AUTHOR=Pye Clifton , Pfeiler Barbara 

TITLE=The Acquisition of Directionals in Two Mayan Languages

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02442

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02442

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>We use the comparative method of language acquisition research in this article to investigate children’s expression of directional clitics in two Eastern Mayan languages – K’iche’ and Mam (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B25">Pye and Pfeiler, 2014</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B24">Pye, 2017</xref>). The comparative method in historical linguistics reconstructs the grammatical antecedents of modern languages and traces the evolution of each linguistic feature (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B17">Paul, 1889</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B3">Campbell, 1998</xref>). This history informs research on language acquisition by demonstrating how phonological and morphological features interact in the evolution of new uses for common inherited traits. Children acquiring modern languages must learn the arbitrary constraints imposed on their language by its history.</p>