5.2 Grammatical acquisition in isiXhosa-speaking toddlers
5.2.2 Identificative copulative prefixes
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108 There are five instances in which an atypical copulative agreement was used, that is, the Cl. 9 agreement on a Cl. 5 noun: yihlati instead of lihlathi ‘it is a forest’ as well as yitye instead of lilitye ‘it is a stone’, where the latter not only exhibits the incorrect agreement but also an incomplete form of the NPx. This particular inaccuracy occurs in the speech of three children aged 2;10, 3, and 3;9 respectively.
Although, as mentioned under Section 5.2.1.5 on Cl. 5, it may be that the children are in fact not producing the copulative at all, and is simply producing a glide ‘y’ instead of a liquid ‘l’ in a phonological under-specification of a partial NPx form. The overgeneralisation of the Cl. 9 copulative is also found with a Cl. 11 noun udonga ‘wall’ (pronounced yidoka instead of ludonga ‘it is a wall’). This is unsurprising, however, since as evidenced by Gowlett and Dowling (2015) there is an incipient merger of Cls 5 and 11 underway, and the child may have been producing the Cl. 5 copulative li- as yi- in an overgeneralisation or under-specification.
These observations lead to the introduction of questions regarding the following on Section B of the CDI grammar section:
1. The production of a copulative (for which we used an example from Cl. 9).
2. The production the Cls 1 and 1a copulative concord specifically.
3. Which copulative is used on Cl. 5 nouns.
The questions and options take the following forms respectively, and the number of children reported to produce each option is indicated in brackets:
1. “If you ask your child, “what is this?” which way sounds most like the way that your child would respond?”
a. bhola [n=11]
b. yibhola [n=9]
2. “If you ask your child, “what is this?” which way sounds most like the way that your child would respond?”
a. umntwana [n=12]
b. wumntwana [n=1]
c. ngumntwana [n=7]
109 3. “If your child wants to talk about a noun like ihlathi ‘forest’ or ihashe ‘horse’, which of the beginnings of these words sounds most like that which your child would use?”
a. yihashe [n=14]
b. lihashe [n=6]
With regard to the first question (1), nine of the children captured by the CDI produce the copulative and 11 do not. This can largely be understood as the production of the Cl. 9 copulative, since it is unlikely that caregivers extended the question across all classes since no other examples were given.
Yi- is also the copulative for Cl. 4, so one may be inclined to infer that if the copulative is used productively for Cl. 9, then it also is for Cl. 4. That being said, as differences in the NPx production showed, one cannot always take such seemingly predictable patterns as absolutes.
There is wide variability in the production of the Cl. 9 copulative by age. This copulative first appears at 1;9, with variable use until 2;4, after which all five children from this age and up produce it. It cannot be conclusively concluded that children above the age 2;4 consistently produce the copulative when it is necessary, though, as evidenced in the spontaneous speech data by a boy aged 3 who produces TV instead of yiTV. Interestingly, the girl aged 3;9 does not omit the copulative on any Cl. 9 nouns as she did with others, which may be suggestive of the likelihood that the Cl. 9 copulative is acquired not only earlier but also more consistently across children than the copulative of other classes.
With regard to (2), 12 children are not producing any copulative on Cl. 1 nouns, one child is reported to use the glide form of the copulative, and seven children produce the full form. This lower frequency of the Cl. 1 copulative relative to that of Cl. 9 supports the suggestion that Cl. 9 may be acquired by more children more consistently at an earlier age. The first child who is able to produce this copulative is aged 1;6, although there are children who are both older and younger than him who cannot produce it, which suggests acquisition in a non-systematic fashion in this age group. The child who produces the glide is 2, although there are four children younger than him who can already produce the full form.
The eldest two (2;6) are producing the full form but the third oldest (2;5) is not. Despite the low frequency of the glide copulative in the CDI data, the fact that a caregiver admits to her child producing this form, together with the examples in the spontaneous speech data, are indicative of this being a typical instance of child speech.
110 Regarding the third question (3), 14 children use the Cl. 9 agreement on Cl. 5 nouns. It is unclear, however, to what extent this is evidence of an overgeneralisation of Cl. 9 agreement or an inability to produce the ‘l’ sound. If children are not overgeneralising but underspecifying, with the initial consonant surfacing as a glide, ‘y’, this would in fact indicate the appropriate Cl. 5 agreement. This phonological under-specification is backed up by evidence from spontaneous speech in which the girl aged 3;9 produced mabeye instead of ngamabele ‘they are breasts’ and the mispronunciations of nouns in the locative evidenced in Section 5.1.2.3. The correct agreement, or phonological form, appears at 1;9 and appears to be consistently used by the eldest three children (2;5 and 2;6). However, as evidenced by spontaneous speech data, this may not mean that all children are able to produce the appropriate form by 2;5.