Acquisition of morphological units in children who develop chedungun in the Biobío region

Abstract

In recent years, priority has been given to the study of Indo-European language acquisition over indigenous language acquisition. UNESCO (2020) has declared the decade 2022 – 2032 as the longest time of decline in its documentation. Therefore, there is an urgent call for research and recording of indigenous language acquisition in the world (Kelly et al., 2015). This study explores the acquisition of verbal productions by two children who acquire Chedungun as their first language in the Biobío region (VIII). Specifically, we have set out to: a) Describe the order of verb acquisition b) Compare the acquisition of verbs according to mood and tense. This research follows a longitudinal design of group or cohort evolution. This process is on-site with the direct participation of the families and includes the periodic registration of the children for one year. Among the results, there is evidence of a systematic acquisition of verbal productions in both Mapuche children. Regarding Javiera among the 1; 6 and 2; 6 years old presents simple verbal productions of present and past tense and morphological marks of indicative and imperative mode. In Mateo case, between 4; 6 to 5; 6 years old, presents more complex verbal productions with present, past and future verb tenses and imperative, indicative and subjunctive mode. However, although Mateo has more complex grammatical structures than Javiera, there are still some linguistic elements missing to have a linguistic performance similar to that of an adult speaker of chedungun.