The acquisition of demonstratives in a complex noun class system

We present an exploratory study of 2- to 3-year-old children’s acquisition the demonstrative system Eegimaa (ISO 369–3 bqj), endangered language belonging Jóola cluster Atlantic family Niger-Congo phylum, spoken by about 13,000 speakers in southwestern Senegal. demonstratives express distance from speaker (proximal, medial and distal) agreement categories number gender, as well having four morphological types that create additional dimension complexity for children learn. These are each associated with a range syntactic functions partial overlaps. From nearly seven hours recordings, including at three age points (2;0, 2;6 3;0), we extracted 218 tokens speech, matched 205 sub-sample caregiver speech. The youngest can be described restricting their use small set learned items, evidence generalisation productivity arising over course development, alongside increase frequency development distribution patterns various forms more target-like usage 3;0 sample. At observe variation function. As has been found other languages, acquiring seem make diverse early, but they do not yet full even three, when beginning produce systematic across contexts variety genders.