Cover not available
Part of
The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology: A cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Veronika Mattes, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Wolfgang U. Dressler
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 66] 2021
► pp. 53–84

Chapter 3
Derivational patterns in spontaneous data of French-speaking parent-child interactions before age three

| University of Lausanne
| University of Lausanne
This chapter is a first step towards the characterisation of the morphological structure of the French lexicon in early first language acquisition, i.e. before children coin novel word formations. Focusing on nouns and verbs, it analyses the variety of derivational means used by toddlers and caregivers in two corpora of French-speaking children (1;4/1;6–2;11). A comparison is done with a sample of adult-directed (ADS) speech. Findings on derivation are compared with previous observations on compounds in the same data. The results display the development of tight-knit morphological relationships within the lexicon and a clear prevalence of suffixation over other derivational means and compounding. Along with errors in affixed words, these relationships provide cues of early detection of derivational morphology in child speech.
Keywords: affixed words, converted words, morphological errors, compounds
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.French derivational morphology in the target system
    • 2.1Noun formation
    • 2.2Verb formation
    • 2.3Adjective formation
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Suffixation
      • 4.1.1Nominal suffixes
      • 4.1.2Adjectival suffixes
      • 4.1.3Errors
      • 4.1.4Development of semantic categories
    • 4.2Prefixation
    • 4.3Conversion
      • 4.3.1N-V pairs
        • 4.3.1.1Homophonous N-V pairs
        • 4.3.1.2N-V pairs with modification
      • 4.3.2Verbs derived from adjectives
      • 4.3.3Adjectives converted from verbs (PP, PPres, sg. pres. ind.)/deverbal adjectives
    • 4.4ADS
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.66.03kil
References (49)
References
Ambridge, B. & Lieven, E. V. M. 2015. A constructivist account of child language acquisition. In Handbook of Language Emergence, B. MacWhinney & W. O’Grady (eds), 478–510. Hoboken NJ: Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amiot, D. 2004. Préfixes ou prépositions? Le cas de sur(-), sans(-), contre(-) et les autres. Lexique 16: 67–83.Google Scholar
Apothéloz, D. 2002. La construction du lexique français. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
2007. La préfixation en RE-, l’antonymie directionnelle et les phénomènes de polarité sémantique. French Language Studies 17: 143–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arrivé, M., Gadet, F. & Galmiche, M. (eds) 1986. La grammaire d’aujourd’hui. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Bauer, B. L. M. 2011. Word formation in Romance. In The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Vol. I, M. Maiden, J. C. Smith & A. Ledgeway (eds), 532–563. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Bauer, L., Lieber, R. & Plag, I. 2013. The analysis and limits of conversion. In The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology, L. Bauer, R. Lieber & I. Plag, 545–567. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Béchade, H.-D. 1992. Phonétique et morphologie du français contemporain. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. 1970. Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammar. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bonami, O. & Boyé, G. 2005. Construire le paradigme d’un adjectif. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 34: 77–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonami, O., Boyé, G. & Kerleroux, F. 2009. L’allomorphie radicale et la relation flexion–construction. In Aperçus de morphologie du français, B. Fradin, F. Kerleroux & M. Plénat (eds), 103–126. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Booij, G. 2012. The Grammar of Words. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. 1985. The acquisition of Romance, with special reference to French. In The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol.1, D. I. Slobin (ed.), 687–782. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
1993. The Lexicon in Acquisition. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998. Lexical creativity in French-speaking children. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 17: 513–530.Google Scholar
Corbin, D. 1987. Morphologie dérivationnelle et structuration du lexique. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Dal, G. 1997. Grammaire du suffixe -et(te). Paris: Didier.Google Scholar
Dressler, W. U. & Merlini Barbaresi, L. 1994. Morphopragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferret, K. & Villoing, F. 2015. French N-age instrumentals: Semantic properties of the base verb. Morphology 25(4): 473–496. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fradin, B. 2003. Nouvelles approches en morphologie. Paris: PUF. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009. Compounding in French. In The Oxford Handbook of Compounding, R. Lieber & P. Štekauer (eds), 417–435. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Fradin, B., Hathout, N. & Meunier, F. 2003. La suffixation en -ET et la question de la productivité. Langue Française 140: 56–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gaeta, L. 2015. Lexeme formation in a conscious approach to the lexicon. In Semantics of Complex Words, L. Bauer, L. Körtvélyessy & P. Štekauer (eds), 115–141. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grabar, N., Tribout, D., Dal, G., Fradin, B., Hathout, N., Lignon, S., Namer, F., Plancq, C., Yvon, F. & Zweigenbaum, P. 2006. Production quantitative des suffixations par -ité et -Able dans un corpus journalistique moderne. TALN 2006: 167–175.Google Scholar
Guilbert, L. 1975. La créativité lexicale. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
Huot, H. 2001. Morphologie. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Kerleroux, F. 1996. La coupure invisible. Études de syntaxe et de morphologie. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.Google Scholar
Kilani-Schoch, M. 2017. Early development of compounds in two French children’s corpora. In Nominal Compound Acquisition [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 61], W. U. Dressler, F. N. Ketrez & M. Kilani-Schoch (eds), 91–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kilani-Schoch, M. & Xanthos, A. 2013. The adjective petit ‘small, little’ in French acquisition data: An example of the relationship between pragmatics and morphosyntactic development. Journal of Pragmatics 56: 113–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koehl, A. 2012. La construction morphologique des noms désadjectivaux suffixés en français. PhD dissertation. Université de Lorraine.
