Profiling Grammar: More Languages of LARSP 9781783094875

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Profiling Grammar

COMMUNICATION DISORDERS ACROSS LANGUAGES Series Editors: Dr Nicole Müller and Dr Martin Ball, Linköping University, Sweden While the majority of work in communication disorders has focused on English, there has been a growing trend in recent years for the publication of information on languages other than English. However, much of this is scattered through a large number of journals in the field of speech pathology/ communication disorders and, therefore, is not always readily available to the practitioner, researcher and student. It is the aim of this series to bring together into book form surveys of existing studies on specific languages, together with new materials for the language(s) in question. We also have launched a series of companion volumes dedicated to issues related to the cross-linguistic study of communication disorders. The series does not include English (as so much work is readily available), but covers a wide number of other languages (usually separately, although sometimes two or more similar languages may be grouped together where warranted by the amount of published work currently available). We have been able to publish volumes on Finnish, Spanish, Chinese and Turkish, and books on the multilingual aspects of stuttering, aphasia and speech disorders, with several others in preparation. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

COMMUNICATION DISORDERS ACROSS LANGUAGES: 15

Profiling Grammar More Languages of LARSP

Edited by Paul Fletcher, Martin J. Ball and David Crystal

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Fletcher, Paul, 1943- editor. | Ball, Martin J. (Martin John) editor. | Crystal, David, 1941- editor. Title: Profiling Grammar: More Languages of LARSP/Edited by Paul Fletcher, Martin Ball and David Crystal. Description: Bristol; Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, [2016] | Series: Communication Disorders Across Languages; 15 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015033322| ISBN 9781783094868 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781783094875 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Language disorders in children. Classification: LCC RJ496.L35 P77 2016 | DDC 618.92/855—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015033322 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-486-8 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2016 Paul Fletcher, Martin J. Ball and David Crystal and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Techset Composition India (P) Ltd, Bangalore and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Books Group Ltd.

Contents

Contributors Introduction 1

2

3

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Afrikaans LARSP: Past and Future? Claire Penn and Heila Jordaan Introduction History and Current Status of Afrikaans The Structure of Afrikaans Stages of Normal Grammatical Development in Afrikaansspeaking Children Design and Description of the Afrikaans LARSP Chart Language Pathology and Afrikaans Conclusions Appendix 1: Afrikaans LARSP Profile Appendix 2: Examples of Afrikaans LARSP Structures Gr-LARSP: Towards a Greek Version of LARSP Stavroula Stavrakaki and Areti Okalidou Introduction Brief Description of Greek Acquisition of the Verbal and Nominal Domain The Findings Language Development in SLI Appendix 1: Gr-LARSP Swe-LARSP: A Grammatical Profile of Swedish Maria Rosenberg and Ingmarie Mellenius Introduction Swedish Grammar Swedish L1 Acquisition: Research, Corpora and Assessments Swedish L1 Acquisition: Typical Development Swe-LARSP Conclusions Appendix 1: A First Version of Swe-LARSP v

1 1 2 2 8 10 11 16 18 19 27 27 28 29 31 37 39 42 42 42 47 49 56 60 60

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4

5

6

7

FIN-LARSP: Morphosyntactic Profiling of Finnish Children Sari Kunnari, Lea Nieminen and Päivi Torvelainen Introduction A Brief Sketch of Finnish Morphosyntax Morphosyntactic Development in Finnish Description of FIN-LARSP Case Study Conclusions Appendix 1: FIN-LARSP Profile Chart Appendix 2: Vili’s Profile Chart HU-LARSP: Assessing Children’s Language Skills in Hungarian Ferenc Bunta, Judit Bóna and Mária Gósy Introduction Overview of Hungarian Syntax and Morphology Morphosyntactic Acquisition by Hungarianspeaking Children HU-LARSP Administering HU-LARSP: An Example Future Directions Appendix 1: HU-LARSP Profile Chart in Hungarian Appendix 2: HU-LARSP Profile Chart in English Grammatical Profile of Hindi: H-LARSP Bbrajesh Priyadarshi, Ramesh Kaipa and Shyamala Chengappa Grammatical Sketch of Hindi Design and Description of the H-LARSP Chart Application of H-LARSP to Children with Language Disorders Conclusions Appendix 1: H-LARSP Profile Chart Appendix 2: List of Abbreviations Used in H-LARSP K-LARSP: A Grammatical Profile of Kannada Varun Uthappa A.G., Shyamala K. Chengappa and Ramesh Kaipa Introduction Salient Features of Kannada Grammar Data Source for K-LARSP Analyses Stages Outlined Under K-LARSP K-LARSP in Children with Language Disorders Appendix 1: K-LARSP Profile Chart

64 64 64 66 68 74 75 76 77

80 80 81 83 87 93 95 96 97 99 99 101 108 113 114 115 118 118 120 124 125 125 131 133

Content s

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Profiling Malay Children’s Syntactic Development: A Malay-LARSP Rogayah A Razak, Lixian Jin, Lim Hui Woan and Mohd Azmarul A Aziz Introduction Language Assessment Tools in Malaysia The Grammar of Malay Developing the Malay LARSP (M-LARSP) The Adapted Malay-LARSP Chart Clinical Case Study Using Malay-LARSP Conclusions Appendix 1: Malay-LARSP – Complete Profile Cantonese LARSP: A Procedure for Assessment and Remediation for Cantonese-speaking Children Man Tak Leung and Hong Lan Li Introduction Cantonese Grammatical Features The Development of Can-LARSP Case Study Discussion Appendix 1: Can-LARSP Profile

10 Japanese: Devising the J-LARSP Tomohiko Ito and Manabu Oi Introduction The Corpus A Brief Outline of Japanese Grammar J-LARSP Conclusions Appendix 1: LARSP Profile for Japanese 11 Korean Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure Soyeong Pae Introduction Korean Grammar Typical Grammatical Development in Korean Children Korean LARSP Examples of Korean LARSP Charts Conclusions Appendix 1: Korean LARSP Profile 12 Language-specific Issues for the Bulgarian LARSP Profile and Adult Aphasia Examinations Cynthia M. Vakareliyska

vii

135 135 135 137 156 162 164 168 169 172 172 173 180 192 194 195 198 198 198 199 205 212 213 216 216 217 221 223 230 233 234 236

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Introduction Bulgarian Morphology Bulgarian-specific Features for Diagnostic Aphasia Tests Conclusions: Preliminary Diagnostic Test for Agrammatism and Paragrammatism Appendix 1: Bulgarian Version of LARSP – Salient Features of Bulgarian Morphosyntax for the Investigation of Aphasia 13 Complex Sentences in Development and Impairment: Stage V Revisited Paul Fletcher and Pauline Frizelle Introduction Stage V Structures in Typically Developing Children Stage V Structures in Children with Language Impairment Intervention Conclusions Author Index Subject Index

236 237 255 256 257 262 262 264 269 272 273 276 280

Contributors

Mohd Azmarul A. Aziz has worked as a speech-language therapist for 14 years. He is an experienced clinician and clinical educator who has worked in university, hospital, private practice and clinic settings. His primary clinical and research interests include the assessment and treatment of children and adults with developmental and acquired communication disorders. Currently he is working at Cheras Rehabilitation Hospital, Kuala Lumpur. Martin J. Ball is Professor of Speech-Language Pathology (specializing in clinical linguistics and phonetics) at Linköping University, Sweden, having formerly held the position of Hawthorne Endowed Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is co-editor of the journal, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics (Taylor & Francis), and the Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders (Equinox), and of three book series. His main research interests include clinical phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics and the linguistics of Welsh. He has been President of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association; he is an honorary Fellow of the UK Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and of the Royal Society of Arts. His most recent books are Handbook of Qualitative Research in Communication Disorders (co-edited with Nicole Müller and Ryan Nelson, Psychology Press, 2014) and Research Methods in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics: A Practical Guide (co-edited with N. Müller, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Judit Bóna is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Phonetics at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. Since 2002 she has been teaching courses in phonetics and psycholinguistics. Her research focuses primarily on the phonetic and psycholinguistic characteristics of speech in individuals of different ages from children to older adults, including populations who are typical and those that have communication disorders (such as speakers with fluency disorders).

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Ferenc Bunta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Houston, TX. His research focuses primarily on bilingual and cross-linguistic phonological acquisition in both typical populations and individuals with communication disorders (such as children with hearing loss). His work has included both children and adults, ranging from children undergoing bilingual as first language acquisition to later second language learners. He takes a multimodal and multidisciplinary approach (linguistics/speech science/clinical phonology) to solving theoretical and practical problems in his area of inquiry. Shyamala K. Chengappa is a Senior Professor in Language Pathology in the Department of Speech Language Pathology at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India. She has worked and published widely on child and adult language disorders and bi/multilingualism. She has been the recipient of a visiting professorship at EMCL, Potsdam, Germany in May 2008. She was invited as a keynote speaker to ISB 7 held in Utrecht, the Netherlands (2009). She has had academic stints in Texas and Illinois, USA and Hong Kong. She has published more than 12 books and 140 papers in national and international journals. David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor, Wales. He was formerly Professor of Linguistic Science at the University of Reading, where he was responsible for developing undergraduate and advanced courses in linguistics and language pathology, and where the early research into linguistic profiling took place. Since leaving Reading in 1984, he has worked from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster on linguistics, applied linguistics and English language studies. His books include The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, The Stories of English and Internet Linguistics. Paul Fletcher is Emeritus Professor, Speech and Hearing Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland. He previously held professorial positions at the universities of Reading and Hong Kong. He has published widely on language development and language impairment in children speaking English, and more recently on Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking children. His research has focused primarily on syntax, but has broadened to include vocabulary, and the interaction between lexis and syntax in language development. He is a past President of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, and an honorary member of the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists. He is co-author (with Ciara O’Toole) of Language Development and Language Impairment: A Problem-based Introduction (2016). Pauline Frizelle is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland. Her research

Contr ibutors

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interests are in the areas of complex syntax, language development in lower socioeconomic areas, Down syndrome, sign language and pediatric communication development and disorders. She received her undergraduate degree in speech pathology and therapy at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh. After extensive and varied experience as a senior speech and language therapist and speech therapy manager, she completed her doctoral degree at UCC, and has published a number of papers from this thesis. She is a member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists. She has been a reviewer for the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, and Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. Mária Gósy is a Professor at Eötvös Loránd University and Head of the Phonetics Department of the Linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her research areas are phonetics and psycholinguistics. Her current work focuses primarily on coarticulation processes and the temporal patterns of spontaneous speech as well as on speech perception processes with both typically developing children and late talkers. She is the leader of the development of BEA, a large Hungarian annotated database that provides excellent material for her acousticphonetic research. Tomohiko Ito is currently a professor in the Faculty of Education for Children with Disabilities at Tokyo Gakugei University in Tokyo, Japan. His areas of specialty are psycholinguistics and speech and language pathology. His interests are language acquisition and disorders of speech and language, in particular stuttering and specific language impairment in Japanese. His research has focused primarily on the acquisition of syntax and its relation to the development of speech and language production. His research focus has broadened to include the development of verbal morphology and phonology in typically developing children and those with specific language impairment. Lixian Jin is Chair Professor in Linguistics and Intercultural Learning at De Montfort University, UK, and has been conducting research into bilingual clinical assessments and learners of English for more than 20 years. Her research interests, with over 100 publications, include grammatical assessments of bilingual children for speech and language therapy (SLT), cultures of learning and intercultural and health communication, using innovative research methods of narrative and metaphor analysis to lead internationally funded research projects in Malaysia, Singapore and China for SLT clients and dyslexia learners. She is an editorial board member for several international SLT and ELT journals.

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Heila Jordaan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where she has worked for the past 28 years, and where she is currently the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Humanities. She is Chair of the Multilingual Affairs Committee of the International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP). She is a member of the Education Task Team of the South African Speech Language and Hearing Association and has worked as an assessor for the Professional Board of the Health Professions of South Africa. Her research focuses on language-in-education policies and practices in the South African context. She has presented conference papers and published articles both locally and internationally on this topic. Ramesh Kaipa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Oklahoma State University, OK. He completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His research focuses on evidence-based practice in communication disorders. He is also interested in community-engaged research. He is currently a member of several professional organizations – the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, the Indian Speech and Hearing Association and the Rehabilitation Council of India. Sari Kunnari is Professor of Logopedics and Director of the Child Language Research Center at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research interests are in the area of child language acquisition with the aim of verifying language-specific aspects through cross-linguistic comparisons. Besides typical speech and language acquisition, her research focuses on speech and language disorders in children with specific language impairment (both monolingual and bilingual) and in children with hearing impairments. Man-Tak Leung is Associate Professor, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and program leader of the Master’s degree course in Speech Therapy there. He has been involved in the development of corpora, and has published on language impairment, as well as reading and writing impairments resulting from brain damage. More recently he has investigated developmental dyslexia and dysgraphia in school-age children. His research has focused primarily on reading and writing, but has broadened to include syntactic development, therapeutic intervention and teaching. He is a past chairman and honorary consultant of the Hong Kong Association of Speech Therapists (HKAST). Hong Lan Li is a PhD student in psycholinguistics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She previously obtained her Master’s in linguistics (2009) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a BA in English (2005) at Hunan University.

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Ingmarie Mellenius is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Language Studies at Umeå University, Sweden. Her 1997 thesis at Lund University dealt with children’s compounding in Swedish. Her research has been on morphosyntactic development, the organization of the mental lexicon and on word formation. A recent research interest is the implementation of Swedish LARSP, while she continues to explore children’s conceptual development as reflected in word formation. She teaches courses on child language and is involved in the special needs teacher education program. Lea Nieminen, PhD, is a researcher at the Agora Center, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Her main research interests are the growth of morphosyntactic complexity in early child language, bilingual and bimodal language development, and learning to read from cognitive and linguistic perspectives. Currently she is involved in developing digital GraphoGame tools for learning to read in several languages. Previously she has worked in a research project on Diagnosing Reading and Writing in a Second or Foreign Language (DIALUKI) in the Centre for Applied Language Studies (University of Jyvaskyla). She has authored several journal articles and other publications. She is also an editor of the Finnish scientific journal Puhe ja kieli (Speech and Language). Manabu Oi is Professor of Child Mental Development at Kanazawa University. He previously held professorial positions at Ehime University and Kyushu University. Since the 1980s he has published widely on language impairment and language development in Japanese-speaking children with intellectual disabilities, specific language impairment and autism. Recently he has studied Taiwanese-speaking children with Down syndrome or autism. His research focused primarily on pragmatics. He is a past president of the Japanese Association of Communication Disorders, and is a member of the editorial board of Child Language Teaching & Therapy. Areti Okalidou is an Associate Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at the Department of Educational and Social Policy of the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. She is certified by ASHA as CCC-SLP. She has participated as a researcher or reviewer in European and international programs. Her research interests focus on the early speech and language development of Greek-speaking children, the identification of preschoolers at risk for communication problems and the speech of children with hearing loss/cochlear implants. She has published her research in peer-reviewed international journals. Soyeong Pae is Professor, Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, at Hallym University, Korea. She is a former President of the Korean Academy of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. Her research interests include:

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language acquisition across the lifespan; the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate Korean assessment tools of language and communication; evidence-based language/reading intervention in monolingual and multicultural contexts; and clinical markers for language/reading difficulties from dyslexia to language learning difficulties in transparent orthography. Claire Penn holds the endowed Chair of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She is currently the Director of the Health Communication Research Unit with a focus on enhancing intercultural communication and medical curriculum reform. She has worked for many years in the area of child language development and adult language pathology including stroke, brain injury and dementia. Other academic interests include sign language and research ethics. She has a continuing interest in clinical work and has served as an expert witness in medico-legal matters for over two decades. Brajesh Priyadarshi is a Reader in Linguistics in the Department of Speech Language Pathology at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore. He previously held a teaching position at Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for Hearing Handicapped (AYJNIHH), New Delhi. He has published widely on language acquisition and language impairment in Hindiand Kannada-speaking populations. His research has focused primarily on acquisition and impairment related to various components of language. He is a permanent member of the Linguistic Society of India, the Dravidian Linguistic Association and the Rehabilitation Council of India. Rogayah A. Razak is an Associate Professor in Clinical Linguistics at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia. She is a founder of clinical linguistics in Malaysia through the introduction of a postgraduate program in 2007. She is the main author of a newly standardized language test – the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool (MPLAT) in 2014 – the first standardized test in Malaysia. She is co-author of a few prototype tests: the Malay Syntactic Assessment; the Mandarin Syntactic Assessment; the Malay-BNT; and My-HINT tests. Her current research projects include the early vocabulary of Malay children within 8 and 36 months old, and developing cross-linguistic lexical tasks for Malay speakers. Maria Rosenberg received her PhD in French Linguistics at Stockholm University, Sweden in 2008, after which she held research fellowships for four years. Since 2012 she has been Associate Senior Lecturer in Languages and Language Didactics at Umeå University, Northern Sweden. Her main fields of interest include morphology, lexical semantics and Swedish child language, as well as contrastive and corpus linguistics. She has published various articles on word formation, adopting synchronic, diachronic,

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contrastive (French-Swedish) and language acquisition perspectives. Her ongoing research, together with Ingmarie Mellenius at Umeå University, deals with nominal compounds in Swedish L1 acquisition and investigations related to Swe-LARSP. Stavroula Stavrakaki is Associate Professor of Linguistics, with a specialization in neurolinguistics, at the Department of Italian Language and Literature, School of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research interests focus on specific language impairment and acquired language difficulties in adults and children after a stroke. She has published in many peer-reviewed international journals including Brain and Language, British Journal of Developmental Psychology and Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. Her research has been funded by the European Commission and other national and transnational bodies. Päivi Torvelainen, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the Language Center, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has studied early phonological development with a special emphasis on variation. She has created a Finnish version of the Index of Productive Syntax (Ipsyn) with Lea Nieminen. Varun Uthappa A.G. is a speech-language therapist in an early intervention program at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Singapore. He previously held research and clinical positions in speech-language pathology at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India. His research interests and publications are primarily in the areas related to speech and language processing in typical and atypical bilingual individuals. Cynthia M. Vakareliyska is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Oregon, where she teaches a neurolinguistics course in aphasia. Her aphasia research, based on clinical studies that she conducted with adult speakers in Bulgaria, Russia and Latvia, includes morphosyntactic and syntactic errors in Bulgarian, focusing particularly on patterns in paragrammatic case-marking errors by speakers with acoustico-amnestic aphasia, and the implications of clitic ordering errors in null-subject sentences by speakers with Broca’s aphasia. Lim Hui Woan is a Senior Lecturer in the Speech Sciences Program, the National University of Malaysia (UKM). Dr Lim received her Master’s degree from the University of Reading, UK and her doctoral degree from the University of Sheffield, UK. She has taught courses in language development and disorders since joining UKM in 1995. Her main research and clinical interests include typical and atypical child language development by local Malaysian children, who use a variety of local languages including Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.

Introduction

The first volume in this series (Ball et al., 2012) featured grammatical profiles for 12 languages. Some of the profiles described there had been published before. Here we provide information on previously unpublished profiles for a further 12 languages, from different language families and different parts of the world. The Introduction to our first volume ended with a wish list of languages for which profiles would be desirable, including ‘more languages of India, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese and some of the major languages of South Africa’. We are pleased to be able to report that the contents list for this second volume goes some way towards meeting this aspiration, with descriptions of profiles for Hindi (Priyardarshi, Kaipa and Chengappa), Kannada (Uthappa A.G., Kaipa and Chengappa), Japanese (Itoh and Oi), Korean (Pae), Cantonese (Leung and Li), and Afrikaans (Penn and Jordaan). We are also fortunate to have four more languages from Europe: Greek (Stavrakaki and Okalidou); Swedish (Rosenberg and Mellenius); Finnish (Kunnari, Nieminen and Torvelainen); and Hungarian (Bunta, Gósy and Bóna). We also feature a major language of South Asia, Malay (A. Razak, Jin, Woan and Azmarul A. Aziz). The final language featured is Bulgarian. Whereas all the other chapters are focused on language development and language impairment in children, Cynthia Vakaraliyska’s chapter harks back to the early days of English LARSP by orienting the construction and application of her profile towards adults with aphasia. (Older readers will remember that Chapter 8 of Crystal et al. (1976) was a case study which applied the LARSP profile to the assessment and remediation of Mr J, an adult with dysphasia following a left hemisphere stroke.) The final chapter in this volume is an attempt to fill out the account of Stage V structures in Crystal et al. (1976), which was constrained by the limited information available at the time, via an overview of recent research on complex sentences in development and in impairment in English. As before, authors were asked to provide a grammatical sketch of the language they were profiling, to give details of typical language development in speakers of the language, and to discuss the basis for the design of the profile as well as a description of and justification for the profile itself. In some cases authors have also demonstrated the application of their profile to xvii

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the language of a child or children with impairment. We anticipate that this template will be carried forward into a third collection of profiles from a new range of languages. Paul Fletcher Martin J. Ball David Crystal

References Ball, M., Crystal, D. and Fletcher, P. (eds) (2012) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (1976) The Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability. London: Edward Arnold.

1

Afrikaans LARSP: Past and Future? Claire Penn and Heila Jordaan

Introduction The language assessment, remediation and screening procedure (LARSP) first came to South Africa in the mid-1970s, where its application to the languages of South Africa became immediately evident. Language clinicians used the tool in multiple settings both diagnostically and clinically and a number of studies were conducted and the method adapted into locally relevant programs (see, for example, Jordaan & Lewis, 1990; Lewis & Penn, 1989). South Africa is a multilingual country and language policy has been at the forefront of recent constitutional and educational changes. The new constitution of the country recognizes 11 official languages and contains aspirational clauses on the right of all individuals to have access to all spheres of South African society by developing and maintaining a level of spoken and written language … in the official language(s) of their choice. This has naturally had an impact on clinical linguistics. Clinical and educational professions have been challenged by the need to develop culturally and linguistically relevant tools. In South Africa, where practically every inhabitant is bi- or multilingual, there is daily interface of languages and language use is coupled strongly with sociopolitical identity. There is a lack of suitable assessment tools for individuals with language pathology and a well-documented difficulty with applying standardized tests to such populations (Pascoe & Norman, 2011; Pascoe et al., 2013; Penn, 1998). This is obviously compounded by the high level of illiteracy, particularly in the older generations, and the fact that for many children in the country the language of schooling and of therapy does not match the language of the home (Alexander, 2010; Brock-Utne & Skattum, 2009; Heugh, 2009). The notion of profiling thus becomes compelling and authentic. One language for which LARSP has been applied is Afrikaans. 1

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History and Current Status of Afrikaans Afrikaans is one of the languages unique to South Africa and, despite its relatively short history, is one of the most studied and documented. Its development reflects the fascinating complexity of the country and its history is intimately linked to the periods of major political upheaval and transformation. Afrikaans originated in the mid-1600s – derived from Hollands (a Dutch dialect from Amsterdam) and Portuguese – when the early Dutch settlers, the indigenous Khoikhoi and the slaves of African and Asian descent needed to develop a common language of communication (Den Besten, 1989; Raidt, 1984; Roberge, 1995). The subsequent history is summarized in Table 1.1 and information in this section has been compiled from various sources (Alexander, 1989, 1997, 2001; Extra & Maartens, 1998; Hartshorne, 1995; Heugh, 1995, 2002; Pluddeman, 1999; Reagan, 1986; Rose & Tunmer, 1975; Webb, 1995). In the new democracy, 11 official languages are recognized and given equal status in the constitution. However, the implementation of these provisions has been slow and English has become dominant in all spheres of public life, often at the expense of the other languages, including Afrikaans. To some extent, Afrikaans suffers from its controversial past and the reputation of being the language of the oppressive apartheid government. It has suffered a reduction in use and the emigration of nearly 500,000 speakers since 1994. Its loss of status has led to the conclusion that Afrikaans is vulnerable in the new South African democracy. While it is true that Afrikaans is no longer used as the language of instruction in many schools where it was previously (Lubbe, 2006), there are still a number of good Afrikaans-medium schools in which children are taught in their home language for the entire period of basic education (Grades 1–12). This is in contrast to children who speak the African languages and have access to home language instruction only in the first three grades of school. All former Afrikaans universities now offer tuition in both Afrikaans and English. Afrikaans is represented in the popular media such as radio, television and the press, and it produces a vast and rich literature. The Afrikaans popular music industry is especially strong and Afrikaans-language cinema has been revitalized. There are activist groups (e.g. Afriforum and Praag) who strive to preserve and promote the language. Currently, Afrikaans is a fundamentally healthy language and, despite pervasive bilingualism among its speakers, it has 4,950,000 first-language speakers. It is also the third most common home language in South Africa after isiZulu and isiXhosa.

The Structure of Afrikaans The structure of Afrikaans has been well described by authors such as Combrink (1978) and Donaldson (1993). Of particular interest to the language clinician are the following.

Af r ikaans L AR SP

3

Table 1.1 Main milestones in the development of Afrikaans Date

Main events

1795

British occupation of the Cape Colony. Strong Anglicization policy. Afrikaans stigmatized as ‘Kitchen Dutch’. Dutch replaced with English as official language by Lord Charles Somerset. Afrikaans farmers leave Cape Colony in opposition to English dominance in the ‘Great Trek’. Formation of two Boer republics in Transvaal and Free State. Dutch becomes language of the state but tension mounts between Dutch and Afrikaans supporters. Anglo-Boer War over mineral rights in two Boer republics. War won by British. Language in Boer republics becomes English and Dutch language rights suspended in Cape Colony by Lord Milner, giving rise to Afrikaans language movement. Transvaal and Free State given self-rule and limited rights returned to Dutch in Cape Colony. Union convention to reconcile language rights of English and Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking groups. Act of Union signed. English and Dutch receive equal status but conflict over stipulation of Dutch and not Afrikaans in the constitution. Act 137 of the Constitution states explicitly that reference to Dutch includes Afrikaans. Afrikaner nationalism on the rise. Afrikaans is taught as a school subject. Deterioration in Afrikaans/English relations. Afrikaans is viewed as a political weapon. Formation of United Party government by Generals Smuts and Hertzog to temporarily neutralize Afrikaner nationalism. National Party under Malan introduces policy of apartheid. Racial segregation enforced under policy of Christian National Education. Principle of mother tongue education used to enforce separate educational provision for different language groups. South Africa becomes a republic under Verwoerd. Judicial equality granted to English and Afrikaans. Afrikanerisation of South African society and standardization of Afrikaans promoted as part of Afrikaner nasionalist ideology. Strong opposition to use of Afrikaans in black schools. Afrikaans becomes the ‘language of oppression’. Soweto Uprisings result in English becoming the language of instruction in all black schools within three years.

1814–1826 1834–1840 1870

1899 1902

1906 1908 31 May 1910

1925 1925–1933 1932 1933 1948

1961

1961–1975 1976

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Word order Afrikaans has been classified as both an SVO and an SOV language because both patterns are seen (McCormick, 1995). However, like Dutch it is probably best described as an SVOV language, meaning that the base generated position of the verb is after the object and the auxiliary is in the verb second position. e.g.

Hy (S) eet (V) pap (O) ‘He eats porridge’ Hy (S) het (aux) pap (O) ge-eet (V) ‘He ate porridge’ Hy (S) sal (aux) pap (O) eet (V) ‘He will eat porridge’

Verb morphology Afrikaans lacks verb inflections in the present indicative and has no inflectional endings for number or person (attributed by Combrink, 1978, to contact situations between Germanic dialects). e.g.

Ek speel ‘I play’ Jy speel ‘You play’ Hy/sy/dit speel ‘He/she/it plays’

Ons speel ‘We play’ Julle speel ‘You (plural) play’ Hulle speel ‘They play’

Note: Unlike English, Afrikaans distinguishes between singular ( jy) and plural (julle) pronouns. There is no present progressive verb ending as in English. Thus ‘He is playing’ and ‘He plays’ are both expressed as Hy speel. If there is a need to distinguish ongoing action, a VV construction would be used: Hy is besig om te speel ‘He is busy playing’. In the past tense, the inflectional morpheme ‘ge-’ is added to the verb. e.g.

Ek het gespeel ‘I played’ Jy het gespeel ‘You played’ Hy/sy/dit het gespeel ‘He/she/it played’

Ons het gespeel ‘We played’ Julle het gespeel ‘You (plural) played’ Hulle het gespeel ‘They played’

However, this inflection is not used when verbs begin with be-, er-, her-, mis-, ont-, ver- and weer- or on multisyllabic verbs where the emphasis is placed on the second syllable. e.g.

Hy (S) het (aux) gister (A) begin (V) werk (V). Ons (S) het (aux) baie dinge (O) ervaar (V). Dit (S) het (aux) gister (A) gebeur (V). Ek (S) het (aux) hom(O) herken (V). Sy (S) het (aux) my (O) onthou (V). Hulle (S) het vroeg(A) vertrek (V). Hy (S) het (aux) hom(O) weerspreek (V).

‘He started working yesterday.’ ‘We experienced lots of things.’ ‘It happened yesterday.’ ‘I recognized him.’ ‘She remembered me.’ ‘They left early.’ ‘He contradicted himself.’

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5

And examples using multisyllabic verbs with the emphasis on the second syllable: e.g.

Hulle (S) het (aux) baklei (V). Die perd (S) het (aux) galop (V). Ek (S) het (aux) probeer (V).

‘They fought.’ ‘The horse galloped.’ ‘I tried.’

These verbs may thus be regarded as irregular. Afrikaans also lacks a past participle, so that ‘I have walked’ and ‘I walked’ would both be expressed as Ek het geloop.

Use of vir According to Raidt (1976), the use of the preposition vir before certain direct objects is a significant characteristic of the structure of Afrikaans. In some contexts it is obligatory, whereas in others it is optional. Before personal pronouns or names it may be left out, e.g. Hy (S) gee (V) (vir) hom (Od) ‘n klap (Oi) ‘He gives him a slap’, or Niks (S) sal (aux) (vir) Sarie (O) tevrede stel (V) nie (neg) ‘Nothing will satisfy Sarah’. If the direct object is placed before the indirect object, vir is obligatory before the indirect object, e.g. Hy (S) het (aux) ‘n ruiker (Od) vir haar (Oi) gegee (V) ‘He gave her a bouquet’. Vir is also used when the indirect object is placed before the verb as a means of emphasis, book and Annie a doll. Some transitive verbs are also more likely to be followed by vir, e.g. Bring (V) vir my (Oi) die hamer (Od) ‘Bring me the hammer’. Vir is obligatory in the combination: verb + adverb + object (when the object is a personal pronoun or noun), e.g. Ek (S) het (aux) vanoggend (A) vir Jan (O) gesien (V) ‘I saw John this morning’. Greater affect is also expressed in a construction with vir than without it, e.g. Hulle het hom gevang ‘They caught him’ has neutral affect, whereas Hulle het vir hom gevang (literally: ‘They caught for him’) expresses more affect.

Negative In contrast to other Germanic languages, the negative in Afrikaans is usually expressed by using reduplication of the negative marker, nie. For example, in Dutch the sentence ‘I am not ill’ would be: Ik ben niet ziek, while in Afrikaans it would be: Ek is nie siek nie. If the VP of a sentence consists of a single verb, the negative nie is placed directly before and after the verb. In more complex VPs the placement of the first nie in a sentence can change the meaning. e.g. Hy gaan (aux) nie more met sy nuwe motor ‘He is not going to drive his new car werk toe ry (V) nie. to work tomorrow.’

The whole sentence is negated. Hy gaan more nie met sy nuwe motor werk toe ry nie. Hy gaan more met sy nuwe motor nie werk toe ry nie.

He may drive another car. He may go somewhere else.

6

Prof iling Grammar

In subordinate sentences, only the negated clause contains the double negative, e.g. Ek sal kom as dit nie koud is nie ‘I will come if it is not cold’. If only the main clause is negative, the first nie appears in the main clause and the second one at the end of the subordinate clause, e.g. Dit is nie die man (wat ek gesien het) nie ‘That is not the man whom I saw’. This double nie was inherited from 17th-century Dutch. It is not the same as the genuine double negative in French, but one negative followed by a duplicated negative marker. Often the second nie is dropped in modern forms of Afrikaans (Oosthuizen, 1998).

Diminuitive The diminutive is used extensively in Afrikaans by adding the suffixes -tjie, -jie, -kie (all pronounced as /ki/, -pie (pronounced /pi/, and -ie (pronounced /i/) to nouns, adverbs and verbs. These forms mostly correspond to those used in Dutch. Diminutives are so pervasive in Afrikaans that they have become more commonly used than the original form, e.g. baadjie ‘jacket’, mandjie ‘basket’, boontjie ‘bean’. Sometimes the diminutive is used to mark sympathy (e.g. Is jou hartjie seer? ‘Is your little heart sore/Are you sad?’); sarcasm (e.g. Die mannetjie is baie arrogant. ‘The little man is very arrogant’); and euphenism (e.g. Ons het ‘n probleempie. ‘We have a little problem’). Although diminutives are most frequently used with nouns, adjectives may also be inflected (e.g. stilletjies ‘quietly’, saggies ‘softly’) and occasionally verbs also carry the marker, particularly when young children are addressed (e.g. slapies ‘sleep’). In fact these diminutive forms are so frequent in the input to young children that they should be a relatively early occurring morpheme. Unfortunately, the development of Afrikaans diminutives has not been researched.

Possessive The possessive is marked in Afrikaans by using the morpheme ‘s’n’ (pronounced /sn/ after the noun or plural form of the personal pronoun (e.g. Jan s’n/Ons/julle/hulle s’n) when the referent has been established (e.g. Dit is Jan s’n. ‘It is John’s’). The morpheme ‘se’ (pronounced /s/) is used when the referent needs to be established after a noun (e.g. Dit is Jan se hond. ‘It is John’s dog’) but not a pronoun (e.g. *Dit is hulle se hond is incorrect; Dit is hulle hond is the correct form). The suffix -ne (pronounced /n/) is attached to singular personal pronouns (e.g. myne, joune, syne) but the female form is hare (hers). The morphological rules for adjectives ending on consonants before nouns require the addition of the suffix -e (pronounced //), e.g. Die hond is lelik ‘The dog is ugly’ but Dis ‘n lelike hond ‘It’s an ugly dog’. Adverbs can also be turned into adjectives by adding the suffix -e, e.g. Die kar is vining ‘The car is fast’; Dis ‘n vinnige kar ‘It’s a fast car’.

Dialectal variation in Afrikaans At least three varieties of Afrikaans can be distinguished, namely Cape Afrikaans (‘Kaaps’ in Afrikaans), Orange River Afrikaans (‘Oranjerivier

Af r ikaans L AR SP

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Afrikaans’) and Eastern Cape Afrikaans (‘Oosgrens Afrikaans’; Roberge, 2002: 84). Cape Afrikaans is spoken by a group of mixed racial heritage, the so-called ‘Coloured’ group, largely resident in the Western Cape Province. This community developed through events of Dutch colonization in the 17th century and the interaction between the settlers and the indigenous people of the Cape. There are estimated to be more than 3 million users of Cape Afrikaans, which differs from the language of standard Afrikaans speakers in a number of ways. Code switching and code mixing is another aspect which has been documented extensively in this dialect and which reflects important sociocultural factors. The strong oral tradition of this group, as well as its unique, dynamic position in society, account for some of these aspects, including ‘intensive linguistic exchange’ (McCormick, 1995: 204) and language contact factors with a very strong effect of English, often spoken to children in the home and at school by second language speakers. The Cape Afrikaans lexicon draws heavily on English loanwords which are mostly nouns, followed by verbs, adjectives and adverbs and conjunctions (mainly but and because) (McCormick, 1995). Nouns retain English number marking but verbs adopt Afrikaans morphology. Syntactic convergence is also noted. According to McCormick (1995), the most striking aspect is violation of verb placement rules or optional use of such rules, allowing the verb to precede the object as for English. This change from SOV is often triggered by a specific type of main clause verb (I know, I think, I see) and by the use of the copula in the subordinate clause following the verb complementizer wat ‘what’, which in standard Afrikaans will require the verb to be in clause final position (see Figure 1.1). Another factor which has an influence on Afrikaans is the generational effect. There is a marked difference between generations in syntactic aspects and because of the modern intense interface the influence of English is vast in most young speakers of Afrikaans (Archer, 2006 ). This is seen, for example, in vocabulary as well as in some of the syntactic aspects measured on LARSP. In short, syntactic change seems to be a feature of modern Afrikaans – a phenomenon as much a challenge for the language pathologist as for the Afrikaans teacher.

Figure 1.1 Cape linguistic repertoire

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Prof iling Grammar

Stages of Normal Grammatical Development in Afrikaans-speaking Children Drawing on extensive research on the acquisition of Afrikaans by Vorster (1983) and postgraduate students at the University of Pretoria in the 1970s and 1980s, Naude (1998) suggested a preliminary profile of grammatical development which generally mirrors that reflected for English in the original LARSP. The studies all relied on analysis of spontaneous language, and detailed analysis was undertaken for the order of acquisition of question words and connectors. The main findings of this study series are summarized in Table 1.2 and included the following: • • • • • • • •

Afrikaans children tend to connect sentences earlier (age two to three) than their age-matched English peers, and connectors such as until, since, before emerge early on. Postmodifying clauses also appear before age three in Afrikaans-speaking children, whereas they appear after age three in English-speaking children. The passive construction appears to develop later than in English (i.e. after the age of five). Auxiliary movement is specifically indicated at phrase level in the twoto three-year-old age group because it does not occur in English. Neg V appears to be acquired earlier in Afrikaans, i.e. before the age of two, as opposed to between 2,6 and 3,0 in English. Personal pronouns also develop earlier in Afrikaans (before the age of two), although the reflexive pronouns only appear between ages three and four. Postmodifying clauses appear before age three in Afrikaans-speaking children, whereas they appear after age three in English-speaking children. The NP initiator is used by two to three year olds in Afrikaans, whereas it only appears at St IV (3,6–4,6) in English.

The actual connectives and question words appearing at each age are also provided in Table 1.2. Naude’s (1998) profile was organized in terms of ages rather than stages, and it is therefore not always possible to correlate it with the English LARSP. In addition, her profile does not reflect all possible Afrikaans structures and does not include the important transitions between stages. We have thus developed a complete Afrikaans version of the LARSP by using the information provided by Naude (1998) and by adding additional structures that are used by children at various stages. Our adaptation of the English LARSP is described in the following section.

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Table 1.2 Naude’s (1998) profile of syntactic development in Afrikaans (with English equivalents in italics) Age

Excl.

Command

Question

Statement Conn

0–2

+man

VrX/QX Where What Who How

2–3

WX/VX

VrXY/QXY WO+/VSO+

3–4

WXY/VXY

VrWO/QVS VrXY+/QXY+ Where Which Who What How Where from How many

en/and en…dan/ and…then as…dan/ if…then

Clause

Phrase

OW/SV OV/SO OK/SC Neg X WK/VC WByw/VA OByw/SA

LidN/DN AdjN NN VoorsN/PrepN NegW/NegV VoornwP/PronP

OWByw/SVA OWK/SVC OWV/SVO OWBywByw/SVAA Ander/SVAAA Neweskik/Co-ord Onderskik Byw 1/Subord O1 Postmod

HulpW skuif/Aux move HulpW/Aux KopW/Cop Wdeeltjie/Vpart XcX VoorsBepN/PrDN BepAdjN/DAdjN Inisieerder/ Inititor

gePl Gen -e ‘cop ‘aux

Neweskikkend 1+/ Co-ord 1+ Vergelykend/ Comparative

AdjAdjN

-er -est -kie

4–5

Tag Where to What Which

Then If/When Until Since Before Now that While

Onderskikkend 1+/ Subord 1+

Postmod

5+

Why When

Or But Because If Since So that Although Therefore

Lydende vorm/Passive Onderskikkend Byw/Subord A Onderskikkend K/Subord C

Kompleks WW frase/Complex VP

Word

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Prof iling Grammar

Design and Description of the Afrikaans LARSP Chart Appendix 1 represents our version of the Afrikaans LARSP and Appendix 2 provides some examples in Afrikaans for each component of the LARSP chart. In addition to incorporating Naude’s (1998) findings as indicated in Table 1.2, we added Sections A, B, C and D to describe discourse features and made the following modifications to the English LARSP: •

• • • •

St VI: Concord error. Since there is no SV agreement in Afrikaans for gender or number, the only concord error will be in the use of SO pronoun agreement (e.g. Hulle het homself geskop ‘They kicked himself’; Sy het hom potlood verloor ‘She lost his (meaning her) pencil’). Morphological endings. The ‘Word’ section required the addition of the diminutive: ‘-kie’. The English morphemes: -ing, -en and 3s do not occur in Afrikaans and were deleted. In place of the suffix -ed the prefix ‘ge’ to mark past tense was indicated. According to Naude (1998) this is the first morpheme to emerge. -e which is a suffix attached to an adverb to produce an adjective, or added to some adjectives when placed before nouns, was substituted for the English -ly suffix.

We also added the following structures, not included on Naude’s (1998) profile but which appear in the spontaneous language of Afrikaans-speaking children:

Stage II The clause structure: WO (VO), e.g. skop bal ‘kick ball’ The phrase structures: WW (VV), e.g. Kom speel ‘come play’ and IntX, e.g. baie mooi ‘very pretty’

Stage III The commands: laatXY (letXY), e.g. Laat ek sien ‘let me see’; DoenXY (doXY), e.g. Moenie my kielie nie ‘Don’t tickle me’. The clause structures: NegXY, e.g. nie nou bad nie ‘not bath now’; WKByw (VCA), e.g. is warm daar ‘is hot there’; WVByW (VOA), e.g. sien muis daar ‘see mouse there’; WViVd (VOiOd), e.g. gee baba kos ‘give baby food’.

Stage IV The command: +O (+S), e.g. Gee jy dit vir haar ‘You give it to her’. The question form: WO(X+)/VS(X+), e.g. Kan ek ook nou gaan mamma? ‘Can I also go now mommy?’

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The clause structures: OWVByw (SVOA), e.g. Sy sit die baba op die vloer ‘She puts the baby on the floor’; OWKByw (SVCA), e.g. Ek is vandag moeg ‘I am tired today’; OWViVd (SVOiOd), e.g. Hy gee my ‘n soen ‘He gives me a kiss’; OWVK (SVOC), e.g. Hy maak my hartseer ‘he makes me sad’. The phrase structures: NwFVoorsNwF (NPPrNP), e.g. die man in die rooi kar ‘the man in the red car’; VoorsBepAdjN (PrDAdjN), e.g. by die lang tafel ‘at the long table’; cX, e.g. en ek ‘and me’; 2HulpW (2Aux), e.g. sal kan kom ‘will be able to come’; NegX, e.g. nie ek nie.

Stage V The clause structures: Onderskikkend Byw (Subord A), e.g. Ek weet waar jy bly ‘I know where you live’; OnderskikkendByw1+ (SubordA1+), e.g. Ek weet waar die huis is waar jy bly ‘I know where the house is where you live’; Onderskikkend K (Subord C), e.g. Dit is wat ek wil doen ‘This is what I want to do’; Onderskikkend O (Subord S), e.g. Wat ek sien is ‘n hond ‘What I see is a dog’; Neweskikkend 1+ (Co-ord 1+), e.g. Ons was laat want ons het vergeet en ons het verdwaal ‘We were late because we forgot and we got lost’. We also added the transitions between stages II and III and III and IV as well as all the structures at stages VI and VII.

Language Pathology and Afrikaans While LARSP has been used extensively to characterize both adult and child language pathology in English language speakers in South Africa as well as documenting English second language speakers’ developmental path (Penn, 1988; Penn & Behrmann, 1986; Jordaan, 1994), there has been limited published research on syntactic features of language pathology in Afrikaans. Two examples, however, will be described here – a study in child language (Southwood & van Hout, 2009) and a study in adult aphasic Afrikaans speakers (Penn et al., 2001).

Specific language impairment Southwood and van Hout (2009) described the characteristics of specific language impairment (SLI) in Afrikaans. These authors used a number of different elicitation tasks but only the findings pertaining to the spontaneous samples are discussed here. They compared three groups of Afrikaans-speaking children: typically developing four and six year olds, and a group of six year olds diagnosed with SLI. The children with SLI made more errors than the two typically developing groups on grammatical morphemes related to number, person, case and tense. The following verb-related errors were recorded: •

Errors involving infinitives, e.g. the incorrect form of het (have) and wees (be); omission of the infinitive form of the main verb, e.g. nou moet jy’n

12 Prof iling Grammar

•

• • •

motorbike ‘now must you a motorbike/nou moet jy ‘n motorbike vat ‘now must you take a motorbike’; omission of a part of the infinitive structure, e.g. ek het alles gedoen om probeer swem ‘I did everything to try swim’/ ek het alles gedoen om te probeer swem ‘I did everything to try to swim’; and inappropriate insertion of part of the infinitive structure, e.g. mens hoef nie om te betaal nie ‘one have to not pay’/mens hoef nie te betaal nie ‘one does not have to pay’. Omission/insertion of main verbs, e.g. ek saam ‘I with’/ek gaan saam ‘I am going with’ or nou reen hulle nat reen (insertion) ‘now rain they wet rain’/nou reen hulle nat (now rain they wet) ‘they are getting wet in the rain’. Omission of the auxiliary het, e.g. jy nog so ‘n hondjie? ‘you another such a dog?’/het jy nog so ‘n hondjie? ‘have you got another such a dog?’. Omission of the verb particle, e.g. dan sit jy die ander een ‘then you put the other one’/dan sit jy die ander een op ‘the you put the other one on’. Other idiosyncratic verb errors, e.g. ek word ‘n volstruis het daar op my hand gepik ‘I am an ostrich did there on my hand pecked’/ek word deur ‘n volstruis daar op my hand gepik ‘I am pecked there by an ostrich on my hand’ or ‘n volstruis het my daar op my hand gepik ‘An ostrich pecked me there on my hand’. It appears that the error sentence was a combination of the passive and active construction. Other errors that occurred far more frequently in the samples obtained from the children with SLI are recorded in Table 1.3.

Southwood and van Hout (2009) also discuss word order errors in some detail, providing interesting examples: •

•

•

A few of the typically developing six year olds in the study produced sentences in which the subordinate conjunction omdat ‘because’ was used in the same way as the synonym coordinate conjunction: want ‘because’, e.g. the child would say: omdat my pa moet eers al die besluite doen, instead of omdat my pa eers al die besluite moet doen ‘because my dad must first make all the decisions’, where the modal auxiliary moet and the main verb doen move to the end of the clause. This would appear to be a normal developmental error since the sentence want my pa moet eers al die besluite neem, where there is no verb movement, would be correct. Relative clauses with incorrect surface word order, e.g. seker maar daai wit hondjie wat se naam is (cop) Nuschka (violates the V2 word order) ‘probably that white doggie whose name is Nuschka’/seker maar daardie wit hondjie wat se naam Nuschka is ‘probably that little white dog whose name is Nuschka’. Main clauses with the word order seen in embedded clauses were unique to the children with SLI, e.g. hulle TV kyk ‘they TV watch’ (SOV)/hulle kyk TV (SVO) ‘they watch TV’.

