Prosodic constraints on the emergence of grammatical morphemes: Crosslinguistic evidence from Germanic and Romance languages (original) (raw)

The study investigates the emergence of grammatical morphemes in children's speech, focusing on crosslinguistic variations observed in Germanic and Romance languages. It argues that prosodic constraints affect the acquisition of grammatical morphemes, suggesting that the prosodic organization of children's early speech plays a crucial role in language development. Empirical data from longitudinal studies of Spanish and German speaking children support the claim, highlighting the need for integrating phonological and syntactic research to better understand grammatical development.