A Study of grammatical properties of words acquired by a three-year-old Indonesian child

Mariana, Fily (1998) A Study of grammatical properties of words acquired by a three-year-old Indonesian child. Bachelor thesis, Petra Christian University.

Abstract

One of the best attesting facts about child language development is the occurrence of various words, which a three-year-old child utters. The main focus of the study is concentrated on the affixes attached to the content words and syntactic roles of the function words. The subject is also able to produce many grammatical properties like adults do. Even though, not all of the subject's derivational words work as an adult's standard. The data of a three-year-old Indonesian child are recorded weekly for 1-2 hours for approximately one month. The data are transcribed and identified into the content words, the syntactic class of content words, the affixes the child used, and the function words. The study suggests that the child masters several affixes such as the suffix (-e) attached to nouns, prefix (tak-), and prefix (di-); and function words such as ini 'this', apa y what'r and mana x which'. While, others cannot be clearly explained. In addition, the result reveals that most of the subject's words are concrete things, which are available in his surrounding.

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