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In the face of the critical state of most North American Aboriginal languages, few studies exist of first, or even second, language acquisition of the first languages of this continent. As Allen (1994) and others have suggested, cross-linguistic acquisition research, especially with languages whose morphological and syntactic features are vastly different from those of English, contributes to the theoretical understanding of language acquisition. Moreover, as we will show in this paper, acquisition research can lead to the investigation of to date little understood syntactic and morphological features of Salish languages. Thus, for the student researcher in this project, acquisition research with the six-year-old subject led to the study of independent pronouns or emphatics in Secwepemctsin, which we found out had not been extensively described in the literature (see Kuipers 1974, 1989). The extensive use of independent pronouns by the subject, in tum, we argue, is at least in part an interference from English.

Beyond the contributions to syntactic and morphological knowledge of Secwepemctsin, this acquisition research has implications for efforts by Aboriginal communities to revitalize their languages not only with the help of second language school programs, but also with the help of" language-nest" and primary school immersion programs, as well as through in-home efforts. Our study shows the constraints and difficulties involved in the possibility of young Salish children acquiring their aboriginal language in the home in the face of the overwhelming dominance of English in the home and community, and in the face of young children having very few …