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The acquisition of noun inflection in Northern Pame (Xi'iuy): Comparing whole word and minimal word accounts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2020

Clifton PYE ,
Scott BERTHIAUME  and
Barbara PFEILER
Clifton PYE*
Affiliation:
The University of Kansas, USA
Scott BERTHIAUME
Affiliation:
Dallas International University, USA
Barbara PFEILER
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
*
*Corresponding author: Clifton Pye, University of Kansas - Department of Linguistics 1541 Lilac Lane, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 United States. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The study used naturalistic data on the production of nominal prefixes in the Otopamean language Northern Pame (autonym: Xi'iuy) to test Whole Word (constructivist) and Minimal Word (prosodic) theories for the acquisition of inflection. Whole Word theories assume that children store words in their entirety; Minimal Word theories assume that children produce words as binary feet. Northern Pame uses obligatory portmanteaux prefixes to inflect nouns for class, number, animacy and possessor. Singular nouns constitute 90 percent of the nouns that the children hear and yet all five two-year-old children frequently omitted the singular noun prefixes, but produced the low frequency noun suffixes for dual and animate plural. Neither the children's production of the noun-class prefixes nor their prefix overextensions correlated with the adult type and token frequencies of production. Northern Pame children constructed Minimal Words that contain binary feet and disfavor the production of initial, extrametrical prefixes.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 48 , Issue 6 , November 2021 , pp. 1067 - 1100
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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