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ERIC Number: EJ1485722
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Jan
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: EISSN-1469-7602
Available Date: 0000-00-00
The Emergence of Subjects in Lebanese Two-Year-Olds
Layal Abboud1; Lina Choueiri2; Nour Seifeddine3; Laurice Tuller1
Journal of Child Language, v51 n1 p234-247 2024
In Lebanese Arabic, lexical subjects may occur before or after verbs, but only before non-verbal predicates. Analysis of spontaneous language samples from 19 two-year-old children shows that postverbal (VS) and preverbal (SV) subjects emerge simultaneously. The youngest children displayed no VS-SV difference in frequency. A slight preference for SV is observed in older children. No preference for SV subjects was found in the speech of the mothers of the younger or older children. Lexical subjects systematically appeared before non-verbal predicates. We interpret these results as evidence for early knowledge of syntactic movement, consistent with Wexler's (1998) Very Early Parameter Setting.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Lebanon
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1UMR 1253, Imagery and Brain (iBrain), Université de Tours, France; 2American University of Beirut, Lebanon; 3Private clinic, Lebanon