What can child language tell us about language development? : A case for case study in Lithuanian and Russian

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Automatizuota; Automatizuota morfologinės struktūros analizė; Linksnio įsisavinimas; Linksnių opozicijos; Linksnių sistema; Morfologinės struktūros analizė; Sintetinis žymėjimas; Sintetinės morfemos; Vaikų kalba; Acquisition of case; Analysis of morphological structure; Automated analysis of morphological structure; Case oppositions; Case oppositions, automated; Case system; Child language; Synthetic marking.

ENThe category of case is considered to be one of the most complex grammatical categories for several reasons. First of all, the category of case is morphological in form and syntactic in content, and secondly, it enters into multiple oppositions. Historically, although both Lithuanian and Russian tend to preserve case distinctions, there are also some opposing tendencies. This phenomenon may be clarified by a detailed study of the acquisition of case distinctions by children, since children tend to first grasp those morphological oppositions that are most significant for adult language as well. In child language, binary oppositions are acquired at an earlier phase than multiple ones. Therefore, in acquisition, multiple categories often first emerge as members of a binary opposition. The speed of the emergence of binary case oppositions characterizes the whole process of case acquisition and, indirectly, demonstrates the importance of the case category in both languages. A comparison of the development of case oppositions in the data of one Russian and one Lithuanian child has shown the same order of emergence, but at the same time shows a different average distance between forms in the two languages: in Russian this distance is significantly higher. Our pilot investigation, based on the longitudinal data of only one child per language, shows a stronger tendency to maintain case oppositions in Lithuanian than in Russian. However, there may be several other interpretations of this investigation. [From the publication]