Productivity of a Polish child’s inflectional noun morphology: a naturalistic study

In the current paper, we examine the degree to which a 2-year-old Polishspeaking child exhibits productivity in her use of noun morphology. Using densely collected naturalistic data (five recording sessions per week) we assess the range of noun inflections she produces, the degree of productivity in her use of individual nouns, and the contextual productivity in her use of individual inflections. We adopt careful controls to allow comparison between the child’s noun use and that of her caregiver. Our data show that although the child uses the same range of noun inflections as her mother, she shows a much more limited productivity in her use of both individual nouns and individual inflections with respect to their contexts of use. We discuss the results in the light of two different theoretical approaches to inflectional morphology: the usage-based, schema approach and the rule-based approach.