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Table 1.3 Frequency of certain error types in the spontaneous language samples of Afrikaans children with SLI Error type

Frequency in a 30-minute sample

Omission of subject Preposition errors

29 36

Determiner errors

70

Errors of the negative

10

Idiosyncratic

33

Examples

Ek slaan hom deur die kop ‘I hit him through the head’ Ek slaan hom op die kop ‘I hit him on the head’ ‘n goeters ‘a stuff’ Want hy speel met ‘n ander honde ‘because he plays with a other dogs’ Ons het visse nie/Ons het nie visse nie ‘We don’t have fish’ Hulle wil nie skoonmaak nie hier nie/ Hulle wil nie skoonmaak hier nie ‘They don’t want to clean here’ ‘n rooietjie hoedjie/’n rooi hoedjie ‘a liitle red hat’ Daar gaan hy daai in ‘n fiets in/daar is ‘n fiets in ‘There is a bicycle in there’ Nou gaan ek aan koffies/Nou gaan ek koffie vat ‘Now I will take coffee’

Source: Southwood and van Hout (2009: 122).

• •

• •

•

The typically developing four year olds as well as the children with SLI had problems with placement of the adverb, e.g. hierdie al goed ‘this all stuff’/al hierdie goed ‘all this stuff’. Errors in the order of adverbs also occurred, e.g. mens staan langs die poot anders miskien (adverb) kan hy op jou voet trap ‘one stands next to the paw otherwise maybe (adverb) can he on your foot step’/mens staan langs die poot anders kan hy miskien (adverb) op jou voet trap ‘one stands next to the paw otherwise can he maybe (adverb) on your foot step’. All three groups made word order errors after adverbial phrases, e.g. laas jaar (ADVERB) ek was by ‘n ou plaas/laas jaar was ek by ‘n ou plaas ‘last year I was at an old farm’. The children with SLI and the typically developing four year olds also made errors in the word order of wh-questions, e.g. wat dit is? ‘what it is?’/ wat is dit? ‘what is it?’; hoekom ding kan nie trap nie? ‘why thing can’t pedal?’/hoekom kan die ding nie trap nie? ‘why can’t this thing pedal?’ The children with SLI also made word order errors that were difficult to classify, e.g. en hulle meet om hulle op die lorrie te gaan ‘and they measure to them on the lorry to go’/en hulle hulle om op die lorrie te gaan ‘and they measure them to go on the lorry’.

14

Prof iling Grammar

•

The four year olds and the children with SLI made word order errors in sentences containing verb particles, e.g. ek sal ry fiets/ek sal fietsry ‘I will cycle’; daar val af die een/daar val die een af ‘there the one falls off’.

In summary, Southwood and van Hout found that the children with SLI experienced more problems than the typically developing groups with the production of grammatical morphemes and correct word order, as is the case in studies of SLI in other languages. However, in contrast to the literature claiming that verb morphology is more difficult for children with SLI, the Afrikaans children with SLI found noun and verb morphology equally problematic. Southwood and van Hout (2009) also showed, using discriminant analysis, that a picture selection task assessing comprehension of the singular/plural distinction and a judgment task involving regular plural forms in real words and the number of errors on a sentence completion task assessing past tense forms were the most accurate in classifying the children as SLI or typically developing six year olds. The SLI and typically developing four year olds were distinguished less successfully, showing that many of the errors made by children with SLI also occur in younger typically developing children. The authors thus argue against using only linguistic information as clinical markers for SLI.

Adult aphasia A series of studies has been undertaken on the language of Afrikaansspeaking persons with aphasia in South Africa and matched controls (Archer, 2006; Kalmek, 2001; Venter, 2000; von Bentheim, 2001). Described in more detail in Penn et al. (2001) and Penn (2007), the work documented the syntax of a group of 62 persons, and found the following syntactic features which distinguished those with aphasia from age-matched controls on a narrative task: • • • • • • •

areas particularly susceptible to aphasic breakdown are the verb and operations surrounding the verb movement; fewer complex or non-canonical sentence forms in aphasic samples in both languages; evidence of wider verb variety and complexity in control than aphasic samples in aphasic samples as well as of incomplete sentences; more evidence of verb errors (aux omission) in aphasic samples and incomplete sentences; some tense shift patterns distinctive in aphasia; a higher presence of incomplete and minor utterances in the aphasic samples; disrupted auxiliaries were found in aphasic samples only and took various patterns.

Af r ikaans L AR SP

•

15

Auxiliary doubling was found as in the following instance: Maar ek het nog altyd gebid het ‘But I always prayed’. Other examples show aux omission, e.g. omission of het in the following: Ek veld loop/Ek ‘I walk field.’ Ek op die plaas gebly ‘I lived on the farm.’ Ek gele in die bed ‘I lie on the bed.’ Ek ge- gedink hy gaat my klap (omission of het) ‘I thought he would hit me.’ Incomplete aux: Ek het ged gedink (incomplete) … Ek was baie bang ‘I thought … I was very scared’ (arguably changed from aux to copula form). Abandoned aux: Ek het die man wat vir my geslaat het so … ‘I (past tense aux) the man who hit me so …’ (abandoned, presumably because of processing demands induced by syntactic complexity/embedding). Omission of aux ‘het’ and marker ‘ge’, but maintenance of the past tense word order: Ek veld loop (target Ek het in die veld geloop) ‘I walk in the veld.’ Ek op die plaas gebly (target Ek het op die plaas gebly) ‘I lived on the farm.’ Ek het hospital twee jaar agt maande (target Ek het ?in die hospital twee jaar agt maande gewees) ‘I was in hospital for 2 years and 8 months.’ Using the past tense marker ge- (rather than the auxiliary plus -ge) to denote past, e.g. Ek gelê in die bed (Target Ek het in die bed gelê) ‘I lay in the bed.’ ○

•

○ ○ ○

○

• • •

○

○ ○

•

Other syntactic aspects were common to both aphasic and control samples in Afrikaans, i.e. are not regarded as errors but as dialectal variations. Those common to both have been described as ‘syntactic convergence features’ and are a documented feature of Cape Afrikaans (McCormick, 1995). They included: • •

Word order changes, verb movement, tense shifting and the use of direct reported speech. The optional change to SVO (from SOV) in Afrikaans is often triggered by a specific main clause verb type (I know, I think, I see) and by the use of the copula in the subordinate clause. Also following the verb complementizer wat (what/which) in Standard Afrikaans will require the verb to be in clause final position. In Cape Afrikaans an optional rule allows the verb to precede the object, e.g. En ek sien hier staan ‘n ry trokke ‘And I see here stands a row of trucks.’ Dink ek iets is darem nie reg hier nie is. ‘I think something is really not right here.’ Versus where verb final position is kept: Ek dink ek gaan darem nie so na aan hom draai nie ‘I think I will really not turn so close to him.’ ○ ○

○

16

Prof iling Grammar

Ek het gedink ek gaan nou nooit weer uit die hospitaal uit kom nie ‘I thought I would never again get out of hospital.’ Ek dink toe en ek wil gaat na haar toe met ‘n bos blomme ‘I then thought and I wanted to go to her with a bunch of flowers.’ Miskien my spraak gaan weg ‘Perhaps my speech would go away.’ An examination of tense-shifting in the samples provided an interesting and related phenomenon. Shifting to the present tense in Afrikaans reduces verb complexity and avoids word order and morphological changes. It is associated in narrative with the use of the historical present as well as direct speech which appears to have both a strong pragmatic function and a simplification strategy mechanism to avoid tense shift and embedding. ○

○

○

•

The parallels between these two studies, one in child language and one in aphasia, are fascinating and highlight the need for clinicians to focus on verb structure in particular and the need for an enabling descriptive and specific framework such as LARSP.

Conclusions The current challenges confronting therapists working with Afrikaansspeaking children are the significant influence of socioeconomic factors and the effects of bilingualism and dialectal variation on language development, as well as an interaction of these variables. There are many Afrikaansspeaking communities throughout the country who live in poverty. In some of these communities, dialectal variations of Afrikaans are spoken (e.g. Cape Afrikaans). Research using the Afrikaans LARSP framework will contribute to our ability to distinguish between language impairment and the influence of dialect and low socioeconomic status, as well as providing direction for remedial efforts. The pervasive occurrence of Afrikaans–English bilingualism also provides a potentially fruitful area of investigation for the linguist and SLP. Early research (e.g. Malherbe, 1977) showed that dual or parallelmedium instruction in both English and Afrikaans led to high levels of academic achievement even in poorly resourced communities and schools. Much research has focused on such cognitive advantages of bilingualism (e.g. Bialystok, 2001) and for SLPs an important research question is whether and under which conditions individuals with language impairments also enjoy these benefits. Language sampling and analysis in any linguistic context is a process of exceptional clinical value. The complex sociolinguistic context of South Africa has been a profoundly rich testing ground for LARSP and, as this chapter has hopefully demonstrated, has been and hopefully will continue to be an enabling springboard for describing some of the country’s many

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languages. Language profiling as a principle has huge utility in characterizing language development and breakdown as well as providing a powerful framework for the language in education challenges which currently face the country. While many practitioners continue to use this framework, a focus on syntax appears sadly to have diminished both in schools and in clinical and teacher-training programmes. We end with a heartfelt plea that this aspect of the scientific basis of relevant professions is not dissipated or lost. A high level of metalinguistic awareness is needed to tackle the language challenges of clinics and schools in this multilingual context. We believe that, without an understanding of the historical and structural influences on syntax, future language practitioners will be limited in their insights and effectiveness. We hope that a paper such as this will help regenerate and affirm the value of understanding, describing and remediating syntax in a systematic way.

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Appendix 1: Afrikaans LARSP Profile

Af r ikaans L AR SP

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Appendix 2: Examples of Afrikaans LARSP Structures (A) Nie ontleed nie (1) Onverstaanbaar: ‘n ? (hmf) ander ? (gemetjie) daar by ? (haffe) (2) Simboliese geluid: moo/woef-woef/brrrr … (3) Afwykend: ‘n ander wat hy wat ons daai ander

Problematies (1) Onvolledig: mamma en ek het … (2) Dubbelsinnig: pappa kar (pappa se kar?/pappa ry in die kar?) (3) Stereotipies: Struktuur word as ‘n eenheid gebruik bv. ‘tamy’

(B) Response Soort stimulus: Die terapeut se uitinge Vrae: Wat maak hy? Ander: Kyk daar. Normale Response Herhaling: Stim: Kyk hy sit pappa nou? Resp: Kyk hy sit

Abnormale Response Struktuur: Stim: Wat maak Resp: Hond in hok

Major Ellipties: Ø: Geen response Stim: Wat maak die seuntjie? Ellipties 1: Eet Ellipties 2: Eet sy kos Ellipties 3/3+: Eet sy kos by die tafel/Eet sy kos by die tafel in die kombuis. Major Verkort Stim: Wat doen die seuntjie? Resp: (skop) Bal Major Volsin Vraag Stim: Wat maak die seuntjie Resp: Hy eet sy kos Minor Vraag stim: Is jy honger? Resp: Ja/nee/mmm Ander stim: Kyk die kar

Probleme: Pas nie in enige ander B kategorie nie

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Prof iling Grammar

Resp: mmm/ja/nee Spontaan: dankie/asseblief ens.

(C) Spontaan: geen vooraf stimulus Herhaling: Ou koei, Ou koei Ellipties: NVT Verkort: Pappa ry kar Volsin: Pappa ry in die kar Minor: Hei! Ag! Struktuur: Pappa kar ry (struktureel abnormal) Ø: NVT

(D) Reaksies: gespreksgenoot se reaksies op kind se uitinge Stim: Wat maak pappa nou? Resp: Ry kar Reaksie: Ry kar (herhaling) Reaksie: O! (algemeen) Reaksie: Hy ry in die kar (struktureel) Geen reaksie: Ø Ander: Dis ‘n mooi kar Probleme: pas nie in enige D kategorie nie

Stadium 1 Minor Response: ja, nee Uitroepe: Hei! Ander: Sjoe Probleme: nie seker hoe om minor te klassifiseer nie

Major Bevel: Gee! Kom! ‘Vr’ Vraagwoord: Wat?/Hoe?/Waar? Stelling ‘W’: ry ‘N’: kar Ander: mooi Probleme: nie seker hoe om eenwoorduiting te klassifiseer nie

Stadium 2 Sinne Vraag: VrX: Waar mamma? Stellings: OW: Pappa ry OV: Pappa kar (pappa ry in die kar) OK: Mamma mooi (mamma is mooi) NegX: nie lekker

BywX: hier hond WO: slaap baba WK: is myne Ander: ander 2 woord sin

Af r ikaans L AR SP

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Frases: LidN: die hond AdjN: mooi kar NN: baba skoene VoorsN: op stoel

WW: kom speel IntX: baie mooi VoorNwp: hy, sy, ek, jy, ons, julle, hulle. NegW: Nie bad nie Ander: mooi groot (AdjAdJ)

Uitbreidings tussen stadium 2 en 3: Twee-element sinne word uitgebrei X+O:NwF: My pappa ry (Onderwerp word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoordfrase) X+W:WF: Pappa kan ry (Werkwoord word uitgebrei na ‘n werkwoordfrase) X+K: NwF: is my karretijie (Komplement word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoorfrase) X+V:NwF: gooi die bal (Voorwerp word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoordfrase) X+Byw:BywF: sit op stoel (Bywoord word uitgebrei na bywoordfrase)

Stadium 3 Sinne Bevele: WX: Kom mamma! WXY: gee r my boek laatXY: laat ek sien ‘doen’ XY: moenie my skop nie

Vrae: VrXY: Waar pappa nou? WO: Slaap mamma? WO(X): Is jy bang?

Stellings: OWK: Ek is honger OWV: Hy skop bal OWByw: Ons loop huistoe NegXY: nie nou bad nie

WKByw: is warm daar WVByw: sien muise daar WViVd: gee baba koekie Ander: Enige ander 3 element sin

Frases:

BepAdjN: die groot huis KopW: is,was, wees HulpWm: moet, mag, kan, sal, moes,kon,sou VoorsBepN: in die kombuis HulpWa: het Ander: enige ander 3 woord frase VoorNWa: dit, hierdie,daardie,ens.

Uitbreidings tussen stadium 3 en 4: Drie-element sinne word uitgebrei XY+O:NF: My boetie is honger: (Onderwerp word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoordfrase) XY+W:WF: Pappa kan vinnig ry (Werkwoord word uitgebrei na ‘n werkwoordfrase) XY+K: NwF: Dit is my karretijie (Komplement word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoorfrase) XY+V:NwF: Hy gooi die bal (Voorwerp word uitgebrei na ‘n naamwoordfrase) XY+Byw:BywF: Ek sit op die stoel (Bywoord word uitgebrei na bywoordfrase)

Stadium 4 Voeg: Voegwoorde En En … dan As …. dan

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Sinne Vrae: VrWO: Waar is my sussie? VrXY+ Waar boetie nou gaan? WO(X): Is dit myne? WO(X+): Kan ek gaan speel mamma? Stellings: OWVByw: Sy sit die koekie op die tafel OWKByw: Ek is vandag moeg OWVdVi: Hy gee vir my ‘n soen OWVK: Hy maak my hartseer. Neweskikkend: Ek gaan en mamma gaan Onderskikkend V: Ek sien wat jy het Postmod sin: Die een wat ek het is blou. Frases:

NwFVoorsNwF: die man in die rooi kar VoorsBepAdJN: in die rooi kar cX: en ek XcX: ‘n pop en ‘n teddiebeer/mes en vurk

HulpWskuif: … as jy soet is … Inisieerder: Baie van die kinders …

BywBywXY: Jannie gaan sit gou op sy stoel Ander:Enige ander 4 element sin

NegW: nie swem nie NegX: nie ek nie 2HulpW: sal kan kom Ander: Enige ander 4 woord frase

Stadium 5 Voeg: Voegwoorde (dui aan watter voegwoord gebruik is) ns: neweskikkend: maar, want, of(or), os: onderskikkend: dat,totdat,voordat, nadat, sodat, omdat, of(if),wanneer, as, sodra,terwyl, sodra, toe. Bevele: Ns: neweskikkend: Kom swem maar bring jou swemklere saam/Sit want jy gaan val/Hardloop of loop. Ander: Bevele met enige ander voegwoord: Wag totdat ek jou kom haal. Vrae: neweskikkend: Hoekom is jy laat en waar is jou trui? Ander: vrae met enige ander voegwoord verbind: Het jy my kom haal omdat ek stout was? Stellings:

Neweskikkend 1+: Ons was haastig want ons was laat en ons het vergeet. Onderskikkend Byw 1: Ek weet waar jy bly Byw 1+ Ek weet waar die huis is waar jy bly. O: Wat ek wil he is ‘n pop. K: Dit is wat ek wil doen.

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Vergelykend: Ek kan vinniger ry as wat jy kan hardloop. Postmod sin 1+: My maatjie wat by my kom speel en stout is, is siek. Postmod frase 1: Die kar in die prentjie is rooi. Postmod frase 1+: Die kar met die groot wiele in die prentjie is mooi.

Stadium 6 + (positiewe ontwikkelings) NwF Aneenskakeling: (Ek het) ‘n hond, ‘n kat en ‘n papegaai WwF Kompleks: (Ek) sou dit kon gedoen het (meer as 2 hulpwerkwoorde) Sin Lydende Vorm: Die kat word deur die hond gejaag Komplement: Dit is lekker om te swem Hoe: Hoe mooi is sy nie. Wat: Wat ‘n pragtige dag is dit nie.

(–): (grammatikale foute) Voeg (foutiewe gebruik van voegwoorde) En: Ek was in die hospital en ek was siek (want ek was siek) neweskik: Ek was in die hospital maar ek was siek onderskik: Ek gaan jou slaan omdat jy nie stout is nie. Sin Element Ø: Ek saam (Ek gaan saam) Byw plasing: Net is ek nog ‘n bietjie moeg Woordorde: Hy het nie ‘n boek nie en het ek ook nie Concord: Sy het homself seergemaak Frase NwF Bep: hier is ‘n sand in my skoen Voors: Ek het ‘n seer in (op) my arm VnW: haar het ‘n hondjie BepØ: bepaler uitgelaat: Sy het hondjie Voors Ø: Voorsetsel uitgelaat: Ek sit die stoel Volgorde: Sy het rooi groot skoene

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Prof iling Grammar

WF HulpW: Ek kan nie dit gedoen het nie KopW: Ek is nie stout gewees het nie

Ø: Ek kan dit nie gedoen nie Ø: Ek nie stout gewees het nie.

Woord N: huisens/huise W: gesticker

Stadium 7 VoegByw: Tensy jy my kan help moet jy nie kom nie. Dit: Dis moelik vir my Comment clause: Dis sowaar reg, weet jy? Daar: Daar is ‘n seuntjie wat my altyd pla Klem volgorde: Vir hom kan jy niks vertel nie. Sintaktiese Begrip: gebruik van komplekse struktuur wat kind nie verstaan nie Styl: ‘n kenmerkend praatsty

Acknowledgements We wish to acknowledge the important work of Susan Suzman (2000), who before her untimely death worked extensively on the acquisition and description of language impairment in isiZulu morphology and syntax. Her aim was to compile a profile similar to LARSP for isiZulu which, like all the other African languages, is an agglutinative tonal language in which sentences are noun governed. The continuation of Suzman’s work, and indeed research on the acquisition of all the African languages, remains a critical challenge and she enthusiastically paved the way for this direction. The first author would like to acknowledge the profound influence that the trio of initial LARSPers – David Crystal, Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman – had on her career at a most critical time in her research trajectory. They instilled a lasting fascination with grammar and a great love of the verb in particular – an influence that has never left her academic and clinical journeys nor the learning of generations of students in her care. Thank you!

References Alexander, N. (1989) Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books. Alexander, N. (1997) Language policy and planning in the new South Africa. African Sociological Review 1, 82–92. Alexander, N. (2001) Majority and minority languages in South Africa. In G. Extra and D. Gorter (eds) The Other Languages of Europe. Demographic, Sociolinguistic and Educational Perspectives (pp. 355–369). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Alexander, N. (2010) Schooling in and for the New South Africa. Focus, The Journal of the Helen Suzman Foundation 56, 7–13.

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Archer, B. (2006) Afrikaans aphasia: Some generational differences. Undergraduate research project, University of the Witwatersrand. Bialystok, E. (2001) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brock-Utne, B. and Skattum, I. (2009) Languages and Education in Africa: A Comparative and Transdisciplinary Analysis. Oxford: Symposium Books. Combrink, J.G.H. (1978) Afrikaans: Its origins and development. In L.W. Lanham and K.P. Prinsloo (eds) Language and Communication Studies in South Africa (pp. 69–95). Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Den Besten, H. (1989) From khoekhoe foreigner talk via Hottentot Dutch to Afrikaans: The creation of a novel grammar. In M. Putz and R. Dirven (eds) Wheels Within Wheels (pp. 207–254). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Donaldson, B.C. (1993) A Grammar of Afrikaans. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Extra, G. and Maartens, J. (eds) (1998) Multilingualism in a Multicultural Context. Case Studies on South Africa and Western Europe. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Hartshorne, K. (1995) Language policy in African education: A background to the future. In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Language and Social History. Studies in South African Sociolinguistics (pp. 306–318). Cape Town: David Phillip. Heugh, K. (1995) Disabling and enabling: Implications of language policy trends in South Africa. In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Language and Social History. Studies in South African Sociolinguistics (pp. 329–350). Cape Town: David Phillip. Heugh, K. (2002) The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa: Laying bare the myths. Perspectives in Education 20, 171–196. Heugh, K. (2009) Into the cauldron: An interplay of indigenous and globalised knowledge with strong and weak notions of literacy and language education in Ethiopia and South Africa. Language Matters 40, 166–189. Jordaan, H. (1994) Language intervention to facilitate the acquisition of English as a second language by pre-school children. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 26, 78–97. Jordaan, H. and Lewis, R. (1990) Adapted LARSP poster, University of the Witwatersrand. Kalmek, L. (2001) Narrative strategies in bilingual aphasia 2001. Master’s dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand. Lewis, R. and Penn, C. (1989) Language Therapy. A Programme to Teach English. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Lubbe, J. (2006) Afrikaans-moedertaalonderrig onder beleg. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS 34, 55–74. Malherbe, E.G. (1977) Education in South Africa, 1923–1975. Cape Town: Juta. McCormick, K. (1995) Code-switching, code-mixing and convergence in Cape Town. In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Language and Social History. Cape Town: David Philips. Mesthrie, R. (ed.) (2002) Language in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Naude, E. (1998) Gegewens oor Taalontwikkeling by Afrikaanssprekende Kinders. Klinika: Toepassings in Kliniese Praktyk van Kommunikasiepatologie 3, 73–106. Oosthuizen, J. (1998) The final nie in Afrikaans negative sentences. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 31, 61–93. Pascoe, M. and Norman, V. (2011) Contextually relevant resources in speech-language therapy and audiology in South Africa – are there any? South African Journal of Communication Disorders 58, 2–5. Pascoe, M., Rodgers, C. and Norman, V. (2013) Are we there yet? On a journey towards more contextually relevant resources in speech-language therapy and audiology. South African Journal of Communication Disorders 60, 1–9. Penn, C. (1988) The profiling of syntax and pragmatics in aphasia. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 2, 179–207.

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Penn, C. (1998) The study of child language in South Africa. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica 50, 256–270. Penn, C. (2007) Cultural dimensions of aphasia: Adding diversity and flexibility to the equation. In M. Ball and J. Damico (eds) Clinical Aphasiology: Future Directions (pp. 221–244). New York: Psychology Press. Penn, C. and Behrmann, M. (1986) Towards a classification scheme for aphasic syntax. British Journal of Disorders of Communication 21, 21–38. Penn, C., Venter, A. and Ogilvy, D. (2001) Aphasia in Afrikaans: A preliminary analysis. In M. Paradis (ed.) Manifestations of Aphasic Symptoms in Different Languages. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Pluddeman, P. (1999) Multilingualism and education in South Africa: One year on. International Journal of Educational Research 3, 327–340. Raidt, E.H. (1976) Die Herkoms van Objekskonstruksies met ‘vir’, in 1875–1975. Studies oor die Afrikaanse Taal 72–101. Raidt, E. (1984) Ontwikkeling van vroeë Afrikaans. In F. Ponelis, T. Botha, J. Combrink and F. Odendal (eds) Inleiding tot die Afrikaanse taalkunde (pp. 96–126). Pretoria: Academia. Reagan, T. (1986) The role of language policy in South African education. Language Problems and Language Planning 10, 1–13. Roberge, P. (1995) The formation of Afrikaans. In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Language and Social History. Studies in South African Sociolinguistics (pp. 66–88). Cape Town: David Phillip. Roberge, P.T. (2002) Afrikaans: Considering origins. In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Language in South Africa (pp. 79–103). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, B. and Tunmer, R. (1975) Documents in South African Education. Johannesburg: Ad Donker. Southwood, F. and van Hout, R. (2009) Linguistic characteristics of SLI in Afrikaans. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS 37, 103–142. Suzman, S. and Tshabalala, B. (2000) Investigation of language impairment in Zulu. South African Journal of Communication Disorders. Special Edition: Communication Disorders in Multilingual Populations 47, 25–34. Venter, A. (2000) Narrative discourse of Afrikaans-speaking coloured aphasics in the Western Cape. Master’s research report, University of Cape Town. von Bentheim, I. (2001) Narrative discourse in English-speaking aphasics in the Western Cape. Master’s research report, University of Cape Town. Vorster, J. (1983) Aspects of the acquisition of Afrikaans syntax. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of South Africa, Pretoria. Webb, V. (ed.) (1995) Language in South Africa. An input into language planning for a post-apartheid South Africa. The Licca (SA) Report. Pretoria: University of Pretoria.

2

Gr-LARSP: Towards a Greek Version of LARSP Stavroula Stavrakaki and Areti Okalidou

Introduction Child language has only recently attracted the attention of researchers of Greek. An important publication in the field of Greek L1 acquisition was the chapter by Stephany (1997). In this chapter, using data from a quite small number of preschool-age children, Stephany provided a descriptive overview of Greek L1 acquisition including phonology, morphosyntax and the lexicon. Research performed later in this field (Marinis, 2000, 2002, 2003; Varlokosta, 2005; Varlokosta et al., 1996, 1998) was based on the reanalysis of Stephany’s data, confirmed her findings and, quite often, re-interpreted them in a novel way. In particular, Varlokosta et al. studied the development of verb inflection, re-analyzing Stephany’s data, and developed an account for a non-finite stage in Greek L1 acquisition. More recently, researchers of Greek L1 acquisition performed experimental work with a large number of participants (including school-age children) older than those who participated in Stephany’s study. They examined very specific aspects of typical Greek L1 development (for example, past tense acquisition, Stavrakaki & Clahsen, 2009; acquisition of dislocated structures, Varlokosta et al., 2015). In addition to the studies on typical Greek L1 acquisition, a number of studies have recently explored the linguistic deficits attested in developmental language disorders, in particular, specific language impairment (SLI). These studies revealed areas of specific difficulties in early and later language development of the Greek children with SLI. With respect to the difficulties that preschoolers with SLI have, we point out that these mainly concern the acquisition of aspects of verb morphology, object clitic pronouns and complex syntax (for a review of the literature, see Stavrakaki, 2005). Taking into account the research performed on Greek (a)typical child language acquisition, in the present chapter we provide an adaptation of LARSP into Greek. This adaptation was performed as follows. First, after a literature review, we decided to provide a limited version of LARSP and focus on 27

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specific aspects of morphosyntax which have been the center of Greek typical L1 acquisition research, and thus allow some conclusions on developmental stages. In addition, these aspects of morphosyntax proved to be clinical markers for the identification of language impairment. They concern both the verbal and nominal domains. With respect to the verbal domain, we focused on tense, aspect and subject–verb agreement; with respect to the nominal domain, we focused on definite articles and weak personal pronouns, in particular, the third person singular of the clitic pronoun (in object position). Secondly, we focused on the very early stages of typical acquisition (1;7– 3;0) and reviewed data from spontaneous child speech as these data are available in the literature. Thirdly, we provided new data from our own corpus (Okalidou et al., 2013) and compared them with those reported in the literature. Then, based on the overall findings, we provided a developmental stage scale roughly in line with Stephany’s (1997: 198) observation periods of language development. Finally, we reanalyzed published longitudinal SLI data (Stavrakaki & Tsimpli, 1999) from a preschool child in light of the stages of typical Greek L1 acquisition, as sketched out in this chapter. This chapter is organized as follows. First, we provide a brief overview of Greek morphosyntax; secondly, we present an overview of the findings for the grammatical categories of interest. Thirdly, we provide a developmental L1 acquisition stage scale taking into account the overall child language data analysis and in particular Stephany’s (1997) classification. Finally, we assess the speech of a child with SLI in the light of this developmental L1 acquisition scale and demonstrate its significance for intervention.

Brief Description of Greek Modern Greek is a fusional language with rich inflection (Dressler, 2007; Holton et al., 1997) and relatively free word order, which is needed more for pragmatic than syntactic purposes (Stephany, 1997: 185). The language makes a fundamental distinction between nouns and verbs whose morphological features are outlined below as part of the nominal and verbal domain, respectively. In what follows, we present a description of the morphosyntactic categories which are of interest for the present chapter.

The verbal domain The Greek verb expresses mood, aspect, tense, voice and subject–verb agreement in its inflection (Stephany, 1997). (1) Aspect. Greek distinguishes between perfective and imperfective aspect. The former is used for completed actions or events while the latter expresses in progress, habitual or repeated actions or events (Holton et al., 1997; Triandafillidis, 1941). Aspect is closely linked with Tense.

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(2) Tense. Tense is limited to the indicative (Joseph & Philippaki-Warburton, 1987). Greek distinguishes between non-past and past tenses. The Greek Tense system is presented in Table 2.1 (based on Stephany, 1981: 47). (3) Subject–verb agreement. In Greek there are two conjugation classes depending on whether the final syllable of the present tense is stressed or not (Holton et al., 1997; Triandafillidis, 1941). The agreement paradigm for the most common conjugation (first) is presented in Table 2.2. Greek is a null subject language and the agreement features of number and person are coded in verb inflection.

The nominal domain (1) Articles. Greek distinguishes between definite and indefinite articles which are marked for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), case (nominative, genitive, accusative) and number (singular, plural). See Table 2.3 for the definite article (adopted from Holton et al., 1997), which is of interest in this chapter. (2) Weak personal pronouns: clitics. These pronouns are closely connected with other words, including verbs, nouns and adverbs (Holton et al., 1997: 96). In this chapter we focus on the third person clitic pronoun which appears in object position. These forms are: (i) case marked for accusative or genitive case; (ii) number marked for singular or plural; and (iii) gender marked, for masculine, feminine and neuter. See Table 2.4 (Holton et al., 1997: 96).

Acquisition of the Verbal and Nominal Domain Few studies have been performed up to now on the acquisition of tense, aspect, S-V agreement, object clitics and definite articles by very young Table 2.1 The tense system in Greek Mood

Tense

Aspect Perfective

Present

Past

Future

Antepenultimate stress + augment + perfect stem + sigmatic suffix-s- past inflection Egrap-s-a (I wrote) Future particle + perfect stem + sigmatic suffix-s- + present inflection Tha grap-s-o (I will write)

Imperfective Imperfect stem + present inflection Graf-o (I write) Antepenultimate stress + augment + imperfect stem + past inflection Egraf-a (I was writing) Future particle + imperfect stem + present inflection Tha graf-o (I will be writing)

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Table 2.2 The Greek agreement paradigm Non-past and past verbal endings

Singular 1st 2nd 3rd Plural 1st 2nd 3rd

Non-past

Past

-o -is -i

-a -es -e

-ume/-ome -ete -un/-une

-ame -ate -an/ane

Table 2.3 The definite article Singular

Nom Acc Gen

Plural

M

F

N

M

F

N

o to(n) tu

I ti(n) Tis

to to tu

i tus ton

i tis ton

ta ta ton

Notes: M: masculine; F: feminine; N:neutral.

Table 2.4 Third person clitic pronoun Singular

Acc Gen

Plural

M

F

N

M

F

N

ton tu

tin tis

to tu

tus tus

tis/tes tus

ta tus

typically developing children. The studies that do exist report spontaneous speech data from a small number of children or even a single child. Some of them provided quantification of the data (Stephany, 1997), while others did not (Tsimpli, 1992/1996). Most of them report on original data (Doukas & Marinis, 2012; Katis, 1984) while others reanalyzed existing corpora (Marinis, 2000, 2002, 2003; Varlokosta et al., 1996, 1998). With respect to the categories of interest in this chapter, Stephany (1997) performed an observational study of five typically developing monolingual children in natural speech situations. In total, there were three periods of observation. In period I the age of the children was 1;8–1;11 (mean 1;10), in period II, 2;3–2;5 (mean 2;4), and in

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period III, 2;9–2;11 (mean 2;10) (Stephany, 1997: 198). This researcher provided a descriptive analysis of Greek L1 language development and made observations for different developmental stages. A part of her data is included in the Stephany Corpus, available in the CHILDES Database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985). In particular, in this corpus, data from four children are included: one male aged 1;9; one female whose speech was recorded at the ages of 1;11, 2;3 and 2;9; another female whose speech was recorded at the ages of 1;9, 2;5 and 2;9; and another female whose speech was recorded at the ages of 2;3 and 2;9. This corpus consists of 6761 utterances in total (as calculated by Marinis, 2003: 240). Varlokosta and collaborators reanalyzed data from Stephany’s corpus, focusing on the verbal domain and more specifically on the acquisition of subject–verb agreement at the first stage of Greek L1 acquisition. The acquisition of S-V agreement was studied by Doukas and Marinis (2012) who reported data from two children (females) aged 2;0–2;8.27 (number of utterances: 1261) and 1;7– 2;11.11 (number of utterances: 6916). Marinis (2000, 2002, 2003) studied determiners and clitics by analyzing the data of a male child aged 1;7–2;8 from Christoforidou corpus (Christoforidou, 1998; Christoforidou & Stephany, 1997), including 10,485 utterances in total (Marinis, 2003: 239); he also re-analyzed Stephany’s corpus available in the CHILDES Database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985). In addition, Tsimpli (1992/1996) made observations on the acquisition of functional categories by Greek typically developing children and claimed that they run a pre-functional stage in their L1 acquisition course. Katis (1984) studied the acquisition of verb morphology on the basis of longitudinal spontaneous speech data from a girl aged 2;6–4;0 in addition to cross-sectional data from 21 children aged 2;00–4;11. Finally, we include and analyze spontaneous speech data from our own corpus of Greek L1 acquisition (Okalidou et al., 2013; henceforth OST, 2013): in particular, data from two male and one female three-year-old children (number of utterances: 159, 356, and 388, respectively); data from one female and one male child aged 1;8 (number of utterances: 93 and 26, respectively); speech from the 1;8-year-old female child was transcribed again when she was 2;1 (number of utterances: 186); data from a female child aged 2;5, 2;6 and 2;9 (number of utterances: 364); and finally data from a male child aged 2;4 (number of utterances: 162). An overview of the main corpora in Greek child language acquisition is shown in Table 2.5.

The Findings In this section, we perform a review of the existing findings as reported in the literature in addition to the presentation of recent data from the OST corpus (2013).

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Table 2.5 Summary of the child Greek L1 corpora Corpora

Stage I (1;7–1;11)

Stage II (2;0–2;6)

Stephany CHILDES database Katis (1985)

N=3 Mean CA: 1;10 None

Doukas corpus Doukas and Marinis (2012)

Longitudinal data N=1 Age range: 1;7–1;11 Longitudinal data N=1 Age range: 1;7–1;11 N=2 Mean CA: 1;8

N=3 N=3 Mean CA: 2;4 Mean CA: 2;9 Cross-sectional Cross-sectional data data N=3 N=5 Mean CA: 2;3 Mean CA: 2;8 Longitudinal data N=1 Age range: 2;6–3;00 Longitudinal data Longitudinal data N=2 N=2 Age range: Age range: 2;0–2;6 2;7–2;11 Longitudinal data Longitudinal data N=1 N=1 Age range: Age range: 2;7–2;8 2;0–2;6 N=3 N=4 Mean CA: 2;11 Mean CA:2;3

Christoforidou corpus (Marinis, 2002, 2003) Okalidou, Stavrakaki and Talli (2013)

Stage III (2;7–3;0)

Total number of utterances 6761 Non reported

8177

10,485

1734

We took into account Stephany’s previous classifications (Stephany, 1997) of Greek L1 developmental sequences and considered, in addition to our own corpus, the overall findings, as reported in the literature. As a result of this investigation, we provide a three-stage developmental scale of Greek L1 acquisition from 1;7 to 3;00. We concentrate on those morphosyntactic categories of the verbal and nominal domain that attracted the attention of Greek L1 acquisition researchers and proved to be crucial for the early clinical assessment and identification of children with language impairments. In Appendix 1, the (short) Greek version of LARSP is presented.

Stage I: 1;7–1;11 Verbal domain Aspect. Aspectual distinctions in verbal forms are present in the speech of typically developing children from this very early stage of acquisition (Katis, 1984; Stephany, 1997; Tsimpli, 1992/1996; Varlokosta et al., 1996, 1998). Specifically, Stephany (1997) showed that perfective and non-perfective forms are included in the data of all children that participated in her study. She pointed out that perfective non-past forms are used in past tense obligatory contexts as well as in subjunctive and future contexts where the

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33

corresponding particles are absent or a vocalic placeholder is used instead. Verbs are correctly marked for aspect, both perfective and imperfective, by the two children aged 1;8 participating in the OST corpus. The male child produced just two verbs correctly marked for aspect, a finding that may be related to the small number of utterances recorded; interestingly, no incorrect aspect marking was found for this child. In addition, no instances of incorrect marking were produced by the female child out of 30 verb forms. Based on the observation that aspectual distinctions appear very early in spontaneous child speech, Tsimpli (1992/1996) suggested that aspect has rather the status of a lexical (substantive) rather than a functional category. Tense. Tsimpli (1996: 56) claimed that tense distinctions were not observed in child Greek. In Stephany’s data tense distinctions have not been found in the speech of typically developing children going through the first stage of Greek L1 acquisition. This finding is in accordance with the data of the male child from OST (2013) corpus, while just a past tense form was attested in the speech of the female child. Consequently, there is not enough evidence to indicate acquisition of tense distinctions at this early stage of language development. Subject–verb agreement. Verbal agreement is a well-studied domain in Greek L1 acquisition. More specifically, the third person singular in child speech has attracted a lot of attention from Greek L1 acquisition researchers as it appears very early. Katis (1984) provided a three-stage developmental account of the verbal agreement acquisition. First, the third singular form emerges, while later on the first and second singular forms are differentiated. Differentiation between the first singular and the second singular forms follows. According to this researcher, only after the age of 2;9 are number and person correctly marked by typically developing children. The overuse of the third singular form at the age of 1;10 is also reported by Stephany (1997: 250). This researcher nevertheless observed individual differences in the overgeneralization rates, with the male child showing no distinction between first and third person singular in contrast to three females of the same age. Tsimpli (1992/1996) reports the overuse of the third person singular in Greek child data. This researcher attributed this phenomenon to the ‘unspecified for agreement features’ status of the third person singular and claimed that children go through a prefunctional stage where functional categories have not been acquired. Varlokosta et al. (1996, 1998; see also Varlokosta, 2005) re-analyzed Greek children’s data, aged 1;9–1;11, from Stephany corpus and re-confirmed the overuse of the third person singular. Therefore, these researchers underlined the overuse of the third person singular in non-third singular contexts. They also observed that when verb agreement was employed it was employed correctly, and claimed that children at this stage have acquired the functional category of Agr. Finally, Varlokosta and collaborators claimed that the Greek

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Prof iling Grammar

children, by overusing the third person singular in non-third singular contexts, go through a stage similar to that of children speaking Germanic languages, namely the non-finite (infinitival) stage. The early emergence of the third person singular is also confirmed by the data coming from one of the children in OST corpus (male, aged 1;8) who employs it in the appropriate contexts. The female child of the same age in OST corpus correctly employs all verb persons attested in her speech (nine in total, correctness score: 100%); no instances of the second and third person plural have been found in her speech. Similarly, a female child of Doukas’s corpus aged 1;7 correctly uses the verb singular forms, while there are correct instances of verb plural forms in her speech with the exception of the second plural form (just one instance for the third plural form) (Doukas & Marinis, 2012). Based on this finding, Doukas and Marinis (2012) claimed that all verb persons are available from the very early stage of L1 Greek acquisition, in contrast to Katis’ findings for gradual verb person emergence. Notably, in the OST corpus, the male child starts with the third person while the female child of the same corpus uses all verb persons at the time of recording. This, in our view, shows partial concurrence with Katis’ data, as the boy does not have the full agreement paradigm from the beginning. In addition, it shows partial agreement with Doukas and Marinis’s findings, as the girl does have the full agreement paradigm from the beginning. While no agreement errors are produced by the children who participated in the OST corpus, a few almost non-existent agreement errors are reported for a female child from the age of 1;7 to 1;11 (Doukas & Marinis, 2012). These few agreement errors involve the overuse of the third person singular. In sum, these findings indicate different individual rates in S-V agreement acquisition. Some children acquire it gradually while others show evidence from early and productive1 acquisition of the full verbal agreement paradigm from the beginning (Doukas & Marinis, 2012; OST corpus).

Nominal domain Definite articles. Stephany noticed significant individual differences amongst participants in definite article production in Stage I. In particular, as she points out (Stephany, 1997: 226), the correct employment of the definite article by the male child between 1;9,2 and 1;9,11 increased from 13% to 47% of cases, while the omission rate of the female child, who was the most linguistically advanced child in her corpus, was only 25% of obligatory contexts at 1;10. In addition, the male child from Christofidou corpus, while using definite articles from 1;8 to 1;11, used them with a small number of nouns (Marinis, 2003: 95). The two 1;8-year-old children from the OST corpus correctly employed the definite article in its obligatory contents, which nevertheless were quite a few (four for the male child; two for the female). Clitics. Stephany (1997: 238) reports on different clitic omission rates by typically developing participants. While the male child at 1;10 omitted the

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35

neuter accusative form to in 91% of cases, the female one omitted it in 25%. Marinis (2000), who reanalyzed Stephany’s corpus, pointed out that omissions did occur in child data (as well as clitic production). He also noticed that children tended to omit direct objects in general (including object clitics). As far as the children from the OST corpus are concerned, the girl correctly employs the third person singular clitic in its obligatory contents despite its few occurrences2 (N = 4), while no utterances with clitic were observed in the boy’s speech. As far as the verbal domain is concerned, at this very early stage of Greek L1 acquisition, only the grammatical category of aspect has been acquired while the children are still struggling with the acquisition of subject–verb agreement and tense. As far as the nominal domain is concerned, the grammatical category of definite articles and clitics emerge, with considerable variability across children, but have not been completely acquired.

Stage II, 2;00–2;6 Verbal domain Subject–verb agreement. In the OST corpus, data from just one female child, recorded at 2;5 and 2;6, show that she did not produce any agreement errors from 2;5. At this age only second and third person singular forms were attested in her data. She correctly employed all verb forms in the third person singular (N = 12) and second person singular (N = 2). A month later all verb persons in singular and plural were attested and correctly employed (total number of verb forms = 74) except the second person plural forms which were not attested in her data. Furthermore, in the OST corpus again, data from the younger child female child (aged 2;1 at the time of recording) indicate that all verb persons (except the second person plural) were produced and employed correctly in 96.15% of instances (total number of verb forms: 104; correct: 100). Errors were limited: on three occasions she employed the third person singular instead of the first, and there was one occurrence of the first person plural instead of the first person singular. In addition, OST corpus data from a male child aged 2;4 showed that he produced a few only verbs (nine in total) in first person singular, third person singular and third person plural (just one verb form in this person) and correctly employed all these verb forms. Doukas and Marinis (2012) report that second person plural just appears in one female child’s speech at the age of 2;5 (one occurrence) and in the other female child’s speech at the age of 2;3 (one occurrence). Furthermore, Varlokosta (2005: 232) reports the ceiling performance of a female child (from Stephany’s corpus) aged 2;5 (99%) on the verb agreement marking. Tense. In the OST corpus one child correctly employed the present and past tense from 2;5 (12 and two verb forms, respectively) while she produced just one instance of the future tense. At the age of 2;6 she correctly marked the verbs for tense in 97.4% of instances (74 out 76 verb forms). The female

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Prof iling Grammar

child, from the OST corpus at the age of 2;1 did not make any tense errors in her spontaneous speech as she correctly employed the present, past and future forms in their obligatory contexts (N = 80). Similarly, a male child from the same corpus (OST) at the age of 2;4 correctly marked all verb forms (N = 19) he used for tense.

Nominal domain Articles. In Stephany’s (1997) data, at this stage, at least 91% of nominative and accusative tokens of the definite article are correct. As far as the definite article omission rate is concerned, this drops for the three female participants to 10%, 14% and 31%. In the OST corpus (2013), the female child at the age of 2;1 correctly employed definite articles without any omission (N = 51). This is also the case for the other two children from the OST corpus, male and female aged 2;4 and 2;5 (N = 10 and N = 10, respectively). A month later the female child produced the definite article in 22 out of 25 total occurrences while she omitted it three times. Clitics. Stephany (1997) points out that at this stage third person singular object clitic remains limited to the accusative ‘to’. While the vast majority of the clitic tokens are limited to the third person singular accusative to at the age of 2;1 in the female child’s data (OST corpus), tokens in the genitive case of the clitic pronoun (tu) as well as the masculine form of the accusative (ton) are attested. Few instances (N = 4) of clitic pronouns were attested in the male child’s data (aged 2;4) (OST corpus); all but one was in neuter gender. In addition, while the male child from Christoforidou corpus (Marinis, 2000) at the age of 2;00 produced no clitic at all, a month later (at 2;1) clitics emerged in his speech (Marinis, 2002). Notably, no clitic omission in obligatory contexts has been reported at this stage for typically developing children, a finding which has been further confirmed by the experimental study of Tsakali and Wexler (2004) with very young children aged 2;4–3;00 who performed at ceiling on the elicited production of object clitics. At this stage, tense marking has been acquired despite the fact that future forms have not been very productive. With respect to S-V agreement, while agreement errors are extremely rare or not produced at all, it is worth noting that the second person plural is indeed rare in child speech. With respect to the category of definite article, ceiling performance and high percentages of correct use have been attested. With respect to clitics, based on the existing available data, it is suggested that after 2;1 they have been acquired.

