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The acquisition of Italian morphology: implications for models of language development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Elena Pizzuto  and
Maria Cristina Caselli
Elena Pizzuto*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, National Research Council, Rome
Maria Cristina Caselli
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, National Research Council, Rome
*
Istituto di Psicologia, C.N.R., Viale Marx, 15, 00137 Roma, Italy, e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study explores the spontaneous acquisition of Italian inflectional morphology by three children (age range 1;4–3;0). Longitudinal, free speech samples are examined, focusing on the development of the morphological paradigms of Italian verbs, pronouns and articles. Data analysis is conducted using criteria appropriate to allow reliable cross-linguistic comparisons with data from English. By this means we evaluate the plausibility of a nativist, parameter-setting account of language development in Italian and English, as recently proposed for these two languages. Results show that the general developmental patterns observed in Italian are not significantly different from those found in English. These findings are not consistent with current interpretations of parameter-setting accounts of language development. Alternative explanatory models are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 491 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

We thank Elizabeth Bates and Virginia Marchman for their encouragement, time and many thoughtful comments on previous versions of the present paper. We are particularly indebted to Virginia Volterra – Director of our laboratory – for having followed our work with generous participation and yet impartial objectivity. The stimulating comments and criticisms received from three anonymous reviewers and several colleagues of the Institute of Psychology, CNR, Rome, and the Departments of Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Science of the University of California, San Diego, are also gratefully acknowledged. We thank the CNR ‘FATMA’ Project for partial financial support.

References

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