Home Chapter 4. Emergence and early development of derivatives in Danish child language
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 4. Emergence and early development of derivatives in Danish child language

  • Laila Kjærbæk and Hans Basbøll
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company

Abstract

This chapter is a first attempt to describe and characterize the development of derivational morphology in monolingual Danish-speaking children’s early spontaneous speech. It introduces the Danish derivational system and gives an overview of the most common derivational types in Danish, emphasizing the interaction between derivation and prosody. It analyses derivatives in a corpus of parent-child-interactions and discusses factors impacting early development of derivatives. The results show that conventional derivatives appear from age 1;3–1;7. The most frequent derivatives and derivational patterns in child speech are also among the most frequent in child-directed speech. Only a very small inventory of derivational patterns has emerged up to age 3;11, and only vague traces of an emerging knowledge of productive derivation are found.

Abstract

This chapter is a first attempt to describe and characterize the development of derivational morphology in monolingual Danish-speaking children’s early spontaneous speech. It introduces the Danish derivational system and gives an overview of the most common derivational types in Danish, emphasizing the interaction between derivation and prosody. It analyses derivatives in a corpus of parent-child-interactions and discusses factors impacting early development of derivatives. The results show that conventional derivatives appear from age 1;3–1;7. The most frequent derivatives and derivational patterns in child speech are also among the most frequent in child-directed speech. Only a very small inventory of derivational patterns has emerged up to age 3;11, and only vague traces of an emerging knowledge of productive derivation are found.

Downloaded on 9.11.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/lald.66.04kja/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button