The subject of the study in the article is the word-formation features of the vocabulary of children's language as reflected in the works of the French writer R. Goscinny. The object of the study is children's language as a functional variety of the French language. A theoretical overview of sources allowed for conclusions about which aspects of children's language research are most relevant today. Children's language is a promising object for research from the perspectives of a number of different scientific fields, including linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. Lexemes of French children's language carry significant expressive potential, as they are characterized by emotionality and creativity. Therefore, they can be found both in literary works, lullabies, and other genres of folklore, as well as in everyday speech, in media discourse, political rhetoric, and in the onomastic space of modern European cities. The authors employ elements of linguistic stylistic, word-formation, and comparative analysis. The research sample was formed using a continuous method based on the literary works of the series Le Petit Nicolas by the French writer Ren Goscinny, who modeled the language behavior of preschool children in his novels. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the word-formation features of children's language are examined in close connection with the psycholinguistic aspect, as the word-formation models used by children also reflect how they acquire speech. In the speech of a child who does not adopt a ready mastery of language from their parents but independently reconstructs the system of communication in their consciousness, one can always find speech innovations, specific word-formation elements, and models. The analysis of the research sample allows us to say that, unlike the language of adult French speakers, where one of the most productive ways of word formation alongside conversion is affixation, in children's language the mentioned means of vocabulary enrichment have proven to be the least productive. The child much more frequently uses onomatopoeia, reduplication, and truncation of the root of the word, that is, those methods of word formation that simplify communication and correspond to the characteristics of children's thinking – associativity, emotional expressiveness, and a tendency to reproduce simpler and more understandable things.
Dondik et al. (Fri,) studied this question.