Frequent multiword expressions in children’s speech

Abstract

The research presented in this study focuses on the frequency of the appearance of multi-word lexical units in
children's spoken language. Several corpus-based studies have established that fluent language users use a great
deal of more or less fixed prefabricated lexical units in most of their speech (cf. Altenberg 1998, O'Keefe et al. 2007). Studies on first language acquisition show that children learn these formulaic elements holistically, without analysis (Tomasello 2003: 305–307). In the current research, the most common multi-word lexical units are identified in the KorSzak Children's Language Corpus, and then they are classified based on the speech acts they realize.