TY - JOUR
T1 - Emergence of verb-pattern morphology in young Arabic speakers
T2 - morphological and semantic features
AU - Tallas-Mahajna, Naila
AU - Armon-Lotem, Sharon
AU - Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor
N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2023 Tallas-Mahajna, Armon-Lotem and Saiegh-Haddad.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Introduction: Arabic, a Semitic language, displays a particularly rich derivational morphological system with all verb stems consisting of a semantic root and a prosodic verb-pattern. Such regular and frequently encountered knowledge is expected to be acquired early. The present study presents a developmental perspective on the relative contribution of morphological and semantic complexity to the acquisition of verbs in Spoken Arabic. Method: Verbs in a spontaneous corpus from 133 typically developing children, 2; 6–6; 0-year-old, were coded for type and token frequency of verbal patterns and root type, and classified according to semantic complexity. Results: Results support an item-based emergence driven by semantic complexity at the earliest stages of acquisition. A developmental expansion in the diversity of verbal patterns and morphological complexity was observed with age. Morphological complexity is only identified when the same root appears in different verb patterns. Discussion: The late emergence of the same root in different verb patterns indicates that the perception of verb patterns as abstract linguistic entities beyond the actual verbs is attained later than the semantically-constrained verbs in earlier childhood. We conclude that whereas semantic complexity obstructs verbs from emerging in the lexicon in younger age groups, morphological complexity constitutes no such obstruction, since their perception as morphological devices is attained later in acquisition.
AB - Introduction: Arabic, a Semitic language, displays a particularly rich derivational morphological system with all verb stems consisting of a semantic root and a prosodic verb-pattern. Such regular and frequently encountered knowledge is expected to be acquired early. The present study presents a developmental perspective on the relative contribution of morphological and semantic complexity to the acquisition of verbs in Spoken Arabic. Method: Verbs in a spontaneous corpus from 133 typically developing children, 2; 6–6; 0-year-old, were coded for type and token frequency of verbal patterns and root type, and classified according to semantic complexity. Results: Results support an item-based emergence driven by semantic complexity at the earliest stages of acquisition. A developmental expansion in the diversity of verbal patterns and morphological complexity was observed with age. Morphological complexity is only identified when the same root appears in different verb patterns. Discussion: The late emergence of the same root in different verb patterns indicates that the perception of verb patterns as abstract linguistic entities beyond the actual verbs is attained later than the semantically-constrained verbs in earlier childhood. We conclude that whereas semantic complexity obstructs verbs from emerging in the lexicon in younger age groups, morphological complexity constitutes no such obstruction, since their perception as morphological devices is attained later in acquisition.
KW - Spoken Arabic
KW - child language
KW - derivational morphology
KW - morphological complexity
KW - roots
KW - semantic complexity
KW - verb patterns
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160082989&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1127640
DO - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1127640
M3 - مقالة
C2 - 37251063
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 14
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 1127640
ER -