Abstract

This paper provides the first evidence of maternal speech — motherese — in Wichi, an indigenous language with a complex morphology spoken in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina. The corpus consists of 22 hours of video recordings from the daily life of three children, starting from their one-morpheme utterance period (MLU = 1) to the onset of combining early morphemes (MLU = 2.30). Employing a mixed methodological approach, results allowed us: (a) to create an observational system of specific categories for the analysis of the maternal speech in Wichi; (b) to identify motherese in Wichi, noticeably stable across cases and organized into constellations of lexical, pragmatic-discursive and prosodic features with changes and continuities during the developmental target period. The results are discussed cross-culturally in the light of a renewed cultural approach, while limitations and future directions are addressed.

摘要

本文提供了Wichi母性语言的母语的第一个证据，Wichi是在阿根廷Gran Chaco地区使用的一种具有复杂形态的土著语言。从三个孩子的日常生活开始，该语料库包含22个小时的视频记录，从他们的一个语素发声期（MLU = 1）到结合早期语素的发作（MLU = 2.30）开始。采用混合的方法学方法，结果使我们能够：（a）创建一个特定类别的观察系统，用于分析Wichi的母亲言语；（b）识别威奇语中的母语，这些语种在各个案例中都相当稳定，并在发展目标时期内具有变化和连续性的词汇，语用，话语和韵律特征群。