early plural comprehension

[Susana López Ornat]

In more or less the same spirit of Margaret´s message:
Spanish children, typically before 24 months, most frequently use a
non-plural form which, interestingly, has "some" plural meaning: the
"otro-otra" determiner ("another one", or "another"). They use it before the
Noun, saying /oto/ or /ota/ + X, or use it free. They do one of those things
when they want "more of the same X", or when they point out that "there are
more of this same X around". They successfully use those otro-otra
(masc.-fem) preceeding a Noun, or free -as pronouns-, from much earlier on
than they use the "real" plural markers.
This early marker is worked at, though for gender agreement reasons, with a
succesfull Neural Net simulation, in:
P.Smith, A.Nix, N.Davey, S.López-Ornat & D.Messer (2003): A connectionist
account of Spanish determiner production. Journal Child Language, 30,
305-331.

Its very early use is documented also in behavioural experiments about the
early acquisition of the Spanish Nominal Phrase. See:

S.Mariscal & S. López Ornat (2000) Oto* casa roja: The gradual acquisition
of gender morphology in Spanish children under 2;06 years. At 9th
International Morphology Meeting. Univ. of Viena, 25-27 february.

S.Mariscal (2001) ¿Es "a pé" equivalente a DET+N?: sobre el conocimiento
temprano de las categorías nominales. Cognitiva 13, 1, 35-69.

Brian: I´d propose to track the comprehension of plural in steps like this.
Thanks a lot for the summary you sent us all.

Susana López Ornat

www.ucm.es/info/equial
Facultad de Psicología
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
28223