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The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology: A cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Veronika Mattes, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Wolfgang U. Dressler
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 66] 2021
► pp. 109–140

Chapter 5
Early phases of development of German derivational morphology

| Austrian Academy of Sciences | University of Vienna
| University of Graz
| University of Vienna
| Austrian Academy of Sciences | University of Vienna
This chapter presents for the first time an overall description of the development of German derivational morphology. The longitudinal spontaneous speech corpora of three children acquiring Standard Austrian German and their mothers is analysed up to 3;0, with outlooks up to 6;0. The analysis focusses on nominal, verbal and adjectival derivation patterns that play a role at this early age, as well as on age and order of emergence, productive use and development of various patterns and its possible correlation to the respective input. The mini-paradigm criterion is extended to derivational morphology for attesting potential productivity in child speech. Only a very small inventory of derivational patterns is acquired up to 3;0; acquisition of derivation accelerates remarkably during preschool age.
Keywords: mini-paradigm criterion, particle verbs, agent and instrument nouns, conversion, productive use
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.German derivational morphology
    • 2.1Noun formation
    • 2.2Verb formation
    • 2.3Adjective formation
  • 3.Previous research on the acquisition of German derivational morphology
  • 4.Acquisition data and methods
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2Methods
      • Mini-paradigm criterion (MPC)
  • 5.Distribution of derivations in CS and CDS
    • 5.1Noun derivation
    • 5.2Verb derivation
    • 5.3Adjective derivation
  • 6.Course of acquisition (nouns and verbs)
  • 7.Emergence and productive use
    • 7.1Derived nouns
      • Emergences
      • Productivity
    • 7.2Derived verbs
      • Emergences
      • Productivity
    • 7.3Derived adjectives
      • Emergences and productivity
  • 8.Frequencies vs. age and order of emergence
  • 9.Rise of complexity
  • 10.Conclusions and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.66.05som
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