This paper presents initial results on the acquisition trajectory of the definite determiner Él- in Emirati Arabic. It is shown that Emirati children follow a maturational process sporadically producing target-like fully inflected DPs early on, but dropping determiners frequently in obligatory syntactic contexts, including prepositional phrases, after demonstratives, with generic nouns and certain proper names. In addition, children add determiners in contexts where they are illicit in the target language, including new referents and possessive structures. We argue for an intact syntactic D-system in early stages of acquisition but that the DP projection is underspecified, due to pragmatic factors, i.e. the children have not yet fully mastered the complex interplay between syntactic environment and pragmatic/discourse knowledge.
Price history
Dec 16, 2022
€174.46