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Matches and mismatches in nominal morphology and agreement: Learning from the acquisition of Eegimaa

名义形态和一致性的匹配和不匹配：从获取 Eegimaa 中学习

基本信息

批准号：
ES/P000304/1
负责人：
Dunstan Brown
金额：
$ 53.84万
依托单位：
University of York
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2017 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP000304%2F1
关键词：
Matches mismatches nominal morphology agreement

项目摘要

Theoretical accounts of the strategies used by children to learn the structures of words and grammatical features of languages differ considerably, but our knowledge of what is possible is limited by the existing focus on a relatively small number of languages associated with industrialized nations. Here, we will investigate grammatical features and structures that may be expressed in a variety of different ways. Examples of grammatical features include number, e.g. the distinction between singular and plural, or gender, e.g. distinguishing masculine and feminine in languages like French, features expressed within the shape of the word and associated items. Grammatical structure may be manifested in agreement across the separate words of a noun phrase (e.g. The cat purrs, where the -s on 'purrs' shows agreement with cat, indicating that there is only one cat.) This project investigates the acquisition of inflectional morphology, i.e., grammatical features and structures as reflected in the word forms and associated agreement, in Gújjolaay Eegimaa, a language of the Atlantic family of the Niger Congo phylum spoken in Southern Senegal. This language has a gender system of the type traditionally known as a noun class system. Noun class systems with complex gender agreement are characteristic of the Niger-Congo languages.In Eegimaa nouns use prefixes to form singular and plural. For example ba- is the singular marker for ba-ginh 'chest', but its plural marker is u- as in u-ginh 'chests'. Nouns which have the same singular prefix, e.g. ba-, can form their plural with a different marker (e.g., bá-jur 'young woman', plural sú-jur 'young women'). Eegimaa has a complex morphological system of gender and number marking which is also reflected in its agreement system. Current knowledge as to how children acquire gender/noun class marking and agreement is based entirely on the Bantu languages of the Niger Congo family. There are no studies available of Atlantic languages, which, though similar to Bantu in some ways, also have important differences.Here we will investigate the influence of the three factors found to affect children's acquisition of noun class morphology and agreement, namely:i) Input frequency, according to which the forms that children hear the most will tend to be acquired firstii) Perceptual salience, according to which more salient forms such as stressed syllables will tend to be acquired first, and iii) Morphological transparency, according to which forms whose meanings are easily determined will tend to be acquired more easily than those whose meanings are more obscure.Our study will build on findings on the acquisition of Bantu noun class systems, and will aim to answer questions such as the following. What strategies do children rely on to learn complex language structure? What is the role of adult input language in the acquisition of morphology and agreement in Eegimaa? How do children cope with variation in language input from their caregivers? In what order do they learn the different noun class markers?We will carry out a longitudinal study in which we will observe over three years the interactions of five children aged from about 2 to 4 years with their caregivers. Among Eegimaa speakers, caregivers include children's parents, older siblings and other members of the community. Children's daytime activities mostly take place outside their homes. We will record children's output speech on audio and video and compare the data with child-directed speech from adults and with adult-directed speech (interactions between adults), collected as part of a previous project. We will also carry out a cross-sectional study by twice observing the speech of ten additional children at two points, at ages 3 and 4 years. These studies together will provide both an in-depth look and a broader overview of the acquisition process in this under-investigated area.

关于儿童学习单词结构和语言语法特征所使用的策略的理论解释有很大差异，但我们对可能发生的事情的了解受到现有关注与工业化国家相关的相对少数语言的限制。在这里，我们将研究可能以各种不同方式表达的语法特征和结构。语法特征的示例包括数字，例如单数和复数之间的区别，或性别，例如在法语等语言中区分男性和女性，通过单词的形状和相关项目表达特征。语法结塞内加尔南部使用的尼日尔刚果语系。这种语言具有传统上称为名词类别系统的性别系统。具有复杂性别一致性的名词类系统是尼日尔-刚果语言的特征。在 Eegimaa 中，名词使用前缀来形成单数和复数。例如，ba- 是 ba-ginh“胸部”的单数标记，但其复数标记是 u-，如 u-ginh“胸部”中的那样。具有相同单数前缀的名词，例如ba-，可以用不同的标记形成复数（例如，bá-jur“年轻女子”，复数sú-jur“年轻女子”）。 Eegimaa 具有复杂的性别和数字标记形态系统，这也反映在其协议系统中。目前关于儿童如何获得性别/名词类别标记和一致的知识完全基于尼日尔刚果语系的班图语。目前还没有关于大西洋语言的研究，虽然它们在某些方面与班图语相似，但也有重要的差异。在这里，我们将调查影响儿童习得名词类形态和一致性的三个因素的影响，即：i) 输入频率，根据该因素，儿童最常听到的形式往往会首先获得； iii）形态透明度，根据这种透明度，含义容易确定的形式比含义较模糊的形式更容易获得。我们的研究将建立在班图语名词类系统习得的发现基础上，旨在回答以下问题。孩子们依靠什么策略来学习复杂的语言结构？成人输入语言在 Eegimaa 词法和一致性习得中发挥什么作用？孩子们如何应对照顾者的语言输入变化？他们以什么顺序学习不同的名词类标记？我们将进行一项纵向研究，我们将在三年内观察五名年龄在 2 至 4 岁左右的儿童与其照顾者的互动。在 Eegimaa 使用者中，照顾者包括孩子的父母、年长的兄弟姐妹和社区的其他成员。孩子们白天的活动大多在家里进行。我们将记录儿童的音频和视频输出语音，并将数据与成人的儿童定向语音以及作为先前项目的一部分收集的成人定向语音（成人之间的互动）进行比较。我们还将开展一项横断面研究，对另外 10 名儿童在 3 岁和 4 岁这两个时间点的言语进行两次观察。这些研究共同将为这一研究不足的领域的收购过程提供深入的了解和更广泛的概述。