Inflectional Morphemes as Bane to Grammatical Accuracy in Learning French as A Second Language

Abstract

This study examines the problem posed by inflectional morphemes to grammatical accuracy in learning French as a second language. French, a morphologically rich language, presents significant difficulties for learners accustomed to less inflected languages.  Inflectional morphemes are linguistic elements that are added to words to change their grammatical properties, such as number, gender, tense, or person. In French, inflectional morphemes play a significant role in shaping the grammar of the language. This study explores the specific inflectional morphemes that pose the greatest problems, focusing on verb conjugations, gender and number agreement in nouns and adjectives, and the complexities of pronoun usage. The data for this study are drawn from the written essays of students in Akwa Ibom State University over a period of time. It is observed that students generally lose a lot of marks because of poor grammar, particularly inflectional markings. Drawing from Government and Binding Theory, specifically the inflectional category, this essay undertakes a study of inflections in French, specifies their different forms, their modes of operation and states that an inflection may seem insignificant in appearance but very significant in marking of grammatical sentences. The findings reveal that inflectional morphemes significantly challenge second language learners in various verb tenses and moods in written French. This is particularly evident among beginner and intermediate learners, who often defaulted to the infinitive form. The study concludes by recommending much attention be given to the teaching of inflections which consist of tense, agreement, case, modal and aspect, including explicit grammar instruction.