Focusing Functional Elements: Affirmative Particles and Verum Focus in First Language Acquisition of German
Focusing Functional Elements: Affirmative Particles and Verum Focus in First Language Acquisition of German
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DOI：
10.1080/10489223.2017.1294594
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发表时间：
2018-01-01
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
Turco, Giuseppina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Dimroth, Christine;Schimke, Sarah;Turco, Giuseppina
我们考察了德国儿童是否与成人言语中频繁出现的语言表达(即肯定词Schon/doch/Wohl dedeed‘和重音助动词，称为动词焦点)的语用对比(例如，在我的图片中，孩子在吃糖果，在我的图片中，孩子在吃糖果)与语言表达(即，肯定小词Schon/doch/Wohl dedeed’和重音助动词，称为动词焦点)之间是否存在成人式的关联。对4-6岁儿童和一组成人控制组进行的图画差异任务显示，两组儿童标记极性对比的频率相似，但方法明显不同：成人产生的是绝对焦点；儿童最常使用粒子。此外，极性相关表达的使用与成人从未使用过但仍能适应手头信息结构语境的结构竞争。总体而言，我们的发现表明，从语境适应的解决方案来看，儿童更喜欢在概念和形式上更容易、最大限度地透明的结构。
We examine whether German children attach an adultlike relevance to the pragmatic category of polarity contrast (e.g., In my picture the child IS eating the candies following after In my picture the child is not eating the candies) with linguistic expressions (i.e., the affirmative particles schon/doch/wohl indeed' and accented auxiliary verbs, known as verum focus) that are frequent in adult speech. A picture-difference task with 4-6-year-olds and an adult control group shows that both groups mark polarity contrast with similar frequency but with strikingly different means: The adults produced verum focus; the children most often used particles. Moreover, the use of polarity-related expressions competes with structures that are never used by adults but are nevertheless adapted to the information structure context at hand. Overall, our findings suggest that from the repertoire of context-adapted solutions, children prefer structures that are conceptually and formally easier and maximally transparent.