Determiner Phrases and the Debate on Functional Categories in Early Child Language

Abstract

The apparent omission of determiners by young English-speaking children has led to the proposal that the DP-layer is universally absent in very early child grammars. In this article, I challenge this hypothesis by investigating the longitudinal development of the determiner system of a Swedish child (age 1;8-2;1). The article addresses phenomena such as suffixed and free articles, double definiteness, genitives, pronouns and "nominal style." I show that analyses of these early data must invoke at least one functional projection above the NP. These data therefore argue against any claim about the universal absence of functional structure in early child grammar.