Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Bantu languages exhibit an elaborate system of singular/plural noun class prefixes and agreement. They have therefore long been an area of interest for researchers exploring the acquisition of language. This chapter first shows how prosodic constraints on children’s early word forms leads to noun class prefixes often being omitted before the age of 2;6 (e.g., mo-sadi ‘woman’ produced as sadi). However, resent research on the southern Bantu Sotho languages has found that noun class prefixes can be omitted even in the adult grammar at the intersection of certain phonological, syntactic, and discourse constraints, raising many questions about how and when this system is learned. The chapter shows that children have mastered this aspect of the grammar before the age of three, with minimal overgeneralization. The theoretical and applied implications are briefly discussed.</jats:p>