The role of diminutives in the acquisition of Russian gender: Can elementsof child-directed speech aid in learning morphology?

Diminutives are a pervasive feature of child-directed speech (CDS) in Russi an. Their frequent use might be beneficial for gender acquisition because i t eliminates nontransparent morphophonological marking. To examine the effe ct of diminutives on gender learning, adult native speakers of English were taught Russian nouns, with half of the participants trained on diminutive nouns and half on the nondiminutive base forms. Over four sessions, partici pants learned to use adjectives that had to agree in gender with nouns. Lea rners were then tested on various types of novel nouns. The diminutive trai ning group demonstrated better learning of noun gender, and better generali zation to novel forms, indicating that regularization of gender marking thr ough diminutives promotes the extraction of morphophonological regularities .