Many English-speaking children use plural nominal forms in spontaneous speech before the age of two, and display some understanding of plural inflection in production tasks. However, results from an intermodal preferential study suggested a lack of "comprehension" of nominal plural morphology at 24 months of age (Kouider, Halberda, Wood,…

Addresses phenomena exhibited by young children such as suffixed and free articles, double definiteness, genitives, pronouns, and "nominal style." Shows that analysis of these early data must invoke at least one functional projection above the noun phrase. Findings argue against any claim about the universal absence of functional…

Examines the spontaneous speech of Portuguese-speaking two-year olds in natural conversation with Portuguese-speaking adults. The children were separated into three groups based on Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLUW). The children in the highest-MLUW group almost perfectly matched the adult speakers on every measure. (37 references)…