Cover not available

In:Specific Language Impairment: Current trends in research
Edited by Stavroula Stavrakaki
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 58] 2015
► pp. 253–286

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

The acquisition of past tense by Greek-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment

The role of phonological saliency, regularity, and frequency

 | University of Athens
 | University of Athens
Published online: 11 August 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.58.11var
The performance of 13 Greek-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) on past tense formation is compared to the performance of two control groups of typically developing (TD) children. It is shown that children with SLI have difficulties in the production of past tense forms compared to language or age-matched TD controls. It is argued that phonological salience or regularity does not affect the acquisition of past tense in children with SLI and TD controls. In contrast, regularity of aspectual formation and frequency of the verb form has an effect on the acquisition of the perfective past in children with SLI. Τhese results are discussed in relation to one morphosyntactic and one morphophonological account of past tense acquisition in SLI.
References (69)
References
Babiniotis, G. 1972. To Rima tis Ellinikis (The Verb in Greek). Athens: Idrima Sophias Saripolou.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bedore, L. & Leonard, L.B. 2001. Grammatical morphology deficits in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 44: 905–924. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. 2007. Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., Bartke, S. & Gollner, S. 1997. Formal features in impaired grammars: A comparison of English and German SLI children. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 14: 42–75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. & Dalalakis, J. 1999. Tense and agreement in Greek SLI: A case study. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 24: 1–25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G., Crutchley, A. & Botting, N. 1997. The extent to which psychometric tests differentiate subgroups of children with SLI. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 40: 765–777. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G. & Botting, N. 1999. Classification of children with specific language impairment: Longitudinal considerations. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42: 1195–1204. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G., Botting, N. & Faragher, B. 2001. Psycholinguistic markers for specific language impairment (SLI). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 42: 741–748. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diamanti, M. 2000. Aples morphosintaktikes domes sto logo pediou me idiki glosiki diataraxi (Simple morphosyntactic structures in the speech of a child with specific language impairment). In Proceedings of the 8th Symposium of the Panhellenic Association of Speech and Language Therapists , 201–220. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.
Drachman, G. & Malikouti-Drachman, A. 1994. Stress and Greek compounding. Phonologica: 55–64.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Friedmann, N. & Novogrodsky, R. 2011. Which questions are most difficult to understand? The comprehension of wh-questions in three subtypes of SLI. Lingua 121: 367–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gathercole, S.E. & Baddeley, A.D. 1990. Phonological memory deficits in language disordered children: Is there a causal connection? Journal of Memory and Language 29: 336–360. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgas, D.D., Paraskevopoulos, I.N., Bezevegis, I.G. & Giannitsas, N.D. 1997. Elliniko WISC-III: Wechsler Klimakes Noimosinis ja Pedja (Greek WISC-III: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children). Athens: Ellinika Grammata.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grinstead, J., Baron, A., Vega-Mendoza, M., De la Mora, J., Cantú-Sánchez, M. & Flores, B. 2013. Tense marking and spontaneous speech measures in Spanish SLI: A discriminant function analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 56: 352–363. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hammill, D.D., Pearson, N.A. & Voress, J.K. 1993. Developmental Test for Visual Perception, 2nd edn (DTVP-2). Austin TX: Pro-ed Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hansson, K. & Leonard, L.B. 2003. The use and productivity of verb morphology in specific language impairment: An examination of Swedish. Linguistics 41(2): 351–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hatzigeorgiu, N., Gavrilidou, M., Piperidis, S., Carayannis, G., Papakostopoulou, A., Spiliotopoulou, A., Vacalopoulou, A., Labropoulou, P., Mantzari, E., Papageorgiou, H. & Demiros, I. 2000. Design and implementation of the online ILSP Greek Corpus. In Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC-2000). Athens: LREC.
Holton, D., Mackridge, P. & Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1997. Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
International Classification of Diseases, 10th edn (ICD-10). 1990. London: World Health Organization.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, C., Nash, L., Rigaut, C. & Gerard, C.L. 1998. Determiners and clitic pronouns in French-speaking children with SLI. Language Acquisition 7: 113–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, C., Nash, L. & van der Velde, M. 1999. Inflection and past tense morphology in French SLI. In Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield & C. Tano (eds), 289–300. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, C., & Roulet, L. 2004. Do French-speaking children with SLI present a selective deficit on tense? In Proceedings of the 28th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development 28: 256–266. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konstantzou, K., Varlokosta, S., van Hout, A. & Vlassopoulos, M. 2013. Perfective – imperfective: Development of aspectual distinctions in Greek specific language impairment. Linguistic Variation 13(2): 187–216. Special double issue on Three Factors and Beyond: The Socio-Syntax of (A)typical Language Acquisition and Development; Special Issue 2: Language Development and Impairment . Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonard, L.B. 1989. Language learnability and specific language impairment in children. Applied Psycholinguistics 10: 179–202. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Specific language impairment across languages. Child Development Perspectives 8: 1–5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonard, L.B., Sabbadini, L., Volterra, V. & Leonard, J.S. 1988. Some influences on the grammar of English- and Italian-speaking children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics 9: 39–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonard, L.B., Bortolini, U., Caselli, M.C. & Sabbadini, L. 1993. The use of articles by Italian-speaking children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 7(1): 19–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mastropavlou, M. 2006. The Role of Phonological Salience and Feature Interpretability in the Grammar of Typically Developing and Language Impaired Children. PhD dissertation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Matthews, D.E. & Theakston, A. 2006. Errors of omission in English-speaking children’s production of plurals and the past tense: The effects of frequency, phonology, and competition. Cognitive Science 30: 1027–1052. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norbury, C.F., Bishop, D.V.M. & Briscoe, J. 2001. Production of English finite verb morphology: A comparison of SLI and mild–moderate hearing impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44: 165–178. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oetting, J.B. & Hadley, P.A. 2008. Morphosyntax in child language disorders. In Handbook of Child Language Disorders, R.G. Schwartz (ed.), 341–364. New York NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oetting, J. & Horohov, J. 1997. Past-tense marking by children with and without specific language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 40: 62–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oetting, J. & Hadley, P. 2008. Morphosyntax in child language disorders. In The Handbook of Child Language Disorders, R.G. Schwartz (ed.), 341–364. New York NY: Psychological Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paradis, J. & Crago, M. 2001. The morphosyntax of specific language impairment in French: Evidence for an extended optional default account. Language Acquisition 9: 269–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Nicoladis, E. & Crago, M. 2007. French-English bilingual children’s acquisition of the past tense. In Proceedings of the 31st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, H. Caunt-Nulton, S. Kulatilake & I.-H. Woo (eds), 497–507. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1973. Modern Greek verb conjugation: Inflectional morphology in a transformational grammar. Lingua 32: 193–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ralli, A. 1988. Elements de la morphologie du Grec moderne: La structure du verbe. PhD dissertation, University of Montreal.
. 2005. Morfologia. Athens: Patakis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rice, M.L. & Wexler, K. 1996. Toward tense as a clinical marker of specific language impairment in English-speaking children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 39: 1239–1257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rice, M.L., Wexler, K., Marquis, J. & Hershberger, S. 2000. Acquisition of irregular past tense by children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 43: 1126–1145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rice, M.L., Tomblin, B.J., Hoffman, L., Richman, A.W. & Marquis, J. 2004. Grammatical tense deficits in children with SLI and nonspecific language impairment: Relationships with nonverbal IQ over time. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47: 816–834. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rispens, J.E. & De Bree, E.H. 2014. Past tense productivity in Dutch children with and without SLI: The role of morphophonology and frequency. Journal of Child Language 41: 200–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Royle, P. & Thordardottir, E. 2008. Elicitation of the passe compose in French preschoolers with and without SLI. Applied Psycholinguistics 29: 341–365. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanz-Torrent, M., Serrat i Sellabona, E., Andreu, L. & Serra-Raventos, M. 2008. Verb morphology in Catalan and Spanish in children with specific language impairment: A developmental study. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 22: 459–474. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simonsen, H.G. & Bjerkan, K.M. 1998. Testing past tense inflection in Norwegian: A diagnostic tool for identifying SLI children? International Journal of Applied Linguistics 8: 251–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, N. 2008. Morphosyntactic Skills and Phonological Short-Term Memory in Greek Preschool Children with Specific Language Impairment. PhD dissertation, University of Reading.
Stamouli, S. 2000. Simfonia, xronos ke opsi stin eliniki idiki glosiki diataraxi [Agreement, tense, and aspect in specific language impairment in Greek]. In Proceedings of the 8th Symposium of the Panhellenic Association of Speech and Language Therapists , 221–236. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.
Stark, R. & Tallal, P. 1981. Selection of children with specific language deficits. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 46: 114–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stavrakaki, S. 1996. Specific Language Impairment in Greek: Evaluation of Person and Number Agreement, Case Assignment to Overt Subject Pronouns and Tense Marking. MA dissertation, University of Essex.
