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Can input explain children's me-for-I errors?

Kirjavainen, Minna; Theakston, Anna; Lieven, Elena

Journal of child language. 2009;36(5):1091-114.

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Abstract

English-speaking children make pronoun case errors producing utterances where accusative pronouns are used in nominative contexts (me do it). We investigate whether complex utterances in the input (Let me do it) might explain the origin of these errors. Longitudinal naturalistic data from seventeen English-speaking two- to four-year-olds was searched for 1psg accusative-for-nominative case errors and for all 1psg preverbal pronominal contexts. Their caregivers' data was also searched for 1psg preverbal pronominal contexts. The data show that the children's proportional use of me-for-I errors correlated with their caregivers' proportional use of me in 1psg preverbal contexts. Furthermore, the verbs that children produced in me-error utterances appeared in complex sentences containing me in the input more often than verbs that did not appear in me-for-I errors in the children's speech. These findings are discussed in the context of current explanations for children's case marking errors.

Bibliographic metadata

Type of resource:
Content type:
Publication type:
Published date:
Journal title:
Abbreviated journal title:
ISSN:
Place of publication:
England
Volume:
36
Issue:
5
Pagination:
1091-114
Digital Object Identifier:
10.1017/S0305000909009350
Pubmed Identifier:
19220924
Pii Identifier:
S0305000909009350
Access state:
Active

Institutional metadata

University researcher(s):

Record metadata

Manchester eScholar ID:
uk-ac-man-scw:196484
Created by:
Haslam-Mousawi, Helen
Created:
31st May, 2013, 08:52:55
Last modified by:
Haslam-Mousawi, Helen
Last modified:
31st May, 2013, 08:52:55

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