ERIC Number: EJ1362662
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Feb
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: EISSN-1740-2344
Available Date: N/A
Acquiring Polish Noun Inflection: Two Children's Productivity and Error Patterns in Relation to Parental Input
Price-Williams, David; Davies, Matt
First Language, v43 n1 p112-134 Feb 2023
Complex systems of inflectional morphology provide a useful testing ground for input-based language acquisition theories. Two analyses were performed on a high-density (12%) naturalistic sample of two Polish-English children's (2;0 and 3;11) and their parents' use of Polish noun inflection: first, each child's use of inflectional affixes and their lexical restrictedness was compared with their father's equalised sample. Second, the children's spontaneous case-marking errors were analysed in context and measured against type and token frequencies in both parents' data and the child-directed speech (CDS) corpus. Findings in both analyses accord with constructivist theory: near adult-like knowledge of Polish inflections hiding a range of use that is more lexically restricted than in their caregivers' speech; low error rates hiding much higher 'pockets of ignorance' for specific inflectional contexts; and patterns of error that correspond closely to token/type frequencies in the CDS, though with the older sibling making some errors that were not frequency-based. Potential effects of syncretism, case ambiguity and semantics are also discussed.
Descriptors: Polish, Nouns, Language Acquisition, Speech Communication, Linguistic Input, Parent Child Relationship, Sibling Relationship, Morphology (Languages), English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Preschool Children, Morphemes, Fathers, Language Usage, Constructivism (Learning), Error Patterns, Comparative Analysis, Grammar, Ambiguity (Semantics), Linguistic Theory
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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