Does Turkish child-directed speech predict the acquisition order of wh-questions?

摘要

Does Turkish child-directed speech predict the acquisition order of wh-questions? The very early studies about children’s acquisition of questions have provided a cognition-based rationale. They claimed that “why” and “when” are acquired later than “what” and “where” because of their cognitive constraints (Bloom et al. 1982) However; in the follow-up studies, it is found that as well as cognitive perspective, there are two other explanations. One of these is the syntactic function of the wh-word, whereas the other is about the semantic generality of the main verb (Bloom et al. 1982). This point of view has highlighted the role of complexity on children’s acquisition of question. According to this; “what” and “where” are firstly acquired through the copula. Secondly, they are used with semantically general verbs. Then, wh-sententials along with descriptive verbs are used. However, this account based on that order has been challenged by Clancy’s explanation (1989). It is claimed that frequency of wh-word and verbs in child-directed speech can be a significant factor on acquisition of question (Rowland et al. 2003). In a longitudinal study with 12 English children and their mothers, it was found that input frequency of wh-questions and verb combinations was a powerful predictor when compared to linguistic complexity (Rowland et al. 2003). In the light of these discussions, the study aims at investigating Turkish child-directed speech in terms of its role on children’s acquisition of questions and at evaluating the role of cognitive/linguistic complexity account on acquisition of questions. This research was based on the naturalistic data of 9 one- to three-year old children and their mothers. ReferencesBloom, L., Merkin, S. & Wootten, J. (1982). Wh-questions: linguistic factors that contributeto the sequence of acquisition. Child Development, 53, 1084-1092. Clancy, P. (1989). Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16, 323-347. Rowland, C., & Pine, J. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh- question acquisition: what children do know? Journal of Child Language, 27, 157-181.Rowland, C., Pine, J. Lieven, E. Theakston, A. (2003). Determinants of acquisition order in wh- questions: re-evaluating the role of caregiver speech. Journal of Child Language, 30, 609-635