Stage III, 2;7–3;00 Verbal domain Subject–verb agreement. Katis (1984) pointed out that after the age of 2;9 number and person are correctly marked by typically developing children. In the OST corpus, a female child aged 2;9 did not make any agreement error in all verb forms she produced (N = 27), but second person plural is still not

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37

attested in her spontaneous speech. This may be due to the fact that the child interacted with just one adult and thus it was highly implausible for her to produce a second person plural form. In the OST corpus a male child aged 3;00 at the time of recording employed all verb persons (including the rare, in child interaction, second person plural, N = 3), in his spontaneous speech and produced them correctly in 99.02% (correct forms: 101 out of 102 in total). The rare use of the second person plural is confirmed by the data of Doukas and Marinis (2012) as at the age of 2;7 both children that participated in their study still produced only one occurrence of the second person plural. Furthermore, another male child from the OST corpus did not produce the second person plural in this sample speech while he correctly employed verb endings at the age of 3;0 in all verb forms (N = 43). Similarly, a female child from the OST corpus at the same age correctly produced all verb endings (N = 104) – while there were no instances of second person plural in her speech sample. By the age of 3;00, children have acquired S-V agreement. The rare use of the second person plural in their spontaneous speech sample may be due to particular communication contexts: the child interacts with an adult and it is thus extremely difficult for the child to produce second person plural forms.

Language Development in SLI In this section, we will consider the developmental profile of a child with SLI, as reported in the literature (Stavrakaki & Tsimpli, 1999) in the light of typical Greek L1 acquisition as sketched out above. In particular, we will show how the data from an impaired child will be interpreted within the typical course of language development. Specifically, this child was recorded in two different periods: first, when she had just started receiving speech and language therapy (in total, three months at the time of data collection) and after a year, when she had already received 14 months of speech and language therapy. At the beginning of the first period, she was 5;5 years old; at the second 6;7.

First period In the verbal domain, a dissociation between the categories of aspect and tense, on the one hand, and verb agreement, on the other, has been attested. Specifically, the child employed verbal aspect correctly in very high percentages (over 90%) and marked correctly the present/past tense distinction in the appropriate contexts. Remarkably, she employed the past tense forms correctly while she had selective problems with verb agreement morphology. These difficulties mainly concerned the second person singular and plural. In the nominal domain, the child had problems with definite articles and the third person of object clitics, as high percentages of omissions were reported. Notably, she performed significantly better on definite articles than object clitics.

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Quite interestingly, the child cannot be classified as belonging to one of the stages of typical development as reported in the Gr-LARSP chart. Like typically developing children at Stage I, she has not fully acquired the agreement paradigm and especially the second person singular and plural which seem difficult to acquire (especially the second person plural). But the percentage of agreement errors she produced was higher than those reported for Greek L1 acquisition. This pattern of performance indicates that a detailed comparison with typical L1 acquisition is essential towards understanding the nature of the impairment and making a decision on the intervention program that should be followed. In addition, the child is clearly not at the first stage of Greek L1 acquisition as far as tense marking is concerned. In particular, she seems to be more advanced as she performed at ceiling on tense marking (including past tense marking). With respect to the nominal domain, her poor performance on object clitic pronouns and definite articles indicates that she is performing similarly to typically developing children in Stage I; however, her performance is poorer than that of typically developing children, underlining the nature of the deficit.

Second period In the verbal domain, the overall performance of the child with SLI on S-V agreement is significantly higher than in the first period as even for the second person plural the correct percentage is 90.6%. Agreement errors are still produced, in contrast to typically developing children who only exceptionally produce agreement errors at Stage II. In the nominal domain, the child’s performance on the production of definite articles and object clitics significantly improves with a greater improvement in the production of definite articles (61.3% for object clitics versus 95.45% for definite articles). The child, despite her significantly better performance, cannot match typical performance in the following crucial respects. First, she still produces agreement errors in verb inflection to the extent that typically developing children at Stage II (2;00–2;6) do not. Secondly, she still has difficulties with clitics while typically developing children show evidence for full clitic acquisition at the second stage of their development. In conclusion, the child seems to lag behind typical development as described at Stages II and III, so the intervention should focus on these delayed aspects of her linguistic performance. The linguistic performance of the child with SLI does not directly correspond to any of the Greek L1 acquisition stages as sketched out above. This may be due, on the one hand, to the highly selective language impairment that the children with SLI show, as not all aspects of their language are (equally) impaired; on the other hand, this may be due to intervention effects arising from the speech pathologist’s specific intervention program. The lack of this direct correspondence between SLI and typical L1 development as shown by our data highlights the need for a detailed comparison of the SLI

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39

characteristics with those of typical language development. In our view, sketching out the developmental stages of typical Greek L1 acquisition for specific categories of the verbal and nominal domain may provide a useful tool for those responsible for assessment and intervention with these children.

Appendix 1: Gr-LARSP Child’ name

Date of birth

Sample date

Unanalyzed utterances Analyzed utterances Developmental profile Verbal domain

Stage I (1;7–1;11) Stage II (2;0–2;6) Stage III (2;7–3;0)

Nominal domain

Aspect

Tense

S-V Agr

Definite articles

Clitics (3rd position singular, object position)

N

X

X

X

X

N

N

N

v

N

N

N

N

N

N

Notes: X: non-acquired; v: acquired/almost acquired (due to child individual variation in acquisition rate, we use this term (acquired/almost acquired) to refer to the categories which while completely acquired by some children by some other children are only adequately mastered); N: acquired.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the postgraduate and undergraduate students of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) and the University of Macedonia (UoM), Dimitra Pashalidou, Ioanna Hadjitriantafilou and Ioanna Zarojianni, who within the framework of the MA program in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (AUTH, Department of Italian Language and Literature) as well as the framework of their undergraduate dissertation (UoM, Department of Educational and Social Policy) assisted in the analysis of our corpus. We thank Ioanna Talli who made available her son’s data to us. Furthermore, we thank Gerard Bol for presenting the Dutch version of LARSP to us and discussing the Greek and Dutch data with us during his short Erasmus visit to Thessaloniki. Many thanks go to Martin Ball, David Crystal and Paul Fletcher for their constructive comments on the first version of this chapter. We also thank Martin Ball who gave us the opportunity to work on the Greek version of LARSP.

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Notes (1) Doukas and Marinis (2012) are the only ones who systematically discuss the productivity issue, to the best of our knowledge, and adopt the productivity criteria of Pizzuto and Caselli (1992) for verb inflection. According to these researchers, the productivity criteria are satisfied when at least two distinct verb endings appear with the same verb root or two different verb roots appear with the same verb ending (Doukas & Marinis, 2012: 22). Up to now, the productivity issue has not been discussed in the Greek literature and no generally accepted criteria have been established. As we perform a literature review to a large extent for the needs of the present paper, we decided not to address it. Apparently, this is a limitation of the present study. (2) These few occurrences may be related to the small number of analyzed utterances.

References Christoforidou, A. (1998) Number or case first? Evidence from Modern Greek. In A. AksuKoc, E. Erguvanli-Taylan, A. Sumru Ozsoy and A. Kuntay (eds) Perspectives on Language Acquisition: Selected Papers from the VIIth International Congress for the Study of Child Language (pp. 46–59). Istanbul: Boğaziçi University. Christoforidou, A. and Stephany, U. (1997) The early development of case forms in the speech of a Greek boy: A preliminary investigation. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 33, 127–139. Doukas, Th. and Marinis, Th. (2012) The acquisition of person and number morphology within the verbal domain in Modern Greek. Language Studies Working Paper No. 4 (pp. 15–25). Reading: University of Reading. Dressler, W.U. (2007) Introduction. In S. Laaha and S. Gillis (eds) Typological Perspectives on the Acquisition of Noun and Verb Morphology (pp. 3–9). Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 112. Antwerp: University of Antwerp. Holton, D., Mackridge, P. and Phillipaki-Warburton, I. (1997) Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language. London: Routledge. Joseph, B. and Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1987) Modern Greek. London: Croom Helm. Katis, D. (1984) The acquisition of the Modern Greek verb. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading. MacWhinney, B. and Snow, C.E. (1985) The Child Language Data Exchange System. Journal of Child Language 12, 271–296. Marinis, Th. (2000) The acquisition of object clitics in Modern Greek: Single clitics, clitic doubling, clitic left dislocation. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 15 (4), 15–25. Marinis, Th. (2002) The acquisition of definite articles and accusative clitics. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, Paris, 2001. Marinis, Th. (2003) The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Okalidou, A., Stavrakaki, S. and Talli, I. (2013) Child speech data in Greek. Unpublished corpus, University of Macedonia and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Pizzuto, E. and Caselli, M. (1992) The acquisition of Italian morphology: Implications for models of language development. Journal of Child Language 19, 491–557. Stavrakaki, S. (2005) Greek neurolinguistics: The state-of-the art. Journal of Greek Linguistics 6, 187–234. Stavrakaki, S. and Clahsen, H. (2009) The perfective past tense in Greek child language. Journal of Child Language 36, 113–142.

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Stavrakaki, S. and Tsimpli, M. (1999) The appearance of functional categories in the language of a Greek speaking SLI child: A comparative study of two stages in her linguistic development. Studies in Greek Linguistics 19, 475–489. Stephany, U. (1981) Verbal grammar in early Modern Greek child language. In P.S. Dale and D. Ingram (eds) Child Language: An International Perspective (pp. 45–57). Baltimore, MD: University Park Press. Stephany, U. (1997) The acquisition of Greek. In D. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 4. (pp. 183–303). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Triandafillidis, M. (1941) Neolliniki grammatiki [Modern Greek Grammar]. Athens: OESV. Tsakali, V. and Wexler, K. (2004) Why children omit clitics in some languages but not in others: New evidence from Greek. In J. van Kampen and S. Baauw (eds) Proceedings of GALA 2003 (pp. 493–504). Utrecht: LOT. Tsimpli, I. (1992/1996) Functional categories and maturation: The prefunctional stage of language acquisition. PhD thesis, University College London. New York: Garland. Varlokosta, S. (2005) Eventivity, modality and temporal reference in child Greek. In M. Stavrou and A. Terzi (eds) Advances in Greek Generative Syntax (pp. 217–240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Varlokosta, S., Rohrbacher, B. and Vainikka, A. (1996) Root infinitives without infinitives. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston Conference on Language Development, Vol. 2 (pp. 816–827). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Varlokosta, S., Rohrbacher, B. and Vainikka, A. (1998) Functional projections, markedness, and ‘root infinitives’ in early child Greek. Linguistic Review 15, 187–207. Varlokosta, S., Nerantzini, M. and Papadopoulou, D. (2015) Comprehension asymmetries in language acquisition. A test for relativized minimality. Journal of Child Language 42, 618–661.

3

Swe-LARSP: A Grammatical Profile of Swedish Maria Rosenberg and Ingmarie Mellenius

Introduction This chapter presents a first and tentative LARSP version for Swedish – Swe-LARSP. As there is no existent chart or the like in Swedish, this is pioneering work that hopefully will continue to develop as it is applied. A problem in Swedish clinical practice is that there are few standardized language tests with normative values for preschool children. Instead, according to Hansson and Nettelbladt (2002: 147), tests translated from English or Danish are often used, which is problematic from at least two aspects: first, even two closely related languages do not share usages and typological features; secondly, normative values are difficult to translate across cultures. One good example, however, is the Swedish translation of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993), assessing early language skills through parental reports (cf. Berglund & Eriksson, 2000; Eriksson et al., 2002). A Swedish standardized grammar test for the younger ages, 3–6 years, is GramBa (Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2004), based on pictures. This chapter is arranged as follows. We begin with an account of the main features of Swedish grammar (see p. 42ff). The following section (p. 47ff) provides an overview of research, corpora and assessment in Swedish L1 acquisition. A sketch of normal grammatical development in Swedish is then given (p. 49ff), serving as a background for the information included in SweLARSP, presented (p. 56ff), along with a description. Concluding remarks follow.

Swedish Grammar Typologically, Swedish is placed within the subgroup of Germanic languages known as Scandinavian languages. Morphosyntactic features, as well as the lexis, are to a large extent shared with Danish and the Norwegian 42

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languages and, to a lesser extent, with Icelandic and Faroese. Swedish is an SVO language with quite a restricted word order. The verbal inflection system is relatively simple, whereas noun inflections are more complex. Among the most prominent syntactic features are verb second (V2), obligatory subjects and lack of subject–verb agreement (Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 1–2).

Noun morphology Swedish NPs can be morphologically marked for gender, number, definiteness and possessive (genitive); a few personal pronouns exhibit case forms. Swedish nouns are divided into two grammatical genders: common (uter) or neuter. The gender determines the form of definite and indefinite articles, as well as of several pronouns. According to Bohnacker (2003: 199), 70–80% of all nouns are common (in formal, informal, written, spoken or child-directed discourse), the remaining neuter. Despite some semantic, morphological and phonological regularities, gender assignment is arbitrary and needs to be learnt word by word. An indefinite article appears in the singular only: en (common) and ett (neuter). Most nouns have regular plural endings, predominantly -or, -ar, -er or -r for common nouns, and -n or -ø for neuter nouns, but some are irregular or involve stem-vowel changes (umlaut): (1)

sing.: plur.:

common en stol ‘a chair’; en bok ‘a book’ stolar ‘chairs’; böcker ‘books’

neuter ett äpple ‘apple’; ett hus ‘a house’ äpplen ‘apples’; husø ‘houses’

The definite is expressed with suffixes, signaling the gender of the noun. In the singular definite, common nouns end in -en or -n, and neuter in -et or -t (Hultman, 2003: 67).1 The plural definite endings are -na for common nouns, and -a or -en for neuter nouns (Hultman, 2003: 69): (2)

sing. def.: plur. def.:

common stolen ‘the chair’; flickan ‘the girl’

neuter äpplet ‘the apple’; huset ‘the house’ stolarna ‘the chairs’; flickorna ‘the girls’ äpplena ‘the apples’; husen ‘the houses’

The genitive case is marked by an -s, attached to the last constituent of the NP (Hultman, 2003: 70): (3)

det nya husets tak ‘the new house’s roof/the roof of the new house’ Thus, nominal inflectional endings manifest the following order: plural > definiteness > genitive (e.g. böck-er-na-s book.Plur.Def.Gen ‘the books’).

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Verb morphology Swedish verbs are inflected for tense but lack subject agreement. As in other Germanic languages, there are weak and strong verbs (Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 2). Weak verbs form the preterite by adding a suffix, usually -de, whereas strong verbs form the preterite by umlaut. Weak verbs further divide into the first three conjugations (based on how the stem ends), whereas strong verbs make up the fourth. In addition to the four conjugations, there are irregular verbs, which either mix weak and strong forms or have independent forms. The first weak conjugation comprises about twothirds of all verbs in the Swedish lexicon and is the only productive one (new verbs fall herein). The second weak conjugation contains about 300 verbs and the third about 40. About 130 verbs belong to the fourth, strong, conjugation, many of which are very common (Hultman, 2003: 157–160). The finite forms are present and preterite, in the active or passive, and imperative (untensed); the non-finite ones are infinitive and supine, as exemplified by a first weak conjugation verb: (4)

(a) Finite forms:

Present tappar ‘drop(s)’ (b) Non-finite forms: Infinitive tappa ‘drop’

Preterite tappade ‘dropped’ Supine tappat ‘dropped’

Imperative tappa! ‘drop!’s

The infinitive mostly ends in -a. For verbs in the first weak conjugation, the infinitive and imperative forms are identical. Since the verb ending -r tends to be omitted in spoken Swedish, the verbs of the first conjugation in present form will have identical pronunciation to the infinitive and imperative forms. Likewise, in spoken Swedish, both the preterite suffix -de and the supine suffix -t of first conjugation verbs can be omitted (Hultman, 2003: 157), leading to an overlap between these two forms and the three former: tappa(r/de/t) ‘drop(s/ped)’. Hansson et al. (2000: 850) note: ‘The present and past verb inflections of Swedish are word-final weak syllables, unlike their consonantal counterparts in English.’ To determine the frequency of tensed verb forms in Swedish child language can therefore be problematic (Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 3). In the remaining conjugations, not many forms collide so manifestly in speech. Imperatives in the other three conjugations differ from infinitives by lacking a final -a, and the present usually ends in -er, as shown by vända ‘turn’ from the second weak conjugation and by riva ‘tear’ from the fourth strong conjugation: (5) (a) Finite forms:

Present vänder ‘turn(s)’ river ‘tear(s)’

Preterite vände ‘turned’ rev ‘tore’

Imperative vänd! ‘turn!’ riv! ‘tear!’

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(b) Non-finite forms:

Infinitive vända ‘turn’ riva ‘tear’

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Supine vänt ‘turned’ rivit ‘torn’

Swedish makes a distinction between the supine and the perfect (past) participle (cf. Platzack, 1989: 305). The supine combines with the auxiliary ha ‘have’, while the participle is primarily used in passives, combined with vara ‘be’ or bliva ‘become’: (6) (a) Supine: Han har sett en fågel ‘He has seen a bird’ (b) Perf. participle: Fågeln[neut. sg.] blev sedd [neut. sg. perf .part.] ‘The bird was seen’ As shown above, the supine does not agree with the subject, whereas the past participle agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies, like an adjective. Together with the present participle, it is nowadays placed in a word class of its own, ‘participles’. In the traditional Swedish view, the supine is a specific, non-finite active verb form, closely related to infinitives (cf. Platzack, 1989: 305). In subordinate clauses, the auxiliary ha ‘have’ can be omitted, and the supine alone expresses temporality (Hultman, 2003: 152). Platzack (1989: 317) states that no other Germanic language has a supine, different from the past participle. Hansson et al. (2000: 851) underline that Swedish är ‘am/are/is’ (present tense of vara ‘be’) only serves as a copula, not as an auxiliary like in English.

Adjective morphology Swedish adjectives in predicative use agree in number and gender with their head noun: (7) (a) (b)

common sing. flickan är långø ‘the girl is long/tall’ plur. flickorna är långa ‘the girls are long/tall’

neuter benet är långt ‘the leg is long’ benen är långa ‘the legs are long’

In attributive use, combined with an indefinite NP, the adjective also agrees in number and gender with the noun: (8) (a) (b)

sing. plur.

common en långø arm ‘a long arm’ långa armar ‘long arms’

neuter ett långt ben ‘a long leg’ långa ben ‘long legs’

However, within a definite NP, an attributive adjective always ends in -a, regardless of number and gender. Note also the double determination: there has to be both a definite article before the adjective and a definite suffix on the N: (9) (a) (b)

sing. plur.

common den långa armen ‘the long arm’ de långa armarna ‘the long arms’

neuter det långa benet ‘the long leg’ de långa benen ‘the long legs’

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Furthermore, the adjective is compared, either by inflection or syntactically: (10) positive röd ‘red’ hög ‘high’ komplex ‘complex’

comparative rödare ‘more red’ högre ‘higher’ mer komplex ‘more complex’

superlative rödast ‘most red’ högst ‘highest’ mest complex ‘most complex’

Pronouns Personal pronouns have three forms in Swedish: nominative, oblique and possessive (the table below comes from Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 5): (11) 1P 2P 3P

Nom. sing. jag ‘I’ du ‘you’ han ‘he’ hon ‘she’ dencom/

Obl. sing. mig ‘me’ dig ‘you’ honom ‘him’ henne ‘her’ dencom/

Poss. sing. min ‘my’ din ‘your’ hans ‘his’ hennes ‘her’ dess ‘its’

Nom. plur. vi ‘we’ ni ‘you’ de ‘they’

Obl. plur. oss ‘us’ er ‘you’ dem ‘them’

detneut ‘it’

detneut ‘it’

Poss. plur vår ‘our’ er ‘your’ deras‘their’

Possessive forms in first and second person show number and gender agreement with their head noun, such as: (12)

(a) sing. (b) plur.

common min/din/vår/er bok ‘my/your/our/your book’ mina/dina/våra/era böcker ‘my/your/our/your books’

neuter mitt/ditt/vårt/ert hus ‘my/your/our/your house’ mina/dina/våra/era hus ‘my/your/our/your houses’

Word order Swedish NPs exhibit the following schematic order: universal quantifier/ demonstrative > genitive/possessive/free article > quantifier > adjective > noun > prepositional or clausal attribute (cf. Hultman, 2003: 216; Jörgensen & Svensson, 1993: 66; Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 11): (13) alla mina mycket fina målningar med katter ‘all my very nice paintings with cats’

More importantly, Swedish is a V2 language, i.e. in declarative main clauses the tensed verb is preceded by one constituent (Hultman, 2003: 290– 293; Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 7–8). According to Jörgensen and Svensson (1993: 137), 60–70% of the main clauses in a text start with a subject preceding the verb, as in (14). In other cases, the main clause often has an adverbial phrase first, followed by the tensed verb, the subject, the sentence adverbial (e.g. the negation inte ‘not’), and the rest (Hultman, 2003: 292–293), as in (15): (14) Bilen kör fort ‘The car drives fast’ (15) Under vintern åker jag kanske söderut ‘During the winter, I go perhaps south’

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Both in yes/no-questions and in imperative sentences, the finite verb is the first constituent: (16) Kommer du? ‘Are you coming?’ (17) Kom nu! ‘Come now!’ Wh-questions begin with the wh-word, followed by the tensed verb: (18) Vad gör du? ‘What are you doing?’ The word order of subordinate clauses differs from that of main clauses. Subordinate clauses begin with the subordinator, followed by the subject, the sentence adverbial (e.g. inte ‘not’), the tensed verb, and the rest (Hultman, 2003: 297; Jörgensen & Svensson, 1993: 141; Josefsson & Platzack, 2003: 8–9): (19) som han inte glömde på tåget ‘that he not forgot/did not forget on the train’

Word formation As in other Germanic languages, compounding and derivation are productive word-formation processes. Compounding is the most frequent – about 25% of all words in Swedish texts are compounds – and the one that children first explore actively (Mellenius, 2003: 75). Many grammatical categories enter in compounds, with NN compounds being the most frequent.

Swedish L1 Acquisition: Research, Corpora and Assessments The acquisition order of Swedish grammar is quite well established through empirical research, and there are about 20 longitudinal corpora of Swedish monolingual children (cf. Håkansson, 2003; Wikström, 2008: 14). The Stockholm corpus in the 1970s was collected within the first large longitudinal project that studied children’s acquisition of Swedish, led by R. Söderbergh, the first Swedish Professor of Child Language. Data from this project were used in the doctoral dissertation of Lange and Larsson (1977). In the 1970s, an additional cross-sectional corpus, containing 38 children, was collected by Winberg and de Chateau (1982), together with Söderbergh. In the 1990s, more longitudinal corpora were collected, such as the Gothenburg corpus (Plunkett & Strömqvist, 1992; Strömqvist et al., 1993), comprising at present five children and available at CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000), or the Lund corpus (Håkansson & Nettelbladt, 1993, 1996). The latter

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contains data from three groups of 18 preschool children: children with Swedish L1, children with Swedish L2 and children with language impairment. Waldmann’s (2008) dissertation studies word order in main and subordinate clauses based on Swedish data from CHILDES. In addition, Nordqvist’s (2001) dissertation analyzes Swedish Frog story data from children aged 3–15. According to Håkansson (2003: 24): ‘most work has been descriptive’, with the advantage that the data can be used for various analyses, but some corpora target particular structures, such as Mellenius (1997) on compounds or Santelmann (1995) on wh-questions. Nettelbladt conducted a research project from 1995 until 2003, aiming to investigate Swedish children with language impairment (SLI), multilingual children included. Within the project, three dissertations in speech therapy were published (e.g. Hansson, 1998), as well as publications (e.g. Bruce et al., 2003; Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2002; Hansson et al., 2000). Hansson and Nettelbladt (2002) examine the assessment of SLI by using two originally Swedish tests: LuMat (Lund test of Phonology and Grammar; Holmberg & Stenqvist, 1983) and SIT (Hellquist, 1989). LuMat is a book with pictures that tests grammatical aspects such as plural, possessive, adjective comparison, negation and tense by elicitation. SIT tests language comprehension by picture pointing (46 test items) (cf. Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2002: 148). Neither LuMat nor SIT provide standard scores. Hansson and Nettelbladt’s (2002) results show that both tests managed to detect children with SLI: they were about two years delayed on the grammar test. Tense forms were the hardest structures; noun morphology and word order were also problematic. MLU, although time-consuming, is suggested as a potential matching tool (Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2002: 153). Besides, children below age three manifested cooperation problems and therefore did not complete all the tests. Hansson and Nettelbladt (2002: 153) suggest that this could be due to cultural considerations, since in Sweden children below age three are not expected to cooperate in formal testing. (Such an observation speaks in favor of a screening such as LARSP for younger children.) Hansson and Nettelbladt conclude that: There is, however, a need for further development of assessment instruments for Swedish. […] For finegrained diagnosis more specialised instruments are needed that give detailed information especially on grammar. (Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2002: 153) Bruce et al. (2003) conducted five language tests (pragmatics, semantics, phonology, grammar and language comprehension) on children at age 1;6 with a follow-up at 4;6, in order to detect possible risks for language impairment. Language comprehension was the most difficult test for the children, whereas the pragmatics and grammar tests were not as useful as indicators of deviant

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development. The study shows that early screening has relevance for detecting children at risk (Bruce et al., 2003). Two more recent studies based on new data are Wikström (2008) and Christensen (2010). Wikström (2008) studies finite clauses in a corpus including 22 video recordings of one child, age 1;1–2;10. Christensen (2010) examines verbs in diary notes of two boys, aged 0;9–2;5 and 0;7–2;7, respectively. From 2009 to 2011, Myrberg and other researchers at Stockholm university (Lacerda, Sundberg and Berglund) carried out a language intervention project, SPRINT (http://sprint.ling.su.se), focusing on how language development is affected by the linguistic environment and how it relates to subsequent reading and writing development.

Swedish L1 Acquisition: Typical Development We first present two overviews of typical language development, proposed by Söderbergh (1988) [1979] and Håkansson (2014) [1998], both emphasizing the factor of individual variation. Thereafter, we present more targeted structures.

Stages proposed for Swedish L1 acquisition Söderbergh (1988: 28–52) discusses early language development in Swedish. She notes that, generally, one-word utterances turn up at age 1;0– 1;6 and two-word utterances at 1;6. Söderbergh relates Brown’s (1973) first two MLU stages to Swedish, based on data from the Stockholm corpus (cf. Lange & Larsson, 1977). Stage 1a, MLU 1.0–1.5. Two-word utterances appear. Inflections, e.g. number, case and tense, are generally missing, as well as articles, auxiliaries and prepositions. Stage 1b, MLU 1.5–2.25. Three-word utterances appear. Some four-word utterances emerge. Pronouns are occasionally used as subjects. •

Three types of NPs occur: Art/Pron/Adj N Art Adj N NGen N (genitive -s often omitted, and N is indefinite, instead of definite). Main clauses without subjects occur: V Part V (Part) O V O (O can be an expanded NP) V (Part) AdvlLOC/NLOC V Obj AdvlLOC ○ ○ ○

•

○ ○ ○ ○

○

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Main clauses with subjects occur: S V (Part) SVO S V (Part) AdvlLOC/NLOC

○ ○ ○

Stage 2, MLU 2.25–2.75. Function morphemes, used as allomorphs of uninflected forms, show up sporadically. Infinitive forms can be used to express will, wish, desire, instead of just describing events and states. Present forms occur only in the describing function. Different prepositions are optionally used. Additionally, Söderbergh (1988: 98) notes that children around 3–4 years enjoy word games, for example involving homonyms. Håkansson (2014) likewise provides an overview of Swedish L1 acquisition. Among the first words, nouns and verbs predominate. In general, about 50% of all words are nouns at age two, but decreases to about 20% at age four to five, when pronouns become more frequent than nouns, verbs predominate, and prepositions and conjunctions are established. Six-year-old children use more conjunctions than prepositions, indicating expanded utterances (Håkansson, 2014: 46–47). Håkansson (2014: 78) lists the following morphological milestones, not related to age: • • • •

Milestone 1. No inflection, invariant forms. Milestone 2. Overgeneralization (one form = one function). N: number and definiteness before genitive. V: infinitive/present before supine before preterite. Milestone 3. More inflection (one function = several forms). N: different declinations, irregular Ns. V: different conjugations, irregular Vs. Milestone 4. Tuning in.

At the two-word stage, the children have acquired the concept that the subject can either precede or follow the verb. Between ages two and three, children tend to place various items first in main clauses, including verbs (despite Swedish being predominantly V2). Overall, children vary their word order more than adults (Håkansson, 2014: 90–95). The ordering between the negation inte and the verb is difficult to acquire: according to Håkansson and Nettelbladt (1993), negation together with subordinate clauses and wh-questions are structures acquired progressively, and are notably problematic for children with SLI. Recall that the negation follows the finite verb in main clauses, but precedes it in subordinate clauses (cf. p. 47). According to Håkansson (2014: 99–102), children initially use the order Neg X (e.g. inte blöja ‘not diaper’). On the whole, the acquisition of negation involves several stages, although not necessarily followed by all

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children. Håkansson (2014: 106) lists syntactic milestones which include the negation: • • • • •

Milestone 1. One-word utterances. Milestone 2. Two-word utterances. Word order varies (SV, VS). Neg X order. Milestone 3. Utterances with more words. Main clauses appear, occasionally with subjects and/or Aux. Neg Vnon-finite and Vfinite/present Neg (cf. Plunkett & Strömqvist, 1992). Milestone 4. Obligatory subjects and finite verbs. Negation follows finite verbs in main clauses. Milestone 5. Subordinate clauses, introduced by subordinators. Negation precedes finite verbs in subordinate clauses (Aux Neg order can still occur, before Neg Aux is acquired also in subordinate clauses, cf. Lundin, 1987).

Noun morphology Recall that according to Håkansson (2014: 67; cf. p. 50), number and definiteness marking of nouns are acquired earlier than genitive marking. Bohnacker (2003: 214) posits that Swedish children, as early as age 1;8–1;9, conceptually handle quantification and the singular–plural number distinction, and produce it both through suffixation and analytically. Moreover: children grasp the concept of quantification, […] are aware of number, gender, and the difference between definiteness and indefiniteness, and that they begin to encode these grammatical features in languagespecific ways long before age 2. (Bohnacker, 2003: 248) Bohnacker (2003: 223, 226) notes that this finding differs from reports on other Germanic languages, where these features appear later. Simple definite suffixes are the earliest and the most frequent definite markings; occasional prenominal definite markers occur from 1;10 for double determination and increase after age 2;0. According to Bohnacker (2003: 216), gender is established around 1;9– 1;10. That gender is learnt by rote is one explanation for the lack of errors within L1 learners: the definiteness suffix is treated as an aspect of the word, stored as a whole. However, Bohnacker claims that: One and the same noun can occur bare and with different determiners, which indicates that the child stores noun and determiner separately in her lexicon, and not as an unanalysed whole. (Bohnacker, 2003: 220)

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Leonard et al. (2001) underline that most studies on children with SLI concentrate on verb morphology, but that noun morphology also entails grammatical difficulties in Swedish. Swedish preschoolers with SLI (age 4;3–5;7) had more problems than age- and MLU-matched peers had with genitive inflections, indefinite articles and [Art Adj N]-constructions; both omissions and substitutions were made. Complicating factors were noun gender, adjective agreement, weak syllable of articles and consonantal inflections (cf. p. 44). However, concerning plural inflections, Swedish children with SLI did not behave differently from MLU-matched peers. Regarding the [Art Adj N]-constructions, articles were omitted and substitution errors (mostly of gender) occurred (Leonard et al., 2001: 634). In sum, gender was more difficult than definiteness, and number marking the least problematic (Leonard et al., 2001: 635).

Verb morphology Plunkett and Strömqvist (1992: 530–531) stipulate the following acquisition order for verb inflections: present > past participle/supine > preterite. According to Håkansson (2014: 67–74) as well, perfect tense, referring to the near past, appears before the preterite. In the perfect, the Aux is often omitted at first and the supine alone marks past tense (i.e. root supines before full perfect). Regarding particle verbs, the particle on its own often appears first: In! ‘In!’ for Kom in! ‘Come in!’. In contrast, Christensen (2003: 39) claims that the three forms are acquired within the same time span. The child in Wikström’s (2008: 90) study has acquired the finite verb system at age 2;0. Although the child at age 2;0 mostly uses the present, she has sporadically used other forms during 1;6–1;8, thus confirming Christensen’s (2003) claim. Hence, in the Word box of Swe-LARSP (cf. Appendix 1), we list the three verb forms, Vpres, Vsup and Vpret below each other but, by that, we make no claim that this is their strict order of acquisition. Josefsson (2003b: 160–164) mentions that the omission of main verbs and copulas occurs in Swedish child language but decreases over time. Christensen (2010: 123) signals that, given the pronunciation of the present copula är (mostly [æ]), it can be difficult to decide whether it is present or not. In Christensen’s data, copula constructions seem to be acquired around 2;4 in predicative use, combined with subjects. Precursors to the copula construction show up before age two (e.g. hund trött ‘dog tired’) (Christensen, 2010: 123–124). The emergence of functional verbs for both boys in Christensen’s study (2010: 131–132) exhibits the following order: • • •

Modals: 1;9–2;0 (first [AuxM (Neg) (O)], then [AuxM V]); Full modal constructions: 2;1–2;3 [S AuxM V]; Copula constructions: 2;0–2;4;

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• • •

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Intentional future constructions: 2;2–2;4 (with ska ‘shall/will’ + V); Root supines: 1;9–2;0 (Mamma gjort ‘Mammy made’); Full perfect constructions: 2;4 (Mamma har gjort ‘Mammy have made’).

Christensen (2010: 128) underlines that modals without main verbs are target like in the typically Nordic construction [AuxM + directional adverbial], appearing around age 2;5–2;7 (ja vill inte till dagis ‘I want not to kindergarten’). Main clauses other than declaratives, such as imperatives and exclamatives, are rare in Christensen (2010: 134). When Christensen’s (2010: 190) data end at around 2;6, syntax in main clauses was target like, although restricted. Subordinate clauses or main clauses connected with conjunctions occurred only sporadically, and although prepositions were used, the preposition system was not acquired. Besides, in her early data from the two boys, Christensen (2010: 88–89) notes occurrences of VV-structures, either being analyzed as coordinated or as two separate verbs. Hansson et al. (2000) show that preschoolers with SLI, aged 4;3–5;7, used present copula and regular past forms less frequently than normally developing children matched for age and MLU. Children with SLI also produced more word order errors, but could in such utterances still use correct verb morphology. Hansson et al. (2000: 859) suggest that the optional infinitive stage in Swedish L1 acquisition might be transient. Although more extended for children with SLI (often using infinitives instead of finite forms), this stage is shorter for Swedish compared to other Germanic languages. Finally, overgeneralizations of verb forms are frequent among children aged three to eight years (cf. Veres, 2004).

Adjective morphology To our knowledge, few studies focus on adjectives and adjective agreement in Swedish child language. Bohnacker’s (2003) study of NPs in early acquisition mentions some evidence of adjective agreement. The first adjectives are often used in isolation (Bohnacker, 2003: 217). One of the two children in Bohnacker’s data produces clear examples, albeit few, of adjectives agreeing with the noun in plural or gender from age 1;10 (Bohnacker, 2003: 215). In Christensen’s (2010: 70–71) longitudinal diary data on two boys aged 0;9–2;7, one produces 33 adjective types and the other 16; only three types are used by both boys. Adjective comparison appears around 3;0 (Håkansson, 2014: 75–76).

Pronouns In Bohnacker’s (2003) data, the earliest utterances (1;3–1;7) are basically third-person objects: e.g. toys are referred to by lexical nouns or by deictic pronominal den ‘this’. Proper nouns are produced regularly from 1;8. Personal

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pronouns appear later, jag ‘I’ (1;10), du ‘you’ (1;11). This order confirms findings from other languages (Bohnacker, 2003: 204–205). Swedish children often use the subject form of personal pronouns in object or possessive contexts, although some children instead use object as the unmarked form (Håkansson, 2014: 76–77), as in Christensen’s (2010) study of the pronoun system in two boys. She claims: ‘Both boys seem to have acquired the core components of the Swedish pronoun system before 2;6/2;8’ (Christensen, 2010: 115). According to Christensen (2010: 115), many pronouns show up in holophrastic clauses, but the most frequent ones seem to be used productively. She posits three stages for the acquisition of pronouns: Stage 1. Some pronouns are used: less than 5% of all tokens; object pronouns are more frequent than subject ones (age 1;6–1;9). Stage 2. Pronouns amount to around 10% of all tokens; many new types appear (age 1;9–2;1). Stage 3. Pronouns amount to around 20% of all tokens (age 2;2–2;7).

Clause subjects and word order Recall that clause subjects are obligatory in Swedish (cf. p. 43). In Christensen’s study (2010: 143–157), both boys proceed from a stage, below age 1;7, where no verbs have a subject, to a stage around age 2;2 where 80% do. The first subjects refer to animates, the verb mostly denotes an activity and the order is SV. At age 2;2, subjects become more frequent than null subjects, and subject pronouns become more frequent than subject NPs. At age 2;3, more than 50% of the subjects are first person pronouns (jag ‘I’) (cf. p. 46). Thus, the egocentric tendency is strong: the focus is on human activities with animate subjects. At age 2;1–2;5 around 10% of the subjects are formal subjects. Hansson et al. (2000: 857–858) investigated word order in children with SLI, age 4;3–5;7, compared to age- and MLU-matched peers. All groups mainly produced subject-initial sentences (over 60%). Children with SLI showed few word order errors in subject-initial declarative sentences containing a finite verb, but more word order errors in sentences introduced by a constituent other than the subject.

Questions and wh-words Santelmann’s (2003) study of four Swedish children shows that the syntax of simple wh-questions is acquired between ages two and three, although initial wh-words sometimes are omitted. The use of wh-less questions shows individual variation (Santelmann, 2003: 279), and gradually decreases after age three (Santelmann, 2003: 295). Even in their earliest questions, children consistently use subject-verb inversion. The stock of wh-words expands with age: vad ‘what’, var ‘where’ and vem ‘who’ appear first, and

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later hur ‘how’, vilken/vilket ‘which’, varför ‘why’ and när ‘when’. More complex wh-questions are scarcely used before age three, confirming Lundin (1987), who shows that subordinate clauses, introduced by a wh-word, appear after age three. In sum, Santelmann’s (2003) study suggests four stages of acquisition, reflected in Swe-LARSP (Appendix 1) Stage 1. One-word utterance with question intonation. Stage 2. Wh-word/V/S omitted. Stage 3. Complete wh-question with inverted word order: Q V(X). Stage 4. Wh-question with embedded clause or indirect wh-question. Concerning yes/no-questions or V1-questions (cf. p. 47), V1-utterances appear around age two in Josefsson’s (2003a: 99) data of three children. However, all of these utterances are not necessarily questions: Josefsson (2003a: 100) notes that V1-utterances functioning as questions are rare in her data. V1-questions occur half as often at age 1;11–2;6 as wh- questions in Christensen’s data (2010: 137–139). The first V1-questions start with a content verb in a one-verb unit and appear around age 2;0, and V1-questions with two-verb units, often with a modal auxiliary in first position, appear around 2;2–2;7. In Wikström’s (2008: 94–96) data of one child, when auxiliaries turn up around age 2;0, the V1-questions do so too. Hence this child acquires V1-questions in the context of auxiliaries before one-verb units. Moreover, in Wikström’s (2008) data, V1-questions are much more frequent than wh-questions up to age 2;7.

Prepositions and subordinators Prepositions are omitted in early Swedish child language, but appear sporadically around age two (Håkansson, 2014: 54). Josefsson and Håkansson (2000; cf. Josefsson, 2003b: 157–160) detected three stages in the acquisition of prepositions in 10 Swedish children. They further claimed that subordinators (or complementizers) are acquired in parallel to prepositions. Although lagging behind a bit, subordinators become faster established once present (cf. also Håkansson, 2014: 56–57). The particle som ‘as/like’, which can function as a preposition or as a subordinator, is proposed to serve as a lexical bridge: Stage 1. No prepositions. No subordinators. Stage 2. Sometimes prepositions are used, sometimes not. Subordinators are used to a varying extent. Stage 3. Prepositions occur in 90% of obligatory contexts, hence acquired. The same goes for subordinators. The two boys in Christensen’s data (2010: 71) use few prepositions before age 2;6 and 2;8, respectively.

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Conjunctions and subordinate clauses Conjunctions and subordinators tend to be omitted in the early stages (Håkansson, 2014: 56–57; Waldmann, 2008: 187). Coordination of clauses with och ‘and’ turn up quite early, which, according to Lundin (1987: 54), could indicate that children use och ‘and’ as a substitute for the not yet acquired subordinators. However, Lundin (1987: 55) did not find any evidence for that kind of overgeneralization. In Christensen’s (2010: 72) longitudinal data of two boys from age 0;9–2;7 only 12 instances of och ‘and’ were noted down. Lundin (1987) and Waldmann (2008) note that Swedish children start to use subordinate clauses around age two, but without subordinators. Compared to English, subordinate clauses appear earlier in Swedish, for which fact there might be two reasons: (i) frequent use of cleft sentences; (ii) in principle, there is only one relative marker, som ‘as/like’ (Håkansson, 2014: 103–104). Christensen (2010: 72) notes that the two boys in her data use two different subordinators each between age 2;3 and 2;7. Lundin (1987) investigated more than 1600 subordinate clauses within five Swedish children, age 1;8–3;6, and showed that subordinate clauses become frequent from age 2;6, with relative clauses being among the earliest. At age 2;9, the children produce every type of subordinate clause. More than 50% of the children’s subordinate clauses were adverbial, 25% were complemental, 20% were object and 1% were subject clauses (Lundin, 1987: 142–154). Since the latter is also rare in adult speech (Jörgensen, 1978), we omit this item from Swe-LARSP (Appendix 1).

Swe-LARSP First, recall that LARSP is a hypothesis, not the complete account of typical language development. Serving as a screening tool of a child, LARSP should be seen as a guide to provide a profile and suggestions for further investigation. Moreover, being a chart for speech therapists, it must be functional and useable, albeit demanding syntactic knowledge. First, here are some background considerations as to the design of this tentative Swedish version, Swe-LARSP. Its structure generally follows the English LARSP (1981, in Crystal et al., 1989), but it is also inspired by the less complex Dutch GRAMAT (Bol, 2012). Similarly to GRAMAT, we keep Section A which marks unanalyzed or problematic utterances, whereas Sections B–D in LARSP are omitted to keep the chart less time consuming for the therapists. Thereafter follow the language-specific Stages I–VII, where utterances are analyzed at clause, phrase and word level. Similarly to GRAMAT, expansions are excluded from Swe-LARSP, motivated on two grounds: several expansions follow implicitly from the phrase level, and time-consuming (double) marking should be avoided. The last part of the

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chart marks two quantitative measures of the child’s language production, total number of utterances and MLU, as in GRAMAT. Below, we focus on Stages I–VII. Since Swedish and English are Germanic languages, many structures in LARSP are the same or equivalent in SweLARSP. Features specific for Swedish, such as V2, lack of subject-verb agreement, gender and definiteness of nouns and adjective agreement are introduced in Swe-LARSP. Predominantly, Swe-LARSP draws on evidence from studies of typical language development in Swedish L1, as previously presented. Yet, in cases where we lack data, English structures in LARSP assumed to have frequent Swedish counterparts are kept, whereas others without any frequent Swedish counterpart are excluded from Swe-LARSP. However, the structures in SweLARSP need to be tested and validated in future studies.

Word level The child is credited for using the following forms in Swedish, ordered, more or less, in supposed age of appearance: • • • • • • • • • •

Npl: plural form of nouns; Ndef/gender: definite form of nouns (necessarily involving gender inflection, -en/-et ‘the’); Artindef/gender: indefinite article (necessarily involving gender, en/ett ‘a’); Vpres: present verb form (-r + context); Vsup: supine verb form (-t); Vpret: preterite verb form (-de + context); Ngen: a noun possesses another noun (-s ‘’s’); Adjagreement; -ast: superlative form of adjectives (no credit for intensifier mest ‘most’); -are: comparative form of adjectives (no credit for intensifier mer ‘more’).

Neuter forms of adjectives, ending in -t, can function as adverbials (Hultman 2003: 238). Hence, Swe-LARSP does not contain an adverbforming suffix, such as English -ly.

Stage I Stage I includes major one-word utterances, appearing at age 0;9–1;6, with clause elements such as ‘V’, ‘Q’ and ‘N’, similar to Stage I in English LARSP. In the Question box, we have added intonation, as in Frisian TARSP (Dijkstra & Schlichting, 2012). Minor statements are, however, not included in Swe-LARSP, since we assume that they are marginal and could go in under Other or Problem instead.

Stage II Stage II includes two-word utterances, showing up at age 1;6–2;0, and distinguished at Clause and Phrase level.

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Clause level We find no evidence to change things at Stage II in Swe-LARSP compared to English LARSP, except for two things in the Question box: (i) we introduce a notation that the wh-word is optional, since it can be omitted; and (ii) we add a V X structure, which seems to appear at this stage.

Phrase level At Phrase level, we find nearly the same structures in Swe-LARSP as in English LARSP. We have omitted PrN, since prepositions normally do not appear at this stage. We have also omitted the V in V Part, since particles are used alone at this stage.

Stage III Three-word utterances, appearing at age 2;0–2;6, are credited at Stage III, separated into clause and phrase levels.

Clause level There are no similar, frequently used constructions in Swedish corresponding to let XY or do XY in English, so no counterparts are given in the Command box. In the Question box, wh is still optional. We have also specified that V1-questions start with the auxiliary. The same Statement structures as in English LARSP are included in SweLARSP, with two exceptions. First, the double object construction, VOdOi, is omitted. We consider it to be marginal even in adult speech, since indirect objects are normally expressed by preposition phrases. Secondly, the negation structure at this stage corresponds in Swe-LARSP to Neg Vnon-finite and Vfinite Neg.

Phrase level At the phrase level, Swe-LARSP lists nearly the same structures as English LARSP. However, three distinctions are made: (i) Adj Adj N is deleted, since we lack evidence of its presence at this stage; (ii) prepositions are optional at this stage, hence P in parentheses; (iii) the full structure V Part is added here.

Stage IV At age 2;6–3;0, Swedish L1 children produce four-word utterances or more.

