Laste esimesed eestikeelsed omadussõnad

Analysis of the recordings of three boys from the ages of 18 months until 4 years acquiring Estonian naturally in differing language environments indicated that Estonian adjectives increased relatively slowly and thus were less numerous in their recording lexicons than verbs and nouns. Adjectival rate of increase appeared to be relatively independent of a child’s macro-environment (as long as there is an Estonian-speaking carer to provide sufficient input), yet it seemed to be influenced by a child’s individual linguistic abilty. The boys started qualifying their nouns with adjectives by calling things beautiful, good and bad, small and big, old and new. Antonymous pairs of adjectives and evaluative adjectives appeared early in their speech. Adjectival commonality – defined in terms of the number of the same words used by several individuals – between individual boys, the Estonian boys and children learning English, as well as the Estonian boys and adults, indicated that the observed boys’ adjectives were representative of currently spoken Estonian, as well as possibly common in the early speech of all children.