Original scientific paper
Usage-based Model of Language Acquisition: An Example of the Development of Noun Inflection in the Croatian Language
Goran Tanacković Faletar
; Filozofski fakultet, Osijek
Darko Matovac
; Filozofski fakultet, Osijek
Abstract
In this paper theoretical assumptions about the process of first language acquisition created
within the usage–based model of first language acquisition (as proposed by M. Tomasello) are
exemplified and examined within a research on the development of noun inflection in the speech
of a child acquiring the Croatian language. The authors studied changes in case occurrences in the
child’s speech from the age of one year and three months to the age of three years and three
months. The results are compared to several previous studies of case occurrences in children and
adult speech, and then correlated to thoroughly explained theoretical assumptions about the four
major types of children’s early constructions (in terms of the nature of the abstractions involved,
and how syntactic marking is employed) or the four stages of language acquisition. In the first
stage of language acquisition children use holophrases (a single linguistic symbol without any kind
of syntactic marking) to communicate their whole intention about a specific experiential scene.
Using word combinations (mostly pivot schemas), children divide an experiential scene in at least
two components but there is still no syntactic marking within constructions. When it comes to
item–based constructions, children use syntactic marking such as word order or grammatical morphology
to explicitly indicate participants’ roles in an experiential scene. However, this syntactic
marking is specific for every construction. The last stage in the process of language acquisition is
the emergence of abstract constructions in which syntactic roles are assigned according to abstract
knowledge. In view of the new data that emerged from the authors’ research of the development
of noun inflection, as well as some previous studies, further development of this theoretical model
is expected.
Keywords
language acquisition; usage–based model; development of noun inflection; cases; child language; Croatian language
Hrčak ID:
47119
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2009.
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