This monograph is the first study of the acquisition of Swahili as a first language. It focuses on the acquisition of inflectional affixes, with a particular emphasis on subject agreement and tense. Other inflectional affixes are also investigated, including object agreement and mood.

The study surveys the adult dialect in question, Nairobi Swahili, discussing social, phonological, morphological and syntactic properties. Data, analyses and copious examples are presented of the naturalistic speech of four Swahili speaking children. The data are tested against six influential theories of child language, and the results show that processing and metrical theories of telegraphic speech fail to account for the observed patterns, while grammatical theories of child language fair significantly better. The data and analyses presented in this book are indispensable for linguists and psychologists interested in the acquisition of inflectional material and other cross-linguistic properties of child language.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements xi

List of Abbreviations xiii 1. Setting the Scene 1–29

2. The Swahili Language: Description and theoretical analysis 31–97 3. Theories of Language Acquisition 99–138

4. Results and Evaluating Theories 139–200

Appendix 1: Methodology and Related Issues 201–206

Appendix 2: Statistical Properties of Adult Swahili 207–208

Appendix 3: The Staging Process 209–218

Appendix 4: Individual Child Data 219–220

References 221–234

Subject Index 235–238

Index of Names 239–241

"This book contains the first comprehensive examination of how verbal morphology is acquired in a Bantu language, providing a theoretically exciting and timely contribution to the literature." Katherine Demuth, Brown University