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This article examines the Danish noun plural system in spoken language, i.e. we depart from a-radically new-sound perspective. We consider suffixes where the categorisation is not isomorphic with the orthographically determined categories. We give an overview of phonological stem changes, and we find interesting patterns of stød change in monosyllables. We identify 25 different combinations of suffixation and stem change and give lexical frequencies for them. We consider two aspects of plural formation that are relevant for the investigation of first language acquisition, viz. the gradation of stem change and the predictability of plural suffixes from gender and from stem-final phonology; we detect four classes of stem-final phonemes, i.e. segment types, which have different patterns of plural suffixation, and we point to some reasons why just these distinctions-mainly in sonority-can be relevant.

This study examines the impact of sound structure on children's acquisition of noun plural morphology, focussing on stem change. For this purpose, a threelevel classification of stem change properties according to sound structure is presented, with increasing opacity of the plural stem: no change, weak change, strong change. General hypotheses are presented as well as predictions following from them, both general and language-specific. The relevance of stem change is tested in 140 German-speaking and 140 Danish-speaking children from the age of three to nine years, by using a plural elicitation task. Results show that in both languages, stem change has an impact on children's correct production of plural stems. Language-specific differences between German and Danish both in correct responses and in overgeneralization errors are compared to our predictions and discussed in detail.

This study investigates the development of the noun plural inflectional category in Danish children from the first appearance up to the age of 10 years. It is based on a multi-method research approach in order to get a fuller picture of Danish children’s acquisition of noun plurals. The study rests on a sound-based analysis of the Danish noun plural system, and investigates the hypothesis that the productivity of the plural markers has an impact on acquisition. In order to test the hypothesis, a scale with three degrees of productivity for plural markers is proposed: 1) fully productive; 2) semi-productive; and 3) unproductive. The acquisition rate is predicted to go from fully productive to semi-productive to unproductive plural markers and the error direction to go from unproductive to semi-productive to fully productive plural markers. These predictions are confirmed by the study.

This study analyses the emergence of the noun plural category in typically developing Danish-speaking children from its first appearance up to the age of 10 years, focusing on the impact of sound structure and input frequency. We use a multi-method research approach comparing different data types (dictionary data, naturalistic spontaneous child language input and output, semi-naturalistic/semi-experimental data, experimental data and reported data). We define cross-linguistically three degrees of stem changes (no change, prosodic change, phonemic change), and we also define three degrees of productivity of plural markers (which combine stem change and suffix). Noun plurals emerge from an early age, typically around the second birthday, but the acquisition is still underway at the age of ten years. Plural acquisition is affected by frequency and morphophonological category. Danish children produce more correct plural stems of nouns with non-changing plural stems compared to plural nouns with stem change, and more correct plural stems of nouns with prosodic change than with phonemic change. Furthermore, they produce more correct plural suffixes of nouns with a-schwa suffix than with e-schwa and zero suffix. Danish children also produce more correct plural forms of nouns with a fully productive than a semi-productive plural marker, and more of the latter than of nouns with an unproductive plural marker. We also discuss the important role in Danish of the plural marker ø, where pl = sg.

AbstractAcquisition of the Danish noun plural system is interesting in regard to testing hypotheses on input frequency effects: whereas English is characterized by having one default inflectional marker for a grammatical category (e.g. the plural suffix

For the audiological assessment of the speech-in-noise abilities of children with normal or impaired hearing, appropriate test materials are required. However, in Denmark, no standardized materials exist. The purpose of this study was to develop a Danish sentence corpus suitable for testing school-age children. Based on the 600 validated test sentences from the Danish DAT ( Dagmar, Asta, or Tine) corpus, 11 test lists comprising 20 sentences each were carefully constructed. These lists were evaluated in terms of their perceptual similarity and reliability with a group of 20 typically developing, normal-hearing children aged 6 to 12 years. Using stationary speech-shaped noise and diotic stimulus presentation, speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were measured twice per list and participant at two separate visits. The analyses showed that six test lists were perceptually equivalent. These lists are characterized by a grand average SRT of −2.6 dB signal-to-noise ratio, a test–retest improvement of 0.6 dB, and a within-subject standard deviation of 1.1 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The other lists were characterized by slightly higher SRTs, slightly larger training effects, and slightly larger measurement uncertainty, but were otherwise also usable. Overall, it is therefore concluded that the developed corpus is suited for assessing speech recognition in noise in Danish 6- to 12-year olds. The corpus is publicly available.

Denne artikel undersøger, hvordan e-portfolio kan bruges til at skabe mål, motivation og fokus i undervisningen på en videregående uddannelse på baggrund af evaluering af et e-portfolioforløb. Antagelsen er, at netop det, at de studerende har et mål med undervisningen, hjælper dem til at bevare det nødvendige fokus undervisningsforløbet igennem, og motiverer dem i deres arbejde – hvilket antages i sidste ende at øge deres læringsudbytte. Resultaterne af undersøgelsen indikerer, at en e-portfolio kan fungere som den røde tråd i undervisningsforløbet, hvor den kan være med til at skabe det nødvendige overblik over fagets forskellige elementer og tydeliggøre sammen-hængen mellem dem. Dette ses som en stærkt motiverende faktor for de studerende, ligesom det virker motiverende for dem, at de kan følge med i medstuderendes arbejde, give/modtage feedback og lade sig inspirere af dette. Resultaterne viser endvidere, at grundig vejledning ift. anvendelse af portfolioværktøjet samt tydelige retningslinjer og krav til arbejdet med portfolioen er nødvendige for et vellykket forløb.