Clause level We keep most of the structures in English LARSP, but adjust or delete some of them. Commands are kept the same. In the Question box, wh-words are still optional (cf. p. 55), and we delete tags, which are not used frequently in Swedish. Regarding Statements, two structures from English LARSP are omitted: SVOdOi and SVOC. Both these structures we consider marginal in

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Swedish. Instead, we add two structures. One is SVfinNeg, given that Swedish children have acquired the ordering of negation after finite verb. The other is Subord. (relative som), indicating that subordinate clauses turn up; relative clauses starting with som ‘as/like’ are usually the first to appear.

Phrase level At Phrase level the same structures as in English LARSP are assumed to be valid for Swe-LARSP, except for two omissions: (i) Neg V, for which specification of the negation is already inserted at clause level; (ii) the structure 2 Aux. We have found no evidence of its significance at this stage, and we do not consider it to be of frequent use in Swedish.

Stage V Stage V in LARSP deals mainly with coordination and subordination, appearing at age 3;0–3;6. In this first version, we stipulate that this stage can remain the same in Swe-LARSP. However, we add an indication that the negation is placed before the auxiliary and the main verb in subordinated clauses – specific for Swedish and acquired during Stage V. We also drop the Postmodifying clause under Phrase level, which, in our view, imposes a slight contradiction. This omission is further motivated by a wish to avoid redundancy in the chart. Postmodifying clauses, referring to the head of an NP, correspond to Subord.O/S in Swedish, already included under Clause level at Stage V.

Stage VI At Stage VI, corresponding to age 3;6–4;0, the child is credited for the presence of different features as well as minus-marked for errors. Nothing leads us to stipulate that the items in the English LARSP at this stage should be radically different in Swe-LARSP, with the exceptions of some languagespecific features. We have added Adjective agreement, and since Swedish lacks subject-verb agreement, Concord is omitted. In our opinion, to be operational in a clinical setting, Stage VI could probably benefit from being further simplified, if possible.

Stage VII Finally, Stage VII involves matters of pragmatics, such as Discourse, Syntactic Comprehension and Style, present at age 4;6 onwards. Thus, more general considerations of the child’s language use can be noted down here. Although alternative tests might be better suited to analyzing pragmatics, such features nevertheless merit being included in the chart. Note that in the Discourse box, LARSP marks utterances beginning with it or there, which is exchanged with det ‘it/there’ in Swe-LARSP. Otherwise, we leave this part intact, but it should be investigated and validated in a later phase of our research.

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Conclusions Typical language development in Swedish up to age four is quite well documented, but from that age onwards, Swedish data and research do not abound. Overall, the first Swe-LARSP version proposed here needs to be tested against more qualitative and systematically collected data from typically developing Swedish children. More precisely, the structures included in Swe-LARSP merit further investigation, leaning on strict criteria (cf. Dutch GRAMAT; Bol, 2012). Emerging features must be kept distinct from acquired ones. Additional aspects to take into account are individual variation, quality (rather than size), and typical data (rather than atypical). Thereafter, SweLARSP will probably need revision before it can be tested in a clinical setting, and then, hopefully, may be implemented more firmly clinically. In conclusion, a Swedish version of LARSP is believed to be of future use as a valuable tool in speech therapy and related areas.

Appendix 1: A First Version of Swe-LARSP

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Note (1) Hultman (2003) is a shorter version of the canonical Grammar of the Swedish Academy.

References Berglund, E. and Eriksson, M. (2000) Reliability and content validity of a new instrument for assessment of communication skills and language abilities in young Swedish children. Logopedics, Phoniatrics, Vocology 25, 176–185. Bohnacker, U. (2003) Nominal phrases. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 195–260). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Bol, G. (2012) GRAMAT: A Dutch adaptation of LARSP. In M.J. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 92–109). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Brown, R. (1973) A First Language: The Early Stages. London: Allen & Unwin. Bruce, B., Radeborg, K., Kornfält, R., Hansson, K. and Nettelbladt, U. (2003) Identifying children at risk for language impairment: Screening of communication at 18 months. Acta Paediatrica 92, 1090–1085. Christensen, L. (2003) The acquisition of tense. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 31–74). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Christensen, L. (2010) Early Verbs in Child Swedish – A Diary Study on Two Boys. Verb Spurts and the Grammar Burst. Nordlund 30. Lund: Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (1989) The Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability (2nd edn). London: Whurr. Dijkstra, J. and Schlichting, L. (2012) Frisian TARSP. Based on the methodology of Dutch TARSP. In M.J. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 189–207). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Eriksson, M., Westerlund, M. and Berglund, E. (2002) A screening version of the Swedish communicative development inventories designed for use with 18-month-old children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45, 948–960. Fenson, L., Dale, P.S., Reznick, J.S., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J., et al. (1993) The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. User’s Guide and Technical Manual. San Diego, CA: Singular. Håkansson, G. (2003) Swedish language learner corpora. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 23–30). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Håkansson, G. (2014) [1998] Språkinlärning hos barn (2nd edn). Lund: Studentlitteratur. Håkansson, G. and Nettelbladt, U. (1993) Developmental sequences in L1 (normal and impaired) and l2 acquisition of Swedish syntax. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 3, 131–157. Håkansson, G. and Nettelbladt, U. (1996) Similarities between SLI children and L2 children. Evidence from the acquisition of Swedish word order. In C. Johnson and J. Gilbert (eds) Children’s Languages, Vol. 9 (pp. 135–151). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Hansson, K. (1998) Specific Language Impairment in Swedish. Grammar and Interaction. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Hansson, K. and Nettelbladt, U. (2002) Assessment of specific language impairment in Swedish. Logopedics, Phoniatrics, Vocology 27, 146–154.

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Hansson, K. and Nettelbladt, U. (2004) GramBa. Grammatiktest för barn. Malmö: Pedagogisk Design. Hansson, K., Nettelbladt, U. and Leonard, L.B. (2000) Specific language impairment in Swedish: The status of the verb morphology and word order. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 43, 848–864. Hellquist, B. (1989) Nya SIT – Språkligt impressivt test för barn. Malmö: Pedagogisk Design. Holmberg, E. and Stenkvist, H. (1983) Nya Lundamaterialet. Kartläggning och bedömning av barns språkliga förmåga. Malmö: Utbildningsproduktion AB. Hultman, T.G. (2003) Svenska Akademiens språklära. Stockholm: Norstedts. Jörgensen, N. (1978) Underordnade satser och fraser i talad svenska: funktion och byggnad. Lund: Ekstrand. Jörgensen, N. and Svensson, J. (1993) [1986] Nusvensk grammatik (2nd edn). Malmö: Gleerups förlag. Josefsson, G. (2003a) Input and output: Sentence patterns in child and adult Swedish. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 95–134). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Josefsson, G. (2003b) Non-target structures and non-target uses in child and adult Swedish. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 155–193). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Josefsson, G. and Håkansson, G. (2000) The PP-CP parallelism hypothesis and language acquisition: Evidence from Swedish. In S. Powers and C. Hamann (eds) The Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization (pp. 397–422). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Josefsson, G. and Platzack, C. (2003) Introduction. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 1–21). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Lange, S. and Larsson, K. (1977) Studier i det tidiga barnspråkets Grammatik [Studies in early child grammar]. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Scandinavian Languages, Stockholm University. Leonard, L.B., Salameh, E.-K. and Hansson, K. (2001) Noun phrase morphology in Swedish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics 22 (4), 619–639. Lundin, B. (1987) Bisatser i små barns språk. En analys av fem barns första bisatser. Doctoral dissertation, Lund University Press. MacWhinney, B. (2000) The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk (3rd edn). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mellenius, I. (1997) The acquisition of nominal compounding in Swedish. Doctoral dissertation, Lund University Press. Mellenius, I. (2003) Word formation. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 75–95). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Nordqvist, Å. (2001) Speech about speech: A developmental study on form and function of direct and indirect speech. Doctoral dissertation, Gothenburg Monographs in Linguistics 19, Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg. Platzack, C. (1989) The Swedish supine: An active verb form of the non-agreeing form of the past participle? In D. Jaspers, W. Klooster, Y. Putseys and P. Seuren (eds) Studies in Honour of Wim de Geest (pp. 305–319). Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Plunkett, K and Strömqvist, S. (1992) The acquisition of Scandinavian languages. In D. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 3 (pp. 457–556). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Santelmann, L. (1995) The acquisition of verb second grammar in child Swedish: Continuity of universal grammar in wh-questions. Topicalization and verb raising. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University.

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Santelmann, L. (2003) The acquisition of Swedish Wh-questions. In G. Josefsson, C. Plazack and G. Håkansson (eds) The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (pp. 261–307). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Söderbergh, R. (1988) [1979] Barns tidiga språkutveckling (2nd edn). Malmö: Gleerups. Strömqvist, S., Richthoff, U. and Andersson, A.-B. (1993) Strömqvist’s and Richtoff’s corpora: A guide to longitudinal data from four Swedish children. Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics No. 66. Department of Linguistics, University of Gothenburg. Veres, U. (2004) Input and production in Swedish children’s acquisition of past tense. Doctoral dissertation, Gothenburg Monographs in Linguistics, University of Gothenburg. Waldmann, C. (2008) Input och output: Ordföljd i svenska barns huvudsatser och bisatser. Doctoral dissertation, Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap, Serie A 65, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. Wikström, Å. (2008) Den finita satsen i små barns språk. Licentiate thesis, Nordlund 28, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. Winberg, J. and de Chateau, P. (1982) Early social development: Studies of infant–mother interaction and relationships. In W.W. Hartup (ed.) Review of Child Development Research, Vol. 6 (pp. 1–44). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

4

FIN-LARSP: Morphosyntactic Profiling of Finnish Children Sari Kunnari, Lea Nieminen and Päivi Torvelainen

Introduction This chapter describes FIN-LARSP, an adaptation of LARSP for the Finnish language. One of the motivations for developing a Finnish version of LARSP was to provide clinicians and researchers with an assessment and remediation procedure for morphosyntax. Such a tool is extremely important, since relatively little is known about morphosyntactic development in the language. For FIN-LARSP, data from 111 typically developing children were analyzed to determine the structures that should be included on the chart. Before describing FIN-LARSP in detail, a brief sketch is provided of Finnish morphosyntax and its development.

A Brief Sketch of Finnish Morphosyntax Finnish, which belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, is an agglutinative language in which grammatical and case relations are expressed primarily by suffixes (e.g. Dasinger, 1997; Karlsson, 1999). It is characterized by a rich inflectional system with 15 cases for nouns, and person, number, tense, mood and voice inflection for verbs. Fred Karlsson (1983) has estimated that each nominal word (nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns) has 2200 and each verb as many as 12,000 different inflectional forms (Karlsson, 1983: 356–357). If derivational forms were included, the number of word forms would be many times greater. In Finnish as in most FinnoUgric languages, negation is expressed using a negative auxiliary verb, ei, which has personal inflection forms (Savijärvi, 1977: 11). Although, in typological terms, Finnish can mainly be characterized as an agglutinating language, it also displays various morphophonological 64

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alternations, both in suffixes and stems, and thus also has some of the characteristics of fusional languages. The most common morphophonological changes concerning stems are consonant gradation (e.g. kukka : kuka-n ‘flower : flower-GEN’) and variation in the final vowel of the stem (e.g. kivi : kive-n ‘stone : stone-GEN’). In suffixes, the alteration is most commonly determined by vowel harmony. Words with front vowels require a suffix allomorph with a front vowel (kylä : kylä-SSÄ ‘village : village-INESS, in a village’) and words with back vowels require a back vowel allomorph (kala : kala-SSA ‘fish : fish-INESS, in a fish’). Since Finno-Ugric languages do not have a grammatical gender, all morphophonological changes are either of historical origin or are based on the phonological properties of the word. The rich inflectional system of both nouns and verbs is also reflected in Finnish syntax. Finnish word order is described as being relatively free, except for the strict word order within the noun phrase (Dasinger, 1997; Helasvuo, 2008; Toivainen, 1997). Although the neutral word order is SVO, it can be varied for pragmatic reasons. This means that emphasis on the subject is achieved by using the order SOV, while the verb or the object is emphasized by moving it to the beginning, resulting in orders such as VSO and OSV (Toivainen, 1997). However, these patterns are not as straightforward in longer sentences. The rich inflectional system of nominals provides space for alternating word order, especially in conversation, since case marking expresses the relations between words, and a certain word order is not necessary for this purpose (see, for example, Vilkuna, 1996). Another characteristic of highly intertwined morphology and syntax in Finnish is the repetition of information which attends agreement between, for example, the subject and verb, or main word and modifiers. In fact, due to the person agreement in verbs, it is not always necessary to use a distinct subject word in a sentence, since the personal inflection alone expresses the subject. The borderline between morphology and syntax is probably most ambiguous when we discuss the accusative case. With the exception of personal pronouns, the accusative case has no suffix of its own. Instead, it has ‘borrowed’ forms from the nominative and genitive cases. In addition, it can only occur in the object position and is thus entirely determined by syntactic factors. These characteristics have led many linguists to argue about whether the accusative should be excluded from Finnish cases – the number of Finnish cases being 14 or 15 depending on how the accusative is treated. A rich inflectional system and the close relationship between morphology and syntax also enable spoken Finnish to be rather different from the written form. Written Finnish has norms and conventions which are consistently followed and do not change very rapidly. When speaking, particularly in informal situations, people do not need to follow the same rules as in writing. This gives them the freedom to take the utmost advantage of the benefits of the inflectional system and the fact that conversations are jointly created by two or more persons. Complete sentences are therefore

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unnecessary; fragmental expressions where different constituents of a sentence can be omitted and a varying word order, supported by prosodic features conveying part of the meaning, make conversations intelligible for all participants. Since children mainly acquire their first language in a spoken environment, account must be taken of the difference between the spoken and written forms of the language when assessing a child’s linguistic development. A child should not be corrected for using expressions which are perfectly acceptable in spoken conversation, but which would not be accepted in written Finnish. This is particularly important when analyzing sentence structures (incomplete sentences are not ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ if they fit in well with the conversation or situation) and precise morphological forms, which are very often highly vulnerable to linguistic erosion and abbreviation, or to innovations which are used in spoken language only. In FIN-LARSP, we have taken the spoken language as used in everyday conversations as the starting point of our analyses. We have also selected situations which are as similar as possible to the clinical situations in which assessment data will be collected, i.e. playing and book-reading situations. In this manner, we have ensured that the assessment procedure coheres with the data collected by speech and language therapists and that both give a reliable picture of a child’s morphosyntactic development.

Morphosyntactic Development in Finnish Finnish studies of language acquisition in general have a rather short history, and significant areas remain uninvestigated. This concerns both experimental studies and studies on spontaneous speech data. In addition, the number of children participating in such studies has remained fairly small. To begin with, in the 1970s and 1980s studies often comprised non-systematic investigations of diary data based on one or two children. The first systematic follow-up study on the morphological development of a larger group of children was published in 1980 by Toivainen. In the field of syntax and morphosyntax, the gaps in research are even wider than in morphology. (For a more detailed description of studies on Finnish morphological and morphosyntactic acquisition, see Nieminen, 2007: 19–20.) Laalo and Toivainen argue that the first signs of morphological development in the speech of Finnish children can be detected from the very beginning of word production (Laalo, 2003, 2009; Toivainen, 1980, 1997). According to their studies, the early forms to appear are singular forms of nouns in the nominative, partitive and illative cases. The very first verb forms are usually produced in the third person singular present or in the second person imperative. Negation is also one of the earliest features in the speech of Finnish children. However, it is questionable whether we can refer to the morphological development of different inflectional forms at the very

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early stages of speech production. The first occurrences are typically single words in a given form; opposition of forms has not yet emerged. Object names are usually acquired in the nominative, partly due to the constant naming of objects by parents; mass nouns such as names for food and drink are acquired in the form of the partitive case, since that is how such targets are referred to. The form of the third person singular is very frequently used in the case of verbs – including when referring to the third person plural, the speaker herself or the child. Depending on their semantic meanings, tense forms also emerge in connection with particular verbs. For example, falling is an event which is usually referred to only afterwards, that is, in the past tense. Thus it is natural for the verb kaatua ‘fall’ to emerge in a child’s language in the past tense, paving the way for the emergence of real past tense inflection at a later stage in development. In other words, children acquire words in a form which is frequently used or somehow semantically justifiable, and only gradually begin to learn the other forms of the same word in order to create an inflectional paradigm. At the same time, new words are acquired, again in particular forms, and the child gradually develops a vocabulary representing different morphological forms of the same word and the same morphological forms of different words. Only then is the morphological inference possible as a necessary step towards a more abstract morphological system, which then enables morphological creativity and productivity to develop. In Finnish, inflectional forms are highly frequent and relatively easy to segment. They also have rather clear meanings and always occur in the final position in a word. These characteristics make morphemes salient and easy to perceive, thereby facilitating their rapid acquisition (Peters, 1997). Once the very first steps of learning individual words in particular forms are taken, Finnish children move very rapidly to the stage of ‘real’ morphological development. In her study, Stolt (2009) has reported that, at the age of 2;0, at least 50% of children (N = 35) produced forms of the nominative (100%), partitive (88.6%), illative (74.3%), inessive (71.4%), adessive (65.7%) and accusative cases (57.1%). In verb productions, children used the 3sg present tense (94.3%), 2sg imperative (74.3%), 3sg past tense (68.6%), and 3sg negation (65.7%) forms, respectively. In addition, the data – based on observations of 111 children – used in our survey for FIN-LARSP showed very rapid progress in morphological productions straight after the first phases of speech production, between the ages of 2;0 and 3;0. Although typically developing (TD) children learn to use inflection productively very early on, the morphological richness of Finnish is challenging for children with specific language impairment (SLI). Kunnari et al. (2011) compared the use of verb inflections that mark tense and agreement in children with SLI (N = 17, mean age 5;2) with that of age-matched and younger TD children, by using specifically designed probe tasks. They found that children with SLI were less accurate in their use of these inflections than

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both TD same-age peers and TD three year olds. There was no evidence that problems with tense were central to the children’s lower accuracy. However, errors of agreement were quite frequent. Further, Leonard et al. (2014) wanted to determine whether problems with agreement extended beyond subjectverb agreement to grammatical cases. They compared the use of accusative, partitive and genitive suffixes among the same children observed in Kunnari et al.’s study. The children with SLI were significantly less accurate than either group of TD children in case marking, suggesting that the difficulties with agreement also extend to grammatical cases. These children were also less accurate in making phonological changes in the stem needed for suffixation, suggesting that problems in morphophonology may constitute a separate problem in Finnish cases of SLI.

Description of FIN-LARSP A corpus of normative data (Kunnari, 2000; Kunnari et al., 2011; Nieminen, 2007; Torvelainen, 2007) from 111 monolingual TD children between the ages of 1;0 and 6;3 years (see Table 4.1) was used to adapt LARSP for use with the Finnish language (see Appendix 1). An average of 20 minutes of spontaneous speech from each child was transcribed in CHAT-format (MacWhinney, 2000). A corpus of 9836 utterances for detailed morphosyntactic analysis was selected from the data. The focus was on the longest utterances (in terms of the number of morphemes), and when a child produced more than 100 utterances only the 100 longest utterances were selected. If a child produced fewer than 100 utterances, they were all included in the corpus. All observations of progress in development indicated in the FINLARSP chart are based on this particular corpus, which was assembled from a number of datasets collected and used for previous studies conducted Table 4.1 Finnish corpus No. of children

Stage I (1;0–1;6) Stage II (1;7–2;0) Stage III (2;1–2;6) Stage IV (2;7–3;0) Stage V (3;1–3;6) Stage VI (3;7–4;6) Stage VII (4;7–)

20 19 27 10 7 15 13

Note: F = female; M = male.

Mean age

1;3 2;0 2;6 3;0 3;6 4;0 5;6

Mean no. of utterances Gender

89 73 80 100 100 100 100

F

M

10 10 14 5 3 8 7

10 9 13 5 4 7 6

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by the authors of this chapter. In terms of its size and age range, this corpus is by far the largest corpus of spontaneous speech samples of children in Finnish. In particular, the subset of data from children beyond the age of 3;6 is unique and was used for the first time in this LARSP analysis. When selecting essential forms and structures for the FIN-LARSP chart, all utterances were analyzed at three different levels: word form, multiword structure and complex sentence level (see Appendix 1). Word forms include all inflected forms, both nominal words and verbs. Although multiword structures mainly comprise different complete sentence structures, other multiword structures which are structurally incomplete are also included, since a complete sentence is not always the most pragmatic or natural way of expressing yourself in a conversation: *MOT: haluatko punaisen pallon? %eng: do you want a red-ACC ball-ACC? *CHI: en. %eng: no-1S. *MOT: et? %eng: no-2S? *CHI: sinisen. %eng: blue-ACC. The child’s last response is in structural terms a modifier to the object (ball), but the object is not necessarily needed here, because it is already known based on the mother’s first utterance. Also, the use of the accusative case reveals that it is the properties of the object that the child is talking about. On the complex sentence level, utterances consisting of two or more clauses are recognized. In performing basic morphosyntactic analyses of children’s productions, we used the Finnish version of the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn; Nieminen & Torvelainen, 2003; for the original version of IPsyn, see Scarborough, 1990). On top of this, in each child’s data all morphological forms which do not have a separate entry in the Finnish IPSyn were sought out, in order to form an overall picture of morphosyntactic development. In IPSyn analyses, several different productivity criteria are used, depending on whether a single morphological form or a multiword syntactic structure is in question. The main rule behind all the criteria is that the occurrences of a form or structure must be sufficiently different before they can be credited in an analysis. For example, a case suffix must occur in two different nominals before it can be credited with two points. If the occurrences are uses of the same word in the same case only, one point is credited. Two (or more) different occurrences are then categorized as productive forms, whereas one occurrence or several occurrences of identical inflectional word forms are labelled as emerging forms.

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Criteria for the appearance of a structure in the profile chart at a given stage were defined in line with the IPsyn productivity criteria. If at least 50% of the children in the given age group produced the structure spontaneously and productively twice or more often, the structure was included in the corresponding stage. In cases where 50% or more of the children produced the structure at least once, the structure was classified as emerging and marked in brackets in the chart.

Stage I The categories listed in Stage I of FIN-LARSP are identical to those on the English chart, with the exception of vocatives. Minor utterances at this stage are divided into three categories: Responses, Others and Problems. Responses includes both words (e.g. joo ‘yes’) and vocalizations (e.g. mhm) used as a response to the mother’s speech. Others includes interjections, greetings, thanking and onomatopoetic sounds such as the sounds of vehicles and the animals. Problems include vocalizations which are interpreted as speech acts (such as a command or a demand) on the basis of the situation. For example, a child vocalizes äh äm and reaches for a piece of a doll’s house furniture. Then the mother says no annan annan ole hyvä ‘OK, I’ll give it to you. Here you are’ and gives it to the child. While production fitting into the categories Responses and Others met the productivity criteria, the production of vocatives was surprisingly scarce, since only two children used them at this stage. The low occurrence of vocatives may be the result of the relatively small sample size or certain cultural factors, since in Finnish names are rarely used as calling signals. Small children are more likely to use a combination of pointing and eye contact with the person whose attention they want to engage. Later on, following the model provided by adults, the word kato (a particle which originates from imperative verb form katso ‘look!’) becomes the sign used for drawing someone’s attention to something (Hakulinen & Seppänen, 1992). Three main communicative sentence types are included in major sentences at Stage I: commands, questions and statements. ‘Statements’ was the most frequently used category. All of the children produced nouns productively (at least half of the children included two or more instances in their productions) while the productive use of verbs and other items was only emerging (at least half of the children had one or more instance). Commands and questions were still infrequent (i.e. only three children used both of these categories).

Stage II (1;7–2;0) From Stage II onwards, children’s productions are analyzed from two perspectives: inflection of nominals and verbs and the use of different multiword structures. With respect to nominal inflection, only the partitive case

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seems to be productive at this stage. However, the genitive, illative and allative cases were at the emerging phase and more than 50% of the children used them at least once. Verb inflection had already developed to a phase where the first person and third person singular were used productively, as were past tense forms. The imperative mode showed signs of emerging, although use of this is at least partly determined by the context. Analyses of the syntactic structures produced by the 19 children in this age group showed that only the production of two-word utterances and subject + verb combinations achieved our productivity criteria (50% or more of the children produced at least two different utterances representing the structure). Two more structures came very close to being categorized as productive, namely verb + object and sentences consisting of subject + verb + adverbial. Both structures we produced at least twice by 47% of the children in this group. None of the remaining syntactic structure types reached the emerging stage, let alone achieving productivity.

Stage III (2;1–2;6) Stage III seems to be the phase where Finnish-speaking children take a huge leap towards the fully developed use of different inflectional forms and versatile syntactic structures. During this phase, those cases which were only emerging in Stage II, i.e. the genitive (ownership: naapuri + n auto ‘neighbor’s car’ and close relatedness varpaa + n + kynsi ‘toenail’), illative (moving towards something or into something: Helsinki + in ‘to Helsinki’, kuppi + in ‘into a cup’) and allative cases (moving/putting onto something: pöydä-lle ‘onto the table’; for somebody: minu-lle ‘for me’), have become fully productive. In addition, children also productively use the adessive case (spatial meaning: pöydä-llä ‘on the table’; temporal meaning: kesä-llä ‘in summer’; instrumental meaning: leikkiä autoi-lla ‘play with cars’; ownership, experiencing feelings: minu-lla on auto ‘I have a car’, minu-lla on nälkä ‘I’m hungry’) and plural forms of nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns. The inessive case (inside something: laatiko + ssa ‘in a box’) is also very close to satisfying the productivity criteria, with 48% of children using it in at least two different contexts in their speech. In verb inflection, the imperative is now productive. Other productive forms include the third person plural and passive voice. The second person singular and present perfect are emerging. In Finnish, the passive voice is used in a way which is clearly distinct from its use in many other languages. In colloquial Finnish, the first person plural is almost entirely substituted for passive forms and the normative form of the first person plural is usually produced in written texts only. This type of usage explains why Finnish children begin to use the passive voice – or the form which is originally the passive voice – so early in their development. The context of the form may give some hints as to whether it is used in passive or in first person plural

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functions, and they are both included in the FIN-LARSP chart (see also Stage VI). In addition, attaching clitic particles has now become productive, both in nominals and in verbs. Clitic particles are grammatical morphemes which add distinct nuances to the meaning of a word. The particle clitic -kO is used to form polar questions (e.g. Onko se punainen? ‘Is it red?’). It is characteristic of clitic particles that the same clitic morphemes can be attached to nominal words, verbs and even other particles and a single word form can have several clitics in a row. Syntactic development is highly active during Stage III. Where only two structures were productive in Stage II, there are now as many as 11 productive structures and five emerging structures. On top of the structures that were already productive at an earlier stage, children produce utterances with copula (S + Cop + N), use words to modify subjects ([ATTR + S] + V) and objects (V + [ATTR + OBJ), and produce utterances with more constituents (S + V + OBJ, V + OBJ + adverbial, S + V + 2adverbials, S + V + OBJ + adverbial). Several structures have also reached the emerging state of development and thus V + OBJ + 2adverbials, S + V + [ATTR + adverbial], infinitive phrases in the object position, adposition phrases, and the use of coordination conjuncts are likely to become productive during Stage IV. In Stage III, children do not often combine sentences and occurrences of two main clauses or a main and subordinate clause together in a sentence remain rare.

Stage IV (2;7–3;0) At Stage IV, grammatical development seems to slow down compared to the previous stage. Both the inessive and elative cases have now met the productivity criteria. In verb inflection there are no new productive forms. On the other hand, the perfect tense and second person singular remain emerging forms, and the first person plural and conditional mode have now become part of the category for emerging forms. Syntactic skills have developed from the previous stage to this one as expected: structures belonging to the emerging category have now become productive structures. In addition, two new structures, namely the use of the subordinate conjunction and combining single words with a coordinating conjunction, are now productive. The two new emerging structures are a combination of five constituents (S + V + OBJ + 2adverbials) and occurrences of subordinate clauses. Together with the productive use of different conjunctions mentioned earlier, the appearance of subordinate clauses indicates that the productive use of complex sentences is approaching. Basically there are three different types of subordinate clauses in Finnish: sentences starting with subordinate conjunctions (Menen ulos, vaikka onkin kylmä ilma. ‘I’ll go out to have some fresh air, even though the weather is cold.’), indirect questions (En tiedä, missä hän on. ‘I don’t know, where he is.’), and

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relative clauses starting with relative pronouns (Tässä on talo, jonka rakensi Jussi. ‘This is the house, which was built by Jussi.’).

Stage V (3;1–3;6) In terms of nominal inflection, nothing has changed since Stage IV. On the other hand, there are few forms left to acquire. Use of the ablative and translative cases is still rather scarce, mainly due to the fact that these cases do not frequently occur in general. Their use is highly dependent on the context and most situations in which a child is playing do not involve contexts in which such cases are needed. This is therefore more of a question of recording the context of the data than the acquisition of inflection. In the case of verb inflection, the situation is very similar to that of nominal inflection. The only new productive form is the perfect tense, which was previously in the emerging state. There is also one new verb form which has now met the criteria for emerging forms, namely the second person singular. In syntactic structures, some unexpected behavior requiring explanation can be observed. It seems that some syntactic structures which were previously categorized as emerging or productive have now fallen back into a lower production category. For example, use of a modifier and adverb in a complete sentence (S + V + [ATTR + adverbial]) was clearly productive at Stage IV (all children in this age group used it at least once, and 90% of the children produced at least two different versions of the structure), but had strongly decreased by Stage V (at least one occurrence in 85.7% and at least two occurrences in 42.9% of the children). A similar trend can be seen in S + V + 2 adverbials and adposition phrases. However, rather than representing a decline in skills, this is more likely to be due to a shift from early acquired structures to a preference for other syntactic structures which are probably more suitable or convey the desired meaning in a better way. At the same time as unexpected changes have occurred in the use of single clauses, the use of complex sentences has grown stronger, since subordinate clauses are now productive and combinations of two main clauses with the help of a coordination conjunction have become an emergent structure.

Stage VI (3;7–4;6) In nominal inflection, the only change from Stage V to Stage VI is that the ablative case is now categorized as an emerging morphological form. There are no new productive cases in this stage. In terms of verb inflection, there are two new productive forms: the conditional mode and first person plural, both of which used to be in the category for emerging forms in the two preceding stages. As mentioned before, in colloquial Finnish the passive form is used as a substitute for the suffix of the first person plural, which is

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felt to be very formal and to belong mainly to written texts and official contexts. It is highly likely that most occurrences of the passive in previous stages of development will have been occurrences of the first person plural. However, since the distinction in meaning is usually very difficult to identify, there will have been insufficient clear productions of the first person plural to meet productivity criteria. Only at this age, at Stage VI, do children use the passive form together with the personal pronoun me ‘we’ frequently enough to signify that the inflection is productive according to our criteria.

Stage VII (4;6–) As expected, few changes occur in nominal or verb inflection in Stage VII compared to the previous stage. However, even more infrequent cases such as the translative and the group of remaining cases (essive, instructive and comitative cases) now seem to be either productive, or at least in the emerging state. By the time children are four to five years of age, they have acquired the Finnish case system. The same is true of verb inflection, with the exception of some verb forms which are either less frequently used in the dyadic situation in which the data were collected (such as the second person plural), or which convey a meaning usually expressed by other structures in spoken language (pluperfect tense). Exactly the same can be argued of the basic syntactic structures of Finnish. When children reach Stage VII, they have acquired the syntax of spoken Finnish and can use it productively. However, they can still improve in combining different structures, either clauses or phrases, to create more complex sentences.

Case Study Vili is a 4;9-year-old boy with an SLI. At the time of assessment, he scored at 1.5 standard deviations below the mean in a test of receptive language, the Finnish Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1981) and at 2.0 standard deviations below the mean in a test of expressive language, the Finnish standardization of the Reynell III (Edwards et al., 1997). He met the following exclusionary criteria based on diagnostic records: nonverbal IQ scores above 85 on the WPPSI-R (Wechsler, 1995), passed both hearing screening and an oral-motor examination, and showed no evidence of obvious neurological dysfunction or impaired social interactions. Vili’s morphosyntactic skills were analyzed using the FIN-LARSP (see Appendix 2). The 100 longest utterances (in terms of the number of morphemes) were selected for analysis. In terms of nominal inflection, most of the early acquired case forms (i.e. partitive, genitive, illative, inessive and elative) already appear in Vili’s speech. However, he exhibits problems in

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producing adessives, allatives and clitics, forms which are already used productively by TD 2;6-year-old Finnish children. Furthermore, he has some problems with plural forms. When verb forms are considered, the use of clitics and the passive voice is missing, although these forms are already being productively used by TD 2;6 year olds. Moreover, in Vili’s case the emergence of the perfect tense and second person singular and first person plural forms is delayed compared to TD children. In terms of complex sentences, Vili’s use of subordinate clauses and combinations of two main clauses is productive. In sum, it seems that Vili’s morphosyntactic development of language is fairly delayed relative to his chronological age, corresponding in several areas to that of TD 2;6-year-old children.

Conclusions In this study, data from 111 TD Finnish-speaking children aged between 1;0 and 6;3 were analyzed to enable the adaptation of a Finnish version of LARSP. These analyses revealed that, at the age of 2;1–2;6, children seem to take a huge leap towards the fully developed use of different inflectional forms and versatile syntactic structures. At the age of four to five years, children have already acquired the Finnish case system, verb inflections and syntactic structures. According to the analyses, the FINLARSP provides a fairly comprehensive description of the acquisition of morphosyntax by TD Finnish-speaking children. The fact that our corpus consists of data from free-play sessions only could be considered a disadvantage as well as an advantage. Since no specifically designed probe tasks were used for eliciting particular inflections or structures, it may well be the case that children were unable to use all of the forms and structures they had mastered. On the other hand, free-play sessions are widely used in clinical practice. Thus, the developmental data gathered for this adaptation of FIN-LARSP should be easily comparable to the data sessions to be used in clinical work. It should be noted that all of our analyses are based on the 100 longest utterances made (in terms of the number of morphemes). We were therefore unable to identify the structures of Stage I reliably enough. To conclude, FIN-LARSP provides the developmental data on morphosyntactic structures long awaited by speech and language therapists and researchers working in the field of child language acquisition. Data of this kind were not previously available. Although the usefulness of FIN-LARSP in identifying language impairments has not yet been verified in clinical practice, it will hopefully provide a valid assessment tool for clinical work. Further, it may be used as a guideline for remediation. Future plans for FINLARSP include using the tool with children displaying a variety of language disorders.

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Appendix 1: FIN-LARSP Profile Chart FIN-LARSP Name: Date of birth: Age: Date of recording: Examiner:

Remarks:

UTTERANCES Total number of utterances: MLU:

Analyzed: Unanalyzed: Unintelligible: Ambiguous: Repetitions: Stage I

Minor Major

Stage II (1;7–2;0)

Word forms ‘N’ Partit

Stage III (2;1–2;6)

Gen Illat Allat Adess Pl Clit

Stage IV (2;7–3;0)

Iness Elat

Stage V (3;1–3;6) Stage VI (3;7–4;6) Stage VII (4;6–)

ANALYSES Responses Others Commands Questions Multi word structures ‘V’ 1S 3S Past Imp 3P Pass Clit

W+W S+V S + Cop + N [Attr + S] + V V + [Attr + O] V+O S+V+O V + O + adverbial S + V + adverbial S + V + 2adverbials S + V + O + adverbial V + O + 2adverbials S + V + [Attr + adverbial] INF phrase in object position Adposition Coord conj Subor. conj W + coord conj + W

Perf

Transl Other structure

Cond 1P Other structure

Problems Statements ‘N’ ‘V’ Complex sentences

Subor. Cl

Other structure

CL + CL Other structure

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Appendix 2: Vili’s Profile Chart FIN-LARSP Remarks:

Name: Vili Date of birth: Age: 4;9 Date of recording: 20-SEP-2007 Examiner:

UTTERANCES Analyzed: 163

Total number of utterances: 212 MLU: –

Unanalyzed: 49 Unintelligible: 32 Ambiguous: 15 Repetitions: 2

ANALYSES Stage I

Minor Major

Stage II (1;7–2;0)

Word forms ‘N’ Partit 14

Stage III (2;1–2;6)

Gen 1 Illat 2 Allat – Adess 1 Pl 2 Clit 1

Stage IV (2;7–3;0)

Iness Elat

Stage V (3;1–3;6) Stage VI (3;7–4;6) Stage VII (4;6–)

Responses 59 Commands 2

Others 16 Questions 5

Multiword structures ‘V’ 1S 6 3S 28 Past 5 Imp 2 3P Pass Clit

W + W 70 S+V8 S + Cop + N 3 [Attr + S] + V V + [Attr + O] 3 V+O5 S+V+O7 V + O + adverbial 1 S + V + adverbial 13 S + V + 2adverbials 2 S + V + O + adverbial 3 V + O + 2adverbials S + V + [Attr + adverbial] INF phrase in object position 3 Adposition Coord conj Subor. conj W + coord conj + W

Perf

Transl Other structure

Cond 1 1P Other structure

Problems Statements ‘N’ 10 ‘V’ 6 Complex sentences

Subor. Cl

Other structure

CL + CL Other structure

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Acknowledgements The research reported in this chapter was supported by research grants from the Academy of Finland and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.

References Dasinger, L. (1997) Issues in the acquisition of Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian: A crosslinguistic comparison. In D. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 4 (pp. 1–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dunn, L.M. and Dunn, L. (1981) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service. Edwards, S., Fletcher, P., Garman, M., Hughes, A., Letts, C. and Sinka, I. (1997) Reynell Developmental Language Scales III. Windsor: NFER Nelson. [Translation and standardization of the Finnish version, Psykologien Kustannus Oy, 2001.] Hakulinen, A. and Seppänen, E.-L. (1992) Finnish kato: From verb to particle. Journal of Pragmatics 18, 527–549. Helasvuo, M.-L. (2008) Aspects of the structure of Finnish. In A. Klippi and K. Launonen (eds) Research in Logopedics. Speech and Language Therapy in Finland. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Karlsson, F. (1983) Suomen kielen äänne – ja muotorakenne [The Phonological and Morphological Structure of the Finnish Language]. Porvoo: WSOY. Karlsson, F. (1999) Finnish: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge. Kunnari, S. (2000) Characteristics of early lexical and phonological development in children acquiring Finnish. Doctoral dissertation B34, Acta Universitatis Ouluensis. Kunnari, S., Savinainen-Makkonen, T., Leonard, L., Mäkinen, L., Tolonen, A.-K., Luotonen, M. and Leinonen, E. (2011) Children with specific language impairment in Finnish: The use of tense and agreement inflections. Journal of Child Language 38, 999–1027. Laalo, L. (2003) Early verb development in Finnish: A preliminary approach to miniparadigms. In D. Bittner, W. Dressler and M. Kilani-Schoch (eds) Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquisition (pp. 323–350). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Laalo, L. (2009) Acquisition of case and plural in Finnish. In U. Stephany and M.D. Voeikova (eds) Development of Nominal Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Crosslinguistic Perspective (pp. 87–182). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Leonard, L., Kunnari, S., Savinainen-Makkonen, T., Tolonen, A.-K., Mäkinen, L., Luotonen, M. and Leinonen, E. (2014) Noun case suffix use by children with specific language impairment: An examination of Finnish. Applied Psycholinguistics 35, 833–854. MacWhinney, B. (2000) The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nieminen, L. (2007) A Complex Case – A Morphosyntactic Approach to Complexity in Early Child Language. Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 72. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. See http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN: 978-951-39-2858-2. Nieminen, L. and Torvelainen, P. (2003) Produktiivisen syntaksin indeksi – suomenkielinen versio [Index of productive syntax – the Finnish version]. Puhe ja kieli 23, 119–132. Peters, A. (1997) Language typology, prosody, and the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 5 (pp. 135–197). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Savijärvi, I. (1977) Itämerensuomalaisten kielten kieltoverbi. 1. Suomi [The Negative Verb in Baltic-Finnic Languages. 1 Finnish]. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura.

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Scarborough, H.S. (1990) Index of productive syntax. Applied Psycholinguistics 11, 1–22. Stolt, S. (2009) Language in acquisition. Early lexical development and associations between lexicon and grammar – finding from full-term and very-low-birth-weight Finnish children. PhD thesis, University of Helsinki. Toivainen, J. (1980) Inflectional Affixes Used by Finnish-Speaking Children Aged 1–3 Years. Helsinki: SKS. Toivainen, J. (1997) The acquisition of Finnish. In D. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 4 (pp. 87–182). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Torvelainen, P. (2007) Kaksivuotiaiden lasten fonologisen kehityksen variaatio. Puheen ymmärrettävyyden ja sananmuotojen tavoittelun ja tuottamisen tarkastelu. [Variation in phonological development of two-year-old Finnish children: A study of speech intelligibility and attempting and the production of words]. PhD thesis, Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 73, University of Jyväskylä. See http://urn.fi/ URN:ISBN: 978-951-39-2917-6. Vilkuna, M. (1996) Suomen lauseopin perusteet [The Basics of Finnish Syntax]. Kotimaisten Kielten Tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 90. Helsinki: Edita. Wechsler, D. (1995) Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence – Revised. New York: NCS Pearson. [Translation and standardization of the Finnish version, Psykologien Kustannus Oy, 1995.]

5

HU-LARSP: Assessing Children’s Language Skills in Hungarian Ferenc Bunta, Judit Bóna and Mária Gósy

Introduction Sampling and assessing children’s language requires careful and sometimes lengthy analysis that is a luxury practicing speech-language pathologists can rarely afford. The holy grail of language assessment is a valid and reliable measure which can be administered relatively quickly that would also provide an accurate account of a child’s linguistic (e.g. morphosyntactic) abilities as compared to her or his typically developing peers of the same age. The Language Assessment Remediation and Screening Procedure (henceforth, LARSP) was originally developed as a useful assessment tool for practicing clinicians to evaluate the language of monolingual English-speaking children. One of the goals of the designers of the measure was to have a grammatical analysis procedure grounded in linguistic and language development theory (cf. Crystal, 2012). As Crystal points out, only in the last few decades of the last millennium did discussions about grammar and linguistic structure enter into speech and language assessments conducted by speechlanguage pathologists. Creating linguistically sophisticated clinical speech and language assessments was due, in part, to efforts such as LARSP which incorporated linguistically informed evaluations in those assessments. Raising awareness about the importance of linguistic structures and their acquisition by children has benefited clinicians and child language research alike, and LARSP has contributed to both, significantly. The success of the English version of LARSP has prompted the creation of similar procedures in other languages (see Ball et al., 2012 and other chapters in this volume). The present chapter describes the original attempt at creating a Hungarian child language assessment and screening procedure to add to the international versions of LARSP that we dubbed HU-LARSP (HU for 80

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Hungarian). Our choice of name for the Hungarian version – HU-LARSP – indicates the dual purpose of our assessment and screening tool; namely, the measure is uniquely Hungarian, but it also follows the overall guidelines and the spirit of LARSP. Like the original English version of LARSP, HU-LARSP is designed to be used with conversational (spontaneous or quasi-naturalistic) samples and provides a snapshot of a child’s morphosyntactic skills that can be administered in various settings, yielding clinically useful information. Before presenting the design of HU-LARSP, we provide a quick overview of Hungarian morphosyntax and discuss typical Hungarian child language acquisition, focusing on morphosyntactic development. Preliminary data and an example of applying HU-LARSP will also be presented, followed by directions for future research.

Overview of Hungarian Syntax and Morphology The main focus of our chapter is on presenting a clinically useful language assessment and screening procedure for the Hungarian version of LARSP; consequently, we present only a brief overview of the grammar of the language and direct our reader interested in more detailed and focused accounts of Hungarian morphosyntax to more comprehensive and detailed works on the topic (e.g. Kenesei et al., 2010; É. Kiss, 1981, 1987, 1994). Hungarian is a Uralic language on the Finno-Ugric branch that is agglutinative with rich morphology and a relatively flexible – but not completely free – word order. Hungarian is also a pro-drop language and information about the subject can be expressed in the affixes attached to the verb. Although the basic, unmarked word order of Hungarian has been debated, the current consensus is that the least marked word order in Hungarian is subjectverb-object (Horváth, 1986). However, others argue for a ‘combination of a flat propositional component (V)’ with a richly structured left periphery of A ‘propositions’ (É. Kiss, 1994: 83). This is an issue we acknowledge and deem important but do not aim to solve in the present paper. Word order also depends on pragmatic factors: notably, elements placed before the finite verb are typically emphasized, with the topic being displayed prominently. As É. Kiss (1994) points out, there is direct correspondence between syntactic and semantic predication, and the subject is obligatory only if it has a theta-role. That is to say, if the subject is a personal pronoun in the first or second person, it only appears as a free morpheme if emphasized. Subjects in the third person are also not included unless they bear special significance for the meaning of the utterance or are needed for clarity. (1)

Megettem a levest. PreV-eat-past.1SG the soup-ACC ‘I ate the soup.’

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Én ettem meg a levest. I eat-past.1SG pre-V the soup-ACC ‘It was me who ate the soup.’

Hungarian has rich morphology with extensive affixation and, as a consequence, syntactic and semantic functions of noun phrases are primarily expressed via suffixes and postpositions (Kenesei et al., 2010). Case markings are used extensively with Hungarian nouns, but pronouns, adjectives and numerals also take case and number markings. In addition, suffixation in Hungarian has to adhere to vowel harmony rules of the language (cf. Siptár & Törkenczy, 2000). Number is typically marked using the suffix ‘-k’ ([k]) for the plural and usually adding a vowel that harmonizes with the stem if the word ends with a consonant, leaving the singular the unmarked form (e.g. folt = ‘stain’ versus foltok = stain-PL = ‘stains’ or szép = ‘beautiful’ versus szépek = beautiful-PL). However, if a noun is preceded by a numeral, the plural suffix is omitted: (3)

két folt two stain-SG ‘two stains’

In addition, if an adjective precedes a plural noun, the adjective will not take on the plural suffix because the noun carries plurality, as in: (4)

szép lányok beautiful girl-PL ‘beautiful girls’

Hungarian has a large number of cases, the actual number of which is debated, ranging from 17 to 27 (Kenesei et al., 2010). Noun cases include the nominative, which is also the unmarked case (asztal = ‘table’), accusative (asztalt = table-ACC), superessive (asztalon = table-superessive = ‘on the table’), and other cases. Postpositions can also be used to mark location (as in (5) below) or direction (e.g. (6) below), and Hungarian does not have prepositions. (5) (6)

asztal alatt table under ‘under the table’ asztal felé table toward ‘toward the table’

Suffixes are also used to express possession marked on the object that is possessed (see (7) below).

