 years old) alongside 40 age-matched monolingual controls. The dependent variable was accuracy of language measures: regular (third person singular) and irregular (past tense) morphology; canonical (actives) and non-canonical (passives) word order; subordinate clauses (relative clauses) and intervening elements in long distance dependencies (object relatives); and lexical proficiency. Independent variables were age of L2 onset, chronological age, short-term memory, motivation for learning the L2, richness of the L2 environment, L2 use at home, L2 use at school, and socio-economic status. Generalised linear mixed effects modelling revealed the following for the bilingual participants: length of L2 exposure predicted vocabulary and morphology; chronological age predicted interpretation of sentences; short-term memory predicted production of morphosyntax; L2 richness predicted interpretation of all target sentences and interacted with chronological age for interpretation of complex syntax; and greater L2 use at home, a younger age of onset, and higher socio-economic status did not predict any measure. For the monolinguals, chronological age predicted vocabulary and morphology and production of morphosyntax while short-term memory predicted interpretation of syntax. Results suggest the following for sequential bilingual children: overall exposure to language is important in the acquisition of vocabulary and morphology; greater maturation of cognitive and linguistic skills associated with older ages in childhood and greater participation in L2 play and social activities facilitate interpretation of sentence structures; increased participation in L2 play and social activities further enhances interpretation of complex sentences when children are older; short-term memory appears to play a role in processing expressive morphosyntax which may be linked to greater processing demands bilinguals experience with language phenomena when it interfaces with discourse; and starting to acquire a language at a younger age does not result in greater language proficiency. For the monolingual children, greater maturation of cognitive and linguistic skills associated with older ages in childhood facilitate most language features while short-term memory appears to play a role in processing the syntactic features of language. This study builds on valuable previous research investigating individual differences in sequential bilingualism. By teasing apart the impact of factors, the study provides further insights on the effect of these factors across linguistic domains as well as novel findings on how predictors interact to impact language proficiency.

This thesis investigates two phenomena - scope ambiguity resolution and conditional perfection, from the point of view of language acquisition. An empirical study was conducted to determine how scopally ambiguous sentences and perfectible conditionals are interpreted by children and adults, and if there are any differences between the two groups. In relation to the first, two experiments conducted on children's and adults' interpretation of scopally ambiguous declarative sentences and questions have shown that children are adult-like in their ability to access inverse scope. This is in contrast with the view that sees children as unable to obtain inverse scope, and it is instead compatible with the QUD approach. I propose an extension of the QUD approach to include questions. In the case of conditionals, two experiments were conducted to test the theory that conditional perfection is a scalar implicature: if it is so, children should obtain this inference less often than adults. However, the results show that both children and adults obtain a conjunctive-like reading for these kind of statements. This reading is widely reported in children, and one theory attributes it to their inability to construct the meaning of a conditional in their mind. The conjunctive-like reading is less frequent in adults, but it is possible that pragmatic factors have been reported for the high rate of occurrence observed in this study, as adults' interpretation of conditionals is reported to be influenced by the task. I also sketch another explanation of the results, based on the idea that both the conjunctive inference and conditional perfection can be derived as scalar implicatures.