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Pronoun case overextensions and paradigm building

M Rispoli1

  • 1Department of English, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff 86011-6032.

Journal of Child Language
|February 1, 1994
PubMed
Summary

English child language acquisition involves pronoun case errors. This study shows that a pronoun's internal structure, specifically its phonetic core, influences these errors, impacting how children learn pronoun forms.

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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • Children acquiring English frequently make pronoun case errors, such as using 'me' instead of 'I'.
  • Previous research has not fully explained the patterns or causes behind these specific errors in early language development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the hypothesis that the morphological structure of English pronouns affects the patterns of case errors in child language.
  • To determine if the internal phonetic structure of pronouns influences the overextension of incorrect forms.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of a longitudinal database of pronoun usage from twelve children aged 1;0 to 3;0.
  • Examination of 20,908 pronoun instances, identifying 1347 errors.
  • Statistical analysis to compare error frequencies based on pronoun morphological properties.

Main Results:

  • Pronouns with a distinct phonetic core (e.g., /m-/ for 'me', /h-/ for 'he') showed fewer overextension errors.
  • The phonetic core appears to block the overextension of suppletive nominative forms like 'I' and 'she'.
  • Significant differences in error types and frequencies were observed between pronouns with and without distinct phonetic cores.

Conclusions:

  • The morphological structure of pronouns, particularly the presence of a phonetic core, plays a crucial role in regulating pronoun case errors during child language acquisition.
  • This finding supports a model where the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) analyzes pronoun forms, and phonetic cores act as a constraint against overgeneralization.

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