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a könyv fedele the book cover-possessive.3SG ‘the cover of the book’

Hungarian also has definite and indefinite articles that behave in a similar fashion to their English counterparts with some exceptions. The indefinite article, egy (= ‘a’ or ‘an’), has one form and the definite one has two forms: a and az (= ‘the’), with the former occurring before consonants and the latter before vowels. Verbs in Hungarian also have a considerable number of prefixes and suffixes. Verb inflection can reflect number (singular versus plural), person (first, second and third), tense (present and past), mood (indicative, conditional and imperative-subjunctive) and the definiteness of the object. Because Hungarian is a pro-drop language, person and number are expressed in the suffix. Future events are marked by the auxiliary verb, fog, or via the present with potentially adding words that mark a future event, such as holnap (= ‘tomorrow’). For example: (8)

Holnap találkozunk. tomorrow meet-pres.1PL ‘We’ll meet tomorrow.’

There are also verbal prefixes (also known as pre-verbs or co-verbs) in Hungarian that represent aspect or movement direction, such as in (9) below (in which the pre-verb represents aspect): (9)

Meglátjuk. preV-see-pres.1PL ‘We shall see.’

Morphosyntactic Acquisition by Hungarian-speaking Children First words Typically developing monolingual children who acquire Hungarian produce their first words and holophrases between 0;8 and 1;2 (Gósy, 2005). During the first year, children acquiring Hungarian show no or very sparse affixation, which is a universal characteristic of holophrases, despite the fact that Hungarian is a highly agglutinative language and a considerable amount of meaningful information is carried by prefixes and suffixes (Gósy, 1998).

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Ages 1;0–2;0 The early lexical inventories of children acquiring Hungarian are predominantly nouns (cf. Meggyes, 1971) with items from the child’s immediate surroundings dominating the vocabulary (such as names of family members, household items, pets, etc.; Gósy, 1998). Verbs are the second most commonly found items in the lexicons of young typically developing children acquiring Hungarian as their native language (Lengyel, 1981; Meggyes, 1971). Hungarianspeaking two year olds’ verbs mostly refer to actions; however, existential verbs also occur but their meaning is fused with other elements such as adverbs and pronouns (Meggyes, 1971). Adverbs are the third most commonly used types of words in Hungarian-speaking children’s inventories, and most of them refer to places and temporal aspects. Frequently, early adverbs are treated as one unit with other elements (Meggyes, 1971); for example: (10) Hoccsinál? (as a single unit; correct full expression in the next line) Hogy csinál? how do – pres.3SG ‘How does it do?’ In the second year of life, typically developing children acquiring Hungarian as their native language begin to show increased use of suffixation, and their vocabulary also undergoes significant expansion, especially in the latter half of the second year (Gósy, 1998; Lengyel, 1981; Meggyes, 1971). The use of the definite article is not consistent or even typical before 1;8, but its frequency rapidly increases just before two years of age, resulting in the overuse of definite articles. Nonetheless, examples of incorrect use of definite articles (such as omitted or added ones) can be found even at three years of age (Gósy, 1984). In the second half of year two, coordinating conjunctions (such as és = ‘and’) are beginning to be used by children that are later followed by the use of subordinating conjunctions (such as ha = ‘if ’) and correlative conjunctions. Select pronouns, such as demonstrative pronouns (e.g. ez = ‘this’) and interrogative pronouns (e.g. mi = ‘what’), also occur before two years of age (around 1;10) in the productions of children acquiring Hungarian (cf. Gósy, 2005; Lengyel, 1981; Meggyes, 1971). Also in year two, children acquiring Hungarian use some adjectives, but their meanings are often fused with other elements (such as nouns). Diminutives also occur in the productions of Hungarian-speaking children before two years of age, as well as the full infinitive with the appropriate suffix. Around 1;10, negation is initially indicated by nem (= ‘no’) added to the end of an utterance (Gósy, 2005; Lengyel, 1981; Meggyes, 1971). Inflected forms begin to show signs of systematic use of affixation in the second half of the second year of life in children acquiring Hungarian as their native language (Meggyes, 1971). In fact, affixation undergoes a process of such rapid development that the order in which affixes are acquired cannot

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be established with certainty. Another factor that complicates the identification of a clearly defined order of acquisition of Hungarian affixes is the considerable amount of individual variation that characterizes it (Gósy, 2005). Nonetheless, it can be stated that the suffix for the accusative case, the possessive suffix, and the suffix -ba (= ‘in’) are among the early acquired affixes (cf. Lengyel, 1981). Moreover, children acquiring Hungarian adhere very closely to rules of vowel harmony that impact suffixes. Among the signs of acquisition are overgeneralized forms occurring in the initial two years of life that indicate pattern productivity (Gósy, 2005).

Ages 2;0–3;0 Possessive pronouns begin to be produced more consistently after two years of age, which is preceded by the use of marking possession on the noun at earlier ages (Gósy, 1984; Meggyes, 1971). Personal pronouns, especially the first person singular, only begin to be used more commonly after two years of age, keeping in mind that Hungarian is a pro-drop language, so the use of personal pronouns is not always mandatory, unlike in English. Nevertheless, by three years of age, children speaking Hungarian know and use all personal pronouns. Reflexive pronouns, however, are uncommon in the productions of Hungarian two-year-old children (Gósy, 1984). Although three-year-old Hungarian-speaking children know a few numbers and may even be able to count, there is no evidence that they have a reliable understanding of quantity other than one, two and maybe three. However, concepts of quantity such as sok (= ‘many’ or ‘a lot’) and kevés (= ‘a little’) do appear in three-year-olds’ lexicons (Gósy, 1984). The plural occurs relatively early in the speech productions of children acquiring Hungarian, and by three years of age they are able to use the plural consistently with occasional reduplication errors (such as galambokok = pigeonPL-PL = ‘pigeonsons’ where the plural is reduplicated erroneously). Between two and three years of age, Hungarian-speaking children also begin to produce more complex sentences, the productions of which move from relatively context-dependent expressions to language that is less reliant on the particular situation the child is experiencing. In the third year, adjectives also become more commonly used, and while the base forms appear earlier, the comparative and superlative forms only begin to appear in year three (Gósy, 2005; Lengyel, 1981). At first, adjectives describing observable attributes (such as colors, patterns, textures, temperature, etc.) predominate, but more abstract ones also occur (such as bátor = ‘brave’). The participle does not typically appear in three-year-old Hungarian-speaking children’s language (Gósy, 1984).

Ages 3;0–4;0 By three years of age, typically developing children acquiring Hungarian as their native language have acquired the past tense and are able to use it

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accurately in a consistent fashion with relatively few errors (Gósy, 1984; Lengyel, 1981). However, three-year-old Hungarian children do not express the future in an adult-like fashion and do not use the future auxiliary reliably; instead, they use alternative compensatory strategies to express the future (Gósy, 1984). Hungarian uses postpositions and suffixes instead of prepositions to indicate temporal, spatial or other relationships, and these elements are not used consistently in an adult-like fashion until after three years of age (Gósy, 1984). Conjugated verb forms are commonly occurring in the speech of children over three years of age, but the patterns are not necessarily adultlike at this age (Gósy, 1984). In addition, while affixation begins in earnest in the second year of life, even three year olds commit errors in the productions of affixes, especially with items that have irregular patterns (Pléh, 2003). Hungarian also uses co-verbs (or pre-verbs as illustrated in (9), previously) that are typically attached to the verb as prefixes (except under certain conditions when they are moved after the verb), and children speaking Hungarian produce them relatively early (around two years of age). However, three year olds still commit errors involving co-verbs (or pre-verbs) and rules of movement (Gósy, 1984). Considering that Hungarian is an agglutinative language with rich morphology, it is not surprising that the development of affixation is a lengthy process in children acquiring Hungarian as their mother tongue. Three-year-old Hungarian-speaking children generally understand all verb modalities but use the indicative with declarative sentences most frequently, and the production of the conditional is less common relative to other moods (such as the indicative or imperative). The reason for the relative infrequency of the conditional is that children at this age may not fully comprehend its exact nature (Gósy, 1984). By four years of age, Hungarian-speaking children would have acquired most of the morphosyntax of their native language, but certain specific aspects of the language are still being acquired. In Hungary, public school begins with the first grade for children who have already turned six years of age. In the past, parents or guardians were allowed to wait for their child or ward to turn seven years of age before sending her or him to school – a policy that has recently changed to require the beginning of formal education before seven. Kindergarten has been traditionally optional, but changes to the educational system have been introduced recently and this systematic reorganization is ongoing at the time of writing. Current educational policy is to make kindergarten and preschool mandatory from three years of age as of 2015. Finally, as has been observed in children acquiring other languages, typically developing children whose native language is Hungarian are affected by factors related both to nature and nurture. Réger (1990) found that maternal education significantly correlated with the child’s mean length of utterance (MLU) and vocabulary. Thus, parental education and the child’s environment play an important role in how Hungarian first language development proceeds in a child, as has been found elsewhere.

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HU-LARSP In keeping with the spirit of existing versions of LARSP, the Hungarian adaptation, HU-LARSP, is designed to be a simple tool that can be easily applied to spontaneous language samples and interpreted by clinicians as well as researchers whose work involves the analysis of children’s language patterns. Among the challenges of designing HU-LARSP are capturing the features that best differentiate typical from atypical morphosyntactic development in Hungarian-speaking children and, at the same time, keeping the measure consistent with other versions of LARSP. Thus, HU-LARSP is designed to accommodate Hungarian morphology and syntax and Hungarian morphosyntactic acquisition, as well as to stay within the general principles of LARSP.

General principles of LARSP As we previously indicated, the impetus for creating LARSP was the need to have linguistically and grammatically informed clinical evaluations of young children’s language skills (Crystal, 2012). The three dimensions of LARSP that promote a linguistically sophisticated view and evaluation of a client’s language and her or his potential language disorder are: (a) obtaining a comprehensive description of the client’s utterances; (b) assigning those utterances to a developmental level; and (c) analyzing the interaction between the client and her or his clinician. A secondary aim of LARSP is to provide an element of conscious control for a clinical or teaching situation (Crystal, 2012). In order to obtain a representative sample that could be used to evaluate a child’s language skills, Crystal et al. (1976) recommend using at least 50 utterances for analysis that may be produced spontaneously by the child during play. Parisse et al. (2012) recommend a 30-minute play session that could involve naturalistic interactions between the child and the clinician as well as include more focused discussions of experiences outside the child’s immediate surroundings to prompt quasi-naturalistic child productions. Quasi-naturalistic prompted conversations are acceptable for language analyses, because obtaining 50 truly spontaneous child utterances may be challenging, especially in the case of younger children or children who have communication disorders.

Description and principles of HU-LARSP Similarities and differences between LARSP and HU-LARSP The overall layout of HU-LARSP (see Appendices 1 and 2) follows the original LARSP design with basic information about the session at the top of the chart. Below the basic information lies Section A, which includes items that are either ‘unanalyzed’ or ‘problematic’ to save the clinician time by not having to interpret responses that may not yield useful grammatical information. The following three sections (B, C and D) include information about the

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interaction that occurs between the child and the clinician. Sections B and C emphasize the interaction taking place between the interlocutors (clinician and child), prompted by the realization that children’s responses depend on the clinician’s own prompts and turns to a large extent. We also use current terminology in the headings, such as ‘atypical’ instead of ‘deviant’ and ‘abnormal’ and ‘typical’ instead of ‘normal’ in Sections A and B. Section D reflects the clinician’s responses to the child’s productions. The largest portion of the LARSP chart is that which describes the stages of grammatical acquisition and presents age-appropriate productions for the purposes of comparing the client’s productions to her or his peers with typically developing language. The last part of the chart provides brief summative information. While commonalities between the Hungarian and other versions of LARSP exist (such as the first stage being the single-word one), there are also significant differences. One difference between the English version and HU-LARSP is that the latter has five stages instead of seven as does the former. In this respect, HU-LARSP is similar to the German version (Clahsen & Hansen, 2012), which lists five ‘Phases’ (analogous to ‘stages’ in other versions of LARSP) that follow the acquisition of the language. Clahsen and Hansen (2012) point out that the core elements of grammar are acquired by monolingual German-speaking children by 3;5, which is similar to grammatical acquisition in Hungarian-speaking children in that both Germanand Hungarian-speaking children have largely adult-like linguistic structures relatively early. Another aspect of HU-LARSP that differs from the English version is that instead of focusing primarily on adding independent elements as does the English version (such as going from one to two to three to four words), the Hungarian chart focuses on items that are more salient markers of linguistic progress in children acquiring Hungarian (such as affixes and their productivity). Due to the nature of English grammar, the original version of LARSP focuses on phrase- and clause-level combinations, because English is an isolating language and its acquisition can be captured by expanding syntactic structures. However, unlike English, Hungarian is an agglutinative language in which affixes carry considerably more meaning and structural information than in an isolating language. Therefore, HU-LARSP is less dependent on measuring language development by counting the increasing number of free-standing syntactic elements as does the original version of LARSP; instead, HU-LARSP relies more on morphosyntactic markers that display more sensitivity to how Hungarian-speaking children acquire their syntax and morphology. The five stages of HU-LARSP are outlined below.

Five stages of HU-LARSP The first stage (Stage I) of HU-LARSP is similar in many respects to other versions of LARSP, including the English one. It is basically the

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single-word stage where affixation, if present, is very sparse. At this age, children’s vocabularies include mostly nouns and verbs, and other parts of speech tend to occur only as imitations of adult productions. Children may also have terms that are used considerably more broadly than the intended adult use (e.g. labda = ‘ball’ may mean the ball rolled away or that the child wants the ball, etc.). In addition, negation also appears in the form of nem (= ‘no’) as a free-standing phrase but not embedded in phrases or sentences (Gósy, 2005). Stage II is characterized by vocabulary expansion as well as more systematic use of linguistic functions. Affixation first appears, mainly in the form of adding suffixes to select nouns and verbs. Verb conjugation occurs in the present tense, and children prefer to use declarative sentences as well as imperatives. At this early age, children acquiring Hungarian inflect their verbs using both indefinite conjugation (as in (11) below in which the suffix indicates no definite object) and definite conjugation (as in (12) below, where the suffix indicates a definite object). (11) Olvasok. read-pres.1SG ‘I am reading’. (12) Olvasom. read-pres.1SG.DO ‘I am reading it.’ Accusative case markings are used systematically (e.g. labdát = ballACC = ‘ball’) and possession is marked by both the genitive marker -é (as in anyáé = mom-possessive = ‘mom’s’) and via possessive suffixation (as in labdám = ball-possessive.1SG = ‘my ball’). Positional suffixes (such as -ban or -ba) also surface (e.g. házban = house-in = ‘in the house’). The expansion of parts of speech is prevalent, illustrated by the appearance of personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns. In Stage III, children acquiring Hungarian are able to use the past tense but the verb conjugation paradigm still includes some inaccurate productions. Negation becomes more widespread, fairly accurate and more adultlike relative to earlier stages; however, errors still occur, especially regarding word order as in: (13) Nem csúnya vagyok. (should be ‘Nem vagyok csúnya.’) not ugly be-pres.1SG ‘I am not ugly.’ Stage III is also characterized by movement away from telegraphic speech and toward more adult-like structures. Complex sentences appear using

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primarily coordinating conjunctions (i.e. és = ‘and’) to connect clauses. Noun inflection also advances by introducing the plural as well as by having adverb-forming suffixes added to nouns. Another characteristic of this stage is the appearance of determiners, interrogative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, adjectives, participles and conjunctions. There is an increase in the use of affixes, including more frequent and consistent use of person and number suffixes. Other affixes, such as the possessive in first person singular, the plural marker, -k, diminutive markers and adverb-forming suffixes appear with increasing frequency and consistency. At this stage, Hungarian-speaking children have mastered the consonant and vowel harmony rules of the language and, as a result, use the definite article correctly (a = ‘the’ used before words beginning with a consonant and az = ‘the’ used before words beginning with a vowel). The language of Hungarian children in Stage IV displays verb conjugation patterns in a generally accurate fashion by each number and person. Detaching co-verbs (or pre-verbs) also begin to appear. This stage also witnesses the proliferation of adult-like question formation and subordinate clauses. Parts of speech established in Stage IV include: adverbs, auxiliary verbs, postpositions and modals, as well as reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. At this stage, Hungarian-speaking children’s utterances are still dominated by the use of nouns, but children’s receptive and productive lexicons display a marked increase in verbs and other parts of speech that were not characteristic of earlier stages. Relative to the previous stage, there is also an increase of affixes and a more conscious use of pre-verbs as demonstrated by overgeneralized forms such as: (14) Beütköztünk. (should be ‘Összeütköztünk.’) pre-V-hit-pres.1PL ‘We ran into each other.’ Verb paradigms continue to undergo development in this stage, but the more atypical patterns still pose challenges to Hungarian-speaking children in Stage IV. Suffixation of pronouns also results in some erroneous productions that are morphological in nature rather than phonetic or phonological (e.g. tégeteket instead of the correct titeket = you-ACC = ‘you’). It is in Stage IV that Hungarian-speaking children begin to combine sentences initially signaled by the use of conjunctions preceding a fragment of a complex sentence as in: (15) Mert elvetted. because pre-V-take-past.2SG ‘Because you took it.’ Complex sentences with subordinate clauses appear shortly after sentence fragments that begin with conjunctions as in the example above. There are

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even instances of complex sentences with more than two clauses, but those are still the exception in Stage IV rather than the rule. Other aspects that sill pose challenges for Hungarian-speaking children at this stage include the accurate expression of tense, as illustrated in the mismatched statement below (16) followed by the correct production (17): (16) Láttuk holnap este. see-past.1PL tomorrow night ‘We saw [sic] it tomorrow night.’ (17) Látjuk holnap este. see-pres.1PL tomorrow night ‘We’ll see it tomorrow night.’ In Stage V, children who acquire Hungarian as their native language can, for the most part, appropriately conjugate verbs in conditional mood and, overall, verb paradigms are well established. Highly complex sentences with embedded clauses are used, and relative pronouns also appear in children’s spontaneous speech samples. At this stage, children initiate and maintain conversations with others, including adult interlocutors who are not family members or close acquaintances. Errors due to overgeneralization diminish and can only be attested in certain words – for example, hós [sic] instead of the correct form, havas = ‘snowy’. There are also instances of mismatches in tense when describing multiple events, as in: (18) Ameddig aludtam meg fog száradni? until sleep-past.1SG pre-V will-3.SG dry-INF ‘Will it dry while I am sleeping?’ which should be correctly: (19) Ameddig aludni fogok, meg fog száradni. until sleep-INF will-1.SG pre-V will-3.SG dry-INF ‘Will it dry while I am sleeping?’ In a study involving 30 Hungarian-speaking children between the ages of 3;0 and 3;3, Gósy (1984) found that 40.8% of the words produced were nouns and 39.5% were verbs, while other parts of speech occurred less than 5% of the time each. Adjectives represented 4.4% of the words produced, 4% were infinitives, pronouns occurred 3.6% of the time and adverbs constituted 3.3% of spoken words. No other parts of speech analyzed exceeded a frequency of 1%.

Resources used for developing HU-LARSP During the development of HU-LARSP, we took into consideration existing published works on Hungarian language acquisition by monolingual

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children with typically developing speech and language. In addition, we based our five stages and the MLU on a Hungarian child language database: GABI (Gyermeknyelvi beszédAdatBázis és Információtár = Child Language and Speech Database and Information Repository; Bóna et al., 2014). The GABI database was developed and continues to be expanded under the leadership of the second author of this manuscript, using a protocol approved by a Hungarian review board that oversees the ethical treatment of human subjects in research. GABI contains recordings of monolingual Hungarian children as well as other information, such as parent reports of children’s speech and language skills. The audio recordings that exist in the GABI database include spontaneous and quasi-naturalistic conversational samples from children of various ages, from 0;10 to 5;2, that were used in the present project. Parent reports typically include maternal input, and for the purposes of the present paper, we only relied on maternal reports provided by linguistically trained individuals who took notes of the language skills and productions of their children over several months. Data in the parent reports were based on parent–child interactions in everyday situations, such as playing in the park, meal-time conversations and so on. The parent reports also allowed following some of the children longitudinally from a few months to, in some cases, more than two years. For HU-LARSP, samples from 30 children between the ages of 0;10 and 5;2 were analyzed. Six children (four boys and two girls) provided longitudinal samples via parental reports from 0;10 to 3;0 with a sampling frequency of every two to three months from three children and monthly from another three children. Twenty-four of the 30 children were sampled only once using audio-recordings, providing cross-sectional data ranging from 2;0 to 5;2 (see Table 5.1 for the distribution of the cross-sectional participants). As noted before, data for HU-LARSP included both audio-recorded samples and parent reports of their children’s language. We did not differentiate between data obtained from audio-recorded samples and parental reports or diary entries for the purposes of HU-LARSP, because the database was not originally designed with our measure in mind. Moreover, HU-LARSP incorporates the findings of the existing Hungarian child language acquisition literature, so a diversity of methods is already represented in the measure. In fact, we argue that the variety of sources and methods used for HU-LARSP Table 5.1 Participants of the cross-sectional sample Age

Male

Female

Total per age

2;0–2;6 2;7–3;0 3;1–4;0 4;0< Total

1 1 1 2 5

6 4 4 5 19

7 5 5 7 24

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provides a wider base for the chart and will have more general appeal to clinicians administering it because of the variety of sources. Linguistic markers for HU-LARSP included four basic elements of Hungarian child language that are useful for assessing typical and disordered language development. The four basic features are listed below.

Features used for assessing Hungarian-speaking children’s language via HU-LARSP (1) (2) (3) (4)

The emergence of selected parts of speech (such as nouns, verbs, etc.); Inflection (of nouns and verbs); Morphosyntactic structures; and Mean length of utterance in morphemes (henceforth MLU-m)

The criterion for the appearance of an item or structure at a given stage was that over 70% of Hungarian children use it consciously and spontaneously based on the existing literature and/or the data available in the GABI database. Imitations were not considered reliable exemplars of a given structure, because they do not provide evidence for acquired linguistic knowledge, only the ability to repeat. As for the final marker, MLU-m, it is used as a quick and transparent, albeit not very precise, measure of language proficiency that has been widely used in the international child language literature. Studies either use MLU-m or MLU in words (MLU-w), depending on the language and other factors. For Hungarian, MLU-m is more informative than MLU-w, because the language has rich morphology and mastery of the affixes is critical for communicating well in Hungarian. We do acknowledge that, to date, no validation studies exist that would prove unequivocally the superiority of MLU-m over MLU-w in Hungarian, but until such time we operate under the assumption that MLU-m is more informative for Hungarian child language development than MLU-w, considering the nature of the language.

Administering HU-LARSP: An Example The administration of HU-LARSP loosely follows the guidelines set forth by the authors of the original LARSP (Crystal et al., 1976). As the original version of LARSP, HU-LARSP is designed to be used with spontaneous samples, but quasi-naturalistic ones can also be used (see previous section). The seven steps of administering LARSP are also followed in HU-LARSP. These steps were previously listed in (1) under the ‘General Principles of LARSP’ section and are based on Crystal et al. (1976). To illustrate the application of HU-LARSP, we analyzed the language patterns of a monolingual Hungarian-speaking six year old (exactly 6;0) boy with specific language impairment (SLI) who had been receiving intensive

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speech and language intervention. The child displayed disorders in both receptive and expressive language. The socioeconomic status of the child was middle class relative to other citizens of Hungary. The family history of the child with respect to speech, language or hearing disorders was unremarkable with no other family members displaying a communication disorder. An audio-recording of the child was obtained in a quiet room at a speech and language clinic where the child had been receiving speech and language services. The sample was elicited via interactive play between the child and his father, yielding 85 utterances of which 64 were interpretable and, therefore, used for the analysis below. Also present was an experimenter who was a certified Hungarian speech-language pathologist. These data are also part of the GABI database (Bóna et al., 2014). The child’s language sample indicated that his MLU-m was 2.7, which is indicative of late Stage II for children with typically developing speech and language. Sixteen of his interpretable utterances were monomorphemic. These results suggest that the language skills of our participant – as measured by MLU-m – were commensurate with those of monolingual Hungarian-speaking children between the ages of 1;8 and 2;0 who have typical communication skills. Furthermore, the child’s speech displayed phonological processes that are characteristic of the speech of younger children with typical speech and language skills (e.g. gliding, obstruent devoicing, etc.). The child’s most complex utterance that also contained three phonological errors (obstruent devoicing twice, and spirantization once) was: (20) Ezeket hova kell tenni, ezeket a kicsiket? these-ACC where need put-INF, these-ACC the little-PL.ACC ‘Where should we put these, these little ones?’ The child also produced structures that are characteristic of Stage II in that his utterances included declarative sentences and imperatives and he could conjugate verbs adequately. Nouns were also present in their accusative forms, but possessives were not attested due to the nature of the sample, so we did not have an opportunity to observe the use of possessives in obligatory contexts. Both personal and demonstrative pronouns were present in the child’s sample, as one would expect in Stage II. Structures characteristic of Stage III also occurred in the six-year-old child’s sample. Past tense forms occurred four times throughout the entire sample that were used appropriately (in an adult target-like fashion) and negative constructions were also present and used correctly. Determiners, the infinitive and certain question words were also present and were used adequately by the child. However, there was no evidence of conjunctions (including coordinating ones). Regarding indicators of Stage IV, the child produced only two tokens of co-verbs (or pre-verbs) and of those, one was used incorrectly. In the entire

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sample, there was no evidence of the use of modals, postpositions and reflexive or reciprocal pronouns. In addition, the only adverb found in the sample was most (= ‘now’), and there was only one instance of a complex sentence with a subordinate clause: (21) Azt hitted, azt hiszed, hogy ezek? that-ACC believe-past.2ndSG, that-ACC believe-pres.2ndSG, that these ‘You thought, you think that they are these?’ Structures that characterize Stage V, such as relative pronouns, the conditional, and highly complex sentences were absent from the participant’s speech sample, providing further evidence for the child not possessing ageappropriate speech and language skills.

Future Directions In this chapter, we present the Hungarian adaptation of the Language Assessment Remediation and Screening Procedure, HU-LARSP, based on the model provided by Crystal et al. (1976) and also relying on the guidelines described by Crystal (2012). While we took precautions during the development of our measure to ensure the accuracy and usefulness of this tool, our HU-LARSP screener is not without its limitations. Basing our measure on the existing literature and data presently available from GABI does ensure that HU-LARSP is grounded in current knowledge in the field, but it does not provide an adequate substitution for pre-planned studies and large-scale normative data. Future research should include planned studies on a larger scale to include systematic and more robust analyses of Hungarian-speaking children’s language skills. To this end, a team of researchers under the leadership of the second author is currently working on the expansion of the GABI Hungarian child speech and language database that will include an increasing number of participants from both children with typically developing speech and language and from children with various communication disorders. Furthermore, neither the Hungarian child language literature nor our present work includes measures of percentages of occurrence in obligatory contexts of specific linguistic structures, so future studies should incorporate not only measures of occurrences but also expected levels of accuracy with linguistic structures at different ages. Having normative data will eventually have to include both occurrence and accuracy measurements to make more precise normative comparisons possible. As noted above, the expansion and further development of the GABI Hungarian child speech and language database will contribute to moving all of the above-noted issues forward. HU-LARSP is a dynamic document that will have to evolve with its use and in response to new results that are bound to be published about

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Hungarian child language development. Nonetheless, this original attempt at adapting LARSP to Hungarian is a step forward that we hope will generate more research and discussion about the acquisition of Hungarian as a first language in both children with typical speech and language development and their peers with communication disorders.

Appendix 1: HU-LARSP Profile Chart in Hungarian Név: ______________ Életkor: ____ Adatgyűjtés napja: ________ Típusa:

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Appendix 2: HU-LARSP Profile Chart in English Name: ____________________ Age: ____ Sample Date: _________ Type:

Acknowledgements We are grateful for cooperation from the participants and their parents. We also appreciate the assistance of Zsuzsa Kovács in obtaining the audio sample from a Hungarian child with SLI, and we wish to thank Anita Auszmann for her help with data entry and collection.

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References Ball, M., Crystal, D. and Fletcher, P. (eds) (2012) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bóna, J., Imre, A., Markó, A., Váradi, V. and Gósy, M. (2014) GABI – Gyermeknyelvi Beszédadatbázis és Információtár. Beszédkutatás 2014, 246–252. Clahsen, H. and Hansen, D. (2012) Profiling linguistic disability in German-speaking children. In M. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 77–91). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D. (2012) On the origin of LARSPecies. In M. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 4–11). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (1976) The Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability: A Procedure for Assessment and Remediation. London: Edward Arnold. É. Kiss, K. (1981) Structural relations in Hungarian, a ‘free’ word order language. Linguistic Inquiry 12 (2), 185–213. É. Kiss, K. (1987) Configurationality in Hungarian. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Dordrecht: Reidel. É. Kiss, K. (1994) Sentence structure and word order. In F. Kiefer and K.É. Kiss (eds) The Syntactic Structure of Hungarian (pp. 1–90). Syntax and Semantics 27. San Diego: Academic Press. Gósy, M. (1984) Hangtani és szótani vizsgálatok hároméves gyerekek nyelvében [Phonological and morphological analyses of three-year-old children’s language]. Nyelvtudományi Értekezések 119. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Gósy, M. (1998) A szavak hangalakjának változása a gyermeknyelvben [Morphophonemic changes in child language acquisition]. Beszédkutatás ‘97, 1–39. Gósy, M. (2005) Pszicholingvisztika [Psycholinguistics]. Budapest: Osiris. Horváth, J. (1986) Focus in the Theory of Grammar and the Syntax of Hungarian. Dordrecht: Foris. Kenesei, I., Vago, R. and Fenyvesi, A. (2010) Hungarian. New York: Routledge. Lengyel, Zs. (1981) A gyermeknyelv [Child Language]. Budapest: Gondolat. Meggyes, K. (1971) Egy kétéves gyermek nyelvi rendszere [The Linguistic System of a Two-yearold Child]. Nyelvtudományi Értekezések 73. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Parisse, C., Maillart, C. and Tommerdahl, J. (2012) F-LARSP: A computerized tool for measuring morphosyntactic abilities in French. In M. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 230–244). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pléh, Cs. (2003) Pszicholingvisztika [Psycholinguistics]. In F. Kiefer and P. Siptár (eds) A magyar nyelv kézikönyve [The Handbook of Hungarian] (pp. 425–450). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Réger, Z. (1990) Utak a nyelvhez [Approaches to Language]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Siptár, P. and Törkenczy, M. (2000) The Phonology of Hungarian: The Phonology of the World’s Languages. New York: Oxford University Press.

6

Grammatical Profile of Hindi: H-LARSP Bbrajesh Priyadarshi, Ramesh Kaipa and Shyamala Chengappa

Grammatical Sketch of Hindi Hindi belongs to the Indo-Aryan group of languages, and is a major spoken language for nearly 40% of the population in India (Ministry for Minority Affairs, 2007).

Nouns There are two types of nouns in Hindi that are categorized based on adjectival and verbal agreement: (1) masculine gender, and (2) feminine gender. Even though there are some exceptions, a general rule of thumb is that masculine gender words end in /a/ (e.g. /lər̥ ka/ ‘boy’), and feminine gender words end in /i/ (e.g. /lər̥ ki/ ‘girl’). Nouns in Hindi can be inflected for singular and plural forms (e.g. singular: /lər̥ ka/, /lər̥ ki/, /kIt̪ ab/ ‘book’, and plural: /lər̥ ke/ ‘boys’, /lər̥ kIja˜/ ‘girls’, /kIt̪ abe˜/ ‘books’). The nouns can also be inflected for two forms: direct (e.g. /lər̥ ka/, /lər̥ ki/, /kIt̪ ab/) and oblique forms (when changed to plural forms; e.g. /lər̥ ko˜/ ‘boys’, /lər̥ kIjo˜/ ‘girls’, /kIt̪ abo˜/ ‘books’). Unlike the prepositions in English, Hindi makes use of postpositions. In Hindi, if a plural noun is used with a postposition it is in oblique form; in all the other cases it is in direct form. For example, the noun /kIt̪ ab/ ‘book’ is the direct form, but if the word is used in a plural context it will change to /kIt̪ abe˜/ ‘books’. However, if it is used with the postposition ‘on’ it changes to the oblique form /kIt̪ abo˜ par/ ‘on the books’ and not /kIt̪ abe˜ par/ ‘on the books’. The nouns are further divided into marked (e.g. /lər̥ ka/, /lər̥ki/) and unmarked forms (generally ending in /u/ or /i:/; e.g. /t∫a:ku/ ‘knife’, /a:d̪ əmi:/ ‘person’).

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Adjectives Adjectives can be categorized into marked (e.g. /bər̥ a/ ‘big’, /tʃota/ ‘small’) and unmarked (e.g. /sapʰ/ ‘clean’, /bʰa:ri/ ‘heavy’). Marked adjectives usually end in /a/, except in the case of the direct singular form, where they are inflected by changing the ending to /e/. The marked adjectives have a feminine counterpart ending in /i/ (e.g. /bIlli/ ‘cat’). Unmarked adjectives do not end with /a/, or change to agree with the noun they modify.

Gender Hindi has evident gender distinctions. However, the gender system is partly notional (based on gender) and partly conventional (based on usage). Theoretically, there is no neuter gender in Hindi, but there are certain words which function as common gender. Adding certain suffixes with or without morphophonemic changes can derive female nouns.

Verbs Hindi verbs are inflected with respect to: gender of the subject (masculine, feminine; e.g. /so rəha hε/ ‘he is sleeping’, /so rəhi hε/ ‘she is sleeping’), number of the subject (singular, plural; e.g. /ʤa rəha hε/ ‘he is going’, /ʤa rəhe hε˜/ ‘they are going’), and tense (present, past, future; e.g. /kh el rəha hε/ ‘he is playing’, /kh el rəha t̪ ʰa/ ‘he was playing’, /kʰelega/ ‘he will play’).

Number As mentioned before, there are two numbers in Hindi: singular and plural.

Case There are eight case markers in Hindi: (1) nominative, (2) objective, (3) dative, (4) ablative, (5) possessive, (6) locative, (7) vocative and (8) instrumental.

Postpositions Unlike English, which is characterized by prepositions, Hindi is characterized by postpositions. For example, the phrase /kIt̪ ab tebəl ke upər hε/ would literally translate as ‘Book table on is’ in English.

Syntax Word (constituent) order in Hindi is different from English. In Hindi, the verbs are placed at the end of sentences, and postpositions are used instead of prepositions. English follows a subject-verb-object order, whereas Hindi follows a subject-object-verb order (e.g. /mε˜ hı˜d̪ i sIkʰt̪ ɑ hu˜/ ‘I Hindi learn am’).

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Design and Description of the H-LARSP Chart The use of a profiling tool allows clinicians and researchers to describe the features of normal and abnormal language development in a comprehensive and detailed manner. The Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure (LARSP) is a profile chart that outlines the different grammatical characteristics occurring during typical language development. A detailed analysis of developing language through the use of LARSP allows the clinician to determine the grammatical structures that are present and missing in the child’s language (Donaldson, 1995). LARSP includes seven stages of syntactic development (Muller et al., 1981). Adapted versions of LARSP have been successfully implemented in the language assessment of typically developing as well as children with language disorders (CLDs) across various languages like Bengali, Irish, Welsh, French, Persian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew and Turkish (Ball et al., 2012). The adaptation of the LARSP in Hindi (H-LARSP) would provide an opportunity for clinicians and researchers to profile the morphosyntactic skills of Hindi-speaking children in a systematic and comprehensive manner. Thus, the aim of this project was to adapt LARSP in Hindi (H-LARSP) to profile the grammatical development of typically developing children as well as children with language impairment.

Participants A total of 175 typically developing children (97 boys and 78 girls) aged over nine months served as participants. Based on chronological age, the participants were divided into seven age groups, to align with the age groups of the English LARSP. Each group included boys as well as girls, for a total of 25 participants. The demographic details of the participants are presented in Table 6.1. For the purpose of analysis, two types of speech samples were collected from each participant. Each participant took part in a conversation for approximately 15 minutes with familiar adults/peers in an unstructured, Table 6.1 Demographic details of the typically developing participants LARSP stage

Age range

Number of participants

M/F distribution

I II III IV V VI VII

0;9–1;6 years 1;6–2;0 years 2;0–2;6 years 2;6–3;0 years 3;0–3;6 years 3;6–4;6 years Over 4;6 years

25 25 25 25 25 25 25

14/11 16/9 14/11 13/12 11/14 16/9 16/9

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free-play setting at his/her home or a setting that was familiar to the participant. If the interaction sample was of less than 15 minutes duration, pictures, books and sensory social routines were used to elicit the samples and/ or to continue the interaction. Prompted dialogues (e.g. what are you doing?, where is your mummy?, etc.) were also provided to some of the participants who stayed fairly quiet during the interaction. After dyadic interaction, dialogue samples that lasted for 15 minutes (narration, explanation) on different topics based on the participant’s knowledge, experience and interest were collected in an unstructured setting at home or in a setting that was familiar to the participant. From the collected samples, a minimum of 50 sentences (both the tasks taken together) was considered for analysis, as recommended by Lee and Canter (1971). All the samples were audio-recorded using a digital voice recorder (Olympus WS-550M) in a quiet and distraction-free environment. The recorder was kept out of the participant’s vision to make him/her unaware regarding the recording of the speech sample. The total time for data collection for each participant was 35–40 minutes. Based on the participants’ utterances, we report the grammatical structures that were observed in at least 50% of the participants (referred to as the 50% criterion) in each age range that corresponded to LARSP stages.

Stage I (0;9–1;6 years) All the participants in Stage I demonstrated significant changes with regard to language acquisition, specifically in acquiring new words. The average vocabulary of the participants in this stage ranged from one through 15 words. Among the one-word utterances, command ‘V’, question ‘Q’ and statement ‘N’ were found in all the children’s utterances. However, statement ‘V’ was seen in only 84% of the children. Moreover the difference between statement ‘N’ and ‘V’ was not significant (i.e. the children used as many nouns as verbs). This is distinct from the findings in English, where typically developing children have an early noun advantage over verbs. Recent research suggests that the early noun advantage is not a universal feature, but rather language specific (Tardif, 1996). Proponents of the language-specific view suggest that there are two broad classes of languages: verb-friendly and noun-friendly language. Languages like French and English are noun friendly, in which nouns take precedence over the verbs. On the other hand, verb-friendly languages like Mandarin, Korean and Hindi emphasize the early development of verbs over nouns (Tardif, 1996; Tardif et al., 1999). This is a likely reason why participants in the current study did not demonstrate an early noun advantage. It remains to be investigated whether this finding can generalize to other Indian languages as well. In addition, two morphemic structures including /-o/ and /-a/ were also observed in the word-level category in this stage. Noun-noun (NN) phrasal structure, and three clausal structures including element-verb (XV),

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subject-verb (SV), and subject-object (SO) were observed to be appearing in this stage. However, the clausal and phrasal structures did not meet the 50% criterion, and were not included in the characterization of this stage. Brown (1973) found that one of the earliest grammatical morphemes noticed in children speaking English as their native language was progressive ‘-ing’ at the age of 19–28 months. However, this is not applicable for languages that have a different morphosyntactic structure in comparison to English (e.g. Hindi). A native Hindi speaker seldom uses the verb in the root word form (e.g. /kh elna/, /sona/, /hǝsna/). Often, the inflected form is used by adding the suffixes /-o/ and /-a/ (e.g. /t̪ um kh elo/ or /t̪ um ne kh ela/, /so ʤao/. This might be a reason why /-o/ and /-a/ morphemes were acquired earliest in Hindi-speaking children. In summary, Hindi-acquiring children, like their English counterparts, begin to acquire different modalities of expression including question, command and statement at the same time, but there are differences in usage of specific morphosyntactic structures.

Stage II (1;6–2;0 years) Clause It was found that most of the clausal and phrasal structures of the language begin to appear in Stage II (1;6–2;0 years). The clausal structures that appeared in this stage include: element-question (XQ), subject-complement (SC), object-verb (OV), complement-verb (CV), element-negative (XNeg), adverb-element (AX), and verb-element (VX), element-question (XQ), verbelement (VX). Among the above-mentioned structures, only SC, AX, OV, CV and XNeg met the 50% criterion, and so were included in the H-LARSP chart. In addition, the other three clausal structures which began to appear in the first stage (0;9–1;6 years) such as XV, SV and SO, also attained the 50% criterion in this stage. Comparison of the grammatical structures that were acquired in Hindi-acquiring children to their English counterparts revealed that the QX clause for interrogative utterances began to appear in English-acquiring children at this stage. However, it was not observed in Hindi-acquiring children. Other than the interrogative modality, the usage of command and statements associated with clauses were comparable to the English-acquiring children at this stage. With regard to negative utterances among the Hindi-acquiring children, the negation clause was seen in two forms, including X Neg and Neg X. Both these clauses met the 50% criterion. Thus, the use of negation can appear before or after any element. Bellugi (1967) had found that the syntactic structure of negative sentences in English follows a developmental pattern. When children first start using negative words, the word ‘no’ appears at the beginning of the sentences (e.g. ‘no eat’). As age advances, the negative word shifts inside the sentences near to the main verb (e.g. ‘I no eat that’). Around four

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years of age, negation is used in auxiliary form (e.g. ‘I can’t eat’), which approximates the adult syntactic form. Other researches have documented a similar kind of developmental pattern (Brown, 1973; Hulit & Howard, 2005).

Phrase Phrasal structures which appeared in this stage included determinernoun (DN), adjective-noun (AdjN), noun-postposition (N PP), verb-verb (VV), verb-part (V part), intensifier-word (Int X) and determiner-adjectivenoun (DAdjN) phrases. Among these structures, only DV, V part, VV, CV and Int X met the 50% criterion. In addition, the phrasal structure NN which began to appear in the first stage (0;9–1;6 years) was also used by more than 50% of the participants at this stage. Comparison of these findings to the English LARSP revealed that all the above phrasal structures were present in English-acquiring children as well. Two phrasal structures, adjective-noun (Adj N) and intensifier-element (Int X) were not observed at this stage, but were observed when the children had reached Stage III (2;6–3;0 years). The delay in acquisition of Adj N and Int X phrases in Hindi-acquiring children in comparison to English-acquiring children could be attributed to the linguistic differences between the languages. A similar finding was reported by Basavaraj et al. (2010). They found that adjectives began to appear by the age of 2;1–2;6 years in native Hindi speakers of Hindi. Waxman and Markow (1998) studied the acquisition of adjectives in English- and Spanishspeaking children. English-speaking children acquired adjectives at around 21 months, whereas Spanish-speaking children acquired them by 29 months. In another study, Waxman and Booth (2001) found that English-speaking children recognized the meaning of the adjectival properties of a novel word by 14 months. However, some studies report that children seem to understand different adjectives only after three years of age (Imai & Gentner, 1997; Smith et al., 1992). Mintz and Gleitman (2002) found that children as young as two years old extended adjective properties to other objects of the same category.

Word The word structures which appeared at this stage included past /-i/, past /-a/, past /-e/, /ka/ and /-rǝha/ forms. Except the /-rǝha/ form, all the other word structures met the 50% criterion.

Stage III (2;0–2;6 years) Clause The clausal structures during this stage that met the 50% criterion included the indirect object-direct object-verb (OiOdV), adverb-complement-verb (ACV), subject-adverb-verb (SAV), element-negative-element (YNegX), subject-adjective-object (SAdjO), adjective-object-verb (AdjOV), subject-object-verb (SOV), object-adverb-verb (OAV), subject-complement-verb (SCV), subjectelement-verb (SXV), another element- one element-verb (YXV), another

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element- one element- d̪o (YX /d̪ o/), one element-another element- d̪o (XY /d̪ o/), verb-element (VX), element-question (XQ) and subject-element-verb (S(X)V). Comparing the structures that were acquired in Hindi to the English structures revealed that the XQ clause for interrogative utterance had begun to appear in Hindi-acquiring children at this stage. The QX clause for the interrogative utterance in English-acquiring children was noticed in the previous stage (1;6–2;0 years). According to Jacobs (1995), the earliest interrogative syntactic form to develop in children includes wh- words (what, why, where). Later on, the question words expand during preschool years to include ‘who, whose, when, which and how’. ‘What’, ‘where’ and ‘who’ questions are mastered before ‘why’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ questions (Bloom, 1991). Similarly in Hindi, ‘wh’- is replaced by /kɔn/, /kja/, /kεse/, /kəb/ and / kəha᷈ /. The developmental pattern of these interrogative words in Hindiacquiring children was noted to be similar to English-acquiring children. Among the command-type utterances, the VX clause was observed frequently, where the verb appeared prior to an element. However, in the earlier stage, this form was reversed as XV. This type of developmental clausal progression is not observed in English. In addition, the gradual progression of XV clausal structure by addition of another element to form the YXV clause was observed in this age group among the Hindi-acquiring children. In addition, the /d̪ o/ words were also frequently observed along with two other elements. These findings suggest the gradual progression in syntactic structures as the age progresses (Bloom, 1991; Brown, 1973; Smith et al., 1992). Among the clausal structures related to statements, two important findings were specifically observed in comparison to English syntactic structures. First, if a verb is present in the structure, it always appears in the final part of the structure. This pattern of syntactic form can be observed in SCV, SOV, SAV, ACV, OAV, AdjOV and OdOiV clauses. However, in English the verb never appeared in the final part of the structures. This pattern of syntactic forms in English can be observed in SVC, SVO, SVA, VCA, VOA and VOdOi clauses. Secondly, in SOV and SVO clauses, which are the basic clause forms in Hindi and English, respectively, the object (which is the supplement) can be replaced by other elements including adverb and complements to form different syntactic structures. In the negative utterances, it was found that the negative word was positioned between the two syntactic elements as in XNegY, which was not seen in any of the previous stages. This suggests a gradual progression in the complexity of negative clauses as syntactic complexity increases.

Phrase The phrasal structures that met the 50% criterion at this stage include intensifier-element (IntX), adjective-noun (AdjN), determiner-adjective-noun (DAdjN), adjective-adjective-noun (AdjAdjN), determiner-noun-postposition (DNPP), pronoun-other (Pronpo), Copula (Cop) and auxiliary-modal (Auxm) clause. By comparison with English LARSP, it was found that adjective-noun

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(Adj N) and intensifier-element (Int X) were the only new phrase structures noticed in the Hindi-acquiring participants. These two phrasal structures had already appeared in Stage II among the English-acquiring children. Another important difference observed between the English and Hindi syntactic structures was the use of position. The Hindi-acquiring participants used postposition towards the end of the phrasal structures (e.g. DNPP); however, English-acquiring children used prepositions, which appeared before other syntactic elements in the phrase structures (e.g. PrDN). Other than this, the phrase structures of participants in this stage included three syntactic elements indicating the gradual progression of phrasal structure.

