Rules for pluralization in African American English: Evidence from 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds

This study investigated the African American English (AAE) forms produced by 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children when pluralizing words ending in final consonant clusters. Participants were 105 child and 45 adult speakers of AAE. Speakers provided verbal responses to pictures of cartoon-like creatures w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2005-09, Vol.118 (3_Supplement), p.2037-2037
Main Author: Trent-Brown, Sonja A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This study investigated the African American English (AAE) forms produced by 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children when pluralizing words ending in final consonant clusters. Participants were 105 child and 45 adult speakers of AAE. Speakers provided verbal responses to pictures of cartoon-like creatures with nonsense word names. Responses were recorded and presented to experienced listeners for language set and singular versus plural judgments. An acoustical analysis was conducted for comparison to the perceptual findings. Results suggest that although [s] inflection is nonobligatory in AAE, there are many instances in which it does occur. Variation in plural forms across final consonant clusters is discussed as well as other markers for pluralization in the absence of the [s] morpheme.
ISSN:0001-4966
1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.4785827