Brown’s Morphological Skills in Typically Developing Trilingual (Konkani-English Kannada) Speaking Children

Abstract

An individual is exposed to more than one language, with increasing mobility or globalization. Relatively little research has been conducted on children’s English grammatical development in trilinguals. The present study aimed to understand the usage of Browns morphological skills in context of general conversation and picture discrimination in 6-9 years Konkani- English- Kannada trilingual children. Speech samples were audio taped from 45 school going (Konkani- English- Kannada) trilingual speakers. Collection of samples included tasks of picture discrimination and clinician child conversation. Language data obtained was analysed, based on Brown’s (1973) 14 grammatical morphemes. Results showed that out of 14 morphemes only 6 and 8 morphemes were present in picture task and general conversation in 6-7 years children, 8 and 8 morphemes were present in picture task and general conversation in 7-8 years children, and 9 and 10 morphemes were present in picture task and general conversation in 8-9 years children. Concluded that Konkani- English- Kannada trilingual children followed a different morphological development pattern when compared to the typically developing monolingual English children.