Le Grand Robert de la langue française. 2018. <[URL]> (2 May 2021).
Lehmann, A. & Martin-Berthet, F. 1998. Introduction à la lexicologie. Paris: Dunod.Google Scholar
Le Robert brio. 2012. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert.Google Scholar
Lippeveld, M. & Oshima-Takane, Y. 2015a. Nouns to verbs to and verbs to nouns: When do children acquire class extension rules for deverbal nouns and denominal verbs? Applied Psycholinguistics 36(3): 559–588. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015b. The effect of input on children’s cross-categorical use of polysemous noun-verb pairs. Language Acquisition 22: 209–239. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. 2000. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Manova, S. 2011. Understanding Morphological Rules. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marascuilo, L. A. & McSweeney, M. 1967. Nonparametric post hoc comparisons for trend. Psychological Bulletin 67(6): 401–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mel’čuk, I. 1996. Cours de morphologie générale, Vol. III. Montréal: CNRS.Google Scholar
Namer, F. & Villoing, F. 2008. Interpréter les noms déverbaux: Quelle relation avec la structure argumentale du verbe de base? Le cas des noms en -oir(e) du français. In Actes du 1er Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, J. Durand, B. Habert & B. Laks (eds), 1551–1569. Paris: EDP Sciences. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plénat, M. 2008. Le thème L de l’adjectif et du nom. In Actes du Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française 2008, J. Durand, B. Habert & B. Laks (eds), 1613–1626. Paris: Institut de Linguistique Française. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roché, M. 2009. Un ou deux suffixes? Une ou deux suffixations? In Aperçus de morphologie du français, B. Fradin, F. Kerleroux & M. Plénat (eds), 143–174. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Savickienė, I. & Dressler, W. U. (eds) 2007. The Acquisition of Diminutives: A Cross-linguistic Perspective [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 43]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trésor de la langue française informatisé (TLFi). <[URL]> (30 April 2021).
Tribout, D. 2010. Les conversions de nom à verbe et de verbe à nom en français. PhD dissertation. Université Paris Diderot.
Tribushinina, E., van den Bergh, H., Kilani-Schoch, M., Aksu-Koç, A., Dabašinskienė, I., Hrzica, G., Korecky-Kröll, K., Noccetti, S. & Dressler, W. U. 2013. The role of explicit contrast in adjective acquisition: A cross-linguistic longitudinal study of adjective production in spontaneous child speech and parental input. First Language 33(6): 594–616. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tribushinina, E., Voeikova, M. & Noccetti, S. (eds) 2015. Semantics and Morphology of Early Adjectives in First Language Acquisition. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Veneziano, E. 2017. Noun and verb categories in acquisition: Evidence from fillers and inflectional morphology in French-acquiring children. In Polycategoriality and Lexical Categories: Cross-linguistic, Cross-theoretical and Language Acquisition Approaches [Studies in Language Companion Series 182], V. Vapnarsky & E. Veneziano (eds), 381–411. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Villoing, F. 2012. French compounds. Probus 2: 29–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Forshaw, William
2022. Book Review: Veronica Mattes, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Wolfgang U. Dressler (Eds.), The acquisition of derivational morphology: A cross-linguistic perspective. First Language 42:5 ► pp. 696 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.