John Benjamins Publishing Company
The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages
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Abstract
This paper presents results of a comparative project documenting the development of verbal agreement inflections in children learning four different Mayan languages: K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yukatek. These languages have similar inflectional paradigms: they have a generally agglutinative morphology, with transitive verbs obligatorily marked with separate cross-referencing inflections for the two core arguments (‘ergative’ and ‘absolutive’). Verbs are also inflected for aspect and mood, and they carry a ‘status suffix’ which generally marks verb transitivity and mood. At a more detailed level, the four languages differ strikingly in the realization of cross-reference marking. For each language, we examined longitudinal language production data from two children at around 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, and 3;6 years of age. We relate differences in the acquisition patterns of verbal morphology in the languages to (1) the placement of affixes, (2) phonological and prosodic prominence, (3) language-specific constraints on the various forms of the affixes, and (4) consistent vs. split ergativity, and conclude that prosodic salience accounts provide the best explanation for the acquisition patterns in these four languages.
Abstract
This paper presents results of a comparative project documenting the development of verbal agreement inflections in children learning four different Mayan languages: K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yukatek. These languages have similar inflectional paradigms: they have a generally agglutinative morphology, with transitive verbs obligatorily marked with separate cross-referencing inflections for the two core arguments (‘ergative’ and ‘absolutive’). Verbs are also inflected for aspect and mood, and they carry a ‘status suffix’ which generally marks verb transitivity and mood. At a more detailed level, the four languages differ strikingly in the realization of cross-reference marking. For each language, we examined longitudinal language production data from two children at around 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, and 3;6 years of age. We relate differences in the acquisition patterns of verbal morphology in the languages to (1) the placement of affixes, (2) phonological and prosodic prominence, (3) language-specific constraints on the various forms of the affixes, and (4) consistent vs. split ergativity, and conclude that prosodic salience accounts provide the best explanation for the acquisition patterns in these four languages.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The acquisition of ergativity 1
- Ergativity 15
- Ergativity in child Basque 35
- The acquisition of ergativity in Inuktitut 71
- The acquisition of ergative case in Warlpiri 107
- The acquisition of ergative marking in Kaluli, Ku Waru and Duna (Trans New Guinea) 133
- The acquisition of ergative case in Chintang 183
- Ergative case-marking in Hindi child-caregiver speech 209
- The acquisition of split-ergative case marking in Kurmanji Kurdish 239
- The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages 271
- The acquisition of extended ergativity in Mam, Q’anjob’al and Yucatec 307
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The acquisition of ergativity 1
- Ergativity 15
- Ergativity in child Basque 35
- The acquisition of ergativity in Inuktitut 71
- The acquisition of ergative case in Warlpiri 107
- The acquisition of ergative marking in Kaluli, Ku Waru and Duna (Trans New Guinea) 133
- The acquisition of ergative case in Chintang 183
- Ergative case-marking in Hindi child-caregiver speech 209
- The acquisition of split-ergative case marking in Kurmanji Kurdish 239
- The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages 271
- The acquisition of extended ergativity in Mam, Q’anjob’al and Yucatec 307
- Index 337
