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Learning to construct verbs in Navajo and Quechua.

Ellen H Courtney1, Muriel Saville-Troike

  • 1Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, General Classroom Building, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858-4353, USA. courtneye@mail.ecu.edu

Journal of Child Language
|July 12, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Children acquiring Navajo and Quechua verbs learn complex morphology by segmenting stems and affixes. They utilize phonological, distributional, and semantic cues to master verb templates in these polysynthetic languages.

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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Navajo and Quechua exhibit highly complex morphology, particularly in verb construction.
  • Verbs in these languages often form complete sentences, encoding diverse grammatical information.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the acquisition of complex verb morphology in Navajo and Quechua by first-language learners.
  • To analyze the role of phonological, distributional, and semantic factors in verb template development.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of naturalistic speech samples from five Navajo children (1;1–4;7) and four Quechua children (2;0–3;5).
  • Examination of verb stem-affix segmentation, amalgam production, and homophony.
  • Discussion of findings in relation to established linguistic acquisition theories.

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Main Results:

  • Children learning Navajo and Quechua segment verb stems and affixes using phonological criteria.
  • The production of amalgams and handling of homophony present challenges in acquiring verb morphology.
  • Distributional and semantic learning significantly contribute to the development of the verb template.

Conclusions:

  • Phonological, distributional, and semantic cues are crucial for children acquiring complex verb morphology in polysynthetic languages.
  • The study provides insights into how children learn intricate inflectional systems, supporting theories of language acquisition.