Tallas-Mahajna Naila, Armon-Lotem Sharon, Saiegh-Haddad Elinor
Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Al-Qasemi Academic College, Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Israel.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2025 Mar 26;68(3S):1484-1504. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00558. Epub 2024 Jul 26.
The Arabic verb system features a nonlinear root and pattern derivational morphology. Previous studies suggest that young Arabic and Hebrew speakers' early verb use is based on semantic complexity rather than derivational morphological structure. The present study examines the role of morphological and semantic complexity in the emergence of the verb morphology in Arabic speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to children with typical language development (TLD).
Natural language data were collected from native Arabic-speaking children (40 with DLD; aged 4-6 years and 133 with TLD aged 2;6-6;0 [years;months]) using picture-based elicitation tasks, and verbs were coded morphologically for derivational features and for features of semantic complexity.
The results showed that children with DLD demonstrated a more limited production of verb patterns, both in types and in tokens, than age-matched children with TLD. Also, children with DLD age 5;0-6;0 were similar in types and tokens of verb patterns to younger children with TLD at the age of 3;6-4 years. Moreover, while children with TLD at the age of 2;6-3 years used a smaller number of verb patterns than older 4;0-5;0 aged children with DLD, the two groups were not different in verb semantics. Finally, the morphological and semantic diversity demonstrated by the children with DLD was similar to the morphological and semantic diversity shown by children with TLD.
Our findings support the conclusion that children with DLD and with TLD acquire the derivational verb system in the same pathway and the quantitative lexical differences between the two groups support a delay rather than a deviation from the typical developmental trajectory.
阿拉伯语动词系统具有非线性词根和词型派生形态学特征。先前的研究表明，讲阿拉伯语和希伯来语的儿童早期动词使用基于语义复杂性而非派生形态结构。本研究考察了形态和语义复杂性在患有发育性语言障碍（DLD）的阿拉伯语儿童与典型语言发育（TLD）儿童动词形态出现过程中的作用。
使用基于图片的诱发任务，从以阿拉伯语为母语的儿童（40名患有DLD；年龄4至6岁，133名患有TLD，年龄2;6至6;0[岁;月]）中收集自然语言数据，并对动词的派生特征和语义复杂性特征进行形态编码。
结果表明，与年龄匹配的TLD儿童相比，DLD儿童在动词词型的类型和数量上表现出更有限的产出。此外，5;0至6;0岁的DLD儿童在动词词型的类型和数量上与3;6至4岁的较年幼TLD儿童相似。而且，虽然2;6至3岁的TLD儿童使用的动词词型数量少于4;0至5;0岁的年长DLD儿童，但两组在动词语义上没有差异。最后，DLD儿童表现出的形态和语义多样性与TLD儿童表现出的形态和语义多样性相似。
我们的研究结果支持以下结论，即DLD儿童和TLD儿童通过相同途径习得派生动词系统，两组之间的词汇量定量差异支持发育延迟而非偏离典型发育轨迹。
