Elena Antinoro Pizzuto

Gestures and words during the transition to two-word speech

This study explores the communicative use of the gestural and vocal modalities by normally developing Italian children during the transition from one- to two-word speech. We analysed the spontaneous production of 12 children at 1;4 and at 1;8, focusing on the use of two-element combinations of words and/or gestures. Results indicated that use of gesture and gesture-word combinations during the transition to two-word speech is a robust feature of communicative development across a relatively large number of children in a rich gestural culture, and that the number of gesture-word and two-word combinations increased significantly from 1;4 to 1;8. Number of gestures and gesture-word combinations produced at 1;4 was also predictive of total vocal production at 1;8. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of gesture as a transitional device en route to two-word speech.

The acquisition of Italian morphology: implications for models of language development

This study explores the spontaneous acquisition of Italian inflectional morphology by three children (age range I;4-3;O). Longitudinal, free speech samples are examined, focusing on the development of the morphological paradigms of Italian verbs, pronouns and articles. Data analysis is conducted using criteria appropriate to allow reliable cross-linguistic comparisons with data from English. By this means we evaluate the plausibility of a nativist, parameter-setting account of language development in Italian and English, as recently proposed for these two languages. Results show that the general developmental patterns observed in Italian are not significantly different from those found in English. These findings are not consistent with current interpretations of parameter-setting accounts of language development. Alternative explanatory models are discussed.

Noun morphology in Italian sign language (LIS)

Abstract It has been reported that in at least some sign languages such as ASL, nominal signs possess little or no inflectional morphology. Previous analyses of Italian Sign Language (LIS), have shown that LIS nouns exhibit some inflectional properties, and these influence the behavior of verbs. Most of these data, however, were limited to one variety of LIS used in Palermo, Sicily. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: (1) to provide new data on LIS nominal morphology, extending our analyses to other varieties of LIS used in such different Italian cities as Rome and Trieste, and thus assessing the generalizability of previous findings on the topic; (2) to explore whether there is any significant interaction between nominal morphology and classifier predicates. In order to achieve our objectives, we analyze and describe spontaneous and elicited productions of nominal signs, and judgements of grammatical acceptability given by native LIS signers over sentences containing different classes of nominal signs, in different contexts (with inflecting/or noninflecting verbs; with classifier-predicates). Examining our findings in a cross-linguistic perspective, we then attempt to clarify whether the data on LIS provide indications concerning the role of modality-specific vs. language-specific factors in shaping the lexicon and morphology of a particular sign language.

The acquisition of Italian morphology: a reply to Hyams.

In Pizzuto & Caselli (1992, hereafter: PC 1987; 1988). We concluded that our data did not support the strong predictions made within such a parameter-setting account, and that the developmental patterns observed were best explained by a combination of cognitive, perceptual and distributional factors of the sort that are proposed in most other models of language acquisition.