The development of the causative construction in Persian child language

The acquisition of systematic patterns and exceptions in different languages can be readily examined using the causative construction. Persian allows four types of causative structures, including one productive multiword structure (i.e. the light verb construction). In this study, we examine the dev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child language 2015-11, Vol.42 (6), p.1337-1378
Main Authors: FAMILY, NEILOUFAR, ALLEN, SHANLEY E. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Causality
Causative constructions
Child
Child Language
Child psychology
Child, Preschool
Children
Cluster Grouping
Cues
Developmental Stages
Diaries
Difficulty Level
Error Patterns
Female
Foreign Countries
Form Classes (Languages)
Generalization
Humans
Indo European Languages
Infant
Iran (Tehran)
Language Acquisition
Language instruction
Language Patterns
Lexicology
Linguistics
Male
Monolingualism
Morphemes
Morphology (Languages)
Mother-Child Relations
Native language acquisition
Nouns
Persian language
Qualitative Research
Semantics
Semitic Languages
Structural Analysis (Linguistics)
Verbal Learning
Verbs
Word Order
Young Children
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Summary:The acquisition of systematic patterns and exceptions in different languages can be readily examined using the causative construction. Persian allows four types of causative structures, including one productive multiword structure (i.e. the light verb construction). In this study, we examine the development of all four structures in Persian child speech between the ages of 1;11 and 6;7, in correspondence with their caregivers’ speech. We define developmental stages based on dendrograms derived from variability clustering (Gries & Stoll, 2009). These stages are further substantiated by qualitative data, including overgeneralization errors and alternating structures. We find that Persian-speaking children learn to exploit two (i.e. lexical and light verb construction causatives) of the four constructions. They go from relying on lexical causatives to forming progressively constrained templates for the more complex light verb construction. This first study of the development of Persian causatives supports a usage-based account of verb-by-verb learning in child language development.
ISSN:0305-0009
1469-7602
DOI:10.1017/S0305000915000057