Functioning of Pronominal Lexemes kakoj ‘which’ and kak ‘how’ in the Speech of Russian Children
Abstract
Introduction. Objectives. The paper discusses functioning of Russian pronominal lexemes kakoj ‘which’ and kak ‘how’ in the speech of children, separating them from other interrogative/relative wh-words. It also questions to what extent children’s speech behavior in this field is different from adults’ behavior.
Material and Methods. To analyse children’s speech we have used transcripts of audio and video recordings provided by the Children’s speech data foundation of Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University and Institute of Linguistic Studies RAS (5 children aged 1,5 to 6 years); to analyse adults’ speech we have used the data of the spoken subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus. We have extracted 925 utterances with kakoj and kak from the children’s corpora and, for comparison, 1040 utterances from the Russian National Corpus, and run the functional-semantic analysis of the utterances.
Results. The main functions characteristic for kakoj and kak are: relative, interrogative, deictic, emphatic and indefinite. In the children’s speech the first place is given to the types connected with the idea of the deictic reference point: demonstrative phrases like vot kakoj ‘that’s what/which’, demonstrative-relative constructions like smotri, kakoj ‘look, what/which’, emphatic, and such interrogative types, where the referent is present within the communicative situation. The adults’ speech primarily features the interrogative function (the referent is outside of the communicative situation) and relative constructions with the verbs of speech and thought. Moreover, only adults use the indefinite function.
Conclusions. "Kakoj" and "kak" in the speech of children tend to be more deictic than quantifying (interrogative) and closer to their demonstrative counterparts takoj ‘such’ and tak ‘in a such manner’ that to other wh-words. When children grow older, their pronominal system becomes more adult-like: the number of demonstrative utterances decreases, while the questions on the objects and actions excluded from the communicative situation get more frequent; relative constructions with the verbs of speech and thought and with coreferent nouns and pronouns develop.
Downloads
References
Apresian, V.Yu. (2014). Processy idiomatizacii i grammatikalizacii v nestandartnyh konstrukcijah [Processes of idiomatisation and grammaticalisation in non-standard constructions]. In V.P. Selegej (Ed.), Kompjuternaja lingvistika i intellektualnye tehnologii: Po materialam ezhegodnoj Mezhdunarodnoj konferencii «Dialog» (Bekasovo, 4–8 Ijunja 2014) – Computer Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies: Based on the Materials of the Annual International Conference “Dialogue” (Bekasovo, 4–8 June 2004). (Vol. 13(20), pp. 12–28). Moscow: Izd-vo RGGU [in Russian].
Apresian, Yu.D., & Iomdin, L.L. (2010). Konstrukcii malogo sintaksisa [Constructions of small syntax]. In Yu.D. Apresian, I.M. Boguslavsky, L.L. Iomdin, & V.Z. Sannikov (Eds.), Teoreticheskie problemy russkogo sintaksisa. Vzaimodejstvie slovarja i grammatiki – Theoretical problems of Russian syntax. Interaction of vocabulary and grammar (pp. 59–280). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury [in Russian].
Archibald, J., & Croteau, N. (2020). Acquisition of L2 Japanese WH questions: Evidence of phonological contiguity and non-shallow structures. Second Language Research, 31, 95–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658319897786
De Villiers, J., Roeper, T., Bland-Stewart, L., & Pearson, B. (2008). Answering hard questions: Wh-movement across dialects and disorder. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29(1), 67–103. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716408080041
Eliseeva, M.B., & Vershinina, E.A. (2018). Umeet li rebenok otvechat' na voprosy? (po materialam analiza Makarturovskih oprosnikov i case study) [Can a child answer questions? (based on the analysis of MacArthur questionnaires and case study)]. Izvestiya RGPU im. A.I. Gertsena — IZVESTIA: Herzen University Journal of Humanities and Sciences, 189, 28–43 [in Russian].
Evgeneva, A.P. (Ed.). (1999). Slovar russkogo jazyka: V 4-h t. [Dictionary of Russian language]. (Vols. 1–4). Moscow: Russkij jazyk; Poligrafresursy [in Russian].
Isachenko, A.B. (1965). O sintaksicheskoj problematike mestoimenij [On the syntactic problematics of pronouns]. In M.B. Hrapchenko (Ed.), Problemy sovremennoj filologii: Sbornik statej k 70-letiju akademika V.V. Vinogradova – Problems of modern philology: Collection on papers celebrating academician V.V. Vinogradov’s 70th Anniversary (pp. 159–166). Moscow: Nauka [in Russian].
