Laila Kjærbæk

The Danish Noun Plural Landscape

This article examines the Danish noun plural system in spoken language, i.e. we depart from a – radically new – sound perspective. We consider suffixes for which the categorization is not isomorphic with the orthographically determined categories. We give an overview of phonological stem changes, and we find interesting patterns of stød change in monosyllables. We identify 23 different combinations of suffixation and stem change, and give lexical frequencies for them. We consider two aspects of plural formation that are relevant for the investigation of first-language acquisition, that is, the gradation of stem change and the predictability of plural suffixes from gender and from stem-final phonology; we detect four classes of stem-final phonemes, i.e. segment types, which have different patterns of plural suffixation, and we point to some reasons why just these distinctions – mainly in sonority – can be relevant.

The impact of sound structure on morphology: An experimental study on children's acquisition of German and Danish noun plurals focusing on stem change

This study examines the impact of sound structure on childrens acquisition of noun plural morphology, focusing on stem change. For this purpose, a three-level classification of stem change properties according to sound structure is presented, with increasing opacity of the plural stem: no change, weak change, strong change. General hypotheses are presented as well as predictions following from them, both general and language-specific. The relevance of stem change is tested in 140 German-speaking and 140 Danish-speaking children from the age of three to nine years, by using a plural elicitation task. Results show that, in both languages, stem change has an impact on childrens correct production of plural stems. Language-specific differences between German and Danish, both in correct responses and in overgeneralization errors, are compared with our predictions and discussed in detail.

Sound structure and input frequency impact on noun plural acquisition: Hypotheses tested on Danish children across different data types

This study analyses the emergence of the noun plural category in typically developing Danish-speaking children from its first appearance up to the age of 10 years, focusing on the impact of sound structure and input frequency. We use a multi-method research approach comparing different data types (dictionary data, naturalistic spontaneous child language input and output, semi-naturalistic/semi-experimental data, experimental data and reported data). We define cross-linguistically three degrees of stem changes ( no change , prosodic change , phonemic change ), and we also define three degrees of productivity of plural markers (which combine stem change and suffix). Noun plurals emerge from an early age, typically around the second birthday, but the acquisition is still underway at the age of ten years. Plural acquisition is affected by frequency and morphophonological category. Danish children produce more correct plural stems of nouns with non-changing plural stems compared to plural nouns with stem change, and more correct plural stems of nouns with prosodic change than with phonemic change . Furthermore, they produce more correct plural suffixes of nouns with a-schwa suffix than with e-schwa and zero suffix. Danish children also produce more correct plural forms of nouns with a fully productive than a semi-productive plural marker, and more of the latter than of nouns with an unproductive plural marker. We also discuss the important role in Danish of the plural marker o , where pl = sg .

Interaction between input frequency, transparency and productivity in acquisition of noun plural inflection in Danish

Abstract Acquisition of the Danish noun plural system is interesting in regard to testing hypotheses on input frequency effects: whereas English is characterized by having one default inflectional marker for a grammatical category (e.g. the plural suffix -s) and a minor number of exceptions to this default rule, Danish has several competing inflectional markers. Furthermore, there are important interactions between phonology and morphology in the Danish system (Basbøll et al. (2011)). In the present study we test theses on input frequency effects in a phonological perspective and explore the impact of phonetics on grammar. This will be done in three types of empirical data from monolingual Danish children: Naturalistic child directed speech and child speech from six children aged 0;10–3;11; Structured interviews with 80 children aged 3–9 years; Experimental data from 160 children aged 3–10 years. We present a scale with three degrees of transparency of the plural stem and of the plural suffix as well as a more differentiated scale of transparency of the Danish plural markers. We furthermore present a scale with three degrees of productivity, and analyze the relation between acquisition rate and degree of transparency as well as degree of productivity.