Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1983, Qupperneq 123

Learning about -ari
121
Table VIII. Number ofchildren using consistent responses“ in each age
group (n =12)
Age Group Neither Consistent on Only Both Consistent
Consistent Agentb Instrument0 Different Patternsd Same Patternc
I 2 5 2 0 3
II 0 3 1 4 4
III 0 3 1 1 7
IV 0 3 0 0 9
Totals 2 14 4 5 23
a „Consistent responsc" = using 8 of 10 responses of the same kind, i.e. compounds
(any type), suppletives, -ari derived forms, no change of form, or some other single
derivational device
b Of 14 children consistent on agents only: 11 = -ari, 1 = No Formal Change (NFC),
1 = Suppletive, 1 = Verb + maður compounds
c Of 4 children consistent on instruments only:3= NFC, 1 = ari
d Of 5 children using different consistent patterns for agents (A) and instruments (I):
4= -ari (A)/NFC (I), 1 = Verb + maður compounds (A) /NFC (I)
' All 23 = -ari
Clark and Hecht invoked three principles, two of them put forth
in Clark 1981a (see p. 106 above), to explain the general acquisition
pattern of English. The first was the principle of semantic trans-
PARENCY. It predicts that when children try to form new words, they
will rely on elements in their linguistic repertoires whose meanings
are clear. Young children who have not yet discovered that agent and
instrument nouns like kennari ‘teacher’ or blandari ‘mixer’ can be ana-
lyzed into a verb stem plus a bound derivational morpheme, for example,
may take whole words (free morphemes) from their lexicons and com-
bine them to express new agent or instrument meanings. Indeed, the
youngest group of English-speaking children produced a substantial
number of compounds of the type Verb+man for agents (21% of all
responses) and 'Verb+machine for instruments (6%), where the words
man and machine are clear, whole-word markes of the general meanings
,,agent“and ,,instrument“. Some of the younger Icelandic children also
formed compounds of this type (Verb+maður=S% of agents, Verb
+tæki/vél=3% of instruments).