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Morphology in Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2017

ANTONIO BENÍTEZ-BURRACO ,
ELENA GARAYZÁBAL  and
FERNANDO CUETOS
ANTONIO BENÍTEZ-BURRACO*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Filología, Facultad de Humanidades Universidad de Huelva, Spain
ELENA GARAYZÁBAL
Affiliation:
Departamento de Lingüística General, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
FERNANDO CUETOS
Affiliation:
Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
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Abstract

Aims. Morphological skills in Williams syndrome (WS) are a controversial issue, particularly cross-linguistically. Methods. We assessed pluralization patterns of nouns, inflection of verbs in the past, and gender assignment, inflection, and agreement within the noun phrase in a sample of Spanish-speaking children with WS compared to typically developing (TD) children matched on mental age (VA-TD) and on chronological age (CA-TD) age. Results. Children with WS attribute grammatical gender correctly in a production task, but they have problems with inferring the referent’s sex from the gender of the noun in a comprehension task. Additionally, they correctly pluralize nouns and properly inflect regular verbs, but they have problems with irregular verbs. Our findings suggest that they have mastered the productive rules, but they perform like younger children regarding irregular items.

Keywords

William syndromeSpanishmorphologyplural nounspast verbsgender agreement
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 728 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2017 

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Footnotes

*

We wish thank the parents and children who made this study possible. Preparation of this work was supported in part by funds from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant numbers FFI2014-61888-EXP and FFI-2013-43823-P to ABB and PSI2015-64174-P to FC).

References

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