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Nouns and verbs in Chintang: children's usage and surrounding adult speech*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2011

SABINE STOLL ,
BALTHASAR BICKEL ,
ELENA LIEVEN ,
NETRA P. PAUDYAL ,
GOMA BANJADE ,
TOYA N. BHATTA ,
MARTIN GAENSZLE ,
JUDITH PETTIGREW ,
ICHCHHA PURNA RAI  and
MANOJ RAI
...Show all authors
SABINE STOLL
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
BALTHASAR BICKEL
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
ELENA LIEVEN
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
NETRA P. PAUDYAL
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
GOMA BANJADE
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
TOYA N. BHATTA
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
MARTIN GAENSZLE
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
JUDITH PETTIGREW
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
ICHCHHA PURNA RAI
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
MANOJ RAI
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
NOVEL KISHORE RAI
Affiliation:
Chintang and Puma Documentation Project, Kathmandu
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Abstract

Analyzing the development of the noun-to-verb ratio in a longitudinal corpus of four Chintang (Sino-Tibetan) children, we find that up to about age four, children have a significantly higher ratio than adults. Previous cross-linguistic research rules out an explanation of this in terms of a universal noun bias; instead, a likely cause is that Chintang verb morphology is polysynthetic and difficult to learn. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the development of Chintang children's noun-to-verb ratio correlates significantly with the extent to which they show a similar flexibility with verbal morphology to that of the surrounding adults, as measured by morphological paradigm entropy. While this development levels off around age three, children continue to have a higher overall noun-to-verb ratio than adults. A likely explanation lies in the kinds of activities that children are engaged in and that are almost completely separate from adults' activities in this culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , March 2012 , pp. 284 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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