Acquisition of Russian nominal derivation in monolingualism and bilingualism

Abstract

The case study focuses on the acquisition of Russian derivational morphology in terms of nouns by monolingual (Russian) and simultaneous bilingual (Russian German) children of early age. The results are based on analysis of representative natural longitudinal recordings transcribed and stored in CHAT format using the CHILDES system. The first patterns and methods of nominal word-formation along with the morphemes used by children are revealed. The properties of word-formation that indicate the productive use of the nominal derivatives, such as the presence of simplex–derivative pairs, chains and word families, as well as occasionalisms are noted. The similarities and differences in the acquisition of nominal derivatives, including their semantic domains, in mono- and bilingual situations are discussed.

Keywords: nouns, word-formation, derivatives, simplexes, compounding, Russian, German