PERSON, NUMBER AND GENDER MARKERS AMONG HINDI SPEAKING TYPICALLY DEVELOPING CHILDREN

Abstract

Language is a human system of communication that uses arbitrary signal such as voice sounds, gestures and or written symbols. Language acquisition refers to the way the child acquires or learns a language. It is a hierarchical process which has specific age for achieving each process. Syntax, a component of language is defined as the study of principles and process by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Understanding language development and syntax levels helps us determine the child’s language adequacy. Solid syntactic skills require an understanding and use of correct word order and organisation in phrases and sentences with appropriate morphosyntactic operations. The morpho syntactical language includes plural markers, case markers, PNG markers etc. the study focuses on development of PNG markers among children who are native speakers of Hindi language. The study highlights the need to carry out more research in this area for better understanding of language acquisition among these children in order to develop both assessments and intervention programmes. Presently, the lack of acquisition data has hinged the development of any standardized tests in Hindi. Thereby, the study aims to explore PNG markers in Hindi speaking typically developing children with the objective of analysing the data of among these children across 4 to 6yrs. The results show that most of these markers developed by 4years of age. Most importantly as age increased these markers also increased. By 6 years of age most of these markers developed completely. The study also discusses various studies supporting the results.