Publication:
Gradual route to productivity: evidence from Turkish morphological causatives

Placeholder

Departments

School / College / Institute

Program

KU Authors

Co-Authors

Ger, Ebru
You, Guanghao
Stoll, Sabine
Daum, Moritz M.

Publication Date

Language

Embargo Status

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Alternative Title

Abstract

Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language development. Here, we investigated this transition process by focusing on Turkish causatives. Previous research examining spontaneous and elicited production of Turkish causatives with familiar verbs attested the onset and early stages of productivity at ages 2 to 3 (Aksu-Koc & Slobin, 1985; Nakipoglu, Uzundag, & Sarigul, 2021). So far, however, we know very little about children's understanding of causatives with novel verbs. In the present study, we asked: (a) When does the generalization of causative morphology in a novel context emerge? and (b) What role does child-directed input play in this development? To answer the first question, we conducted comprehension-judgment experiments with children aged 2;6-6;1(1) using pseudo-verbs (Study 1 & 2). Results showed that children preferred the Turkish causative suffix -DIr over an unrelated or no suffix to denote caused events earliest at age 4;10. To answer the second question, we analyzed child-directed speech from a longitudinal corpus of Turkish language acquisition (Study 3). Results showed that when addressing children younger than age 3, caregivers used the -DIr suffix with little variation considering the overall variability of verbs they could utter. Overall, these findings suggest that productivity with morphological causatives in a novel context emerges in a later stage of acquisition. This later development might partly be accounted for by the insufficient variation of morphological causatives in the early input.

Source

Publisher

Subject

Psychology, Experimental psychology

Citation

Has Part

Source

Cognitive Science

Book Series Title

Edition

DOI

10.1111/cogs.13210

item.page.datauri

Link

Rights

Copyrights Note

Endorsement

Review

Supplemented By

Referenced By

0

Views

0

Downloads

View PlumX Details