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Abstract

Abstract

Research investigating Arabic-speaking children’s acquisition of noun plurals is emerging. Researchers hypothesize that, consistent with a single-route model of morphological processing, children rely more on concatenative than on non-concatenative morphological processes. This is expected because processes of affixation require few morphological changes and fewer cognitive resources than non-concatenative processes, which necessitate multiple morphological changes within a word. However, other evidence suggests that children begin to acquire non-concatenative processes at the same time as concatenative processes. We performed a corpus analysis of Egyptian Arabic-speaking children’s use of noun plurals (ages 1;7–3;7). Accuracy rates, type-token ratios, and error patterns were examined. We found that the children used both non-concatenative and concatenative morphological processes, and had overall low rates of morphological errors. Findings replicate previous work and contribute novel results to the literature. Our preliminary results support dual-route processing models of inflectional morphology.

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2026-02-27
2026-03-17

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Acquisition of noun plurals in Egyptian‑Arabic speaking children
Arabic Linguistics 1, 168 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/arli.00010.gha
/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00010.gha
/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00010.gha
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): CHILDES; corpus; Egyptian Arabic; language; milestones; morphology; nominal inflections; noun plurals; young children

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