This dissertation project will provide experimental and naturalistic studies of the first language acquisition of children between the ages of three and six years of age acquiring Inuktitut (a language of the Eskimo-Aleut family) as their first language in Igloolik, N.W.T., Canada. This research will be particularly significant because (i) it will contribute to providing foundational knowledge on the acquisition of languages with highly complex morphology; (ii) it will examine the concurrent acquisition of syntax and morphology, and the ways in which the child's developing knowledge of one might contribute to knowledge of the other; (iii) it will investigate aspects of the human cognitive competence for language in the context of a language (and a language family) which has been little studied to date; and (iv) it will provide important descriptive information on a North American language in an area where there is current concern about severe language loss.
