Ora está, ora não está: input variável e aquisição da flexão verbal de 3ª pessoa do plural no PB

Abstract

We investigate the perception of the 3rd person plural verbal inflection and the comprehension of the concept of plurality of this morpheme by children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese (BP). BP exhibits variable number agreement on nominal and verbal phrases. Previous studies in several languages point out that, although children produce number inflection by the age of three, they have difficulty on comprehension tasks until the age of six (JOHNSON; DE VILLIERS; SEYMOR, 2005; PEREZ-LEROUX, 2005; LEGENDRE et al., 2010; BLAHOVA; SMOLIK, 2014). On our study, an experimental task, developed with the Picture Identification Task technique, aimed at verifying if, despite the variable nature of the number agreement in BP, six and five-year-old children identify the verbal form of the 3rd person plural in sentences of null subject ( Comeram doce ) and associate this form to an action practiced by more than one entity and if the singular verbal form is associated with the concept of singularity ( Comeu doce ). Sentences with number information on the subject and the verb were also tested ( As criancas comeram doce vs. A crianca comeu doce ). Our results suggest that plural pictures were systematically chosen for plural linguistic stimuli, although there was a preference for plural pictures also with singular sentences. The variable input seems not to interfere on the perception and comprehension of the plural verbal morpheme on the age tested in our study. --- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2017.28498