Cree Baby Talk and Universal Baby Talk

Abstract

<p>The intent of this thesis is to identify the lexical, syntactic/inflectional and phonological features of East Cree Baby Talk (henceforth BT) as a way of understanding how children acquire the highly complex standard adult (SA) forms. I demonstrate that the early linguistic features are universal and that significant variation among languages occurs subsequent to the BT stage.</p> <p>As a result of comparative analysis I am able to conclude:</p> <p>1. East Cree BT exemplifies universal features of BT;</p> <p>2. The acquision of BT represents a level of generalized language learning;</p> <p>3. Language learning is hierarchical;</p> <p>4. As languages develop, they diverge and give rise to the greatly varied SA surface structures;</p> <p>5. The occasional variation that occurs in BT registers can be explained in terms of the salient or difficult features of the target language;</p> <p>6. BT universals are generally absolute, non-implicational and stubstantive;</p> <p>7. Absolute, non-implicational and substantive universals precede statistical, implicational and formal universals;</p> <p>8. The deep structure of SA speech is similar to BT and, in a sense, develops out of it. Thus, deep structures are cognitively concrete while SA surface structures are cognitively abstract.</p> <p>For three of the comparative languages used in this study I depend upon secondary data. Due to the problems encountered, I suggest steps to improve methodology in the recording, presentation and analysis of BT material.</p>