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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear Info-CHILDES,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> We now have three very nice corpora on the
acquisition of Estonian. The corpora from Reili Argu at Tallinn and Maigi
Viga at Tartu are both case studies. Reili's data are fro Hendrik between
1;8 and 2;5. Maigi's are from Andreas (Antsu) between 1;7 and 3;0.
In addition we have data from Kaja Kohler, now at Potsdam from eight
children. Thanks to Reili, Maigi, and Kaja for these data, which are now
the best we have on a Finno-Ugric language. Thanks also to Marilyn Vihman
and Juergen Weissenborn who have advised Maigi and Kaja in this work. Here
is the read-me file from Kaja Kohler:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial> </DIV>
<DIV class=Body><SPAN style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: TimesNewRoman"><FONT
size=2>Kaja Kohler collected these data from eight Estonian-speaking children in
Tartu for her dissertation on verb morphology in Estonian children at the
University of Potsdam under the supervision of Jürgen Weissenborn. The
investigator was born in 1974 in Tartu and studied German language at Tartu and
Griefswald from 1992 to 1999, before entering Potsdam in 2000. All eight
children in the study are monolingual and are growing up in families with both
parents. The material consists of 61 recordings, about 20-40 minutes each,
covering an age range of 0;11-2;8 years. The recordings were normally make in
the children's homes, and the child was usually talking with his parents
and with the investigator</FONT><FONT size=2><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: TimesNewRoman; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">.
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<DIV class=Body><FONT size=2><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: TimesNewRoman">And here is the read-me file
from Maigi Vija.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=Body><FONT size=2><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: TimesNewRoman"></SPAN><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: TimesNewRoman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=Body><FONT size=2>This corpus contains 74 files with 30911 child
utterances, recorded between ages 1;7 and 3;1.13. Sixty of these files
(2;0.1-2;1.12 and 3;0.0-3;1.13) were recorded and transcribed with support from
the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. Andreas (also called Antsu) is a firstborn
Estonian-speaking child growing up in Tartu, Estonia. He was born on February
26, 1998. He can be called an early talker. Antsu is a very talkative and active
boy. His father was working in construction materials supply and his mother was
a student of linguistics. Andreas started to attend nursery school before the
period of data collection, at the age of 1;6. The recordings were mainly carried
out at home, where the child was playing with his mother and/or father. Meal
time and other home activities were included. The recording sessions lasted
45-60 minutes each.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><FONT size=2>
<DIV>--Brian MacWhinney</SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>