ERIC Number: EJ1210855
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-May
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
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Available Date: N/A
Acquiring Diminutive Allomorphs: Taking Item-Specifc Characteristics into Account
Boersma, Tiffany; Rispens, Judith; Weerman, Fred; Baker, Anne
Journal of Child Language, v46 n3 p567-593 May 2019
Phonological characteristics and frequencies of stems and allomorphs have been explored as possible factors causing differences in production accuracies between allomorphic forms. However, previous findings are not consistent and the relative contributions of these factors are unclear. This study investigated target and erroneous productions of the Dutch diminutive, which has five allomorphs with varying type frequencies and of which the selection depends on the phonological characteristics of the stems. Typically developing children (N = 115, 5;1-10;3) were tested on their production of real and nonce diminutives. Linear mixed effects modelling was used to analyse the data taking nonverbal IQ into account. Type frequencies of the allomorphs and differences in phonological characteristics of the stems were found to be related to differences in production accuracies between the allomorphs. However, phonological characteristics of the stems appeared to have a bigger impact, mainly due to the phonological complexity of these characteristics.
Descriptors: Form Classes (Languages), Phonology, Indo European Languages, Child Language, Difficulty Level, Language Acquisition
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
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Language: English
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