. 2001. Comprehension of reversible relative clauses in specifically language impaired and normally developing Greek children. Brain and Language 77: 419–431. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stavrakaki, S. & Clahsen, H. 2009. The perfective past tense in Greek child language. Journal of Child Language 36: 113–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stavrakaki, S. & Tsimpli, I.M. 2000. Diagnostiko test glossikis noimosinis gia pedia prosholikis ke sholikis ilikias: Stathmisi, statistiki analisi ke psihometrikes idiotites. [Diagnostic Verbal IQ Test for Greek preschool and school age children: Standardization, statistical analysis, and psychometric properties]. In Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the Panhellenic Association of Speech and Language Therapists , 95–106. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.
Stavrakaki, S., Koutsandreas, K. & Clahsen, H. 2012. The perfective past tense in Greek children with specific language impairment. Morphology 22: 143–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thornton, R. 1996. Elicited production. In Methods for Assessing Children’s Grammar, D. Mc Daniel, C. McKee & H. Smith Cairns (Eds.), 77–102. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I.M. 2001. LF-interpretability and language development: q study of verbal and nominal features in Greek normally developing and SLI children. Brain and Language 77: 432–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Lely, H.K.J. 1998. SLI in children: Movement, economy and deficits in the computational syntactic system. Language Acquisition 72: 161–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Lely, H.K.J. & Stollwerck, L. 1997. Binding theory and specifically language impaired children. Cognition 62: 245–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Lely, H.K.J. & Ullman, M. 2001. Past tense morphology in specifically language impaired children and normally developing children. Language and Cognitive Processes 16: 177–217. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vang Christensen, R. & Hansson, K. 2012. The use and productivity of past tense morphology in specific language impairment: An examination of Danish. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 55: 1671–1689. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varlokosta, S. 2000. I glossiki anaptiksi enos ellinopoulou me idiki glossiki diatarahi (The linguistic development of a child with SLI). In Proceedings of the 8th Symposium of the Panhellenic Association of Speech and Language Therapists , 159–174. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.
. 2002. On the semantic properties of non-finite clauses in early Greek. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 133–159.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Eventivity, modality and temporal reference in child Greek. In Advances in Greek Generative Grammar [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 76], M. Stavrou & A. Terzi (eds), 217–240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varlokosta, S., Rohrbacher, B. & Vainikka, A. 1998. Functional projections, markedness, and ‘root infinitives’ in early child Greek. Linguistic Review 15: 187–207. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varlokosta, S. & Koutsoubari, N. 2006. The Perfective Past Tense Test. Rhodes: University of the Aegean.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varlokosta, S. & Nerantzini, M. 2012. Pronominal and anaphoric reference in Greek specific language impairment. In Selected Papers of the 10th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, Z. Gavriilidou, A. Efthymiou, E. Thomadaki & P. Kambakis-Vougiouklis (Eds.), 584–591. Komotini: Democritus University of Thrace. <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Grammatical gender in specific language impairment: Evidence from determiner-noun contexts in Greek. Psychology 20(3): 338–357.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wexler, K., Schaeffer, J. & Bol, G. 2004. Verbal syntax and morphology in typically developing Dutch children and children with SLI: How developmental data can play an important role in morphological theory. Syntax 7: 148–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmerman, I.L, Steiner, V.G. & Pond, R.E. 1992. PLS-3: Preschool Language Scale-3. San Antonio TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Andreou, Maria, Konstantina Sonia Antoniou & Eleni Peristeri
2025. Task Effects on Sentence Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from Sentence–Picture-Matching Tests. Languages 10:1 ► pp. 4 ff. DOI logo
Vassiliu, Chrysoula, Angeliki Mouzaki, Faye Antoniou, Asimina M. Ralli, Vassiliki Diamanti, Sophia Papaioannou & Napoleon Katsos
2023. Development of Structural and Pragmatic Language Skills in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Communication Disorders Quarterly 44:4 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Antoniou, Faye, Asimina M. Ralli, Angeliki Mouzaki, Vassiliki Diamanti & Sofia Papaioannou
2022. Logometro®: The psychometric properties of a norm-referenced digital battery for language assessment of Greek-speaking 4–7 years old children. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Mouzaki, Angeliki, Elli Spyropoulou, Asimina M. Ralli, Faye Antoniou, Vassiliki Diamanti & Sophia Papaioannou
2020. The Dimensionality of Oral Language Ability: Evidence From Young Greek Children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 63:8 ► pp. 2732 ff. DOI logo
Leonard, Laurence B. & Justin B. Kueser
2019. Five overarching factors central to grammatical learning and treatment in children with developmental language disorder. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 54:3 ► pp. 347 ff. DOI logo
DIAMANTI, VASSILIKI, ARGYRO BENAKI, ANGELIKI MOUZAKI, ASIMINA RALLI, FAYE ANTONIOU, SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU & ATHANASSIOS PROTOPAPAS
2018. Development of early morphological awareness in Greek: Epilinguistic versus metalinguistic and inflectional versus derivational awareness. Applied Psycholinguistics 39:3 ► pp. 545 ff. DOI logo
Diamanti, Vassiliki, Angeliki Mouzaki, Asimina Ralli, Faye Antoniou, Sofia Papaioannou & Athanassios Protopapas
2017. Preschool Phonological and Morphological Awareness As Longitudinal Predictors of Early Reading and Spelling Development in Greek. Frontiers in Psychology 8 DOI logo
Protopapas, Athanassios
2017. Learning to Read Greek. In Learning to Read across Languages and Writing Systems, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue