Question
Your second assignment requires you to complete a mini “literature review” of the following study:
Demuth, Katherine and Sara Weschler. 2012. The acquisition of Sesotho
nominal agreement. Morphology, 22. 67–88.
Before you can commence with this assignment, you need to understand what a literature review in fact
is. So, what exactly is a “literature review”?
• A literature review is an overview of previously published work on a particular topic.
• Typically (based on how much work has been done on a particular topic), multiple sources are
consulted and the literature review acts as a summary of the studies and their findings.
• What is important to note is that when multiple sources are consulted, each study cannot simply
be summarised independently, rather the literature review needs to synthesize the findings in a
coherent way (i.e. of the studies reviewed, what do they, taken together, reveal about the topic).
• This takes some practice, but in order to get there, one needs to first learn how to summarise an
individual study by identifying the most crucial information.
• As such, you will be required provide a summary of the abovementioned study, something
resembling a “mini literature review”.
2. Instructions
• Before you do ANY writing, you need to read the article at least twice (if not a few times).
• You then need to determine to following (and these points will forms the structure of your
review):
o What is the study about (so what was the primary research question that the
researcher set out to answer)?
o Why was the study conducted and, briefly, what have previous studies shown on the
topic (this information is in the paper, so you are not required to do any additional
reading)?
o What methodology was employed in the study (this needs to be described in detail in
terms of the corpus consulted, the number of informants and their ages)?
o What was the primary finding?
o How does this finding answer the initial research question posed?
• These details need to be presented in two paragraphs (points one and two in the first
paragraph, and the last three points in a second paragraph).
• Your word limit is 500 words.
• The key here is to be as focussed as possible, which means you need to be able to isolate the
key information and present it in a coherent way.
• Please remember, you cannot plagiarise. Your review of the work needs to be presented in
your own words and you need to reference (always!).
Demuth, Katherine and Sara Weschler. 2012. The acquisition of Sesotho
nominal agreement. Morphology, 22. 67–88.
Before you can commence with this assignment, you need to understand what a literature review in fact
is. So, what exactly is a “literature review”?
• A literature review is an overview of previously published work on a particular topic.
• Typically (based on how much work has been done on a particular topic), multiple sources are
consulted and the literature review acts as a summary of the studies and their findings.
• What is important to note is that when multiple sources are consulted, each study cannot simply
be summarised independently, rather the literature review needs to synthesize the findings in a
coherent way (i.e. of the studies reviewed, what do they, taken together, reveal about the topic).
• This takes some practice, but in order to get there, one needs to first learn how to summarise an
individual study by identifying the most crucial information.
• As such, you will be required provide a summary of the abovementioned study, something
resembling a “mini literature review”.
2. Instructions
• Before you do ANY writing, you need to read the article at least twice (if not a few times).
• You then need to determine to following (and these points will forms the structure of your
review):
o What is the study about (so what was the primary research question that the
researcher set out to answer)?
o Why was the study conducted and, briefly, what have previous studies shown on the
topic (this information is in the paper, so you are not required to do any additional
reading)?
o What methodology was employed in the study (this needs to be described in detail in
terms of the corpus consulted, the number of informants and their ages)?
o What was the primary finding?
o How does this finding answer the initial research question posed?
• These details need to be presented in two paragraphs (points one and two in the first
paragraph, and the last three points in a second paragraph).
• Your word limit is 500 words.
• The key here is to be as focussed as possible, which means you need to be able to isolate the
key information and present it in a coherent way.
• Please remember, you cannot plagiarise. Your review of the work needs to be presented in
your own words and you need to reference (always!).
Answers
GPT-4o mini
### Mini Literature Review: The Acquisition of Sesotho Nominal Agreement
Demuth and Weschler (2012) investigate the acquisition of nominal agreement in Sesotho, a Bantu language, focusing on how children acquire the morphemes that mark class distinctions and number on nouns and adjectives. The primary research question driving this study is: How do young speakers learn and utilize the complex system of nominal agreement in Sesotho? The authors highlight the significance of this question against the backdrop of previous research, which has primarily concentrated on the acquisition of nominal agreement in other languages but has often yielded inconclusive or varied results regarding the role of input and the developmental sequence in which agreement systems are mastered. By examining the specific linguistic environment of Sesotho, the authors aim to contribute to our understanding of language acquisition theories, particularly the implications of morphological complexity and input variability on children's developing linguistic competencies.
To achieve their objectives, Demuth and Weschler employed a method that involved a longitudinal study of two children acquiring Sesotho, aged 2 to 4 years old, alongside a corpus analysis. The study examined spontaneous speech data recorded from the children during naturalistic interactions, with a particular focus on the occurrence and use of nominal agreement morphemes. In total, the corpus consisted of numerous hours of recorded speech, allowing for comprehensive analysis of the children's linguistic output. The findings reveal that the children exhibited a gradual and systematic acquisition of nominal agreement, starting with the more basic forms before moving towards the more complex, irregular usages of these morphemes. This progression suggests a developmental trajectory aligned with theories of language acquisition that emphasize the role of both input and cognitive maturation in learning morphological structures. By demonstrating how children navigate the intricate rules of nominal agreement in Sesotho, these findings provide insights into the broader principles of language acquisition, supporting the notion that linguistic exposure and the complexity of the language play crucial roles in the learning process. Thus, this study substantially advances our understanding of how young learners engage with and internalize agreement systems in Bantu languages like Sesotho.
### References
Demuth, Katherine and Weschler, Sara. 2012. The acquisition of Sesotho nominal agreement. Morphology, 22, 67–88.
Demuth and Weschler (2012) investigate the acquisition of nominal agreement in Sesotho, a Bantu language, focusing on how children acquire the morphemes that mark class distinctions and number on nouns and adjectives. The primary research question driving this study is: How do young speakers learn and utilize the complex system of nominal agreement in Sesotho? The authors highlight the significance of this question against the backdrop of previous research, which has primarily concentrated on the acquisition of nominal agreement in other languages but has often yielded inconclusive or varied results regarding the role of input and the developmental sequence in which agreement systems are mastered. By examining the specific linguistic environment of Sesotho, the authors aim to contribute to our understanding of language acquisition theories, particularly the implications of morphological complexity and input variability on children's developing linguistic competencies.
To achieve their objectives, Demuth and Weschler employed a method that involved a longitudinal study of two children acquiring Sesotho, aged 2 to 4 years old, alongside a corpus analysis. The study examined spontaneous speech data recorded from the children during naturalistic interactions, with a particular focus on the occurrence and use of nominal agreement morphemes. In total, the corpus consisted of numerous hours of recorded speech, allowing for comprehensive analysis of the children's linguistic output. The findings reveal that the children exhibited a gradual and systematic acquisition of nominal agreement, starting with the more basic forms before moving towards the more complex, irregular usages of these morphemes. This progression suggests a developmental trajectory aligned with theories of language acquisition that emphasize the role of both input and cognitive maturation in learning morphological structures. By demonstrating how children navigate the intricate rules of nominal agreement in Sesotho, these findings provide insights into the broader principles of language acquisition, supporting the notion that linguistic exposure and the complexity of the language play crucial roles in the learning process. Thus, this study substantially advances our understanding of how young learners engage with and internalize agreement systems in Bantu languages like Sesotho.
### References
Demuth, Katherine and Weschler, Sara. 2012. The acquisition of Sesotho nominal agreement. Morphology, 22, 67–88.