SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT IN THE SPEECH OF MESHACK, AN EKEGUSII SPEAKER

Abstract

Research on SLI, mostly on European languages like English, German and
Italian, has suggested that it mainly affects inflectional morphology and,
to a lesser degree, syntax and phonology. The present study researched
SLI in Ekegusii, an African language which, unlike those three, is a tone
language. The study found that the impairment in the case studied
significantly affected not only inflectional (essentially verbal)
morphology, but also phonology, especially tones. It found much fewer
instances of lexical and syntactic impairment.