Marie-Claude Rosat

Tense alternation: a textual competence in construction. An analysis in three languages: German, Catalan, French

AbstractWhen and whay children change tense subsystem in a written text? 89 French and German pupils and 90 Catalan pupils aged 10, 12 and 14 produced each a fairy-tail, a short news item and a letter. The analysis of tense subsystem alternations in these texts reveals: a)that the factors explaining alternations are the same in the observed languagesb)that in some cases, alternations are errors induced by the difficulty to master different enunciative levels in the textc)that most alternations create sense effects in relation to text structure, but since very often no other linguistic unit reinforces the effect created, it may lead to some ambiguity for the receiver. Nonetheless, the results show that alternation of tense subsystem can be seen as an emerging textual competence.