Dialogical factors in toddlers’ use of clitic pronouns

Abstract

Young (1;9—2;4) children’s use of third person clitic subject pronouns in natural dialogues was examined in both longitudinal and cross-sectional data. Considering that young children mainly use pronouns in the context of referential continuity, this study aims at identifying some of the factors that affect this use. Two possible dialogical factors are examined: (1) the use of clitic pronouns can be interpreted as a reproduction of the adult’s discourse, either by taking up whole utterances containing a pronoun or by taking up only the clitic pronouns without reproducing the adult’s utterance. (2) The use of pronouns could be driven by pragmatic-discursive factors. In order to assess this hypothesis the use of clitic pronouns was observed in the context of dialogical continuity. Three kinds of links were considered: children repeat or reformulate the adult’s utterances, add a new predication on the same topic, or establish a contrast. The results suggest that the reproduction of the adult’s utterance does not significantly influence children’s use of pronouns, whereas pragmatic-discursive factors are found to affect their choice of referential expressions.

Individual differences in the production of referential expressions: The effect of language proficiency, language exposure and executive function in bilingual and monolingual children

“…Even before they have a fully developed Theory of Mind, three-year-olds are already at least partly sensitive to the same constraints that regulate referential choice in adult speakers (see Allen, Hughes & Skarabela, 2015, for a review). Pre-school children are more likely to omit arguments, or use reduced expressions, when they are part of the common ground either through joint attention (Skarabela, 2007), previous linguistic mention (Allen & Schröder, 2003; Clancy, 2003; Guerriero, Oshima-Takane & Kuriyama, 2006; Stephens, 2015), or prior mention and/or perceptual availability (Campbell, Brooks & Tomasello, 2000; De Cat, 2011; Matthews, Lieven, Theakston & Tomasello, 2006; Rozendaal & Baker, 2010; Salazar Orvig, Marcos, Morgensterns, Hassan, Leber-Marin & Parès, 2010a; Salazar Orvig, Marcos, Morgensterns, Hassan, Leber-Marin & Parès, 2010b).…”

Early verb constructions in French: adjacency on the left edge

“…), uses of demonstrative ça (often used for non-focused elements introduced into the conversation), or lexical noun phrases (e.g. Salazar Orvig, Marcos, Morgenstern, Hassan, Leber-Marin & Parès, 2010). Indeed, patterns of adult verb construction uses in conversation with children may account better for children's first uses than simple frequency of verbs in adult speech (Veneziano & Parisse, 2010).…”

Usage patterns in the development of Hebrew grammatical subjects

“…All participants were native Hebrew speakers from medium-high SES, with no language disorders or other developmental problems. Triadic conversation was selected for this study as requiring complex turn-taking, the usage of pronominal reference, and the comprehension of the role of a third person in conversation (Salazar Orvig et al 2010). Each of the 18 triadic sessions was conducted in one of the children's homes, audio-recorded and transcribed.…”