Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective

by Wolfgang U. Dressler Marianne Kilani-Schoch Dagmar Bittner

The volume deals with the emergence of verb morphology in children during their second and early third year of life from a cross-linguistic perspective. It covers 15 contributions - each analyzing one single language - based on parallel longitudinal investigations of children with parallel methodology and macrostructure in representation. The main question addressed How do children detect morphology and construct first subsystems of verbal inflection? The focus lies on the transition from a premorphological phase to a protomorphological phase. The main proposal consists in the concept of miniparadigms and of their relation to morpho-syntactic developments in early first language acquisition.

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003