Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1983, Page 125

Learning about -ari
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pattern of acquisition of the -ari suffix in Icelandic. The major dif-
ference in the two sets of data is the relatively high proportion of
infinitive-like responses given by the Icelandic children. As I discussed
in the results section, these responses are difficult to interpret since
the possibility cannot be eliminated that they are not in some cases
simply repetitions of the adult verb. In other cases, however, they
may in fact be intended as nouns. The Icelandic children’s clear pre-
ference for using infinitive-like forms for instruments rather than
agents (23% versus 9%) suggests that they may be familiar with exist-
ing verb-instrument pairs like greiða-greiða and may be producing in-
novative instrument nouns of this type. Clark’s (1981a) second prin-
ciple, the PRINCIPLE OF FORMAL SIMPLICTY, predicts that children will
initially prefer derivational devices that change base forms as little
as possible. If one assumes that Icelandic children take infinitive verbs
as the basis for forming new nouns, at least in the context of this
study,6 then it follows that they will use infinitive-like nouns at an
early stage of learning about derivational morphology, before more
complex devices (e.g. compounding, -ari suffixation) become part of
their productive repertoires. The principle of productivity further pre-
dicts that children will use these simple forms with the meaning
attached to them in the adult language (i.e. ,,instrument“). Although
the Icelandic data can be taken to support the predictions of these
two principles, any conclusions must be tentative because of the un-
certainty involved in interpreting what the children intended by their
,,no change of form“ responses.
5. Conclusion
In this paper I have not only reported the results of an experimental
study of Icelandic children’s acquisition of the morpheme -ari, but
also examined these results from a crosslinguistic perspective, compar-
ing them in some detail to equivalent data from English-speaking
children. I have argued that such comparisons are valuable for the
6 How „basic“ infinitive verbs are in Icelandic child language more generally remains
to be shown, of course. My preliminary impression based on data from two- and three-
year olds is that they use many verbs primarily or excusively as infinitives in construc-
tions such as vera að + infinitive (progressive), vera búirt að + infinitive (copmpletive),
cetla að + infinitive (future intention), and fara að + infinitive (inceptive).