ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some relevant methodological considerations for investigating new acquisitional L1 contexts like Singapore, viz. what World Englishes and L1 research have to offer. “Children’s use of subject noun phrases provides a special opportunity to investigate both inconsistent usage of obligatory elements, and acquisition of a fundamental piece of information about one’s language – whether or not overt subjects are required”. The quantitative analyses, viz. of the acquisition and realization of subject pronouns, simple past tense marking, and the acquisition of vowel quantity and quality, require more detailed description. The procedures used for analyzing and visualizing vowel quality and vowel length have to be described largely separately from each other, even though both were conducted in Praat. “Children’s use of subject noun phrases provides a special opportunity to investigate both inconsistent usage of obligatory elements, and acquisition of a fundamental piece of information about one’s language – whether or not overt subjects are required”.
