Morphophonology and compensation in Specific Language Impairment: Evidence from Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek.

The current study investigates the role of the morphophonological realisation of grammatical features as a compensatory mechanism for morphosyntactic deficits in specific language impairment (SLI). The phenomenon examined is past tense formation in Standard Modern Greek (SMG) and Cypriot Greek (CG) as it manifests a distinction in morphophonological salience realisation in the two linguistic varieties via differential use of a stress shift and stressed syllabic augment [é] required for past tense rule formation. Participants were pre-schoolers with typical language development (TD) and children with SLI.

Morphophonological salience as a compensatory means for deficits in the acquisition of past tense in SLI.

Unlabelled: The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with specific language impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past tense in Greek and its acquisition by children of typical and atypical language development; thirdly, to establish an account on the nature of specific language impairment by comparing the acquisition patterns exhibited by children with SLI to those presented by typically developing children. The performance of 10 children with SLI in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language matched (LM) controls. Based on the claim that morphophonological salience aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that children with SLI will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms.