Timing differences in the acquisition of geen in Afrikaans and Dutch: A corpus-based study

This paper highlights a previously unnoted timing discrepancy in the first-language (L1) acquisition of geen (‘no’) in Afrikaans and Dutch. Building on White, Southwood & Huddlestone (2022) and van der Wal (1996), we report on a comparative Afrikaans-Dutch corpus study focusing on child(-directed) language that suggests that Afrikaans geen is acquired significantly later than Dutch geen. At the same time, it also highlights a striking difference in the use of NEGATOR+INDEFINITE ARTICLE-containing structures in the two languages. To further probe this discrepancy, we conducted an explorator... Mehr ...