Word The word structures in this stage that met the 50% criterion included: /-rǝha/ /ko/, /se/, /ne/, /t̪ ha/, /thi/, /hε/, /ho/, /vǝh/, /uska/, /uski/, /mera/, /mε/ and / hu᷈ /. Comparing these findings to English-acquiring children revealed that the English-acquiring children acquired the ‘-ing’ form (comparable to /-rǝha/ in Hindi) by 19–28 months, and the contractile copula ‘be’ by 43–46 months. The Hindi-acquiring participants acquired the comparable form of ‘be’ in Hindi (/hu᷈ /) at this stage. The participants in this stage also started acquiring pronoun word structures like /uska/, /uski/, /mera/, /vǝh/. Similar findings were reported by Brown (1973) for English. It was found that children start acquiring pronouns during Stage II (24 months). The earliest pronouns to emerge usually involved the child as subject (I, mine, my, me) followed by subjective pronouns (he, she, they), objective pronouns (him, her, them), possessive pronouns (his, her, theirs) and reflexive pronouns (himself, herself, themselves), in that order.

Stage IV (2;6–3;0 years) Clause The clausal structures that met the 50% criterion included more than one subject (+S), another element-one element-verb (+YXV), subject–questionverb (SQV), element-question-element (X + QY), subject-element-verb (SXV+), tag, subject-adverb-object-verb (SAOV), subject-adverb-complementverb (SACV), subject-direct object-indirect object-verb (SOdOiV), subjectobject-complement-verb (SOCV) and element-adverb-adverb-element (XAAY). The use of interrogative words in SQV, X + QY clausal structures by the participants indicate the increasing complexity of syntactic structure with age. In addition, the tag form, which appeared for the first time, is suggestive of gradual maturation of interrogative utterances towards adult-like utterances. Among the command utterances, +S and +YXV clauses were frequently observed. The ‘+’ notation was used to indicate the participants’ multiple iterations of the same grammatical structure in a phrase. Both these forms (the tag form and the command utterances) were reported in the original English LARSP. The clausal structures of command utterances in the previous stage were limited to three syntactic elements, but in this stage it

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increases to four elements, again suggesting the progression of more complex syntactic structures (Bloom, 1991; Brown, 1973; Smith et al., 1992).

Phrase The phrasal structures that met the 50% criterion at this stage included noun phrase-noun phrase-postposition (NP NP PP), determiner-adjectivenoun-postposition (DAdjNPP), coordination-element (cX), element-coordination-element (XcX), verb-negative (V Neg), element –negative (X Neg), auxiliary-auxiliary (2Aux), postmodifying phrase one (Postmod.Phrase 1) and postmodifying phrase more than one (Postmod.Phrase 1+). In comparison with English, the negation in Hindi phrases was used after the verb or an element. Another important difference was that the Hindi-acquiring participants at this stage had started using postmodification in phrases, something not observed in the English LARSP until Stage V. The 2Aux construction is an important syntactic structure indicating the emergence of complex utterances. 2Aux was observed in Stage IV.

Word The word structures that appeared in Stage IV and met the 50% criterion included /ke/, /ki/, /pǝr/, /-e/, /-o᷈ /, /-ja᷈ /, /ke lije/ and /bǝhut̪ /. A significant development during this stage was the acquisition of the plural forms. However, the English LARSP revealed that the plural forms were acquired by 27–30 months among English-acquiring children (also Brown, 1973). The later development of the plural form among the Hindi-acquiring participants could be attributed to the person-number-and gender variation associated with plural markers in Hindi, as well as the presence of case markers (/ke/, /ki/, /pǝr/).

Stage V (3;0–3;6 years) This stage focuses on the development of coordination and subordination. Coordination combines two or more similar units into a larger unit without altering the semantic relations with the adjoining constituent (Haspelmath, 2007). The coordinating conjunction ‘and’ in English is comparable to /ↄr/ used in Hindi. Coordinating conjunctions like ‘but’ and ‘so’ belong to the ‘c’ category, and are comparable to Hindi conjunctions, /lekIn/, /IslIje/, respectively. Similarly the ‘s’ category includes subordinating conjunctions like ‘because,’ and ‘while’. These conjunctions are comparable to the Hindi conjunctions /kjo ˜ki/, /ʤǝbkI/, respectively. In addition, ‘then’ is similar to the conjunction /Uske bad̪ / in Hindi. The subordination of adverb, object and complements was found in the Hindi data.

Stage VI (3;6–4;6 years) The noun phrase (NP) with initiator and coordinators, verb phrase (VP) with complex verb, and clausal structures including passive utterances, complements and question markers are valuable sources to judge the presence or

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absence of syntactic complexity of the children’s utterances. The findings of the current study were similar to previous studies related to English-acquiring children (Brown, 1973; Turnbull & Justice, 2012). These studies reported that sentence-embedding capability begins to emerge in children around three years of age. Children begin to use dependent clauses to form complex sentence structures.

Stage VII (over 4;6 years) Adverbial connectivity (AC), comment clause (CC) and emphatic order (EO) are the major syntactic structures to quantify the syntactic complexity of the child’s utterances at this stage. Vasilyeva et al. (2008) investigated the syntactic aspects of school-aged children. It was noticed that ‘complex syntax’ was one of the major achievements of school-aged children – an indication of a ‘literate’ or decontextualized language style (Paul, 1995). The adapted LARSP chart in Hindi (H-LARSP) is shown Appendix 1 and the abbreviations used in H-LARSP are listed in Appendix 2, at the end of this chapter.

Application of H-LARSP to Children with Language Disorders The H-LARSP was administered to 21 Hindi-acquiring CLDs, and the findings were compared to 21 age-matched typically developing peers (TDPs), randomly selected from the 175 participants who initially participated in the adaptation of H-LARSP. Based on chronological age, the participants were divided into seven age groups, to align with the seven stages of the H-LARSP. Each of the seven age groups included 3-CLDs and 3-TDPs. The demographic details of the CLDs are shown in Table 6.2. The CLDs included children with delayed speech and language, hearing impairment and specific language impairment. CLDs spoke Hindi as their native language, and hailed from the middle socioeconomic class. CLDs were diagnosed at the Department of Clinical Services, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore. They were receiving speech-language intervention for three months at the Department of Clinical Services. CLDs were thoroughly assessed by an interdisciplinary team through a combination of formal and informal assessments. The interdisciplinary team comprised a speech-language pathologist, an audiologist, a pediatric neurologist and a psychologist. The final diagnosis was made by discussing with each member of the interdisciplinary team and arriving at a consensus. The communication skills of CLDs were assessed using the Communication DEALL Development Checklist (CDCC) (Karanth, 2007). The CDCC is a criterionreferenced checklist intended to assess developmental skills in eight domains,

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Table 6.2 Demographic details of children with language disorder Stages Stage I (0;9–1;6 years)

Stage II (1;6–2;0 years)

Stage III (2;0–2;6 years)

Stage IV (2;6–3;0 years)

Stage V (3;0–3;6 years)

Stage VI (3;6–4;6 years)

Stage VII (over 4;6 years)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Age

Diagnosis

1;2 yrs 1;5 yrs 1;5 yrs 1;8 yrs 1;9 yrs 1;7 yrs 2;2 yrs 2;4 yrs 2;6 yrs 2;8 yrs 2;9 yrs 2;7 yrs 3;2 yrs 3;5 yrs 3;5 yrs 3;8 yrs 3;9 yrs 4;5 yrs 5.8 yrs 4;9 yrs 6;7 yrs

DSL HI DSLD DSL HI DSLD DSLD DSL HI DSLD DSLD DSL HI DSLD DSL HI DSL HI DSLD DSLD DSL HI DSLD DSLD DSL HI SLI DSLD SLI

Notes: DSL HI: delayed speech and language with hearing impairment; DSLD: delayed speech and language development; SLI: specific language impairment.

including receptive and expressive and language skills, at six-month intervals, from 0 to 6 years of age. The CDDC has been field tested on 360 Indian children. The CDDC has also been demonstrated to have high intra-rater reliability ratings across all the eight domains, with r values ranging from 0.89 to 0.97 (p < 0.05) (Saxena-Chandhok et al., 2011). It is worth mentioning that identifying CLDs in Stages I–III proved to be challenging as well as time consuming. These children were initially screened for potential language impairment using CDCC. Children who failed the screening test were referred for detailed informal language assessment. The informal language assessment involved assessing the child’s frequency and nature of communicative intent with their caregivers across multiple sessions. It should be noted that most of these diagnoses were provisional in nature, as the children in Stages I–III were very young to be subjected to a complete battery of language tests. •

Stage I (0;9–1;6 years). The findings of Stage I in H-LARSP with regard to TDPs and CLDs of Stage I are shown in Table 6.3. The number of TDPs who acquired the grammatical structures in that respective stage

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Table 6.3 Comparison of Stage I findings of TDPs and CLDs (0;9–1;6 years) Major Stage 1 (0;9–1;6)

Comm

Ques

‘V’ 3/0

‘Q’ 3/0

Conn. Stage II 1;6–2;0)

•

•

•

X V 1/0

Statement ‘V’ 3/0 Clause SV 1/0 SO SC X Neg Neg X

Word ‘N’ 3/0 AX OV CV Other

/-o/ 3/0 /-a/ 3/0 Phrase DN VV V part Other NN

Past /-i/ Past /-a/ Past /-e/ /ka/

is represented above the slash line, and the number of CLDs who acquired the grammatical structures in that respective stage is represented below the slash line. For example, 3/2 would indicate that three TDPs and two CLDs acquired a grammatical structure in that respective stage. It was observed that all three Hindi-acquiring TDPs had acquired the syntactic structures of Stage I. None of the CLDs in this stage had acquired these structures. Stage II (1;6–2;0 years). The Stage II findings of TDPs and CLDs are shown in Table 6.4. All three TDPs of the second age group had acquired the syntactic structures of Stage I as well as Stage II; on the other hand, only one child with language disorder had acquired some of the syntactic structures of Stage I and Stage II. Stage III (2;0–2;6 years). The Stage III findings of TDPs and CLDs are presented in Table 6.5. The findings revealed that all the three TDPs had acquired the syntactic structures of Stages I, II and III; on the other hand, only one CLD had acquired all the syntactic structures of Stage I and few syntactic structures of Stage II. The syntactic structures acquired by TDPs of 2;0–2;6 years were not found in the three CLDs of 2;0–2;6 years. Stage IV (2;6–3;0 years). The Stage IV findings of TDPs and CLDs are provided in Table 6.6. All three TDPs of this age group had acquired

Table 6.4 Comparison of Stage II findings of TDPs and CLDs (1;6–2;0 years)

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Table 6.5 Comparison of Stage III findings of TDPs and CLDs (2;0–2;6 years)

Table 6.6 Comparison of Stage IV findings of TDPs and CLDs (2;6–3;0 years)

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syntactic structures up to Stage IV; on the other hand, only one CLD had acquired all the syntactic structures of Stage I and few syntactic structures of Stages II and III as well. The syntactic structures acquired by TDPs of 2;6–3;0 years were not acquired by three CLDs. Stage V (3;0–3;6 years). The Stage V findings of TDPs and CLDs are shown in Table 6.7. All the three TDPs had acquired syntactic structures up to Stage V. On the other hand, only one CLD had acquired all the syntactic structures up to Stage II and most of the syntactic structures of Stage III. The syntactic structures acquired by TDPs of 3;0–3;6 years were not acquired by three CLDs in this stage.

Table 6.7 Comparison of Stage IV findings of TDPs and CLDs (3;0–3;6 years)

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•

•

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Stage VI (3;6–4;6 years). On comparing the syntactic structures of this stage, it was observed that all three TDPs had acquired most of the syntactic structures. However, CLDs had not acquired these syntactic structures. The syntactic development of CLDs in this age group did not progress beyond Stage III. Stage VII (over 4;6 years). It was observed that all three TDPs had acquired most of the syntactic structures of Stage VII. However, these syntactic structures were not found in any of the CLDs of this stage. The syntactic acquisition of CLDs of above the 4;6 years age group were up to Stage III only.

Conclusions This chapter provides an overview of the development of morphosyntactic structures using H-LARSP among typically developing children as well as a group of children with language impairment. With regard to typically developing children, there was a gradual progression in the complexity of usage of morphosyntactic structures with the increase in participants’ age. The H-LARSP indicate that the nature of morphosyntactic structures used by Hindi-acquiring children significantly differ from children acquiring English. For example, Stage I of H-LARSP revealed that participants demonstrated an early verb advantage, unlike children acquiring English who demonstrate a noun advantage over verbs. However, it remains to be determined if these findings can be generalized to other Indian languages. With regard to CLDs, it was obvious that CLDs did not perform as well as TDPs. However, it was interesting to note the differences between CLDs and TDPs with regard to the use of morphosyntactic structures at each stage. This information could prove vital in clinical settings to design therapy protocols for CLDs. It should be noted that these findings were based on a relatively small sample size, and the participant pool was heterogeneous in terms of language impairment. Future research can aim to profile the morphosyntactic development within a homogenous cohort of participants (with regard to the language impairment), as well as across different Indian languages.

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Appendix 1: H-LARSP Profile Chart

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Appendix 2: List of Abbreviations Used in H-LARSP Symbol Clause level A C Coord O Q S Subord V X Y PP

Meaning Adverbial Complement Coordination Object Question Subject Subordination Verb Element Element Postposition

Phrase level Adj Adj N Adj N AuxM AuxO Cop cX D Adj N DN Int X Neg V Neg X NN NP Pr NP NPNP PP Postmod clause Postmod phrase D Adj N PP DN PP N PP PronP PronO V part VV XcX 2 Aux

Adjective Adjective Noun Adjective Noun Auxiliary – modal Auxiliary – other Copula Coord Word Determiner Adjective Noun Determiner Noun Intensifier + Word Negation Verb Negation Word Noun Noun Noun Phrase Preposition Noun Phrase Noun Phrase Noun Phrase Postposition Postmodifying clause Postmodifying phrase Determiner Adjective Noun Postposition Determiner Noun Postposition Noun Postposition Pronoun (or pronominal) – personal Pronoun (or pronominal) – other Verb part Verb Verb Word Coordinator Word Two auxiliaries

Word level Past /-i/, /-a/, /-e/ /-o/ /-a/ /rəha/

Regular past tense Command form Progressive form

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/t̪ ha/ /hε/ /hu˜ / /mε/ /ko/ /uska, uski/ /se/ /ne/ /ho/ /vəh/ /ke/, /ki/, /ka/ /-e/ /-o˜/ /-ja˜/ /pər/ /ke lIje/ /bəhut̪ / /vəh hε/ /-e˜ɡe //-oɡe/ səbse/ /iʤie/

Past tense used with progressive form Copula Auxiliary verb Personal pronoun Objective case marker Pronoun Instrumental case marker Nominative case marker Auxiliary verb Third person singular number Possessive case marker Plural form Locative case marker Dative case marker Comparative form Uncontracted copula Portmanteau form Superlative form Auxiliary verb

Acknowledgements This chapter was the outcome of the project entitled ‘Language Assessment Remediation and Screening Procedure (LARSP): An Adaptation and Standardisation in Hindi’, funded by the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) Research Fund. The authors would like to thank the Director of the AIISH for providing the required infrastructure to carry out this study, and Mr Navnit Kumar who served as the research officer for this project. The authors would also like to thank all the participants.

References Ball, M.J., Crystal, D. and Fletcher, P. (eds) (2012) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Basavaraj, V., Goswami, S.P. and Priyadarshi, B. (2010) Screening Test for the Acquisition of Syntax in Hindi (STAS-H): An Adaptation of STAS-K. Mysore: All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) Research Fund Project. Bellugi, U. (1967) The acquisition of negation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Bloom, L. (1991) On the acquisition of negation in Tamil and English. Journal of Child Language 18, 715–716. Brown, R.W. (1973) A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Donaldson, M. (1995) Children with Language Impairments: An Introduction. London: Kingsley. Haspelmath, M. (2007) Coordination. In T. Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. II (2nd edn) (pp. 1–51). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hulit, L. and Howard, M. (2005) Born to Talk (5th edn). Indianapolis, IN: Merrill/ Macmillan Publishing.

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Imai, M. and Gentner, D. (1997) A crosslinguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic influence. Cognition 62, 169–200. Jacobs, R.A. (1995) English Syntax: A Grammar for English Language Professionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Karanth, P. (2007) Communication DEALL Developmental Checklists. Bangalore: Com DEALL Trust. Lee, L.L. and Canter, S.M. (1971) Developmental sentence scoring: A clinical procedure for estimating syntactic development in children’s spontaneous speech. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 36, 315–340. Ministry for Minority Affairs, India (2007) Report of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities. See https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9UieF1jpR7DWjJaX2R 1VldRMzZmRjFEMmhQOW0tdw/edit?pli=1 (accessed 26 October 2015). Mintz, T.H. and Gleitman, L.R. (2002) Adjectives really do modify nouns: The incremental and restrictive nature of early adjective acquisition. Cognition 84, 267–293. Muller, D.J., Munro, S.M. and Code, C. (1981) Language Assessment for Remediation. London: Croom Helm Paul, R. (1995) Language Disorder from Infancy through Adolescence: Assessment and Intervention. St Louis, MO: Mosby-Year Book. Saxena-Chandhok, T., Ram-Kiran, P., Lawrence, L. and Karanth, P. (2011) Communication DEALL Development Checklist – inter rater reliability. Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development 22 (1), 48–54. Smith, L.B., Jones, S. and Landau, B. (1992) Count nouns, adjectives, and perceptual properties in children’s novel word interpretations. Developmental Psychology 28, 273–286. Tardif, T. (1996) Nouns are not always learned before verbs: Evidence from Mandarin speakers’ early vocabularies. Developmental Psychology 32, 492–504. Tardif, T., Gelman, S.A and Xu, F. (1999) Putting the ‘noun bias’ in context: A comparison of English and Mandarin. Child Development 70, 620–635. Turnbull, K.L.P. and Justice, L.M. (2012) Language Development from Theory to Practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Vasilyeva, M., Waterfall, H. and Huttenlocher, J. (2008) Emergence of syntax: Commonalities and differences across children. Developmental Science 11, 84–97. Waxman, S.R. and Booth, A.E. (2001) Seeing pink elephants: Fourteen-month-olds’ interpretations of novel nouns and adjectives. Cognitive Psychology 43, 217–242. Waxman, S.R. and Markow, D.B. (1998) Object properties and object kind: Twentyone-month-old infants’ extensions of novel adjectives. Child Development 69, 1313–1329.

7

K-LARSP: A Grammatical Profile of Kannada Varun Uthappa A.G., Shyamala K. Chengappa and Ramesh Kaipa

Introduction Kannada, a classical language of India, is the official and administrative language of the South Indian state of Karnataka. Kannada belongs to the Dravidian language family, and its origin can be traced back to about the 5th century AD (Murthy, 1968). Neighboring languages, as well as English, have influenced modern forms of Kannada to the extent that a majority of the people in the urban and suburban regions use borrowed words and phrases in the spoken variety (Bhat, 2012). For instance, the spoken vocabulary of Kannada speakers comprises a large number of nominals in English. The syntactic structure, however, is largely preserved. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in India typically assess the structural usage of Kannada in typically developing (TD) children through a combination of standardized tools and informal methods, as well as adapted materials. Vijayalakshmi (1981) developed the a test for assessing syntax in Kannada to identify areas of deficit in children aged between one and five years, across a variety of grammatical categories and sentence types, using comprehension and expression tasks. Kanthayani (1984) developed a language test to evaluate the expressive use of elements such as nouns, verbs, gender and tense markers, in children aged five to eight years. Karanth (1980) developed the ‘Linguistic Profile Test’ (LPT), which allowed profiling of phonological, semantic and syntactic abilities in Kannada-speaking children aged six years and above, with norms (Suchitra & Karanth, 1990). The LPT provides normative data for all its test items for comparison purposes, thereby facilitating diagnostic accuracy. The LPT has also been adapted in other Indian languages such as Hindi (Sharma, 1995), Malayalam (Asha, 1997) and Telugu (Suhasini, 1997) with norms. One disadvantage of LPT is 118

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that it is highly decontextualized in nature, and does not allow the SLPs to assess a child’s spontaneous language sample, thereby limiting the amount of information that can be obtained during assessment. Chengappa and Devi (2002) provided a comprehensive account of language development in Kannada and Hindi through the analysis of spontaneous utterances of children from birth to five years. All the above-mentioned assessment tools have contributed significantly to the current status of language assessment in Kannada. However, over the past few decades Kannada has undergone a dynamic change, influenced by geographical, societal, educational and pragmatic factors (e.g. Nair, 2005). For example, the effects of this dynamic change are evident in that the Kannada dialects spoken in southern, western, north-eastern and northern Karnataka districts vary distinctly in terms of intonation pattern, vocabulary and syntactic structures in line with the influence of languages from their bordering states. In addition to being highly standardized in nature, the current assessment tools might be insufficient to capture the differences in morphosyntactic structures by individuals from different regions of Karnataka and elsewhere. A viable solution to overcome this problem is through a detailed language profiling, as this is not influenced by the differences in language due to geographical variations. A profiling tool (e.g. LARSP) gives an opportunity for a detailed evaluation of spoken language due to the emphasis on naturalistic language sampling. The LARSP specifically allows the users to create a profile of the morphosyntactic structures appearing in a child’s language in relation to the child’s chronological age. This information is valuable in order to determine if the child’s language is age appropriate or not. Owing to its robustness, LARSP has been consistently used to evaluate language development not only in TD children, but also in children with language disorders (e.g. Down syndrome; Bol & Kuiken, 1990). At present, there is a need for a profiling tool that would not only allow the Indian SLPs to profile the morphosyntactic skills of Kannada-speaking children, but also to compare the findings to developmental norms to facilitate the assessment. The adaptation of the LARSP in Kannada (K-LARSP) would aid SLPs to thoroughly profile the syntactic skills in Kannada-speaking children, thereby eliciting a more comprehensive language evaluation. In addition, creating a profiling tool would contribute to research development with regard to typical and atypical language development in Kannadaspeaking children. LARSP has been successfully adapted in other languages like German, Bengali, Irish, French, Persian, Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew, Turkish and Welsh (Ball et al., 2012). Therefore, eliciting a natural language sample and analyzing it on the lines of LARSP would be a relevant method to supplement or provide sufficient detailing of the spoken language abilities of Kannada-speaking children. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a Kannada adaptation of the LARSP-English to profile the morphosyntactic abilities of Kannada-speaking children.

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Salient Features of Kannada Grammar A brief description of Kannada grammar would be helpful in order for the readers to appreciate K-LARSP. Kannada grammar is described based on the contributions of Sridhar (1990). It is important to note that the structure of Kannada varies between its written and spoken varieties. The various aspects of the Kannada grammar discussed below are based on the standard (written) form of Kannada, but the outcomes presented in the K-LARSP chart are based on the naturalistic language sample (spoken variety) obtained from the children. For this reason, there might be some discrepancies between the information below and the findings in K-LARSP chart. The syntax of Kannada follows a subject-object-verb order: (1a) ರಾಮ ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಹೋದ /ra:ma a:lg ho:da/ Rama school went ‘Rama went to school’ In addition to simple sentences comprising single clauses as in the abovementioned example, more than one clause can be combined using subordinate and coordinate conjunctions to form complex and compound sentences. Adding clauses with appropriate conjunctions typically extends sentences in Kannada. (1b) ಊಟ ಮಾಡಿದ್ರೆ ಆಟ ಆಡಕ್ ಹೋಗ್ ಬಹುದು /u:ta ma:didr a:ta a:dak ho:g bahudu/ Food ate play to play go can ‘If you have eaten, you may go to play’ (1c) ನಂಗೆ ಬೆಕ್ಕು ತುಂಬಾ ಇಷ್ಟ ಆದ್ರೆ ಅದು ಪರ್ಚುತ್ತೆ /nang bkku tumba: ita a:dr adu partutt/ To-me cat lot like but that scratches ‘I like the cat a lot, but it scratches’ Question-markers like ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘why’ can occur either in the initial or the final position in a sentence. (2) ಏನ್ ಇದು /jen idu/ What this ‘What is this?’ (3) ಇದೇನು /idenu/ This what ‘What is this?’

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Kannada has both free and bound morphemes. Most function words are represented as bound morphemes in Kannada. (4) ಪೆನ್ನು ಪುಸ್ತಕದ ಮೇಲಿದೆ /pnnu pustakada melid/ pen book-it up-on-there ‘The pen is on the book’ The absence of articles in Kannada is striking. They are instead substituted by content words when necessary: (5) ಒಬ್ಬ ಹುಡುಗ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದ /obba huduga mang banda/ One boy home-to came ‘A boy came home’ Subordinate conjunctions are often used as bound morphemes: (6) ರಾಮನ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗಿದ್ದಾಗ ನಾನು ಊಟ ಮಾಡಿ /ra:mana mang ho:gidda:ga, na:nu u:ta ma:did/ Rama’s house-to had-been-when, I food ate (had) ‘I had lunch while I was at Rama’s house’ Combining free morphemes to form compound-like words is a frequent occurrence in Kannada. (7) ಅದು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿಲ್ಲ from ಅದು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಇಲ್ಲ /adu tnnagilla/ from /adu tnnagi illa/ That nice-not from That nice not ‘That is not nice’ Kannada also appropriately uses gender, plural, and case markers. Gender markers (8) ಕೂತಳು, ಕೂತನು /ku:tau/, /ku:tanu/ Sat-she, Sat-he ‘She sat’, ‘He sat’ Plural markers (9) ಕುರ್ಚಿಗಳು /kurtigalu/ Chair-s ‘Chairs’

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Tense markers (10) ಹೋದ, ಹೋಗುತ್ತಾನೆ /ho:da/, /ho:gutta:n/ went-he, will-go-he ‘He went’, ‘He will go’ Case markers (11) ರಾಮನ ಶಾಲೆ /ra:mana a:l/ Rama-’s school ‘Rama’s school’ Pronouns extend beyond the representation for first-, second- and thirdperson and plural marking. In example (12e), an additional dimension with reference to the age of an addressee is incorporated to a second-person pronoun. First-person pronoun (12a) ನಾನು /na:nu/ me ‘I’ or ‘me’ Second-person pronoun (12b) ನೀನು /ni:nu/ ‘You’ Third-person pronoun (12c) ಅವನು /avanu/ ‘He’ Plural pronoun (12d) ಅವರು /avaru/ ‘They’ Second-person pronoun with and without age indicator (12e) ನೀನು, ನೀವು /ni:nu/, /nivu/ ‘you’ (addressed to a younger listener), ‘you (with respect)’ (addressed to a person older than the speaker)

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Spoken Kannada differs from its written form at most linguistic levels although the basic SOV order is largely retained. Words are sometimes contextually omitted from a sentence without compromising its meaning. (13) ಮಗ ಮನೆಗ್ ಬಂದ instead of ನನ್ನ ಮಗ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದ /maga maneg banda/ instead of /nanna maga mang banda/ son house-to came instead of my son house-to came ‘My son came home’ Pronominal redundancy is also a common feature noticed in spoken Kannada: (14) ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತೇನೆ /a:lg ho:gutten/ school-to go-shall ‘I will go to school’ Words may be pronounced with certain phonemes modified or deleted (e.g. /maneg/ instead of /mang/ to the house). The use of borrowed words from English or other neighboring languages is also very common in the colloquial dialects of Kannada. (15) ಸೈಕಲು ಫ ಼ಾಸ್ಟಾಗ್ ಹೋಯ್ತದೆ instead of ದ್ವಿಚಕ್ರ ವಾಹನ ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಹೋಗುತ್ತದೆ /saikalu fa:sta:g ho:jtad/ instead of /dvitakra va:hana vegava:gi ho:guttad/ Cycle fast goes instead of two-wheeled vehicle fast goes ‘The cycle goes fast’ Note the use of the words ‘cycle’ and ‘fast’ from English. The influence of Sanskrit on Kannada is also very common among the different dialects of Kannada. Words borrowed from Sanskrit also have blended well in Kannada (e.g. /vara/ [Sanskrit] used synonymously with / ma/ [Kannada], both referring to ‘rain’). This influence of Sanskrit, however, is not restricted to the spoken varieties. It is always not mandatory to use morphological markers in the spoken form. (16) ಮೂರು ಸೇಬು ಇದೆ instead of ಮೂರು ಸೇಬುಗಳು ಇವೆ /mu:ru sebu id/ instead of /mu:ru sebugal.u iv/ three apple there-is instead of three apples there-are ‘There are three apples’ Additionally, dialectical difference variations owing to modifications in the geopolitical and sociocultural status in the state of Karnataka cannot be ignored. Hence, it is extremely intriguing to observe language development from an explorative perspective.

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Data Source for K-LARSP A total of 10 TD children in the age range of 1;8 years to 5;4 years (mean age, 3;2 years; Table 7.1) and four children diagnosed as having language disorders (Table 7.2) served as participants for the current study. Informed consent was obtained from the parents of each of the children who participated in the study. The children with language disorders beyond the age of three years were all diagnosed as having a specific language impairment (mixed receptive-expressive type). The children with language disorders below three years of age received a diagnostic label of delayed speech and language. The participants were recruited through convenience sampling procedures. The children in the TD group were randomly chosen from homes in residential areas within a radius of 2 km from the first and second authors’ workplace (All India Institute of Speech and Hearing). Children with language disorders were chosen from the list of clients receiving intervention at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing. All the participants diagnosed as having language disorders had received no more than two intervention sessions from SLPs at the time of obtaining the samples. The corpus was collected when TD children were involved in dyadic interactions with familiar adult conversational partners. In addition, the participants’ utterances were also elicited by involving them in picture description tasks and posing Table 7.1 Demographic details of children in the TD group Participants

Age

Gender

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1;8 1;10 2;3 2;5 2;10 3;3 3;8 4;3 4;8 5;4

Male Male Female Male Female Male Male Male Female Male

Table 7.2 Demographic details of children diagnosed with language disorders Participants

Age

Gender

Diagnosis

1 2 3 4

2;5 2;11 3;7 4;10

Male Female Male Male

Delayed speech and language Delayed speech and language Specific language impairment Specific language impairment

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open-ended questions. Either a minimum of one-hour dyadic interactions, excluding five minutes during initiation and termination, or 100 utterances served as the corpus for analyses. All the interactions were video-recorded in participants’ homes with the consent of their caregivers. The recordings were carried out across multiple sessions of varying duration, depending on the duration of participant’s sustenance of interest involved in the dyadic interactions. The number of recording sessions did not exceed more than four sessions. Every instance of spoken language was considered as an utterance. They ranged from single words or proto-words to sentences.

Analyses Barring the youngest child, who produced a total of 87 utterances in an hour of recording, all children comfortably met the criteria of a minimum of 100 utterances within the first hour of recording. A total of 1763 utterances were obtained from all the 10 participants. The utterances were both phonemically transcribed and written in Kannada script and categorized according to the different stages of K-LARSP. Specifically, the utterances were classified with regard to types of words produced, phrase structure, clause element, verb type, verb form and morphology by two SLPs. There was about 92% agreement between the classifications made by the two SLPs. The remaining 8% of the utterances were excluded from further consideration. The outcome pointed towards a trend of gradual increase in both number and complexity of the utterances with increasing age, and an additional bilingual influence in terms of vocabulary corresponding with content words.

Stages Outlined Under K-LARSP The morphosyntactic development of the TD children is outlined under five developmental stages, which formed the basis of the K-LARSP chart. The performances of children within each of the five stages were found to be qualitatively similar.

Stage I (1;6–2;0): number of children = 2 The samples comprised unintelligible speech and symbolic noises in addition to single-word utterances with very few two-word phrases. Elliptical responses were observed most on elicitation attempts; this could have been due to a greater number of directed closed-ended questions (on instances where open-ended questions did not elicit desirable responses) which aided naming responses. The utterances were predominantly nouns, with all the action verbs being replaced by simplified jargon utterances (e.g. /ta:ti/ ‘sleep’ meaning ‘sleep or the act of sleeping’). It should be noted that this simplification process is a

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universal phenomenon observed in most of the TD Kannada-speaking children. Phrase-level utterances comprised subject and verb productions with temporal gaps between them (e.g. /pa:pu … ba … ba/, ‘baby … come … come’ meaning ‘come baby’). Also, subject and object, and subject and complement were combined in two-word units. Subject and object (17) ಅಮ್ಮ ಗೊಂಬೆ /amma gombε/ Mother doll ‘Child seeking a doll from the mother’ Subject and complement (18) ಅಲ್ಲಿ…ಇಲುವೆ /alli … iluv/ There … ant (child pointing to an ant and referring to it) ‘I see an ant there’ The use of the determiner with gestural completion of its semantic content was seen (e.g. /adu/ ‘that’ while pointing). Possessive markers were absent while the meaning was represented effectively with the child producing the name (common noun) of the person while attempting to hug the person. Both the children frequently used borrowed words with epenthetic modification (e.g. /battu/ ‘bus’ substituting for the correct utterance /bassu/).

Stage II (2;0–2;6): number of children = 2 During this stage, there was an expansion in the production of a variety of morphosyntactic structures like short sentences (complete as well as incomplete), phrasal structures marked by absence of pronouns/nouns, sentences with SVO order, commands with verb phrases and negation with determiner. The samples comprised short sentences (complete as well as incomplete) with increased use of adjectives and occasionally adverbs. A complete (short) sentence (19) ಹುಲಿ ತಿನ್ನುತ್ತೆ /huli tinnutt/ tiger eats ‘The tiger will eat’ An incomplete (short) sentence (20) ಆಟ ಆಡ್ತಾ /a:ta a:dta:/ play playing ‘While playing’

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Phrases without pronouns/nouns being produced explicitly was noticed (21) ಅಪ್ಪ ಬತ್ತಿನಿ /appa battini/ dad come-will ‘Dad, I will come’ In the preceding example, the first person pronominal equivalent for ‘I’ in Kannada (/na:nu/), was not expressed in the speech output, but implied naturally. Short sentences in SOV order (22) ಮೋನು ಚಾಕಿ ತಕೊಂಡ /monu ta:ki takonda/ Monu chocolate took ‘Monu took the chocolates’ Commands with verb phrases (23) ಬೇಗ ಕೊಡು /bega kodu/ Soon give ‘Give it me soon’ Negation with determiner (24) ಇದು ಬೇಡ /idu beda/ This want-no ‘I don’t want this’ The use of past tense markers in this stage has been supported by the findings of Sreedevi (1976) and Vijayalakshmi (1981) in Kannada. However, the presence of the word /beda/ (negation) was noticed only between 3;6 and 4;0 years by Vijayalakshmi (1981). The present data indicate otherwise. The presence of tense markers and use of communicatively effective linguistic units are significant elements of this stage. Vijayalakshmi (1981) had identified the occurrence of interrogatives in the speech of children aged above two and a half years. Although single words used as questions based on prosodic change were present before Stage II, words denoting questions (e.g. /jenu/ ‘what’) were observed in the current study before 2;6 years.

Stage III (2;6–3;0): number of children = 1 It was evident that the complexity of the utterances increased in Stage III in comparison to Stage II. The sentences signifying statement were on the rise, and commands and questions also continued to expand in length and

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morphemic variety. Sentences produced during this stage included descriptors (adjectives, adverbs), conjunctions (with), postpositions (in, on), markers (number, gender, tense) and use of two or more simple phrases /clauses together. Sentence with a tense and plurfal marker (25) ನಾನು ಅಣ್ಣ ಐಸ್ಕೀಮ್ ತಿಂದ್ವಿ /na:nu an¸n¸a aiski:m tindvi/ me elder-brother ice-cream ate ‘My elder brother and I ate ice-cream’ Sentence with an adjective and negation (26) ಇದು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿಲ್ಲ /idu tnna:g illa/ This nice-not ‘This is not nice’ Sentences with adverbials: (27) ನಾ ಸ್ಕೂಲ್ ಹೋಗ್ತಿನಿ ಅಣ್ಣ ಜೊತೆ /na: sku:l ho:gtini an¸n¸a dzot/ I school go-will elder-brother with ‘I will go to school with my elder brother’ (28) ನಾ ಆಡಕ್ ಹೋಗ್ತಿನಿ ಅಕ್ಕ ಜೊತೆ /na: a:dak ho:gtini akka dzot/ I play-to go-will elder-sister with ‘I will go to play with my elder sister’ Adverb (29) ಬೇಗ ತಿನ್ನು /bega tinnu/ Fast eat ‘Eat soon’ postpositions (30) ಅಲ್ಲೀ ಮೇಲೆ /alli: mel/ There up ‘Up there!’ (31) ಅಪ್ಪ ರೂಮಲ್ಲಿದ್ದಾರೆ /appa ru:mallidda:r/ Father room-in-there ‘Father is in the room’

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The presence of the grammatical element of person (pronouns) at this stage is supported by the findings of Sreedevi (1976) and Vijayalakshmi (1981), who noted the expressive use of pronouns in children after age 2;6 years. The emergence of future tense noticed in the current work contradicts the findings of Vijayalakshmi (1981), who found that future tenses emerged in children aged between three and four years.

Stage IV (3;0–4;0): number of children = 2 The major change noticed in this age group from the previous one was in terms of the use of complex and compound sentences supported by the introduction of subordinate and coordinate conjunctions. A steady increase in the variety of elements used in linguistic structure (pronouns, interjections, postpositions, adverbs, adjectives) continued. The morphemes that conveyed information regarding tense and gender were accurately produced during this stage. The question tags that were very occasionally seen in the previous stage became more robust at this age. The children began taking a greater initiative to communicate. The language output was characterized by longer utterances including words representing sequential temporal information, comparison and reasoning. Sequential sentences: (32) ನೀ ಮೊದ್ಲು ಹೋಗು ನಾ ಆಮೇಲ್ ಹೋಗ್ತೀನಿ /ni: modlu ho:gu na: a:mel ho:gti:ni/ You first go I later go-will ‘Go ahead, I will join you later’ Complex sentences (33) ನಂಗ್ ಏಪಲ್ಲೂ ಬೇಕು ಆರೆಂಜೂ ಬೇಕು /nang aepalu: beku rndzu: beku/ I-to apple-too want orange-too want ‘I want apple as well as orange’ (34) ಮಾತಾಡ್ತಾ ತಿನ್ಬಾರ್ದು /ma:ta:dta: tinba:rdu/ Talking-while eat-should not ‘One should not eat while speaking’ Use of comparison in a sentence: (35) ಕಾರು ಫ ಼ಾಸ್ಟ್ ಫ ಼ಾಸ್ಟ್ ಹೋಗುತ್ತೆ, ಸೈಕಲ್ಲು ಹೀಗೆ ಹೀಗೆ ನಿಧಾನಕ್ ಹೋಗುತ್ತೆ /ka:ru fa:st fa:st ho:gutt, saikallu hi:g hi:g nidha:nak ho:gutt/ Car fast fast go-will, cycle this way this way slowly go-will ‘The car goes fast; the cycle goes slowly’

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The current data also revealed that children above age three might use conditional interrogatives as well. The spoken sample of the participants revealed that there was a steady increase in using English words during this stage. For instance, words like fast, apple and orange were replaced by their respective Kannada words /bega/, /sebu;/ and /ki:ttalhan¸n¸u:/, respectively.

Stage V (4;0+): number of children = 3 This stage was characterized by the presence of narrative elements of discourse. The utterances were mostly connected to each other, although local coherence was constrained in the children’s description of pictures or events. Example of narration (36) ನನ್ ಕ್ಲಾಸಲ್ಲಿ NAME ಮತ್ತೆ NAME ಮತ್ತೆ NAME ಫ ಼್ ರೆಂಡ್ಸು /nan kla:salli NAME matt NAME matt NAME frndsu my/mine class-in NAME and NAME and NAME friends ‘In my class, NAME and NAME and NAME are friends’ (37) NAME ಬುಕ್ಕಲ್ಲಿ ಚುಕ್ಕೆ ಇಡ್ತಾಳೆ, ನಾನ್ ಕಲರ್ ಮಾಡ್ತಿನಿ /NAME bukkalli tukk idta:l., na:n kalar ma:dtini/ NAME book-in dot put-she, I color do-will ‘NAME puts dots in her book, I will color in my book’ Even in conversation, the reactive responses were not elliptical or incomplete, but more elaborate. The word order of the sentences (SVO) seemed appropriate to the spoken variety of Kannada. It should be noted that the position of the subject and object are interchanged. While this may not be accepted in written Kannada, it is common to use this in colloquial form of Kannada. (38) ಬ್ಯಾಗಲ್ಲಿ ಬುಕ್ ಇಡ್ತೀನಿ /baegalli buk idti:ni/ bag-in book keep-I’ ‘I shall keep the book in the bag’ The responses to ‘why’ questions seemed to be sufficiently accurate. For example, in response to the question ‘Why do you not want to have this rather than that?’, the child’s response was: (39) ಇದು ಚಿಕ್ದು; ಬೇಡ /idu tikdu; beda/ This small-one; want-no ‘This is small; I do not want.

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One of the language samples included a conversation of a child in the target group with a younger sibling. The samples also contained most types of wh-questions such as /ya:k/ why, /lli/ where, /heg/ how and /ya:ru/ (who). Sreedevi (1976) reported similar findings in children aged over four years. The continuity and quantum of sentences spoken without comprehensive verbal responses in reaction clearly indicated that children at this age were ready to don the role of a primary communicator with growing sensitivity to listener demands on a sustained basis. Stage I began at 1;6–2;0 years, since no child aged under 1;6 years was considered. The second and third stages in this version correlated with the age range of Stages III and IV in the LARSP for English. The fourth stage in the current profile was modified as the two children who were sampled at 3;3 and 3;8 years exhibited similar language components, in spite of a difference of five months between them. Thus, Stage IV in this profile considered an age range of 3;0–4;0 years. The youngest child sampled beyond four years, however, demonstrated a significant change, particularly in terms of discourse which was similar to the oldest children sampled in the present context. Hence, they were all grouped under Stage V as age 4;0 years and beyond. The summary of the key findings of the grammatical development in the Kannada-speaking participants is presented in Appendix 1.

K-LARSP in Children with Language Disorders In order to check the utility of these stages of syntax development in clinical practice, a comparison was made with samples from a set of children with language disorders. The demographic details of children diagnosed with language disorders are presented in Table 7.2. Samples elicited from a TD participant at each stage were matched with a child with language disorder with a similar chronological age (barring the first group).The comparison of the language samples of both the groups revealed a substantial difference between the language impaired and their TD counterparts. The analyses of their language samples not only pointed at a significant delay in language production, but were qualitatively and quantitatively deviant. The maximum number of utterances recorded in an hour was 91, in the oldest child. All the children produced fewer utterances than their agematched peers in the given time. The youngest child produced the least number of utterances, 43. Qualitatively, at each stage, the function and variety of syntax used was limited compared to their age-matched peers. For instance, the utterances of the child aged 2;5 years did not contain even a single question, and the repertoire was predominantly restricted to single nouns and verbs along with a few two-word units, with delayed imitation. On inspection with K-LARSP, the child appeared to have language abilities that may be just sufficient to enter Stage I, although limited in terms of

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communicative functions. The child aged 2;11 years produced short sentences in subject-object-verb order, and subject-verb phrases, but almost no instance of the use of morphological markers corresponding with Stages III or II; nor were there adjectival or adverbial usage with nouns or verbs, respectively. The sample obtained from the child aged 3;7 years revealed very few instances of the use of statements in contrast to a higher number of commands and questions. Statements, when used, were similar to those in Stage I. Commands and questions, on the other hand, comprised some forms that were documented in Stage III such as the subject-verb phrase with an adverbial component. Thus, the performances of TD children across the stages were discernible. Not only were the comparisons indicative of the presence or absence of morphosyntactic varieties, but they also pointed to differences in use across communicative functions. Thus, the use of K-LARSP in analyses of Kannada language in this preliminary study has been convincing enough for its implementation in greater depth. The K-LARSP chart is presented in the Appendix 1.

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Appendix 1: K-LARSP Profile Chart Name A.

1 Unintelligible

B.

Age

Sample date Problematic 1 Incomplete

Unanalysed 2 Symbolic Noise

3 Deviant

Type

2 Ambiguous

3 Stereotypes

Normal Response

Responses

Stimulus Type

Totals

Elliptical 1

Questions

Abnormal

Major

Repetitions

2

3+

Reduced

Struct ural

Minor

Full

Ø

Problems

Others

C. Spontaneous General

Structural

Ø

Others

Problems

D. Reactions

Response Comm Question

Minor Major

‘Q”

‘V’

Conn.

‘N’

Other

Problems Word

Other

Problems

Clause N SV X+S: NP SOV DNeg AdvV XY+S:NP SAdvV AdjNNeg

N D X+V: VP NQ DQ

N V SV D SO Other OV X+C: NP X+O: NP SOV AdjN

XY+V:VP AdjNQ Pronoun

/-a/

X+A: AP

XY+C:NP XY+O:NP S(x+y+z)OV AdjNDV(a+b)

XY+A:AP

corodinate clause subordinate clause

NP VP AdjP AdvP

compound complex

compound complex

corodinate clause subordinate clause

NP VP AdjP AdvP PrepP

Stage IV (3;0-4;0)

compound

Stage V (4;0+)

Auxiliary verb tense marker

NP VP AdjP XY+Pp:PpP NP VP AdjP

compound complex

Other

/-o/

Phrase SV SO OV

Stage III (2;6-3;0)

Stage II (2;02;6)

Stage I (1;6-2;0)

‘V’

Vocative Statement

pronoun contracted negation subordinate conjunction number, gender, tense markers interjection preposition coordinate conjunction third person pronoun present continuous tense comparatives

Other Discourse

Ambiguous Syntactic Comprehension

Style Total no. sentences

Mean No. Sentences Per Turn

Mean Sentence Length

References Asha, M.M. (1997) Linguistic Profile Test (LPT) (Malayalam) – normative data for children in grades I to X. Unpublished dissertation, University of Mysore. Ball, M.J., Crystal, D. and Fletcher, P. (eds) (2012) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Bhat, G.R. (2012) Influence of English on vernacular languages, especially on Kannada (Minor Research Project). Submitted to University Grants Commission, Bangalore. See http://www.sdmcujire.in/userfiles/MRP/GR_BHAT.pdf. Bol, G.W. and Kuiken, F. (1990) Grammatical analysis of developmental language disorders: A study of the morphosyntax of children with specific language disorders, with hearing impairment and with Down’s syndrome. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 4, 77–86. Chengappa, S. and Devi, B. (2002) Developmental milestones of language acquisition in Indian languages: Kannada and Hindi. Unpublished ICSSR research project report, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore. Kanthayani, H.N. (1984) A language test in Kannada for expression in children. Unpublished dissertation, University of Mysore. Karanth, P. (1980) Linguistic Profile Test in Kannada. Indian Council of Medical Research project, Mysore. Murthy, A.V.N. (1968) Kannada lipiya ugama mattu vikaasa [The Origin and Development of Kannada Script]. Mysore: Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore. Nair, V.S. (2005) Globalization and the changing scenario on language attitude: Malayalam versus Kannada. South Asian Language Review 15, 61–66. Sharma, M. (1995) Linguistic Profile Test (LPT) (Hindi) – normative data for children in grades I to X. Unpublished dissertation, University of Mysore. Sreedevi, S.V. (1976) Aspects of acquisition of Kannada in 2+ year old children. Unpublished dissertation, University of Mysore. Sridhar, S.N. (1990) Descriptive Grammar: Kannada. London: Routledge. Suchithra, M.G. and Karanth, P. (1990) Linguistic profile test – normative data for children in grades I to V. Journal of All India Institute of Speech and Hearing 21, 14–27. Suhasini, G. (1997) Linguistic Profile Test (LPT) (Telugu) – normative data for children in grades I to X. Unpublished dissertation, University of Mysore. Vijayalakshmi, A.R. (1981) Development of a test in Kannada for assessing language acquisition. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Mysore.