Kazakovskaja, V.V. (2008). Ot protodialoga k dialogu: kommunikativnaja kompetencija rebenka rannego vozrasta [From the protodialogue to the dialogue: communicative competence of the child of early age]. In T.N. Ushakova (Ed.), Rech rebenka: Problemy i reshenija [Child’s speech: problems and solutions], (pp. 169–199). Moscow: Izd-vo «In-t psikhologii RAN» [in Russian].
Kazakovskaja, V.V. (2011). Voproso-otvetnye edinstva v dialoge «vzroslyj – rebenok» [Question-answer units in the adult – child dialogue]. Moscow: URSS [in Russian].
Kellogg, D., & Ripp, A. (2020). The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises, and the child’s first interrogatives. Early Years, 40(3), 351–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874
Kreidlin, G.E., & Rahilina, E.V. (1984). Semanticheskij analiz voprosno-otvetnyh struktur so slovom «kakoj» [Semantic analysis of the question-answer structures with the word kakoj ‘which’]. Izvestija AN SSSR. Serija literatury i jazyka — Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of USSR. Literature and language Series, 43(5), 457–470.
Krylov, S.A., & Onipenko, N.K. (2020). Voprositelno-otnositelnye mestoimenija [Interrogative-relative pronouns]. In A.M. Moldovan (Ed.), Russkij jazyk: Jenciklopedija [Russian language: The Handbook], (pp. 86–87). Moscow: AST-Press Kniga [in Russian].
Kurniawan, E. (2013). The acquisition of English multiple interrogatives by Indonesian speakers. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 236–249. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v2i2.168
Lipski, J.M. (2020). Pronouns, Interrogatives, and (Quichua-Media Lengua) Code-Switching: The Eyes Have It. Languages, 5(2), 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages5020011
Melchuk, I.A. (2012). Mestoimennye vyrazhenija s imenem chertyhatelnym tipa [Ona uehala] chert znaet kuda i im podobnye v russkom jazyke [Pronominal expressions with the noun of a swearable type [She left] devil knows where and their like in Russian language]. Russkii yazyk v nauchnom osveshhenii – Russian language and Linguistics Theory, 2(24), 5–22 [in Russian].
Plotnikova, V.A. (1980). Mestoimenie-sushhestvitelnoe [Nominal pronoun]. In N.Yu. Shvedova (Ed.), Russkaja grammatika – Russian Grammar (Vol. 1, pp. 529–537). Moscow: Nauka [in Russian].
Pozzan, L., & Quirk, E. (2014). Second language acquisition of English questions: An elicited production study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35(6), 1055–1086. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716412000690
Roesch, A., & Chondrogianni, V. (2016). “Which mouse kissed the frog?” Effects of age of onset, length of exposure, and knowledge of case marking on the comprehension of wh-questions in German-speaking simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 43(3), 635–661. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000916000015
Rojina, N. (2004). The acquisition of wh-questions in Russian’. Nordlyd, 32(1), 68–87. https://doi.org/10.7557/12.59
Shuvalova, I.E. (2004). O semantike mestoimenija kakoj (na materiale proizvedenij E.I. Nosova) [On the semantics of the pronoun kakoj (based on the material of E.I. Nosov’s works)]. In M.A. Bobunova (Ed.), Kurskoe slovo – Kursk word (Vol. 1, pp. 84–88). Kursk: Izd-vo Kursk. gos. un-ta [in Russian].
Tatevosov, S.G. (2002). Semantika sostavljajushhih imennoj gruppy: kvantornye slova [Semantics of components of the noun phrase: quantifier words]. Moscow: IMLI RAN [in Russian].
Trufanova, I.V. (2016). Neopredelennoe mestoimenie kakoj [Indefinite pronoun kakoj ‘which’]. In E.N. Serdobinceva (Ed.), Jekologija jazyka – Ecology of Language (pp. 18–23). Penza: Izd-vo PGU [in Russian].
Van Valin, R.D. (1998). The acquisition of WH-Questions and the mechanisms of language acquisition. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches (pp. 334–378). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Abstract views: 241 PDF Downloads: 160
International Conference Website
