Youssef, Valerie2022-01-182022-01-1819901539https://hdl.handle.net/2139/53638This study assesses the early development of the Verb Phrase (VP) in the speech of three children growing up in the linguistic setting of Trinidad, with differential exposure to Standard English (SE) and Trinidad Creole (TC). Samples of speech were collected, starting as near as possible to the onset of morpho-syntactic marking on the verb, at ages 2;0, 2;3, and 2;4, and continuing up until 3;9, 4;1, and 4;9 respectively. It was found that the children's usage of the varieties in contact reflected closely their differential exposure, and that style shifting, which involved morpho-syntactic variation between TC and SE forms, developed for two of the three children before age 3;0. A similar order of development of conceptual categories, largely confirmatory of that for other studies of tense-aspect-modality, was noted, although there were minor differences in their surface realizations, which largely reflected input phenomenaLanguage developmentPh.D.