8

Profiling Malay Children’s Syntactic Development: A Malay-LARSP Rogayah A Razak, Lixian Jin, Lim Hui Woan and Mohd Azmarul A Aziz

Introduction Language profiling is one of the methods used to assess the language abilities of individual speakers both for children and adults. This profiling is particularly important in countries such as Malaysia where there is a limited availability of standardized speech and language therapy (SLT) assessment tools to assess language development and impairment (Jin et al., 2014). It is suitable as a criterion-based tool to provide an individualized description of a person’s language abilities. Crystal (1992) defined a profile as a principled description of just those features of a person’s (or group’s) use of language which will enable him to be identified for a specific purpose. The need is apparent for a language assessment profile in Malay which is a dominant local language in Malaysia. In this chapter, we will: elaborate the needs for language assessment tools in Malaysia; outline the syntactic structures in colloquial Malay which are used to examine the syntactic development of Malay children within the ages of one year to 6;11 years old; present an adapted LARSP for Malay or Malay-LARSP based on collected data; and demonstrate the use of Malay LARSP to assess a Malay child with language impairment.

Language Assessment Tools in Malaysia To date, the only commonly used local language assessment is the Malaysian Developmental Language Assessment Kit (MDLAK; Faust et al., 135

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1992). This tool tests three aspects of language – preverbal skills, receptive language and expressive language. However, a standardized language test for Malay preschool – the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool (MPLAT) – has been produced by A Razak et al. (2010, 2014) to assess children within the ages of 4;0–6;11. MPLAT tests receptive language (picture vocabulary and grammatical understanding subtests), expressive language (referential meaning, relational meaning and sentence repetition subtests) and early literacy skills. This norm-referenced test is the first standardized language test in Malaysia. In order to fulfill the urgent need for appropriate local assessment materials to enable speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to make accurate assessments of children’s language abilities, some studies have focused on adapting imported tests into local languages such as Malay and Mandarin. These include, among others, the Renfrew Action Picture Test (Fahmy, 2001), MacArthur Communicative Development Checklist (Blankenette, 2002; Saiman, 2002) and the Kindergarten Language Screening Test (KLST; Raini, 2003; Razali, 2003). However, these imported tests do not conform to the worldview, beliefs and language of the local Malay population. For example, Razali (2003), in adapting the KLST, replaced Item 7 which contained pictures of a dog with boxes to pictures of a cat with boxes. This replacement was done in view of the religious sensitivities of Malay Muslim children to the picture of a dog. In another example, to adapt the Boston Naming Test to make it suitable for the Malaysian context, Vandort et al. (2007) needed to replace 41 out of the original 60 items (68%) with pictures that were more culturally and linguistically appropriate for the local population. However, these adapted tests which were constructed based on the norms of monolingual mainstream children were not the best tools to assess the language abilities of the mainstream multilingual population in Malaysia. It is necessary that language assessment tools based on local children with their respective languages be developed. Jin et al. (2014) reported on a survey using a self-completed questionnaire among over 100 SLTs in Malaysia with a response rate of 20%. All respondents identified a need for the development of appropriate assessment tools. Not surprisingly, given the lack of relevant tools, only seven respondents carried out language profiles on their clients to analyze syntax, semantics and phonology. These profiles were used with adults with aphasia, children with limited language and those with specific syndromes such as Down syndrome and autism. They reported that the use of profiles was ‘based on the age of clients, language level, types of disorder and the needs of clients at that time’. The respondents identified a need for new assessments and this professional group recognized the ‘limited study on norm data for language ability of the Malaysian population’. Therefore, it can be concluded that a Malay-LARSP profiling tool is a timely and useful tool to be implemented as it captures the children’s use of

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language in spontaneous free play and retelling of stories or relating personal experiences. It reflects a child’s natural use of language and is representative of the child’s abilities to use language in various settings. It is an appropriate alternative to the adapted standardized structured tests imported from the West and the structured standardized local test, MPLAT. The Malay-LARSP profile chart was adapted based on language samplings of 130 Malay children in the age range of 1;0 to 6;11.

The Grammar of Malay Malay is a Western Austronesian language that has long served as a lingua franca among speakers in Malaysia and neighboring countries such as Brunei, Singapore and the islands of Indonesia. Grammatically, Malay and Indonesian are often bracketed together; the major differences between them are largely lexical (Mintz, 1994; Prentice, 1990). Malay is an agglutinative language and employs mainly derivational morphology such as affixation, reduplication and compounding (Hassan,1974). Malay clauses have SVO word order. In phrases, Malay employs the head initial rule whereby the head of the phrase could optionally be followed or preceded by modifiers. In words, the head-modifier (HM) rule (e.g. baju biru ‘blue dress’, where baju ‘shirt’ (H) biru ‘blue’ (M)) is predominantly observed, although the modifier-head (MH) order (e.g. perdana menteri ‘prime minister’, where perdana (M) menteri (H)) rule is also used a for limited number of words – particularly loan words. The language variety discussed here is the spoken variety or colloquial Malay, which is spoken by people living along the western coast of Peninsular Malaysia (elsewhere in Malaysia and Indonesia there may be variations due to dialectal differences). We will outline a general description of the grammar of this colloquial variety spoken by children in this study. Table 8.1 illustrates how this chapter presents the key syntactic and morphological features of colloquial Malay language. Sentence types are categorized into two types based on the way they are formed either in a regular or irregular way: we refer to these as major and minor sentences (Quirk et al., 1985).

Types of sentence Minor sentences Minor sentences lack the subject-predicate structure. They lack the ability to undergo structural changes when compared to major sentences. (1)

Cerita arnab dan kura-kura. Story rabbit and tortoise ‘A story about a rabbit and tortoise.’

(title of narrative)

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Table 8.1 Presentation of key features of colloquial Malay grammar No

Key features

(1) (2) (3)

Minor sentences Major sentences Types of sentences • Declaratives • Active and passives • Interrogatives • Imperatives • Exclamatives Types of clauses Single clauses Multiple clauses Functional elements in sentences Other – more complex constructions Aspects of morphology

(4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

(2)

Dilarang merokok. Is prohibited AFFIX-cigarette ‘Smoking is prohibited.’

(signboard)

(3A)

Ain umur berapa tahun? Ain age what year? ‘How old are you, Ain?

(3B)

Lima tahun. (sentence fragment) Five year ‘I am five years old.’

Major sentences Major sentences essentially have the subject-predicate structure. (4)

Dia boleh goreng telur. He/she can fry egg ‘He/she can fry an egg.’

(5)

Kita nampak dia panjat batu We see he/she climb rock ‘We saw him/her climb the rock slowly.’

(6)

Saya rehat dekat pokok I rest near tree ‘I rested near the shady tree.’

yang that

lambat-lambat. slowly teduh. shady

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Sentences in Malay can be categorized into the different types, namely declarative, command, interrogatives and exclamative.

Declarative sentences Declarative sentences are used to express a statement about a person, object, state or event. (7)

Cuaca Hari ini cerah dan Weather Day this sunny and ‘The weather today is sunny and calm.’

nyaman. Calm

Malay has both active and passive voice (Karim et al., 2009). The active voice is indicated by the verbal affix MEN- or by a zero affix. The passive voice is indicated by the verbal affixes of di-, ter-, ber- … -an, ke- … -an, or by the cooccurrence of the verb kena with the main verb or simply by fronting the thematic noun phrase to the subject position.

Active sentences (8)

Muhammad menyusun kasut di Rak Muhammad MEN-arrange shoes at Rack ‘Muhammad is arranging the shoes on the shoe rack.’

(9)

Abang makan nasi di Older brother Ø-eat at ‘Older brother is eating in the kitchen.’

kasut. shoes

dapur. Kitchen

Passive sentences Sentences (10–15) are used in both standard and colloquial Malay. Sentence (10) with the di- verbal prefix is mostly found in standard formal Malay. Passive kena as in (14) is only found in colloquial Malay and is the passive variety which is widely used. Siaw-Fung (2005) discussed in detail the differences – in the use of kena passives versus di- passives in Malay. Sentence (15) is a zero passive verbal marker with the use of the thirdperson pronoun as the agent. The following are examples of passives in Malay: (10)

Buku itu dipinjam daripada Book the AFFIX-borrow from ‘The book was borrowed from the library.’

(11)

Pintu itu terbuka Door the AFFIX-open ‘The door is opened.’

perpustakaan. library

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(12)

Sampah bertaburan di laman rumah. Rubbish AFFIX-strewn at ground House ‘Rubbish was strewn all over in the courtyard of the house.’

(13)

Budak itu kehujanan. Boy/girl the AFFIX-rain-AFFIX ‘The boy/girl is soaking wet.’

(14)

Murid itu kena rotan. Student the KENA Cane ‘The student was caned.’

(15)

Rumah itu telah kami House the have we ‘That house we have painted.’

cat. paint

Interrogative sentences Interrogatives are question sentences which seek information. Questions in Malay can be categorized into four main types depending on the expected reply and their interrogative content and form. (a) Yes/no questions allow an affirmative or negative answer: (16) Sudahkah awak mandi? ASP-PRT you bathe ‘Have you taken your bath?’ (b) Wh- questions allow a wide range of possible answers depending on which constituent of the sentence is being queried: (17) Mana buku adik? Where book Young sister/brother ‘Where is your book, little sister/brother?’ (18)

Apa yang kakak pegang What that older sister hold ‘What is older sister holding?’

tu? the

(c) Alternative questions allow for two options for hearers to choose from as the answer: (19) Awak nak air kopi Ke teh? You want drink coffee PRT-Q Tea ‘Do you want coffee or tea?’ (d) Tag questions – the interrogative content is normally found at the end of a tag question: (20) Nak pergi kantin ke tak? Want go canteen PRT no ‘Do you want to go to the canteen or not?’

Prof iling Mal ay Children’s Synt ac t ic Development

(21)

Dia marah ke tak? He/she angry PRT ‘He is angry, isn’t he?’

141

no

Imperative sentences – sentences which direct someone to do something. (22)

Keluar! Go out ‘Get out!’

(23)

Angkat sampah tu! Pick up garbage The ‘Pick up the garbage!’

Exclamative sentences – those which express delight, anger, surprise, etc. (24)

Cantiknya! Pretty-it-EMP ‘It is so pretty!’

(25)

Kejamnya dia! Cruel-EMP he/she ‘How cruel he/she is!’

Types of clause Malay is an SVO language in terms of canonical word order. Clauses are identified according to the following clause types. (a) SV (26)

Adik tidur S V Little brother/sister sleep ‘Little brother/sister is asleep.’

(b) SVO (27)

(c) SVC (28)

Ali membaca buku. S V O Ali AFFIX-read Book ‘Ali is reading a book.’ Ibu kelihatan S V Mother AFFIX-seen-AFFIX ‘Mother looks happy.’

gembira. C happy

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(d) SVA (29)

(e) SC (30)

Jiran saya Berasal dari S V Neighbor I AFFIX –origin from ‘My neighbor originated from Kedah.’

Kedah. A Kedah

Itu bola. S O That ball ‘That is a ball.’

(f) SVOO (31) Karim mengirim sahabat baiknya Oi S V Karim AFFIX-send friend best-him ‘Karim sent his best friend a letter.’

surat. Od Letter

(g) SVOA (32) Guru meletakkan buku di S V O Teacher AFFIX-put-AFFIX book at ‘The teacher puts the book on the table.’

Atas A On

meja. table

Single clauses There are elements in a clause which convey a particular kind of meaning. A sentence can consist of combinations of a subject (S), verb (V), object (O), complement (C) and adverbial (A). (a) SVO (33)

Harimau pandang gajah. Tiger look elephant ‘The tiger looked at the elephant’.

(b) ASVO (34) Dalam hutan ni saya In forest this I ‘In this forest, I see giraffe.’ (c) SC (35)

Anak patung ni Doll this ‘This doll is pretty.’

nampak see

zirafah. Zirafah

cantik. pretty

The subject identifies the theme or topic of the clause. It is normally the first element in the clause, although it can also be preceded by another element, usually an adverbial. The subject can consist of a noun phrase (36), pronoun (37), dependent clause (38) and null subjects in (39–41).

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(36) Doktor Ali bagi ubat. Doctor Ali give Medicine ‘Doctor Ali gave this medication.’ (37) Dia kawan dengan kawan saya. He befriend with friend my ‘He befriended my friend.’ (38) Pohon-pohon yang teduh itu berdiri tegak sepanjang jalan. Tree-REDUP REL shade the stand straight along Road ‘The shady trees stood tall along the road.’ (39) Bersenam adalah baik untuk kesihatan. Affix-exercise is-PRT good for health ‘Exercise is good for health.’ (40) Hujan. Rain ‘It’s raining.’ (41) Kelihatan dia terkejut nampak kura-kura sampai ke garisan tamat. Appear he/she AFFIX-shock see tortoise arrive to line finishing. ‘He appeared shocked to see the tortoise arriving at the finishing line.’

The predicate can consist of a verb and any other elements of the sentence apart from the subject. In Malay, the predicate can consist of a verb and its accompanying elements such as an auxiliary, a noun, an adjective or a preposition. (42) Saya mungkin pergi Ke Mekah I probably go To Mecca ‘I probably will go to Mecca this year.’ (43)

Arnab tengah Rabbit ASPECT ‘Rabbit is sleeping.’

Nominal predicate: (44) Ali (ialah) Ali (is) ‘Ali is a teacher.’

Tahn Year

ini. this

tidur. Sleep

guru. teacher

Sentence (44) is a major sentence. It could be used with or without the copula. If without the copula, then the predicate is a nominal. Copula, however, is not a feature of Malay and is borrowed from the English language. Adjectival predicate: (45) Alia cantik. Alia pretty ‘Alia is pretty.’ Prepositional predicate: (46) Nenek saya di kampong. Grandmother I at village ‘My grandmother is at the village.’

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Verbs play a central role in clause structure. The verb is an obligatory element in the clause and is the nucleus of the clause. It is possible to have a clause without a subject as in (47), but not a clause without a verb as in (48). (47) Makan nasi Eat rice ‘Eat the rice.’

itu! The

(48) * Ali A verb element can be a verb or a verb phrase. Sentence (49) is a command sentence which contains only the verb, while sentence (50) has a negation, adverbial and a verb as its verb elements. (49) Lari! V Run ‘Run!’ (50) Adik

belum lagi mandi. NEG ADV V Little sister/brother NEG yet bathe ‘Little sister/brother has not yet bathed.’

The verb selects elements which can occur with it. Verbs which do not select other elements are called intransitive verbs as in (51). Verbs which select noun phrase elements are called transitive verbs as in (52–53). (51) Kakak

mandi. V Older sister bathe ‘Older sister is having her bath.’

(52) Aminah

membaca buku. V O Aminah AFFIX-read book ‘Aminah is reading a book.’

(53) Ibu

memasakkan kami V O Mother AFFIX-cook-affix Us ‘Mother is cooking curry for us.’

gulai. O Curry

Objects can be in the form of a noun phrase (54), pronoun (55), proper noun (56) and a complex noun phrase (57), etc.

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(54) Aisyah

145

buah rambutan dalam bakul. O Aisyah AFFIX-count cl rambutan in basket ‘Aisyah counted the rambutan fruits in the basket.’

(55) Cikgu

mengira

dia di hadapan O Teacher AFFIX-cane him at Front ‘The teacher had caned him in front of everyone.’

(56) Ibu

merotan

ramai. Public

memanggil

Fatimah. O Mother AFFIX -call Fatimah ‘Mother called out to Fatimah.’

(57) Saya suka

telur yang bubuh kicap. O I like egg that put soy sauce ‘I like the egg which has soy sauce on it.’

A verb could also select a complement (C) which could be either a word or a phrase in order to modify the subject or the object. (58) Siti

nampak cerdik. V C Siti look smart ‘Siti looks like a smart student.’

(59)

Arnab

sangka kura-kura lembap. V O C Rabbit thought tortoise slow ‘Rabbit thought that the tortoise was slow.’

(60) Pak cik

saya

adalah V Uncle I BE ‘My uncle is a teacher.’

seorang C one-Cl

guru. Teacher

Some verbs govern an adverbial, i.e. a word or a phrase indicating location (61), time (62), manner (63), reason (64), etc. (61) Alia

meletakkan bungkusan itu V O Alia put-AFFIX parcel the ‘Alia put the parcel on the table.’

di Adv at

atas

meja.

On

Table

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(62)

Tadi, Alia meletakkan bungkusan Adv V O Just now Alia put-AFFIX parcel ‘Just now, Alia put the parcel on the table.’

(63)

Itu

di atas Adv at on

the

meja. Table

Datuk

saya meninggal dunia dengan tiba-tiba enam tahun yang lalu. V Adv Adv Grandfather I AFFIX-pass on Suddenly six years that ago ‘My grandfather passed on suddenly six years ago.’

(64) Adik

menangis kerana mainannya V Adv Brother AFFIX-cry because toy-his ‘My little brother cried because his toy is lost.’

hilang. Lost

There are some verbs which do not govern an adverbial or whose adverbial is optional, as evidenced in (65A): (65A)

Arnab

itu

berlari V Rabbit the AFFIX-run ‘The rabbit ran fast.’

(65B)

Arnab itu berlari. Rabbit the AFFIX-run ‘The rabbit ran.’

pantas. Adv Fast

It is possible to have more than one adverb in a clause. (66)

Arnab

itu

berlari pantas Sehingga ke garisan penamat. V Adv Adv Rabbit the AFFIX-run fast Until to line AFFIX-finish ‘The rabbit runs fast to the finishing line.’

Adverbials are quite flexible in placement as they could occur at more than one place in a clause. In (67) the adverb dengan cepat ‘quickly’ can occur in three different positions in the clause yet carry the same meaning. Clause initial: (67A) Dengan cepat, dia berlari Adv Quickly he/she AFFIX-run ‘Quickly, he/she ran to the front.’

ke

depan.

to

front

Prof iling Mal ay Children’s Synt ac t ic Development

Clause medial: (67B) Dia

dengan cepat Adv He/she AFFIX-run with quick ‘He/she ran quickly to the front.’

Clause final: (67C) Dia

berlari

berlari

ke

depan

ke

depan.

to

front

dengan Adv with

He/she AFFIX-run to front ‘He ran to the front quickly.’

147

cepat. quick

Multiple clauses Multiple clauses consist of more than one clause but each clause shares similar basic clause patterns like those described above. Multiple clauses are classified according to the two types of coordinating and subordinating clauses. We will present only key features of the multiple clause structures in Malay, in Table 8.2, for information and reference, since these structures are not covered in the current normal children and clinical data presented in this study.

Functional elements in sentences Malay as an agglutinative language employs the derivational type of morphology. There is a complex system of different verbal and nominal affixes (Mintz, 1994). However, there are no inflectional morphological elements in Malay. Thus, the verb is not inflected for tense. The meaning of time is carried by aspects and adverbials. Aspect markers are words which indicate the progress of an action such as sedang/tengah ‘(action) in progress’, telah/sudah ‘have completed’. Malay uses the elements of aspects, modal auxiliaries, voice, negation, etc., to indicate time in the present, future and past.

Aspect (sedang, tengah) These aspects indicate that the activity/process is occurring. (68) Ayah sedang mengaji Father ASP AFFIX-recite ‘Father is reciting the Quran.’ (69) Ibu tengah memasak Mother ASP AFFIX-cook ‘Mother is cooking in the kitchen.’

Quran. Quran di at

dapur. kitchen

In the LARSP profile chart, aspect is categorized under the general label of auxiliaries.

Sentences linked by a coordinating element such as dan ‘and’, tetapi ‘but’.

A subordinating clause with a main clause and a dependent clause linked by a subordinate element normally conveying the meaning of adverbial time, manner, and reason.

Correlative subordinators link sentences such as oleh kerana-maka ‘because-so’, jika-maka ‘if-then’, among others, which relates two parts of a sentence.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(A) Coordinate sentences

Saya membaca email itu S V O I AFFIX-read email the dan membalasnya. C AFFIX-reply it ‘I read the email and replied to it.’ Amir berlari laju ke sekolah S V A A Amir AFFIX-run fast to school kerana sudah terlewat. Subord ASP AFFIX-late ‘Amir ran fast to school because he was already late.’ Oleh kerana Ali terkenal Subord S V By because Ali AFFIX-famous maka semua orang Subord S So all person ingin mengenalinya. V want AFFIX-know-he ‘Because Ali is famous so everyone wants to get to know him.’

Examples

Table 8.2 Key features of Malay multiple clause sentence structures

Key features of Malay multiple sentences

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No.

148

Multiple subordination There is one main clause and two subordinating clauses; the first subordinate is object to the verb of the matrix sentence while the second subordinate adverbial modifies the verb of the embedded clause.

A compound sentence can also be coordinated through the use of ellipsis (omission of essential grammatical items that can be supplied from the context).

(6)

(7)

An embedded sentence functions as a complement to the verb.

(C) Embedded sentences

Two sentences linked by a subordinate namun ‘but’.

(5)

(B) Compound sentences

(4)

Semua orang tahu dia seorang Every person know he/she classifier-one pekerja yang cekap. AFFIX-work who good ‘Everybody knows that he/she is a good worker. (Continued)

Dia adalah seorang pekerja yang cekap He is classifier-one worker who efficient namun kurang pengiktirafan diberikan but less recognition AFFIX-give kepadanya. to-he. ‘He is an efficient worker but not much recognition has been given to him.’ Tahun ini kita bercuti ke Bali, tahun lepas ke Year this we affix-holiday to Bali, year last to Phuket. Phuket ‘This year we go holiday to Bali, last year to Phuket.’

Dia ingat yang mereka akan beredar dari jeti itu He/she think that they will leave from jetty the apabila feri itu belayar keluar. When ferry the sail out ‘He/she thinks that they will leave the jetty when the ferry set sail.’

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Key features of Malay multiple sentences

An embedded sentence can be used to modify the noun head in subject position.

An embedded sentence can be used to modify the noun head in object position.

No.

(8)

(9)

Table 8.2 (Continued)

Rumah besar yang beratap merah itu adalah house big REL AFFIX-roof red DET be-PRT rumah nenek saya. house grandmother I ‘The big house with the red roof is my grandmother’s house.’ Dia memandu kereta usang Morris Minor yang He/she AFFIX-drive car old Morris REL diwarisi daripada arwah datuknya. AFFIX-inherited from late grandfather- he ‘He drove his old Morris Minor car which he inherited from his late grandfather.’

Examples

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151

Modal auxiliaries Modal auxiliaries in Malay consist of mungkin ‘probably’, akan ‘will’, telah ‘have’, boleh ‘can’, hendak/nak ‘want’, etc. (70) Saya mungkin hadir ke mesyuarat I probably present to meeting ‘I probably will be present at the meeting.’ (71) Ibu akan pergi ke kedai sekejap Mother will go to shop In ‘Mother will go to the shop in a minute.’ (72) Muhammad sudah siapkan kerja Muhammad have complete-AFFIX work ‘Muhammad has completed his school work.’ (73) Adik boleh panjat kerusi yang Little brother/sister can climb chair REL ‘Little brother/sister can climb the high chair.’ (74) Sarah nak makan kek Sarah want eat cake ‘Sarah wants to eat the cake.’

itu. the lagi. a minute sekolahnya. school-his tinggi high

itu. the

itu. the

Another form of auxiliary which is used colloquially is the form kena ‘must’. (75) Awak kena datang You must come ‘You must come too’.

jugak. too

Negation (NEG) Negation in Malay is expressed by tidak/tak ‘not’, bukan ‘not’ and belum ‘not yet’, and jangan ‘don’t’. Negation can occur as modifiers to auxiliaries, adjectives, verbs, nouns and clauses. Negation + auxiliary (76) Dia tak boleh He/she NEG can ‘He cannot go out.’

keluar. go out

(77) Kakak tak mahu Masak spaghetti. Sister NEG want Cook Spaghetti ‘Sister did not want to cook spaghetti.’

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Negation + adjective (78) Kuah ini tak pedas. Gravy the NEG hot ‘This gravy is not hot.’ Negation + verb (79) Dia tak ada basikal. He/she NEG have bicycle ‘He/she does not have a bicycle.’ (80) Arnab tak sangka kura-kura boleh Rabbit NEG expect tortoise can ‘Rabbit did not expect the tortoise to win.’

menang. win

(81) Emak belum balik dari pasar. Mother NEG return from market ‘Mother has not returned from the market.’ Negation + noun (82) Aisyah bukan adik Aisyah NEG sister ‘Aisyah is not my sister.’

saya. I

Negation + clause (83) Jangan masuk kat situ. NEG enter at there ‘Do not enter there.’ (84) Bukan semua orang bersetuju. NEG all person AFFIX-agree ‘Not everyone agreed.’

Adverbials Sahaja/saja/aje/je are adverbial modifiers conveying the meaning ‘just, only’. They occur as modifiers to a preceding element, phrase or predicate (Koh, 1990) in the following positions. (i) Following a predicate verb (85) Kita main ajelah. We play just-PRT ‘We just play.’ (ii) Nominal predicate aje (86) Bukan epal aje, oren pun ada. NEG apple just, orange PRT have ‘Not only apples, there are oranges too.’

Prof iling Mal ay Children’s Synt ac t ic Development

(iii) PP predicate aje (87) Dia seperti terpukau aje. He/she like AFFIX-hypnotize ‘He/she just likes being hypnotized.’

153

(Koh, 1990)

Lagi ‘more’ is an adverb which is used by children frequently in their speech. (88) Potong lagilah. Cut more-PRT ‘Cut some more.’ (iv) More complex aux structures

AUX + verb construction

Examples of other complex constructions include various combinations of the above elements in the verb phrase. In sentence (89) there is a combination of the various elements such as negation tak and three modal auxiliaries such as mungkin ‘maybe’, akan ‘will’ and dapat ‘can’. (89) Dia tak mungkin akan dapat habiskan kerja itu. He/she NEG might will can finish-AFFIX work The ‘He/she might not be able to finish the work.’

Yang construction The Yang construction is found in standard and colloquial Malay. A detailed description of the yang construction is found in Simin (1988), who analyzes the use of the yang construction in discourse. Yang in Malay has three uses. First, it is found in NP constructions. It is a noun phrase construction whose noun head contains a relative clause (REL) which modifies it. Koh (1990) referred to this as an N-yang –MOD construction. (90)

Arnab mencari-cari kura-kura yang ketinggalan jauh di belakang. Rabbit AFFIX-search tortoise REL left behind far at back ‘The rabbit was searching for the tortoise which has been left far behind.’

(91)

Arnab yang sombong itu akhirnya terpaksa menyerah kalah. Rabbit REL arrogant the last-EMP AFFIX-force AFFIX-surrender ‘The arrogant rabbit at last had to admit defeat.’

Secondly, yang is also used as a complementizer of an embedded sentential complement. It is regarded as a non-Q(uestion) complementizer, i.e. a statement complement which has the feature −Q(uestion); for example the complements such as bahawa ‘that’, supaya ‘for’, etc. This is in contrast to

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other complementizers which have a +Q(uestion) feature; for example sama ada ‘whether’. (92)

Arnab mengatakan yang dialah binatang paling pantas di hutan itu. Rabbit AFFIX-say that he-Prt animal most fast at forest the ‘Rabbit said that he is the fastest animal in the forest.’

Thirdly, yang can also be used in colloquial Malay speech as a marker to indicate the deictic nominal feature in the phrase yang ni ‘which that’. This is normally accompanied by a finger-pointing gesture or facial expression intending to focus the hearer’s attention on the object in question. Although the nominal head is not explicitly stated, it could be retrieved from the context. Therefore ‘yang ni’ construction is regarded as a subject noun phrase. (93) Yang ni cantik. S C REL Pron pretty ‘This one is pretty.’ (94) Yang ni belum mandi lagi. S V ADV REL PRON NEG bath yet ‘This one has not taken a bath yet.’ Yang ni is used as a deictic marker, similar to the demonstrative itu ‘that’ and ini ‘this’. Yang ni can be negated as in (95). (95) Bukan yang ni saya nak. NEG REL det I want ‘This is not the thing that I want.’

Possession phrase Possession in standard Malay is marked by the use of a noun/pronoun modifying the noun head in an NP construction. In Malay-LARSP it is the N PRON construction in Stage III. (96) Ini buku saya. This book I ‘This is my book’. (97) Rumah saya di hujung kampong. House I at end village ‘My house is at the end of the village.’ Punya is a word normally used to convey the meaning of possession in colloquial Malay. Koh (1990) identified N-punya-MOD as a construction

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155

with nouns, typically a common noun (unless a proper noun, i.e. the name of a person is being used) as a first person pronoun as in sentence (98). In Malay LARSP this is represented by the combination N-punya-N at Stage III. (98)

Ini Aiman punya S O This Aiman own ‘This is my car.’

kereta. Car

Usually, in the child language sample, the punya construction is restricted to possession. Koh (1990) describes other types of punya in colloquial Malay.

Aspects of morphology Malay, as an agglutinative language, employs derivational morphology. This involves morphological processes such as affixation, reduplication and compounding. Long (1993) described the development of some affixes among preschool children. She found that preschool children, in general, were able to use the majority of the verbal and nominal affixes. Only a small group of affixes were not used at home or in school, such as loan prefixes and suffixes, nominal infix -em-, verbal infixes and verbal circumfix ke- … -an. Preschool children at five and six years old were not able to master the affixes, perhaps because they have not yet reached Piaget’s concrete operational stage which occurs at about seven years old (Long, 1993). Therefore, morphological development is considered to be an ongoing process for the preschoolers. (99)

The sample affixation children seem to produce in this study are as follows: (a) pijak (step) + ter- (prefix) → terpijak ‘accidentally stepped’ (b) lumba (race) + ber- (prefix) → berlumba ‘to race’ (c) malam (night) + se- (prefix) → semalam ‘yesterday’ (d) puluh (tenth) + se- (prefix ) → sepuluh ‘ten’ (e) sedia (ready) + ber- (prefix) → bersedia ‘be ready’ (f) kejut (surprise) + ter- (prefix) → terkejut ‘surprised’ (g) gelak (laugh) + -kan (suffix) → gelakkan ‘laugh at’ (h) garis (line) + -an (suffix) → garisan ‘line’ (i) lumba (race) + per- … -an (circumfix) → perlumbaan ‘race’

Compounding is another morphological process in Malay. The compound words that the sample children seemed to produce was more of compound nouns rather than verbal or adjectival compounds. (100)

Some examples of compounding from the language samples are: (a) Ais krim ‘ice cream’ (b) Tukang masak ‘cook’

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(c) Telur goreng ‘fried egg’ (d) bahasa Inggeris ‘English language’ (e) Lauk ikan ‘fish dish’ Reduplication, although the least used of these morphological elements, is still found in children’s language. Ahmad (2007) describes the different types of reduplication in Malay which consist of full reduplication, partial reduplication and rhythmic reduplication. In our sample, children seem to be using full reduplication for both content words (101a, b and e) and functional words (101c and d): (101)

Examples extracted from our language samples: (a) Main masak-masak ‘play cooking’ (b) Sama-samalah ‘(Let’s) do it together’ (c) Ramai-ramai ‘many people’ (d) Sikit-sikit ‘a little bit’ (e) Bayang-bayang ‘shadow’

Developing the Malay LARSP (M-LARSP) Method This study aims to chart the language development among Malay children within the ages of 1;0 to 6;11. In this research, 130 subjects were recruited. The inclusion criteria are that: (a) subjects are native speakers of Malay and where Malay is spoken 80% of the time as their home language; (b) the children are within the age ranges of 1;0–6;11 years old; (c) there is no history of speech, language and hearing disorders as reported by teachers, parents or caregivers. Consent from parents or caregivers was obtained for the children to participate in this study. Data collection was carried out either in subjects’ homes or at their preschools. Subjects were categorized into the following groups as in Table 8.3. Three methods were adopted for the data collection: (1) free conversation; (2) story-telling and retelling using a picture book as a prompt; and (3) selfgenerated narratives from children’s own experience. According to Ooi and Wong (2012), who studied conversational samples among bilingual Chinese– English Malaysian preschoolers, spontaneous language sample provides quantitative information for language assessment and provide useful descriptive information on child language development in complex language and the cultural environment. The first two methods were used for children aged 1;0–3;11 based on the outcomes of a pilot test, while all three methods were used for children aged between 4;0 and 6;11. All the data collected were audio- or video-recorded. Data were collected in the following ways:

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Table 8.3 Categorization of subjects according to age intervals and number of subjects Age interval

Age groups of children

No. of children in each age group with equal numbers in gender

3 months

1;0–1;2, 1;3–1;5, 1;6–1;8, 1;9–1.11, 2;0–2;2, 2;3–2;5, 2;6–2;8, 2;9–2;11 3;0–3;5, 3;6–3;11 4;0–4;11, 5;0–5;11, 6;0–6;11 13 age groups

10 children × 8 age groups

6 months 12 months Total

10 children × 2 age groups 10 children × 3 age groups 130 children

Source: Jin et al. (2012: 220).

through free conversation and story retelling among subjects in the 1;0–3;11 age range and, for the 4;0–6;11 age range, through free conversation, story retelling and relating personal experience. The story retelling used a picture book based on the story of ‘The Race Between Tortoise and Rabbit’. This picture book was specially drawn for this project. The free conversations were based on a fixed set of activities involving cooking and shopping. In relating their personal experiences, children talked about their experiences during family outings, which included going on a picnic, going to the zoo and visiting grandparents. Crystal (1979: 22) recommended the collection of a 30-minute free conversation sample. There is a limitation stemming from this recommendation. For example, Child A may produce only 10 utterances, while Child B may produce 60 utterances, rendering comparison of utterances between Child A and Child B more difficult. A pilot was carried out to try both methods of data collection, the results of which showed that the time limit may not be the best criterion for normative data collection from children at this young age. Thus a decision was made to collect and analyze a free conversation language sample until a child reached a total of 50 utterances in order to compare data from the different age groups of children. There were relatively fewer utterances recorded using the other two methods, and therefore no cut-off point based on the number of utterances was applied for these two methods. Nearly 9585 utterances in Malay were collected and analyzed. Data were transcribed orthographically and analyzed according to the Malay Language Grammar Guide (A Razak, 2009). Analysis of utterances according to LARSP went through three levels of checking by a student researcher, an assistant staff researcher and the principal researchers. The data were transcribed orthographically and each utterance was given a word-for-word gloss in English with a literal translation in English for the convenience of the non-Malay readers, as shown in Table 8.4. The grammatical analysis is placed under each child’s utterance and the contextual information and categorization of the LARSP stages is listed in the boxes on the

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Table 8.4 A sample LARSP analysis Utterance E: Dia sekolah dekat mana? she school near where ‘Where does she go to school?’ C7: Diasekolahdekatrumah Mak Teh. She/he school near there that got house Auntie Teh. ‘She goes to school near Auntie Teh’s house’. C: S V A P: Pron Prep N N N W: Compound N E: Oh, yang ada rumah Mak Teh. oh, that got house Auntie Teh. ‘Oh, the one that’s near Auntie Teh’s house.’

LARSP stages

Context

Stage III: S V A Stage II: Pron

MLU

6

right of the utterance. Each utterance is analyzed according to the three levels at clause, phrase and word levels. The number of words for each utterance is calculated and subsequently the MLU for the whole 50 utterances sample is computed.

Syntactic development of Malay children: Selected outcomes As expected, the mean length of utterance (MLU) of subjects in general increases with the increase in age, as shown in Table 8.5. Notwithstanding variability among individual subjects, this distribution of MLU indicates the child’s ability to use longer sentences, phrases and increasing vocabulary, depending on other factors such as their chronological age, the duration of their exposure to the language and the input that they receive from people in their environment.

Age group: 1;0–1;11 There seems to be a trend for the early one year olds (1;0–1;5) to have more verbs than nouns and the reverse is seen in a dramatic increase with more nouns than verbs for the children in the older one-year-old group, specifically for children at the ages of 1;6–1;11 (with a significant difference with z = −4.082, p < 0.05). This is shown in Table 8.6. Verbs produced tend to be concrete verbs and these children’s early verbs are more likely to be used in specific contexts and to be linked to routines (Tardif, 1996). The first structures containing an auxiliary verb appeared between 21 and 24 months old (Wells, 1985). Holophrases are found in the production of children before age 2;0. Each holophrase consists of a [verb + particular lexical item] (Noun, Pronoun, Adverb, Negation), which does not change across repeated uses, suggesting that these expressions are used non-productively (Uziel-Karl, 2008).

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Table 8.5 Distribution of mean length of utterance Ages

MLU ∑/n

SDEV

1;0–1;5 1;6–1;11 2;0–2;5 2;6–2;11 3;0–3;11 4;0–4;11 5;0–5;11 6;0–6;11

1.05 1.24 1.49 1.73 2.34 2.31 3.15 2.62

0.07 0.06 0.13 0.67 0.92 0.8 0.6 0.11

Table 8.6 Production of word categories among the one-year-old children Verb Age groups

N

1;0–1;2 1;3–1;5 1;6–1;8 1;9–1;11

10 10 10 10

(102)

Noun

% Mean frequency 13.7% (10.0) 23.6% (17.2) 22.3% (16.3) 18.9% (13.8)

Nak lagi want more V Adv ‘I want more.’

SDEV 2.26 10.68 5.23 5.65

% Mean frequency 5.5% (2.5) 18.1% (8.3) 25.5% (11.7) 21.8% (10.0)

Other categories SDEV 2.22 4.95 5.23 6.78

% Mean frequency 2.0% (0.2) 9.0% (0.9) 23.0% (2.3) 24.0% (2.4)

SDEV 0.63 1.60 2.31 2.27

(103) Dah makan have eaten Aux V ‘I have eaten.’

By 1;6–1;8 years old, there is an emergence of two-word elements for VP (Aux V, V Adv; Figure 8.1). As age increases, the variety and frequency of the two-words element VP increases, while the one-word VP gradually decreases, probably due to the beginning of the acquisition of two-word utterances. There is a noticeable trend in a sharp increase of single-element verbs followed by a steady decline. This decline, however, seemed to be compensated for by an increase of AUX V combinations. As children’s language matures their production increases, along with the correct form and meaning. Table 8.7 shows the increasing complexity of a child’s utterance in response to the question Nak main apa ‘What do you want to play?’. Stage I starts from the 1;0–1;2 age group. The transition into Stage II from Stage I started at 1;2 and is fully acquired by 1;11. Figure 8.2 shows the 1;0–1;8-aged children’s use of verb and clause combinations of Stage I and Stage II of LARSP. Stage II verb and clause combinations were produced by all 10 subjects in the 1;9–1;11 age group.

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Figure 8.1 Verb phrase development patterns among children 1;0–2;2 years old

Table 8.7 Development of the verb phrase across the one-year-old children Subject

Response utterance

Child 1: 1;3–1;5 Child 2: 1;9–1;11 Child 3: 2;0–2;2

Nak ‘want’ (V) Belon ‘balloon’ (N) Nak belon ‘want balloon’ (VO)

Figure 8.2 Stages of LARSP for one year olds

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Age group 2;3–3;11 Stage III starts with the children in the 1:9–1:11 age group and is established by the age 2;0–2;2. Examples of constructions produced included SVO, VVO and NEG XY. It stabilizes at the age group 2;0–2;5. For children in the 1;9–1;11 age group there was a sudden increase in the occurrence of simple three-word utterances. Subjects in the age group 2;3–2;5 and 2;6–2;8 used the early verb nak ‘want’ at high frequencies followed by other concrete verbs such as potong ‘cut’, makan ‘eat’, tidur ‘sleep’ and baring ‘lie down’, etc. A subject in the age group 2;3–2;5 performed much better than her peers when she produced Prep V untuk potong ‘for cutting’ and Neg Aux V tak boleh duduk ‘cannot sit’. New verbs come into play with subjects from the 2;9–2;11 age group, with verbs such as pakai ‘wear’, jatuh ‘fall down’, ada ‘possess’ and makan ‘eat’. Children in the 2;9–2;11 age group used more auxiliaries than the verb nak ‘want’. This is also the time when children started to use verbal affixation such as ibu belikan (beli ‘buy’ + affix -kan) ‘mother bought for me …’. Between 2;2 and 2;8, children produce mainly simple sentences as in Table 8.8. They start to produce complex sentences and coordinate sentences in the 2;9–2;11 age group. Examples of utterances produced at this stage include: simple sentences (104–105), coordinate sentence (106) and complex sentence (107). (104) Kenapa pecah ni, kepala? Stage III QXY Why break this Head ‘Why is this head broken?’ (105) Dia sikat dulu. Stage III SVA He comb before ‘He combs first.’ (106) Ni nak mangkuk nak bubuh apa tu? Stage V: Q Coord This want bow l want put what that ‘This bowl that you want, what do you want to put in it? (107) Dia berlari setapaklepas tu berlari setapak lepas tu dah habis. setapak Stage VII Emphatic Order He run one-stepafter that run oneAfter that already finish one-step step ‘He runs step by step then he runs another step and after that he finished the race.’

Table 8.8 Production of sentences among the two- to three-year-old children Age

Simple sentences

Complex sentences

Coordinate sentences

2;0–2;2 2;3–2;5 2;6–2;8 2;9–2;11 3;0–3;5 3;6–3;11

30 44 42 48 43 84

0 0 0 1 2 4

0 0 0 1 1 2

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This tabulation of LARSP stages enables us to conclude an approximate range of the following stages and age equivalents. This estimation has, of course, to be tested on a bigger population of children so that a normative profile can be obtained. LARSP

Stage I ~ 1;0–1;5 Stage II ~ 1;6–1;11 Stage III ~ emerging at 2;0–2;2 Stage IV ~ 2;6 – 3;0

Age groups four to six years old For the four- to six-year-old age group, the established stages are Stages I, II and III, while the Stages of IV, V, VI and VII are emerging. However, the richness of grammatical development was captured when we examined the children’s word morphology. The children seemed to be developing their internal verbal structures by adding negation, auxiliaries such as sudah ‘have’, boleh ‘can’, nak ‘want’ and kena ‘must’. They also seemed to enrich their vocabulary by utilizing compounding – lauk ikan ‘fish dish’ – or by reduplication – panas-panas ‘very hot’; and by affixation (mainan ‘toy + suffix → toys’, bulatan ‘round + suffix → circle’). An example utterance from the relating experience setting is in (108) below. The use of compound words such as roti lilit ‘hot dog’, the yang construction and the logical connector pastu ‘after that’ indicated a matured use of grammatical elements. (108)

Dia masak roti yang hot dia kan dia lilit pastu dia masak. lilit dog She baked bread which hot she EM she rolled then she Cook rolled dog P ‘She baked rolled bread which has the hotdog in it then she cooked it.’

The Adapted Malay-LARSP Chart From the preceding discussions, we will now present the modifications recommended for the Malay-LARSP chart. Modifications are marked in red. In Table 8.9, Stage I has only one modification in that the adjective (ADJ) category should be included in the word categories at Stage I. This is in line with Karim et al. (2009), who listed adjectives as a major word category in Malay. At Stage II, Malay has the additional clause SA and VA options which involve adverbials. For questions, Malay has the variant XQ aside from QX. Malay is predominantly a head initial language (A Razak, 2003); therefore phrases conform to this head initial rule as seen in noun phrases N DET and N ADJ, for example, the N ADJ construct as in baju biru, where the baju ‘dress’ is the head and biru ‘blue’ is the modifier. Meanwhile, in N DET, the noun phrase rumah itu ‘the house’, rumah is the noun and itu is the determiner. Stage III as in Table 8.10 has statements in Malay whose combinations are unlike English, for example SVV, SOA, SVA and VVO. Questions have a

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Table 8.9 Malay-LARSP Stages I and II Unanalysed 1. Symbolic noise Minor Vocative Major Command ‘V’ Conn. Clause Command Stage II

Stage I

A

VX

Problematic 1. Incomplete Other

Responses Statement ‘V’

‘N’

Quest.

Statement

QX XQ

SO SV SC NegX AX SA otherVA

ADJ

Other

VO VC

2. Stereotypes

Problems Phrase

N DET N ADJ NN PrN

VV V Part InxtX

other

Table 8.10 Malay-LARSP Stages III and IV Conn.

Clause Command

Stage IV

Stage III

VXY Jom mariXY

+S VXY +

Phrase Question

Statement

QXY XYQ VQX VS(X)

SVO SVC SVV SOA SVA NEg XT

QXY+ XY + Q

SVOO AAXY SVOC SVOA

VCA VOO VOA VVO

N ADJ DET N ADJ ADJ Pr N Pron N Pron N Punya N Cop AUX Other NP Pr NP Pr N Det

variant for Malay in the VQX and XYQ combinations. The equivalent of command Lets XY in Malay is Jom/Mari XY. At phrase level, the head initial rule is observed in N ADJ DET and N ADJ ADJ. The NP possession is represented by the N Pron and N Punya N (cf. 3.0 Malay Grammar). Stage IV has the additional question combination XY + Q and Pr N Det at phrase level. Elements in Stage V are similar to English as it deals with inter-sentential linkages, as we see in Table 8.11. (Stages VI and VII are not discussed in this chapter, as further research work needs to be carried out on the elements of errors and aspects of discourse. These stages will be left for future studies.)

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Table 8.11 Malay-LARSP Stage V Stage V

Conn. Dan ‘and’ c s Other

Command

Clause Question

Coord.

Coord.

Other

Other

Phrase Statement Coord. 1 1 + Postmod 1 1+ Yang Clause SubordA 1 Postmod 1+ 1+ S C O Phrase Comparative

Table 8.12 Malay-LARSP: word endings Word Prefixes Infixes Circumfixes Suffixes Compounding Reduplication Particle -lah, Particle -kah, Particle -tah

The word categories in Malay are different from English in that the verbal, nominal and adjectival endings are related to affixations. Compounding and reduplication are also word-level constructions. Table 8.12 lists word endings relevant to the description of Malay children’s language. Based on the data collected and analyzed, in the next section we will show the applicability of Malay-LARSP in clinical settings for the purposes of profiling Malay-speaking children and adults with language impairment.

