34
EDY VENEZIANO
It is seen at the level of the PMR variations which, when they appear, affect only
verb-words.
It manifests itself also in a better phonological reproduction of free and linked
grammatical morphemes and, what is more important, in a more adequate use of PAEs
and of phonologically well-formed grammatical morphemes. They are used increas-
ingly more in places where they are needed from a grammatical viewpoint, and the
choice of the grammatical morpheme or of its phonological approximation corresponds
increasingly to the form of the morpheme expected.
Finally, in a more indirect way, multiword speech becomes the dominant way of
expression. The hypothesis here is that the organization of words into formal classes
facilitates rule-based, and thus more systematic, combination of words, both within
and across constituents.
The differentiation of words into classes is a construction spreading over a rela-
tively long period, and starts to be elaborated in close relationship to progress in other
aspects of language, in particular, in free and linked verbal grammatical morphology,
and in word combination.
In French, the salient distinction between the PMR variations allowed by nouns,
and by verbs, can be hypothesized to be highly relevant to the formal distinction
between nouns and verbs. However, the objective existence of such a salient dis-
tinction is not sufficient by itself. It needs to acquire some meaning for the chil-
dren to notice and integrate it in their production. One of the ways it can acquire
meaning is by contributing to a better organization of other fragments of the child’s
emerging system, such as the combination of words across constituents, as well as
within constituents, where PAEs start to look like grammatical morphemes. Parts
of grammar acquire grammatical meaning when they can be coordinated within a
system where other parts of grammar have started to blossom, in principle each
for independent reasons.
References
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Bates, E., Bretherton, I. & Snyder, L. (1988). From first word to grammar: Individual
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Clairis, C. (1984). Nom et verbe. Modeles Linguistiques, Tome VI, Fascicule 1,
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