Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2000) - The University of ...

EARLY VERBS IN BILINGUAL ACQUISITION
geben
0.06
springen
0.04
geben
0.07
brauchen
0.05
give
jump
need
4
2
2
There are 16 verb types in all, just over one-third of the total (44):
Rank 1 has just sein ‘be’ as the unique verb, accounting for one-third of all
tokens in the last 2 samples;
Rank 2 is quite diverse, with 7 verb types; gehen ‘go’, essen ‘eat’ and
schlafen ‘sleep’ are important; accounts for around one-fifth of all tokens;
Rank 3 looks fairly diverse, but shares essen and schlafen with Rank 2;
there is no typical verb;
Rank 4 also seems relatively well populated; essen and geben each occur in
two samples, but essen is shared with Ranks 2 and 3.
Finally, Table 5d shows only 9 verb types in all; nevertheless, these are
nearly half of all types in the data (20).
Rank 1 shows be emerging as the typical verb, accounting for two-fifths of
all tokens in the last 2 samples;
Rank 2 is similarly focused on a single verb, go; just under one-fifth of all
tokens; Ranks 3 and 4 are similar, with 3-4 verbs each, around one-tenth of all
tokens; there is some sign that want is emerging as a Rank 3 verb.
Table 5d. Sonja, English, 250-word samples: proportion of main verb tokens,
for the main verbs in first four frequency ranks, by sample
Age 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 2;6 2;7 2;8 Total
Rank 1 - be be be
0.50 0.40 0.40 63
want
0.47 16
Rank 2 - go go go
0.17 0.18 0.17 25
sleep
0.15 5
Rank 3 - want want
0.11 0.09 9
do
0.13 7
be
0.12 4
close
0.09 4
Rank 4
sleep
185