The Development of Basic Word Order in Child Emirati Arabic
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| Title: | The Development of Basic Word Order in Child Emirati Arabic |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Dimitrios Ntelitheos (ORCID |
| Source: | First Language. 2026 46(2):202-233. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 32 |
| Publication Date: | 2026 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Foreign Countries, Arabic, Word Order, Language Acquisition, Young Children, Incidence, Verbs, Grammar, Sentence Structure |
| Geographic Terms: | United Arab Emirates |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01427237251362540 |
| ISSN: | 0142-7237 1740-2344 |
| Abstract: | Emirati Arabic alternates between subject-verb (SV) and verb-subject (VS) basic word order, challenging acquisition theories to explain how children master both orders. We address this question by studying a 2-year corpus of 6 Emirati children (1.8-5.9) and child-directed speech, exploring the role that input frequency, verb transitivity, subject definiteness and animacy, and discourse function play in determining children's choice of word order. Children first over-produce SV orders, confirming an early subject-first bias. VS orders appear earliest with intransitive and mono-transitive verbs whose subjects are new or inferable, tying word order to information status from the outset. By 4.6, children reserve VS for the same discourse roles as adults, including narrative event lines and minimal wh-answers but underexploit it in pragmatically neutral contexts. These findings support a hybrid model: an initial structural bias guides production, statistical learning aligns global frequencies, and discourse-pragmatic mappings fine-tune usage. SV/VS development in Emirati Arabic thus bolsters interface-based theories of grammatical growth. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2026 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1499860 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Emirati Arabic alternates between subject-verb (SV) and verb-subject (VS) basic word order, challenging acquisition theories to explain how children master both orders. We address this question by studying a 2-year corpus of 6 Emirati children (1.8-5.9) and child-directed speech, exploring the role that input frequency, verb transitivity, subject definiteness and animacy, and discourse function play in determining children's choice of word order. Children first over-produce SV orders, confirming an early subject-first bias. VS orders appear earliest with intransitive and mono-transitive verbs whose subjects are new or inferable, tying word order to information status from the outset. By 4.6, children reserve VS for the same discourse roles as adults, including narrative event lines and minimal wh-answers but underexploit it in pragmatically neutral contexts. These findings support a hybrid model: an initial structural bias guides production, statistical learning aligns global frequencies, and discourse-pragmatic mappings fine-tune usage. SV/VS development in Emirati Arabic thus bolsters interface-based theories of grammatical growth. |
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| ISSN: | 0142-7237 1740-2344 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01427237251362540 |
