Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula.
Standardized
Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula.
Keywords
baby talk, complexity, subordination, copula
Domain
inflection, syntax, discourse
Type
unconditional
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
27 lgs, high in IE, low in African and Oceanic lgs: Bengali, Marathi (both Indic, IE), Dutch, English, German (all Germanic, IE), Greek (Greek, IE), Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish (all Romance, IE), Serbo-Croatian (Slavic, IE), Latvian (Baltic, IE), Syrian Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Maltese (all Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Berber (Berber, Afro-Asiatic), Cocopa, Pomo (both Hokan), Comanche (Uto-Aztecan), Hidatsa (Siouan), Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Kannada (Havyaka) (Dravidian), Kipsigis (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), Luo (Eastern Sudanic, Nilo-Saharan), Nivkh (Isolate), Samoan (Oceanic, E. Malayo-Polynesian), Tzeltal (Mayan)
Source
Ferguson 1978a: 209, with reference to more detailed treatments
