Where phonology meets morphology in the context of rapid language change and universal bilingualism: Irish initial mutations in child language.

Authors: Müller N, Muckley SA, Antonijevic-Elliott S Abstract As one of the Celtic languages, Irish is among the few languages in the world that employ word initial mutations (IMs) in order to express grammatical functions. IMs express grammatical information by a way of systematic alternation of minimal phonological contrasts, which closely links segmental phonology to grammatical morphology (Irish also employs final consonant palatalization as a grammatical marker, but this will not be the focus of our paper). The overwhelming majority of Irish speakers are bilingual (with English), and virtually all Irish-speaking children grow up with varying degrees of exposure to and use of English in the home. Irish is undergoing rapid language change at present, and the system of IM is aff...

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