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The acquisition of Hebrew plurals: the case of the missing gender category*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Yonata Levy
Yonata Levy
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University
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Abstract

Children's acquisition of noun pluralization patterns in Hebrew was studied longitudinally and cross-sectionally. The data show that, through the period of acquisition (age 2–3), children make maximal use of the available morphophonological clues for pluralization; they determine their choice of the plural morpheme according to the nature of the final syllable of the noun singular. They seem totally insensitive to the semantic notion of gender which governs the choice of plurals for animate nouns, as well as to a syntactic notion of gender which in Hebrew determines noun–adjective agreement.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1983 , pp. 107 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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Footnotes

[*]

This study is based on a dissertation which was written under the supervision of Professor I. M. Schlesinger. It was supported in part by a Ford Foundation grant to the Institute for Applied Social Research in Jerusalem and a grant to the author from the Israeli Foundation for Research and Education. Adress for correspondence: Psychology Department, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.

References

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