Abstract. The article compares the acquisition of epistemic modality in typologically different languages, Estonian and Russian. The longitudinal data of 4 children was used to analyse the first emergence and the further development of lexical markers expressing certainty and uncertainty. Developmental analysis of micro fields of epistemic modality has shown that in both languages the semantics of uncertainty starts to be acquired slightly earlier than certainty. The main tendencies in the usage of epistemic markers in utterances are similar in our corpora. Since the acquisition of epistemic modality is similar in the two languages, it would be reasonable to assume that some categories, like epistemic modality, rely more on general cognitive development than others.*

Abstract. Acquisition of derivation is not a well-studied area in first language research and a comparative approach to the acquisition of derivation in different languages doesn't exist. There is no information on how a child acquires derivation in a language with a rich and regular system of derivational patterns, or in a language where derivation is productive, but the system of derivational patterns is opaque. According to general ideas of complexity in a language, the child should start to use simplex stems first and, only after that, complex ones, that is, complexity should increase in the course of acquisition. Our paper is intended to address these issues, based on longitudinal child data from typologically different languages, Estonian and Russian. The results revealed significant differences in the acquisition of noun derivation in the two languages under observation. The system of noun derivation is acquired at a faster pace in Russian, while Estonian children have far fewer noun derivatives in their speech and they use different derivation suffixes with less regularity. Even so, the so-called building block model may be applied for both languages only partially.*

The comprehension of constituent questions is an important topic for language acquisition research and for applications in the diagnosis of language impairment. This article presents the results of a study investigating the comprehension of different types of questions by 5-year-old, typically developing children across 19 European countries, 18 different languages, and 7 language (sub-)families. The study investigated the effects of two factors on question formation: (a) whether the question contains a simple interrogative word like 'who' or a complex one like 'which princess', and (b) whether the question word was related to the sentential subject or object position of the verb. The findings show that there is considerable variation among languages, but the two factors mentioned consistently affect children's performance. The cross-linguistic variation shows that three linguistic factors facilitate children's understanding of questions: having overt case morphology, having a single lexical item for both 'who' and 'which', and the use of synthetic verbal forms.

Ülevaade. Küsimus, kas ja miks on laste varase sõnavara hulgas üle-kaalus nimisõnad, on olnud paljude kirjutiste huvi keskmes. Siinses artiklis vaadeldakse sõnaliikide jaotumist ja esinemissagedust eesti lapse kõne varasel arenguperioodil vanuses 1;3-2;3 ning lapsele suunatud kõnes. Analüüsiks on kasutatud kahe lapse spontaanse kõne lindistusi mahus kokku 16 tundi. Materjalist ilmneb, et ka eesti lastel on sarnaselt inglise keelt kõnelevate lastega varase sõnavara hulgas ülekaalus nimisõnad. Samas ei anna vanemate kõne neile sellist sõna-liikide jaotumist ette, vanemate kõnes moodustavad nimisõnad umbes veerandi kõikidest sõnedest. Vaadeldud aasta jooksul nimisõnade esinemissagedus laste keeles väheneb ning vanuses 2;3 sarnaneb laste kõne sõnaliikide jaotumine vanemate omaga.Võtmesõnad: sõnaliigid, lastekeel, lapsele suunatud kõne, eesti keel Sissejuhatuseks: keeleüksuste kasutussageduse roll keeleomandamisesKeeleüksuste kasutussagedust on täiskasvanud keelekasutajate puhul peetud oluliseks keele igal tasandil, nii toetab muutemorfoloogias näiteks sagedus ebareeglipäraste vormide elujõulisust (Bybee 1995: 428) ning on oluline keelemuutuste tekkepõhjus (Diessel 2007: 108). Diesseli (2007: 123) sõnul põhineb keeleüksuste esinemissageduse mõju sellisel psüühilisel mehhanismil, mis seisneb mingi (keelelise) esituse ehk vormi tugevdamisel. Elena Lieveni väitel muudab sagedus ühed esitused n-ö tugevamaks kui teised: tugevamad esitused ehk keeleüksused tunneme kiiremini ära ning nende põhjal loome ka üldistusi ehk paigutame uusi elemente mingite reeglite alla (Lieven 2010(Lieven : 2546. Kindlasti võib sama väita ka laste alles omandatava keele kohta, kus sagedusest sõltub paljuski näiteks nii käändevormide, muuttüüpide kui ka üksikute lekseemide omandamine (vt nt Vihman, Vija 2006, Argus 2008.

This article discusses the early phases of acquisition of noun compounds in two typologically different languages – Estonian and Russian. Longitudinal data on three Russian and two Estonian typically-developing monolingual children and their caregivers was analysed and compared in relation to first emergence, the development of different compound types, productivity, frequency, simplicity and transparency of compounds, and also to the impact of morphological wealth in the input on the output.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa9.02

The paper examines how children quote their parents’ utterances. In other words, it investigates linguistic recycling as an aspect of language learning and how the child-directed speech (CDS) of adults influences child speech (CS). This topic is examined especially in the light of research made in the crosslinguistic project on pre- and protomorphology in language acquisition. Premorphology is characterized by rote-learned forms, which the child has memorized and stored as chunks from CDS (e.g., Finn vettä, Est vett ‘water,’ partitive form). During protomorphology, the child imitates CDS and produces analogical forms (e.g. Finn CDS: söi vs. CS: syöi ‘ate’, Est CDS: ütles vs. CS: ükki ‘said’), which then gradually evolve into adult-like grammar. Usage-based approaches to language acquisition rely on the assumption that language structures are learned from language use. Typical material in present-day child language research is based on tape recordings and transcripts made from these recordings. This kind of data makes it possible to take into account the influence of CDS to CS in a more accurate way than the earlier data collecting methods, such as diary material, which usually contains mostly utterances produced by the child do. The article examines how CDS gives models to CS and how the acquisition proceeds from early rote-learned forms to adult-like grammar from the perspective of frequency distributions of inflectional patterns and elaboration on linguistic forms in CDS – CS interaction. On the basis of analyzed speech samples and previous results, it is obvious that the quoting in children’s and adults’ speech is present on different levels of language and is often bidirectional in nature.

No abstract

Ülevaade. Evidentsiaalsuse ja episteemilise modaalsuse sarnasused ja erinevused on viimasel aastakümnendil olnud mitme uuringu aluseks. Eesti vat-morfeemi (ole-vat) kohta on arvatud, et see keeleüksus võib kanda kaht tähendust: nii evidentsiaalset kui ka episteemilis-modaalset. Uurisime selles artiklis, kuivõrd tõlgendati vat-morfeemi episteemilise modaalina. Täpsemalt selgitasime eesti laste käitumiskatsetega, mis on evidentsiaalide olemuses sellist, et nad on seotud episteemilise modaalsusega. Katsetest selgus, et evidentsiaalse markerina omandatakse vat-morfeem enne üheksandat eluaastat. Episteemilise modaalina tõlgendamine üheksandaks eluaastaks vaid kasvab, seega omandatakse eesti vat-morfeemi tähendustest kõigepealt evidentsiaalsus ja alles siis episteemiline modaalsus.*