Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language

In first language acquisition, verbs can be regarded as the word types which are more challenging to comprehend and interpret due to their cognitive and linguistic constraints (Sofu & Ertekin Sucak, 2018). In essence, children can make inferences about the types of verb meanings from the possib...

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Main Author: Burcu Turhan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Science-res Publishing 2023-03-01
Series:Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development
Online Access:https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/103
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author Burcu Turhan
author_facet Burcu Turhan
author_sort Burcu Turhan
collection DOAJ
description In first language acquisition, verbs can be regarded as the word types which are more challenging to comprehend and interpret due to their cognitive and linguistic constraints (Sofu & Ertekin Sucak, 2018). In essence, children can make inferences about the types of verb meanings from the possible number of arguments that the verbs can take (Becker, 2005). For this reason, it is crucial to know how children acquire argument structures of the verbs, especially the arguments of ditransitive verbs which include two internal arguments in its phrase. To this end, this cross-sectional study scrutinizes how Turkish children acquire argument structures of ditransitive verbs in their mother tongue. 10 children were presented a task including nine sentences built with ditransitive verbs. Words in those nine sentences were intentionally ordered differently; and each sentence was formed with different subjects and objects. Specifically, sentences which could be frequently used in the kindergarten context were included in the task. Moreover, a particular focus was on circumstances when Turkish children omit argument structures in their spontaneous speech. Both comprehension and production data which were analyzed descriptively indicate that children are successful at interpreting and producing argument structures and they are aware of argument omission. In addition, they do not rely on word order in order to correctly interpret and make use of arguments in their speech.
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spelling doaj.art-e2a1a71f97ef4d679dab34bdf21312d62023-03-20T15:34:46ZengScience-res PublishingJournal of Child Language Acquisition and Development2148-19972023-03-01Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical languageBurcu Turhan0Hatay Mustafa Kemal University In first language acquisition, verbs can be regarded as the word types which are more challenging to comprehend and interpret due to their cognitive and linguistic constraints (Sofu & Ertekin Sucak, 2018). In essence, children can make inferences about the types of verb meanings from the possible number of arguments that the verbs can take (Becker, 2005). For this reason, it is crucial to know how children acquire argument structures of the verbs, especially the arguments of ditransitive verbs which include two internal arguments in its phrase. To this end, this cross-sectional study scrutinizes how Turkish children acquire argument structures of ditransitive verbs in their mother tongue. 10 children were presented a task including nine sentences built with ditransitive verbs. Words in those nine sentences were intentionally ordered differently; and each sentence was formed with different subjects and objects. Specifically, sentences which could be frequently used in the kindergarten context were included in the task. Moreover, a particular focus was on circumstances when Turkish children omit argument structures in their spontaneous speech. Both comprehension and production data which were analyzed descriptively indicate that children are successful at interpreting and producing argument structures and they are aware of argument omission. In addition, they do not rely on word order in order to correctly interpret and make use of arguments in their speech. https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/103
spellingShingle Burcu Turhan
Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development
title Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
title_full Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
title_fullStr Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
title_full_unstemmed Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
title_short Acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs: Evidence from an elliptical language
title_sort acquisition of argument structures and ditransitive verbs evidence from an elliptical language
url https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/103
work_keys_str_mv AT burcuturhan acquisitionofargumentstructuresandditransitiveverbsevidencefromanellipticallanguage