Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1983, Síða 117

Learning about -ari
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Table V. Percentage of Verbs Extracted Appropriately by Age Group:
English and Icelandic Compared
Age Group Agent Instrument
I 93 (85.8) 79 (75.8)
II 98 (91.7) 81 (93.3)
III 98 (96.7) 97 (94.2)
IV 99 (99.2) 96 (95.0)
Means 97 (93.4) 88 (89.6)
Table VI. Percentage o/-er f-arij Suffixes Supplied for Agent and
Instrument Nouns by Age: English and Icelandic
Compared
Age Group Agent Instrument
I 55 (56.7) 42 (43.3)
II 90 (83.3) 71 (49.2)
III 76 (86.7) 70 (79.6)
IV 91 (98.3) 72 (77.5)
Means 78 (81.3) 64 (62.4)
there is a stronger tendency among English-speaking children to use
suppletives, especially for instruments. On the other hand, Icelandic
children relied more heavily on infinitive-like forms and, to a lesser
extent, on other derivational morphemes to create new agent and in-
strument nouns. Derivational processes other than -er suffixation, al-
though also available in adult English, did not figure into the American
children’s respones.2
1 Clark and Hecht explain that where their total responses fail to add up to 100%
(totals are 90% and 82% for agents and instruments respectively), the differences are
accounted for by failures to respond at all, „don’t know“ responses, and so on, rather
than by regular ,,minor“ response types. This is also true for the Icelandic data.
2 There are many zero-derivational verb-noun pairs in English, such as to cover -
a cover, to lift - a lift, to spy - a spy, and so on. This process is extremely productive
in the adult language, both for deriving nouns from verbs and verbs from nouns (see
Clark and Clark 1979, Adams 1973). Other derivational suffixes are also available for
deriving agent and instrument nouns from verbs (e.g. to bicycle —> bicyclist, to indicate
—> indicator), although the range of productive derivational devices in English is proba-
bly more limited than in Icelandic.