Acquisition of German Noun Plurals in Typically Developing Children and Children with Specific Language Impairment
Table 1
Plural forms according to Eisenberg [3] and Wegener [4, 5].
Masculine
Neuter
Feminine
(1a) -e (Schwein-e, “pigs”; Buss-e, “buses”)
(1b) -e + UML (Bäll-e, “balls”)
(1c) - (Sessel -, “armchairs”)
(2a) -en (Tür-en, “doors”)
(2b) - (Nase -, “noses”)
- + UML (Väter -, “fathers”)
(1c) and (1d) after (pseudosuffixes)
(3a) -en (Held-en, “heroes”)
(3b) -n (Hase-n, “rabbits”)
(4) -er + UML (Häus-er, “houses”)
(5) -e + UM L (Händ-e, “hands”)
(6) -s (Auto-s, “cars”; LKW-s, “vans”)
Note that the suffixes -en and -n appear twice in feminine context ((2a) and (2b)) and in masculine contexts ((3a) and (3b), marked forms). The plural form -e plus Umlaut appears in masculine/neuter contexts ((1b), UMLAUT is lexicalized) and in feminine context (, here UMLAUT is obligatory).
