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The acquisition of inflections in Portuguese: a study of the development of person markers on verbs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Maria Cecilia Perroni Simões  and
Carol Stoel-Gammon
Maria Cecilia Perroni Simões
Affiliation:
State University of Campinas
Carol Stoel-Gammon
Affiliation:
State University of Campinas
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Abstract

Longitudinal data on the development of personal inflections in Portuguese are presented. Analysis of the data reveals that, initially, the subjects used a single inflection for all verbs, regardless of the intended subject. The first formal distinction to appear was between verbs bearing the unmarked ending and those inflected for first person singular. Analyses of the acquisition of the standard first person inflections are presented in the form of rules; overgeneralization of these rules is evident, especially in perfect tense verbs. Possible explanations for the use of the third person singular verb form as the unmarked form are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 53 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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Footnotes

[*]

This article is based in part on a master's thesis submitted by the first author (1976). The research reported here was funded by a grant from FAPESP no. 0334/75. The authors would like to thank Marlys Macken, Peg Rajotte, and Nancy Cook for comments on an earlier draft. The second author's current address is: CDMRC, CD-393, University of Washington (WJ-10), Seattle, Washington 98195.

References

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