ERIC Number: EJ1453971
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Sep
Pages: 28
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: EISSN-1469-7602
Processing of Noun Plural Marking in German-Speaking Children: An Eye-Tracking Study
Bénédicte Grandon; Marcel Schlechtweg; Esther Ruigendijk
Journal of Child Language, v51 n6 p1450-1477 2023
The ability to process plural marking of nouns is acquired early: at a very young age, children are able to understand if a noun represents one item or more than one. However, little is known about how the segmental characteristics of plural marking are used in this process. Using eye-tracking, we aim at understanding how five to twelve-year old children use the phonetic, phonological, and morphological information available to process noun plural marking in German (i.e., a very complex system) compared to adults. We expected differences with stem vowels, stem-final consonants or different suffixes, alone or in combination, reflecting different processing of their segmental information. Our results show that for plural processing: 1) a suffix is the most helpful cue, an umlaut the least helpful, and voicing does not play a role; 2) one cue can be sufficient and 3) school-age children have not reached adult-like processing of plural marking.
Descriptors: Eye Movements, Child Language, Language Acquisition, Nouns, Morphemes, Preadolescents, Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology (Languages), German, Vowels, Adults, Age Differences, Language Processing, Cues
Cambridge University Press. 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, NY 10994. Tel: 800-872-7423; Tel: 845-353-7500; Fax: 845-353-4141; e-mail: subscriptions_newyork@cambridge.org; Web site: https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A