Bilinguals vs. monolinguals: Where is the difference?

It has been suggested earlier that the reinforced syntactic variation in bilingual input might lead to cross-linguistic influence and vulnerability in some areas of the child grammar. This study verifies this suggestion against new experimental data. Since direct object scrambling is optional in Ukrainian and prohibited in English, it could be a more vulnerable domain in Ukrainian-English bilingual acquisition than in monolingual Ukrainian acquisition. It appears, however, that 2;2–6;3-year-old bilingual children mostly follow similar patterns in scrambling production as their monolingual peers. Several aspects of possible distinctions are discussed (i.e., direct object type and pragmatic sensitivity), but the available data do not allow us to claim that there are significant group differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in regard to the considered phenomenon at the syntax-semantics interface.