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In:Nominal Compound Acquisition
Edited by Wolfgang U. Dressler, F. Nihan Ketrez and Marianne Kilani-Schoch
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 61] 2017
► pp. 119–143

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Chapter 5
Compounding in early Greek language acquisition

 |  |  | University of Cologne | Democritus University of Thrace
 |  | 
Published online: 19 December 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.61.06ste
The early acquisition of Greek compounds by two monolingual Greek girls aged between 1;8 and 3;0 years is studied in a usage-based framework. Special importance is attached to the morphological structure of Greek compound types occurring in CS and CDS, since Greek nominal compound formation does not just consist in the juxtaposition of words or roots. Major questions addressed are evidence for the transparency of compounds and productive nominal compound formation. Evidence for productivity of nominal compound formation was only found with one of the two girls and was rather limited. In contrast to other languages, neoclassical nominal compounds by far exceed endocentric subordinative ones tokenwise in Greek CS and CDS providing evidence of entrenchment rather than productivity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Compounding in Standard Modern Greek
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Compounding in early Greek child speech and child-directed speech
    • 4.1The development of nominal compounds in Anna’s CS and CDS
      • 4.1.1Categories of compounds in Anna’s CS and CDS
      • 4.1.2Endocentric subordinative compound nouns in Anna’s CS and CDS
      • 4.1.3Neoclassical compounds
      • 4.1.4Minor classes of nominal compounds
      • 4.1.5Verbal and adjectival compounds
      • 4.1.6The development of compounding patterns in Anna’s speech
    • 4.2Compounds in Mairi’s CS and CDS
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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2021. The development of derivation in early Greek first language acquisition. In The Acquisition of Derivational Morphology [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 66], ► pp. 21 ff. DOI logo

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