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Children's acquisition of Warlpiri: comprehension of transitive sentences*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Edith L. Bavin  and
Timothy A. Shopen
Edith L. Bavin
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Timothy A. Shopen
Affiliation:
Australian National University
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Abstract

Comprehension test results from children acquiring Warlpiri as a first language in the Yuendumu community indicate that the canonical transitive sentence is one with an ergative-absolutive verb. We hypoth- esize that the acquisition process is influenced by a number of properties of the language, properties including the presence of homophonous forms for some of the case endings, the use of three different case frames, the optional ellipsis of core arguments, and the optionality of case markings in certain conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , October 1985 , pp. 597 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

REFERENCES

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