Het Gebruik Van Pronomina Bij Kinderen Van Een Tot Vier

Abstract

In this article we discuss the sequence of emergence of six different types of pronouns in 36 Dutch children from one to four. This study is part of a larger project concerning the morphosyntactic development in normal Dutch children of that age. The aim of this project is to find out whether or not there are patterns in the language of three different groups of language impaired children compared to the non-language impaired children. The main conclusions of this article are: the number of pronouns increases as the child gets older. Dutch children make very few mistakes in producing the pronouns studied. The sequence of emergence of interrogative pronouns reflects the order which is found in the English literature on the subject. Demonstrative pronouns are the first to emerge in the system, followed by personal pronouns. The subject forms emerge before the object forms. There is a clear tendency for singular pronouns to emerge before plurals.