Chapter published in:
Functionalist and Usage-based Approaches to the Study of Language: In honor of Joan L. BybeeEdited by K. Aaron Smith and Dawn Nordquist
[Studies in Language Companion Series 192] 2018
► pp. 1–15
Features of some ergative languages that impact on acquisition
Edith L. Bavin | La Trobe University
Bybee’s (e.g., 2006, 2010, 2013) view is that grammar is the cognitive
organisation of one’s experience with the language. Evidence from the
language acquisition field supports this approach. A major task for the
child in acquiring a language is detecting distributional properties of the
language and the co-occurrence of features, that is, identifying the
form-function units in the language input. In this chapter, I briefly
discuss ergative alignment and present examples from research on the
acquisition of ergative languages to show that different cues to ergativity
are provided. The examples illustrate that children quickly attune to
contexts for ergative marking, identifying regularity and recurring patterns
as they construct a grammar.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Cues to acquisition
- Ergative alignment
- Acquiring ergative languages: Some examples of influencing factors
- Hindi
- Warlpiri
- Mayan languages
- Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 01 March 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.192.01bav
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.192.01bav
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