Clinical Case Study Using Malay-LARSP In this section, we will demonstrate that the Malay-LARSP is a clinically powerful assessment tool in identifying deviant language skills which may not be captured based on subjective observation and intuition alone. We will describe the language profile of Sofia, a five-year-old female Malay child with language impairment. We then compare Sofia’s language profile with the language profile of Shakila, a typically developing four-year-11-month-old female child. Finally, we will compare the results of Sofia’s language

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assessment on the Malay-LARSP with the results obtained from a standardized test, i.e. the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool (MPLAT).

Background information Sofia (5;00) was born full term following a normal pregnancy. She has had no hearing problems or medical complications. Her developmental milestones were within the normal limits. Her language development was reported to be normal by her parents. Her parents were concerned about her speech intelligibility and sought intervention at the Speech Clinic, School of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Sofia attended 10 sessions for assessment and treatment of speech sound errors when she was 4;06. There was no formal language assessment done on her language skills. However, her language skills were estimated to be within the normal limits by the attending speech therapist based on subjective observation and intuition as well as parental report. Sofia returned to the clinic for a review assessment at five years old. Her parents reported that she has had just started attending preschool two months prior, at four years 10 months, and is currently learning to read and write. Her phonological skills had improved remarkably, with only a mild error on /ρ/. Her language skills were assessed formally using Malay-LARSP, the result of which showed an impoverished language ability when compared to her peers (Table 8.13). Sofia’s language production has an MLU of 1.98 (mean MLU 3.15 (SD: 0.6)). She was able to produce utterances at Stage I (26%), Stage II (38%) and Stage III (14%). She has no clauses at Stage IV and has only two elements (Neg V and Neg X) at the phrase level Stage IV. There were no constructions produced at Stages V, VI and VII. For Stage I, she had 13 nouns, one verb, two others and three minor responses. Her language seemed strong at Stage II. She produced wh-questions and yes/no questions, had 10 clauses and 19 phrases. Her Stage III is just emerging with seven clauses: two wh-questions, zero yes/ no questions and five statement clauses. She had only two phrase constructions at Stage III which were both possessive N constructions. Her phrase structures are insufficiently developed for Stages III and IV and this might explain her inability to produce utterances at these two levels. She has vocatives and minor responses (6%). At word level, she produced seven instances of particle -lah which tended to result in shorter utterances, for example tehlah ‘tea + PRT’, masaklah ‘cook + PRT’. She has one instance of affixation, three instances of compounding and no reduplication. Sofia seems to have limited vocabulary: with more nouns than verbs in Stage I and a difficulty in moving on to more complex constructions at Stages III and above. Her skills on producing elaborate phrase constructions at the clause levels need to be strengthened. In Table 8.14 we compare Sofia’s profile with the language profile of a typically developing child, Shakila. Shakila is four years 11 months old and has an

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Table 8.13 Profile of Sofia’s language Sofia (5;00 (LI)): MLU = 1.98 Stage I

Minor 1 Resp 2 Major

V

Stage II

Conn.

Vocative Q

VX 2 XV 1

VX(X) Conn.

N 13

ADJ

SV 2 SO 2 SA 1 SC NegX

AX 2 VO 2 VC VA 1

N Det 1 N ADJ 2 NN 3 PrN 1 NUM DET 1

SVC 1 SVO 2 SVA NegXY

QVS

SVOA

Word VV 3 Comp 3 VPart 1 Lah 7 Other N Part 5 Quant N 2

Phrase VCA VOA 2 VOO Other

Command Question Clause +S

Other AUX 1 ADV 1

Phrase

Command Question Clause QXY XYQ 2

Stage IV

V1

Command Question Clause QX 1 XQ2

Stage III Conn.

Other

Command Question Statement

D ADJ N Cop ADJ ADJ N AUX Pr DN Other Pron 1 N N (Poss) 1 Phrase

AAXY

NP Pr NP

Neg V 1 NegX 1

Table 8.14 Overall comparison of Sofia’s (LI) and Shakila’s (TD) Malay-LARSP profiles Sofia: 99/50; MLU = 1.98

Shakila: 217/50; MLU = 4.34

Stage I: Word: 16 = 26% Minor = 3 = 6%

Stage I: 6 (12%)

Stage II: Clause 16 (38%) Phrase 19

Stage II: Clause 14 (28%) Phrase 27

Stage III: Clause: 7 (14%) Phrase: 2

Stage III: Clause: 14 (28%) Phrase: 21

Stage IV: Clause: 0 (0%) Phrase: 2

Stage IV: Clause: 7 (14%) Phrase: 5

Stage V: NA

Stage V: Clause 7 (14%) Phrase: 3

Stage VI: NA

Stage VI: 1 (2%)

Stage VII: NA

Stage VII: 1 (2%)

Note: Utterance non clause: 8 (16%).

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MLU of 4.34. Shakila has utterances covering all of Stages I until VII of LARSP. Her combinations of elements at the phrase structure levels are strong and that allows her to be productive at Stages IV and V with Stages VI and VII emerging. Sofia, on the other hand, has an emerging Stage III and limited phrases at Stages III and IV. Sofia has yet to produce structures at Stages V, VI and VII. Sofia showed distinct weakness in her phrases at Stages III and IV when compared to Shakila’s phrases at those levels. We show in Table 8.15 a profile of Stage III for both children. Sofia was credited with seven tokens of clauses and two phrase constructions of which both were NP possession phrases. This is in contrast to Shakila who has strong language use at both clause and phrase levels at Stage III LARSP. There is a marked difference between the two profiles. Finally, in Table 8.16, we show the results of an assessment using the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool (MPLAT) on Sofia. This tool tests receptive and expressive language abilities with six subtests ranging from vocabulary, word semantics and grammatical understanding to early literacy skills. Overall, Sofia’s performance on the MPLAT is at percentile 1 which means 99% of children in her age group are doing much better than her. Her GU score was at the 70th percentile, her SR scores were at the 65th percentile, her PV score was at 35th percentile and she had low percentiles for RefM, RelM and EL. The RefM and RelM subtests which assessed the production of word meanings demonstrate marked weak points. Having a limited vocabulary might be one of the reasons for her language impairment Table 8.15 Comparison of Stage III Malay-LARSP Sofia: 5;00 (LI) Stage III

Conn.

Command

Question

Clause

QXY XYQ 3 VX(X)

SVC 1 SVO 2 SVA ASV 1 NegXY

Question

Clause

QXY VX(X)

SVC 3 SVO 5 SVA 2 NegXY

Phrase VCA VOA 1 VOO Other

D ADJ N ADJ ADJ N Pr DN Pron 1 N Pron (poss) 1

Cop AUX Other

Shakira: 4;11 (TD) Stage III

Conn.

Command

Phrase VCA VOA VOO OtherSOA 1 VAA 1 SAV 2 ASA 1

D ADJ N ADJ ADJ N Pr DN Pron 9 N Pron (poss) 10

Cop AUX 11 Other

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Table 8.16 Sofia’s performance on the MPLAT Item

Raw score

Mean (SDEV) 5;0–5;5

Standard score (Mean = 20)

Percentile

Test total Picture vocabulary (PV) Grammatical understanding (GU) Sentence repetition (SR) Referential meaning (RefM) Relational meaning (RelM) Early literacy (EL)

40/170 23/40 11/20 6/24 2/20 0/35 0/31

58.8 (8.4) 24 (4.2) 9.1 (4.1) 5.4 (3) 9.4 (4.2) 5.5 (3.9) 5.7 (3.4)

11 19 22 21 13 0 0

1 35 70 65 5 1 1

and her inability to combine words into phrases and clauses. However, her encouraging results in GU and SR subtests indicate that her prognosis is good for better language provided some language stimulation is rendered to her so that her language can develop further. The analysis above using Malay-LARSP and MPLAT was able to highlight the areas of improvement that could be included in the management of Sofia. Both Malay-LARSP and MPLAT came to the same conclusion on areas of difficulties, that is a lack of vocabulary and inability to combine elements into more complex phrases. The use of a combined assessment, i.e. a structured test and a LARSP analysis of spontaneous speech, provided us with a comprehensive picture of Sofia’s language impairment. This is line with Letts et al. (2014), who recommended a mixture of assessments: language sampling, standardized testing and case history taking in pediatric language evaluation. At the same time we were able to show the concurrent validity of the Malay-LARSP profile.

Conclusions In this chapter we presented the syntactic development of Malay children in Malaysia using the adapted Malay-LARSP profile chart. We highlighted the peculiarities of colloquial Malay grammar. We presented the adaptations made to the Malay-LARSP profile sheet. We ended the chapter by demonstrating how the Malay-LARSP profile chart when used in the clinic was able to provide evaluation for clients with language impairment. The validity for Malay-LARSP is obtained when comparing the diagnostic results to another standardized structured test of language, i.e. the MPLAT test. The work of providing clinical tools for language assessment in local languages will continue to be essential and important for effective clinical outcomes for SLPs. Given recent population movements, communities speaking these local languages may now be found in major cities all over the world. Such tools will help those who are striving to provide professional services

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to children and young adults with language delay and impairment. This chapter is a starting point to providing an example of a systematic research procedure to study Malay-speaking children’s language development and applying the outcomes to clinical practice.

Appendix 1: Malay-LARSP – Complete Profile

Source: © Rogayah A Razak, Lixian Jin, Lim Hui Woan and Mohd Azmarul A Aziz.

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Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to the British Council for the Prime Minister’s Initiative II Connect (PMI2 Connect) Research Grant (2008–2010), and our appreciation to both universities, De Montfort (DMU) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), for enabling researchers from both universities to visit and carry out work at both universities. We would like to acknowledge each and every person who has directly and indirectly helped us in carrying out this research. We particularly show our appreciation to the UKM undergraduate students, Goh Cheng Jee and Sarah Rinai Siran; the part-time research assistants, Siti Nabihah Ismail, Siti Fatimah Adnan and Husna Liyana Talib; and our assistant researcher for the Malay data, Ms Mursyida Hassan. Last but certainly not least, our gratitude goes to all the children and their parents for their participation in this study.

References Ahmad, Z. (2007) Pembentukan kata ganda separa bahasa Melayu [The Partial Reduplication Construction in Malay]. Kuala Lumpur: DBP. A Razak, R. (2003) The Syntax and Semantics of Quantification in Malay. Kuala Lumpur: Academy of Malay Studies, Universiti Malaya. A Razak, R. (2009) Guide to Malay grammar. Unpublished. Prime Minister Initiative II Connect (PMI2 Connect) Research Grant, British Council and Speech Sciences Program, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. A Razak, R., Madison, C., Siow, Y.K. and A Aziz, M.A. (2010) Preliminary content validity and reliability of a newly developed Malay preschool language assessment tool. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing 13, 217–234. A Razak, R., Madison, C. and A Aziz, M.A. (2014) Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool (MPLAT) – Manual. Selangor: Speech Sciences Program, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Blankanette, L. (2002) Norm for Malay adapted communicative development inventory words and gestures for 12 and 18 month old Malay infants. Unpublished research, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Crystal, D. (1979) Working with LARSP. London: Edward Arnold. Crystal, D. (1992) Profiling Linguistic Disability (2nd edn). London: Whurr. Crystal, D. (2003) Rediscover Grammar. London: Pearson Education. Fahmy, M.R. (2001) Adaptation of Renfrew Action Picture Test (RAPT) into Malay language for children aged five years old. Unpublished undergraduate thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Faust, T., Mullis, S. and Solomon, K. (1992) Malaysian Development Language Assessment Kit (MDLAK). Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Care. Hassan, A. (1974) The Morphology of Malay. Kuala Lumpur: DBP. Jin, L. Oh, B.L. and A Razak, R. (2012) C-LARSP: Developing a Chinese grammatical profile for clinical assessment in Malaysia. In M.J. Ball, D. Crystal and P. Fletcher (eds) Assessing Grammar: The Languages of LARSP (pp. 208–229). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Jin, L., A Razak, R., Wright, J. and Song, J. (2014) Issues in developing grammatical assessment tools in Chinese and Malay for speech and language therapy. In H. Winskel and P. Padakannaya (eds) South and Southeast Asian Psycholinguistics (pp. 145–158). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Karim, S., Onn, F., Musa, H. and Mahmood, H. (2009) Tatabahasa dewan [Dewan Grammar] (3rd edn). Kuala Lumpur: DBP. Koh, A.S. (1990) Topics in colloquial Malay. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Melbourne University. Letts, C., Edwards, S., Schaefer, B. and Sinka, I. (2014) The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales: Descriptive account and illustrative case study. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 30 (1), 103–116. Long, J. (1993) Pemerolehan imbuhan pada peringkat prasekolah dan implikasinya terhadap pendidikan bahasa [The Acquisition of Affixes at the Preschool Level and its Implications for the Teaching of Language]. Kuala Lumpur: DBP. Mintz, M.W. (1994) A Students’ Grammar of Malay and Indonesian. Singapore: EPB Publishers. Ooi, C.C. and Wong, A.M. (2012) Assessing bilingual Chinese-English young children in Malaysia using language sample measures. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 14 (6), 499–508. Prentice, D.J. (1990) Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian). In B. Comrie (ed.) The Major Languages of East and Southeast Asia (pp. 913–935). London: Routledge. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Raini, R. (2003) Adaptation of the Kindergarten Language Screening Test 2 (KLST-2) into Malay on 6-year-old Malay children: A preliminary study. Unpublished undergraduate thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Razali, R. (2003) Adaptation of the Kindergarten Language Screening Test 2 (KLST-2) into Malay on 5-year-old Malay children: A preliminary study. Unpublished undergraduate thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Saiman, S. (2002) Norm for Malay Adapted Communicative Development Inventory Word and Gesture for 12 and 18 month old Malay infants. Unpublished research, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Siaw-Fung, C. (2005) Kena as a third type of Malay passives. Oceanic Linguistics 44 (1), 194–214. Simin, A. (1988) Discourse-Syntax of ‘Yang’ in Malay (bahasa Malaysia). Kuala Lumpur: DBP. Tardif, T. (1996) Nouns are not always learned before verbs: Evidence from Mandarin speakers’ early vocabularies. Developmental Psychology 32 (3), 492–504. Uziel-Karl, S. (2008) Acquisition of verb structure from a developmental perspective: Evidence from child Hebrew. In N. Gagarina and I. Gulzow (eds) The Acquisition of Verbs and their Grammar (pp. 15–44). Dordrecht: Springer. Vandort, S., Vong, E., A Razak, R., Mustaffa Kamal, R. and Hooi, P.M. (2007) Normative data on a Malay version of the Boston Naming Test. Health Sciences Journal of Malaysia 5, 11–21. Wells, G. (1985) Language Development in the Preschool Years. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9

Cantonese LARSP: A Procedure for Assessment and Remediation for Cantonesespeaking Children Man Tak Leung and Hong Lan Li

Introduction The Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure, abbreviated to LARSP (Crystal, 1979; Crystal et al., 1989), has been used as a practical procedure for the grammatical analysis of children with language impairment, and has been found informative about children’s grammatical difficulties by illustrating the loci of their strengths and weakness. LARSP’s results have also been used as a basis for therapeutic management (Tommerdahl & Drew, 2008). Grammar (morphology and syntax) has been regarded as playing an important role in child language development (Crystal, 1979) and children with language impairment are found to have difficulty with syntax (Leonard, 2014; Paul, 2001). However, for Cantonese-speaking preschoolers in Hong Kong, no tailor-made Cantonese-friendly grammatical assessment and remediation tool like LARSP is available. The present study developed LARSP in a Cantonese version (CanLARSP) by adapting the framework of LARSP’s English version (E-LARSP) on the basis of the data of 119 samples from typically developing native Cantonese-speaking preschoolers. In the development of Can-LARSP, linguistic differences between English and Cantonese such as the lack of inflections in Cantonese words have been taken into consideration. Can-LARSP makes reference to Zhu’s (1982, 1985) phrase-based grammar approach, which holds that one of the most striking Chinese-specific features is that the constructions of Chinese phrases and sentences are basically identical. Zhu (1982) categorizes Chinese phrases into six main types of dichotomous 172

Cantonese L AR SP

173

syntactic structure (hereafter SS) according to the relationship between the two syntactic constituents. Sentences with more than two words in CanLARSP were analyzed into SSs hierarchically.1 Four sections are included in the following. First, we describe the Cantonese grammatical features. Secondly, we show the development of Can-LARSP, as composed of a sample collection, the grammatical analysis in Can-LASRP and the description of the Can-LARSP chart. Thirdly, we provide a Can-LARSP analysis of one sample from a native Cantonese-speaking boy with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). Finally, we present a discussion on the problems and potential significance of the present study.

Cantonese Grammatical Features Cantonese is spoken widely in the south of China – in Guangzhou and Hong Kong as well in overseas Chinese communities. However, references to Cantonese grammar are comparatively sparse compared with those of modern Chinese based on Putonghua. Among the current work on Cantonese grammar, Cheung (2007) and Matthews and Yip (1994) are the most comprehensive. The present study adapted Cheung (2007) as the major reference and also made reference to Matthews and Yip (1994) and Lau (1977). Moreover, Zhu’s (1982, 1985) phrase-based grammar approach established on the basis of modern Chinese was also adapted in Can-LARSP, because it has been widely accepted that the constructions of Chinese phrases and sentences are basically identical. More detailed description of Zhu’s phrase-based grammar approach will be presented in the following.

Cantonese particles and affixes Compared with English, one of the most distinguishing features of Chinese is that there are no inflections in Chinese words indicating tense, aspect, gender or number (Matthews & Yip, 1994; Zhu, 1982). Adverbs of time are used to specify the time of past, present and future; affixes and particles are used to mark aspect and number in Chinese. In this section, the most commonly produced particles and affixes by Cantonese-speaking preschoolers in our data are elaborated below.2

Cantonese particle 嘅 (ge3) 嘅 (ge3) is a particle with many functions in Cantonese. It has been used commonly with pronouns and nouns to indicate the possessive relationship (e.g. 我嘅手袋, ngo5 ge3 sau2doi6, ‘my bag’). It can also be used as an attributive marker (e.g. 黃色嘅香蕉, wong4sik1 ge3 hoeng1ziu1, ‘yellow banana’) and a nominalization marker (e.g. 綠色嘅, luk6sik1 ge3, ‘the green’) (Cheung, 2007).

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Cantonese aspect suffixes 咗 (zo2) is the perfective aspect marker basically used to report an event in Cantonese (1). Compared with 咗 (zo2), 過 (gwo3) functions as an experiential aspect marker, indicating experience or something having occurred at least once before (2). 緊 (gan2) is used as a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese, similar to the progressive -ing form in English (3). Compared with 緊 (gan2), which is used for dynamic ongoing activities, 住 (zyu6) is used as the durative aspect marker to describe a continuous activity or state of an event (4). (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

姑姑 買 咗 新 Gu1gu1 maai5 zo2 san1 Aunt buy-PFV new ‘Aunt has bought a new toy.’ 我 睇 過 一 Ngo5 tai2 gwo3 jat1 I look-EXP one ‘I have seen (it) only once.’ 我 煮 緊 飯。 Ngo5 zyu2 gan2 faan6. I cook-PRO rice. ‘I am cooking.’ 佢 著 住 件 Keoi5 zoek3 zyu6 gin6 He wear-CON CL ‘He wears red.’

嘅 ge3 PRT

玩具。 wun6geoi6. toy.

次 ci3 time

啫。 ze1. PRT.

紅色 衫。 hunk4sik1 saam1. red coat.

Cantonese plural suffix and potential complement infixes 哋 (dei6) is a suffix, being used with pronouns to indicate plurality in Cantonese. Infixes 得 (dak1) and 唔 (m4) are inserted in the VC construction to form positive and negative potential complements, respectively (Cheung, 2007), for example, 呢個打得開 (ni1go3 daa2 dak1 hoi1, this beat infix-dak open, ‘This can be opened’), and 呢個打唔開 (ni1go3 daa2 m4 hoi1, this beat infix-m open, ‘This cannot be opened’).

Chinese parts of speech and syntactic constituents Compared with English parts of speech, Chinese parts of speech are multifunctional and are in a one-to-many correspondence relationship with syntactic constituents (Figure 9.1). In English, adjectives usually occur before nouns as attributes. If an adjective occurs at the position of subject/ object or predicate, it will be derived into a noun or a verb, respectively, by adding derivational affixes. For example, the adjective ‘pure’ is used as an

Cantonese L AR SP Subject/Object

Noun

Predicate

Verb

Attribute

Adjective

175

Adverbial

Adverb

Figure 9.1 Chinese parts-of-speech and syntactic constituents Source: Zhu (1985: 5).

attribute before a noun in ‘pure water’. When being used at the position of subject/object, ‘pure’ will be derived into noun ‘purification’; when being used at the position of predicate, it will be derived into a verb ‘purify’. As Chinese words do not bear any inflectional or derivational affixes, Chinese verbs and adjectives do not undergo inflectional changes when they are occupying slots of different syntactic constituents such as subject, predicate and object in a sentence. From this perspective, Chinese parts of speech can be regarded as being multifunctional, occurring flexibly in terms of their emergence at the positions of different syntactic constituents. For instance, the verb 游水 (jau4seoi2, ‘swim’) occurs flexibly at the positions of predicate, subject and object, respectively, without any derivational changes (5–7). (5)

(6)

(7)

佢 游水。 游水 Keoi5 jau4seoi2. He swim. ‘He swims.’ 游水 好 Jau4seoi2 hou2 Swim good ‘Swimming is healthy.’ 佢 鍾意 Keoi5 zung1ji3 He like ‘He likes swimming’

(The verb is the predicate)

健康。 gin6hong1. healthy.

(The verb is the subject)

游水 游水。 jau4seoi2. swim.

(The verb is the object)

Figure 9.1 shows the one-to-many correspondence relationship between Chinese parts of speech and syntactic constituents. In Chinese, a noun can function as subject, object, attribute and sometimes predicate, a verb can function as subject, object and predicate, and an adjective can function as all the syntactic constituents.

Chinese sentence and syntactic structures The phrase functions as a bridge connecting word and clause. In Chinese, phrases can be realized as sentences by adding pause and intonation which

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help to form complete meaning. For example, 開飛機 (hoi1 fei1gei1, open airplane, ‘to fly/flying an airplane’) in (8) and (9) is a phrase as there is no pause before or after it in (8) and (9), respectively. In (10), 開飛機 (hoi1 fei1gei1, open airplane, ‘to fly/flying an airplane’) is a sentence as there are pauses at the beginning and at the end. (8)

(9)

(10)

佢 開 飛機。 Keoi5 hoi1 fei1gei1. He open airplane. ‘He flies an airplane.’ 開 飛機 容易。 Hoi1 fei1gei1 jung4ji6. Open airplane easy. ‘To fly/Flying an airplane is easy.’ 開 飛機。 Hoi1 fei1gei1. Open Airplane. ‘To fly/Flying an airplane.’ (Zhu, 1985: 7)

Another specific feature of Chinese is that the constructions of Chinese phrases and sentences are basically identical (Zhu, 1982, 1985). As Chinese words do not undergo any inflectional or derivational changes, a phrase has the same construction when it is realized as a sentence and serves as a part in a sentence. For example, the construction of 開飛機 (hoi1 fei1gei1, open airplane, ‘to fly/flying an airplane’) in (10) is identical to that in (8) and (9). The identical construction of Chinese phrases and sentences makes it possible to describe Chinese sentences with phrases. Zhu (1982) classifies Chinese phrases into six dichotomous SSs, namely subject-predicate structure (SP, e.g. 我玩, ngo5 waan2, I play, ‘I play’), verbobject structure (VO, e.g. 食蘋果, sik6 ping4gwo2, eat apple, ‘to eat an apple’), verb-complement structure (VC, e.g. 洗乾淨, sai2 gon1zeng6, wash clean, ‘to wash (something) clean’), modifier-head structure (MH hereafter, e.g. 大蘋果, daai6 ping4gwo2, big apple, ‘a big apple’), serial-verb structure (V1V2, e.g. 出去 玩, ceot1heoi3 waan2, out go play, ‘to go to play outside’) and coordinate structure (Coord1Coord2 hereafter, e.g. 佢同我, keoi5 tung4 ngo5, he and I, ‘he and I’). Some phrase types will be further categorized into subtypes in the present study. VO will be divided into single and double object structures, and the latter has two variations, VOiOd, like 爭你三蚊 (zang1 nei5 saam1man1, owe you three dollar, ‘to owe you three dollars’) and VOdOi, like 畀三本書我 (bei2 saam1 bun2 syu1 ngo5, give three CL book I, ‘to give three books to me’). V1V2 will have two subtypes: serial-verb structure, V1V2, like 買水飲 (maai5 seoi2 jam2, buy water drink, ‘to buy water to drink’) and pivotal structure, V1O/SV2, like 叫我飲水

Cantonese L AR SP

177

(giu3 ngo5 jam2seoi2, shout I drink water, ‘to ask me to drink water’), in which the object of V1 also serves as the subject of V2. MH has three subtypes: attributive modifier-head structure (M(attri)H), like 大粟米 (daai6 suk1mai5, big corn, ‘big corn’), appositive modifier-head structure (M(appo)H, like 阿 Joe BB (aa6 Joe bi4bi4, affix Joe BB, ‘affix Joe BB’), adverbial modifier-head structure (M(adv)H), like 好快 (hou2 faai3, good fast, ‘very fast’) and negative modifier-head structure (M(neg)H), like 唔食 (m4 sik6, not eat, ‘do not eat’). Apart from the above SSs, two more structures are added in the present study: the first is the preposition-object structure (PrepO), like 喺學校 (hai2 hok6haau6, at school, ‘at school’) in 喺學校玩玩具 (hai2 hok6haau6 waan2 wun6geoi6, at school play toy, ‘to play toys at school’). The second is the topic-comment structure (Top-Com), like 車車我都玩 (ce1ce1 ngo5 dou1 waan2, car I also play, ‘I also play cars’). The reasons to include Top-Com as an SS in the present study are twofold: First, Chinese has been regarded as a topic-prominent language (Li & Thompson, 1981; Shi, 2000) and the TopCom SS is typologically specific in Chinese grammatical analysis; secondly, findings from previous studies on Chinese preschoolers’ acquisition and TopCom structure suggest that Chinese preschoolers are able to comprehend the concept of topic and start using Top-Com structure (Cantonese children, Fletcher et al., 2000; Putonghua children, Chien & Lust, 1985). In the present study, there are 14 basic SSs (Top-Com, SP, VO, VOiOd, VOdOi, VC, M(attri) H, M(appo)H, M(adv)H, M(neg)H, V1V2, V1O/SV2, Coord1Coord2, PrepO). Among the 14 SSs, we take Top-Com and SP as clausal structures and the other 12 as phrasal structures. Chinese simple sentences can be analyzed into SSs level by level – see (11). The SS placed at Level 1 is an SP that is used to form the sentence in (11). At Level 2, the ‘S’ and ‘P’ are further analyzed into M(attri)H and VO, which are regarded as their immediate constituent, respectively. At Level 3, the ‘O’ of Level 2 VO is further analyzed into a VO. At Level 4, the ‘O’ of Level 3 VO is further analyzed into M(attri)H.

(11)

我 妹妹 鐘意 食 Ngo5 mui6mui6 zung1ji3 sik6 I sister like eat ‘My sister likes eating big apple.’ S P M(attri)

H

V

大 daai6 big

蘋果。 ping4gwo2. apple. Level 1

O V

Level 2 O M(attri)

Level 3 H

Level 4

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Cantonese multiple sentences Multiple sentences are composed of two or more clauses. Generally speaking, there are two main types of Cantonese multiple sentence according to the semantic relationship between clauses: coordination and subordination (Matthews & Yip, 1994). Besides, there is a special type of Cantonese multiple sentence without pause between clauses, namely the compressed sentence (9), which can be either coordination or subordination (Cheung, 2007; Huang & Liao, 2002). 完 先至 食飯。 (12) 睇 Tai2 jyun4 sin1zi3 sik6faan6. Look finish only eat rice. ‘(Someone) would not have dinner/lunch until (someone) finish watching (TV).’

If a Chinese multiple sentence comprises two or more clauses, there may be coordinative and subordinative relations within the sentence simultaneously. For example, two clauses may be in a coordinative relation, and these two clauses may be in a subordinative relation with another clause in a multiple sentence. Chinese multiple sentences are constructed hierarchically according to the relations among clauses (Huang & Liao, 2002). Sentence (13) is a multiple sentence with three clauses which are constructed in two levels: the first level includes the first two clauses which are in a coordinative relation; the second level is constructed by the first two clauses in a subordinative relation to the third clause, being connected by the double conjunction (因为…所以…, jan1wai6 … so2ji5 …, ‘because …’). (13)

因為 佢 頭先 食 咗 又 飲 咗 蛋糕,| 所以 飽 得 滯。 橙汁,|| Jan1wai6 keoi5 tau4sin1 sik6 zo2 daan6gou1, jau6 jam2 zo2 caang2zap1, so2ji5 baau2 dak1 zai6. Because he just eat-PFV cake, again drink-PFV orange juice, so full infix-dak too. ‘He is too full because he just ate cake and drank orange juice.’

Cantonese multiple sentences are related in a variety of ways. Connectives such as single conjunctions (e.g. 跟住, gan1zyu6, ‘then’), double conjunctions (e.g. 如果 … 就 …, jyu4gwo2 … zau6 …, ‘if ‘), adverbs (e.g. 先, sin1, ‘only’) and time nouns (e.g. 以后, ji5hau6, ‘afterwards’) are used to coordinate clauses into multiple sentences (Matthews & Yip, 1994; Zhu, 1982). Some double conjunctions like 因为 … 所以 … (jan1wai6 … so2ji5 …, ‘because …’) do not always occur simultaneously. In some cases, especially in spoken Cantonese, only one of them is used.

Cantonese L AR SP

179

Cantonese multiple sentences can also be commonly linked structurally and semantically without overt connectives (Huang & Liao, 2002; Yam, 2004). For instance, the omission of a common subject is the most important structural link (14). Parallel is another structural link (15). The sense of being continuous is regarded as a type of semantic link (16).

(14)

(15)

隻

狗

跳

落

去,

追

住

隻

Zek3

gau2

tiu3

lok6

heoi3,

zeoi1

zyu6

zek3

CL

dog

jump

fall

go,

chase

suffix-jeu CL

貓

仔

‘The dog jumped down, chasing the frog.’ 狗 仔 鐘意 食 骨,

鐘意

(16)

食

魚。

Gau2

zai2

zung1ji3

zung1ji3

sik6

jyu4.

Dog

suffix-jay like

like

eat

sik6

gwat1,

maau1 zai2

eat

bone,

cat

青蛙。 ceng1waa1. frog.

suffix-jay

fish.

‘Dogs like eating bone, cats like eating fish.’ 我 哋 贏 咗, 好 開

心。

Ngo5

dei6

jeng4 zo2,

hou2

sam1.

I

PL

win-PFV,

good open

hoi1

heart.

‘We are happy because we won.’

Cantonese-specific constructions Cantonese double object constructions In the Cantonese double object construction, the direct object (Od) can be placed before or after the indirect object (Oi) according to the verb (Cheung, 2007). Some verbs place the direct object before the indirect object to form a VOdOi construction like 畀 (bei2, ‘to give’), (17), while others place the indirect object before the direct one, forming a VOiOd construction similar to English (18). (17)

(18)

佢 畀 三 本 Keoi5 bei2 saam1 bun2 She/He give three CL ‘She/He gives three books to me.’ 我 爭 你 三 Ngo5 zang1 nei5 saam1 I owe you three ‘I owe you three dollars.’

書 syu1 book 蚊。 man1. dollar.

我。 ngo5. me.

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Passive constructions The Cantonese passive construction is formed by the word 俾 (bei2, ‘by’) which must precede a verb. Unlike the English passive construction, the agent of the action is indispensable in Cantonese. If the agent is unknown or generic, the word人 (jan4, ‘person’) is used after 俾 (bei2, ‘by’) (19); if the agent is unknown but clearly non-human, the word 嘢 (je5, ‘thing’) is used (20) (Mathews & Yip, 1994).

青蛙 俾 人 (19) 隻 Zek3 ceng1waa1 bei2 jan4 CL frog by person ‘The frog has been caught.’ 俾 嘢 咬 咗 (20) 细佬 Sai3lou2 bei2 je5 ngaau5 zo2 Younger brother by thing bite-PFV ‘Younger brother’s face has been bitten.’

捉 咗。 zuk1 zo2. catch-PFV. 塊 faai3 CL

面。 min6. face.

Pretransitive construction Chinese is regarded as an SVO language from the point of view of typology. A transitive verb usually takes an object after it, but the object can sometimes be placed before the transitive verb by adding the preposition 將 (zoeng1) before the object. For example, the transitive verb 搣 (mit1, ‘tear’) takes a noun 橙 (caang2, ‘orange’) as its object after it in (21). In (22), the object 橙 (caang2, ‘orange’) is placed before the verb 搣 (mit1, ‘tear’) by adding the preposition 將 (zoeng1) to form a pretransitive construction.

搣 開 (21) 我 Nog5 mit1 hoi1. I tear open. ‘I open the orange by hand.’ 將 個 (22) 我 Nog5 zoeng1 go3 I jeong CL ‘I open the orange by hand.’

個 go3 CL

橙。 caang2. orange.

橙 caang2 orange

搣 mit1 tear

開。 hoi1. open.

The Development of Can-LARSP Sample collection and analysis The development of Can-LARSP was based on the data collected from 119 typically developing native Cantonese-speaking preschoolers. The age range

Cantonese L AR SP

181

of the subjects was from 2;1 (two years and one month) to 5;11. The subjects were grouped into six stages according to chronological age (Table 9.1). Language samples were audio-recorded, following the recommendation in Crystal et al. (1989) and Crystal (1992). Each recording lasted for 15–20 minutes continuously in the form of one-to-one conversational interaction in a free-play situation for the purpose of obtaining subjects’ natural SSs. Two types of stimuli were employed to obtain samples: stimuli used to elicit an immediate play situation (e.g. open-ended questions about the toys were used) and stimuli used to elicit subjects’ experience instead of the immediate play situation (Crystal, 1992; Crystal et al., 1989). Audio-recorders (SONY, ICD-BX 132/S) and toys (plush toys, cooking set, fruit and vegetable set) were used for collecting language samples. Native Cantonese-speaking examiners were trained before sample collection to elicit the most naturalistic language samples. The last 50 continuous major utterances (5720 in total) were chosen for data analysis for Can-LARSP development (except for samples in which the total number of major utterances did not reach 50) in order to avoid the warming-up part which may affect the overall rating. In Chinese, word identification is difficult as no space is used to mark word boundaries in a string of characters that compose a sentence. Before sample analysis, the Chinese word identification proposed by Cheung (1998) (Table 9.2) was employed for the identification of Cantonese words.

Grammatical analysis in Can-LARSP Grammatical analysis in Can-LARSP adapts the notion of levels (connective, clause, phrase and word) in E-LARSP. The set of connective devices that builds up multiple sentences is analyzed first. Multiple sentences are analyzed into simple sentences which are represented by clausal structures TopCom and SP phrases are analyzed into other SSs level by level, as in (11) above. Affixes and particles that mark aspect, plural and the like are analyzed at the word level.

Simple sentence analysis in Can-LARSP In Can-LARSP, simple sentences are first categorized into question and statement functionally, and then are further analyzed into Top-Com and SP at clause level and other SSs at phrase level hierarchically (as in (11) repeated below for convenience). In addition, an Arabic number superscription is added to each syntactic constituent, indicating the levels it has. For instance, SP2 indicates that the SS is an SP, of which the ‘P’ has two levels; that is, Table 9.1 The distribution of subjects in Can-LARSP Stage No.

I (2;0– 2;5) 5

II (2;6– 2;11) 23

III (3;0–3;5) 19

IV (3;6– 3;11) 24

V (4;0– 4;11) 24

VI (5;0–6;0) 24

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Table 9.2 Cantonese word identification in Can-LARSP No.

Types

Examples

No. of words

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

V + V (Independent) V + V (Bound) V + N (Free) V + N (Bound) N (Name) N (Place A) N (Place B) Numeral + Classifier Determiner + Classifier Pronoun Adjective Negation Adverb Time adverb Conjunction Preposition Grammatical marker

入來 (jap6loi4, ‘come in’) 忘記 (mong4gei3, ‘forget’) 看書 (hon3 syu1, ‘read books’) 跳舞 (tiu3mou5, ‘dance’) 茶杯 (caa4bui1, ‘tea cup’) 屋頂 (uk1ding2, ‘housetop’) 外面 (ngoi6min6, ‘outside’) 兩個 (loeng5 go3, ‘two CL’) 呢個 (ne1go3, ‘this’) 我 (ngo5, ‘I/me’), 靓 (leng3, ‘beautiful) 唔 (m4, ‘not’) 已經 (ji5ging1, ‘already’) 日日 ( jat6jat6, ‘everyday’ ) 因為 (jan1wai6, ‘because’) 將 (zeong1, ‘with, by’) 咗 (zo2, perfective aspect marker)

1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

there is one more SS below it. Taking (11) as an example again, at clause level (C), the sentence is analyzed into ‘S2P4’, indicating that there is one level and three more levels below ‘S’ and ‘P’, respectively. (11)

我

妹妹

鐘意

食

大

蘋果。

Ngo5

mui6mui6

zung1ji3

sik6

daai6

ping4gwo2.

I

sister

like

eat

big

apple.

‘My sister likes eating big apple.’ C:

S2

P:

M(attri)

P4 H

V

Level 1 O3 V

Level 2 O2 M(attri)

Level 3 H

Level 4

Word level of Can-LARSP Affixes and particles that mark aspect, plural and the like are analyzed at the word level (W). The word column of Can-LARSP includes 12 items that occurred frequently in our data.

Cantonese L AR SP

(23)

C:

我 揸 緊 Ngo5 zaa1 gan2 I drive-PROG ‘I am driving.’ S P2

P: W:

V prog

183

車。 ce1. car. Level 1 O

Level 2

Connectivity Connectives such as conjunctions and adverbs used to coordinate clauses into multiple sentences are analyzed at the connective level. In Can-LARSP, single conjunctions like 同埋 (tung4maai4, ‘and also’) and 就 (zau6, ‘if’) used to join coordination and subordination, were labeled as ‘c’ and ‘s’, respectively; double conjunctions like 或者 … 或者 … (waak6ze2 … waak6ze2 …, ‘or … or …’) and 如果 … 就 … (jyu4gwo2 … zau6 …, ‘if …’) used to join coordination and subordination were grouped under ‘dc-conj’ and ‘ds-conj’, respectively; adverbs used to connect clauses were recognized as ‘other’.

Description of Can-LARSP chart The A, B, C and D sections are the same as those of E-LARSP. Stages from Stage I to Stage IV run from 2;0 to 3;11 at six-month intervals. Stages V and VI run from 4;0 to 6;0 with one-year intervals. Items placed in the ‘Conn.’ (Connective), ‘Quest.’ (Question) and ‘Statement’ columns at each stage were produced by at least 50% of the population at that particular stage (see Appendix 1). As few command sentences were seen in our data, the Can-LARSP profile omitted the ‘Comm.’ column, keeping only ‘Quest.’ and ‘Statement’ columns. Under the row of ‘Conn.’, ‘Clause’ and ‘Phrase’, there is a row indicating the levels that the SSs locate. Items in ‘L1 (SP)’ (Level 1) in ‘Quest.’ and ‘Statement’ columns stand for the clausal structure SP. Columns from ‘L2’ to ‘L6’ include phrasal SSs which locate at the corresponding levels. The columns of ‘Statement’ (from Stage III to Stage VI) were divided into two parts by a double line due to the limitation of the space of the chart. Items above the double line stand for SP that was applied to form simple statements; those below the double line stand for multiple sentences. The stages from Stage II to Stage VI were divided by a dashed line into two parts from ‘L2’ to ‘L6’ columns. Items above the dashed line stand for SSs that were used to form statements; those below the dashed line stand for SSs that were used to form questions. Three types of connectives (‘c’, ‘s’ and ‘other’) were placed in the ‘Conn.’ column. The double coordinative and subordinative conjunctions ‘dc-conj’ and

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Prof iling Grammar

‘ds-conj’ were not included as they were not produced by over 50% of children at any particular stage. No children at Stage I were found to use connectives. Although children at Stage II started producing connectives ‘c’, ‘s’, ‘other’ and ‘ds-conj, less than half of the children use them. For single coordinative conjunction ‘c’, the percentage of children using it was 63%, 46%, 83% and 75% at Stage III, Stage IV, Stage V and Stage VI, respectively. For single subordinative conjunction ‘s’, the percentage of children using it increased from 63% at Stage IV, to 75% at Stage V and to 88% at Stage VI. ‘Other’ connectives such as adverbs were not used as frequently as ‘c’ or ‘s’; 67% Stage VI children used them (Table 9.3).

Stage I (2;0–2;5) Stage I includes one-word items like ‘V’, ‘N’, ‘N-dup’ (e.g. 狗狗, gau2gau2, ‘dog’) and ‘Prono’ (pronouns excluding personal pronouns, e.g. 呢個, ne1go3, ‘this’) in the ‘HoloP’ row. Other one-word items like Pronp (personal pronoun) and Adj were classified as ‘other’. Apart from these one-word items, children at Stage I started to use nine types of SSs (SP, VO, VC, M(attri)H, M(adv)H, M(neg)H, V1V2, V1O/SV2 and Coord1Coord2). More than 50% of children were able to apply ‘SP’ to form three-level questions. All children at this stage were able to produce SP up to two levels in statements and used ‘VO’ at ‘L2’. Eighty percent were able to use ‘M(neg)H’ at ‘L2’; 60% of them were also able to use ‘VO’ at ‘L3’ in statement.

Stage II (2;6–2;11) Stage II children started to use three new types of SSs (Top-Com, PrepO and M(appo)H). Children at this stage go through the most rapid syntactic development in terms of the number of SSs they use. More than 50% of children were able to use 22 different numbers of SSs. The SP used to form statements reached four levels at this stage. New SSs such as VC, M(attri)H and M(adv)H were used at ‘L2’, VC, PrepO, M(attri) and M(adv)H were used at ‘L3’, and ‘M(attri)H’ was used at ‘L4’. All Stage II children were also able to use ‘VO’ at ‘L3’.

Table 9.3 The number (percentage) of subjects using connectives in Can-LARSP Stage

‘c’

‘s’

‘other’

‘ds-conj’

‘dc-conj’

Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV Stage V Stage VI

0 5 (22%) 12 (63%) 11 (46%) 20 (83%) 18 (79%)

0 2 (9%) 9 (47%) 15 (63%) 18 (75%) 21 (88%)

0 2 (9%) 4 (21%) 10 (42%) 10 (42%) 16 (67%)

0 1 (4%) 1 (5%) 5 (21%) 9 (38%) 6 (25%)

0 0 1 (5%) 1 (4%) 1 (4%) 1 (4%)

Cantonese L AR SP

185

Stage III (3;0–3;5) More than half of the Stage III children were able to use single coordinative connective ‘c’ to form coordinative sentences ‘Coord 1’; besides this, they were also able to employ ‘V12V2’ at ‘L2’ with the percentage reaching the peak (74%) across the six stages. No new clausal SSs were produced by over 50% of children at this stage, but children (two out of 19) at this stage were found to start producing double-object construction (VOdOi).

Stage IV (3;6–3;11) When children reached 3;6, over 50% of them were able to use single subordinative connective ‘s’ and compressed sentence ‘Compressed 1’. Sixtythree percent of the children were also found to use ‘S2 P2’, in which both syntactic constituents were expanded. The percentage of children using ‘SP3’ reached 100% at this stage. M(adv)H was used up to four levels ‘M(adv)H4’ at ‘L2’ and VO was used up to three levels ‘VO3’ at ‘L3’ at this stage, both with a percentage of 63%.

Stage V (4;0–4;11) More than 50% of Stage V children were able to produce subordinate sentences ‘Sub 1’ and use SP up to five levels ‘SP5’. Fifty-four percent and 63% of children used ‘V 2O’ and ‘M(attri)2H’, respectively at ‘L2’.

Stage VI (5;0–5;11) Half of Stage VI children were able to use SP up to six levels ‘SP 6’, 54% were able to use more complex coordinative sentences which comprise more than two clauses ‘Coord 1 + ‘, 58% were able to use ‘Coord1Coord2’ and M(adv) H up to five levels ‘M(adv)H5’ at ‘L2’. Additionally, the percentage of children using ‘SP5’ at ‘L1’ (67%), ‘M(attri)2 H’ (67%), ‘M(adv)H’ (100%), ‘M(adv)H4’ (79%), ‘M(neg)H’ (83%) and ‘M(neg)H2’ (79%) at ‘L2’, ‘M(adv)H 2’ (58%) at ‘L3’, ‘VO’ (96%) and ‘VC’ (71%) at ‘L4’ and ‘M(attri)H’ at ‘L5’ reached its peak through the six stages (Table 9.4). The word column in Can-LARSP consists of 12 items (four aspect markers, one plural marker, five affixes, the superlative marker and the ordinal number marker). The order of these items was based on the order of their emergence in our data (Table 9.5). The perfective aspect marker (咗 , zo2) was found to be used the earliest and most frequently in our data. Although Stage I children were found to use only three word column items, after children passed 2;6 their use of word column items increased dramatically. Stage II children were found to use almost all items placed in Can-LARSP word column. Below the six stages, a row is divided into two parts: ‘(+)’ consists of items which are more complex than those in the above six stages. The ‘(+)’ row is divided into three columns: The first is ‘Conn.’, consisting of double coordinative and subordinative conjunctions (‘dc-conj’ and ‘ds-conj’). The second is ‘Clause’, consisting of ‘Top-Com’, ‘Complex SP’ which has more levels

Holop 1 2 3 4 SP (L1) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Phrase (L2) 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

No.

5 (100%) 5 (100%) 2 (40%) 1 (20%)

5 (100%) 1 (20%)

SP SP2 SP3 SP4 SP5 SP6 S2P2 S2P3

VO VO2 VO3 V2O VC VC2 M(attri)H

2 (40%)

2 (40%) 1 (20%)

5 (100%) 5 (100%) 5 (100%) 5 (100%)

Stage I

N-dup N V prono

Items

23 (100%) 19 (83%) 8 (35%) 8 (35%) 17 (74%) 13 (57%) 20 (89%)

21 (91%) 22 (96%) 21 (91%) 14 (61%) 3 (13%) 1 (4%) 10 (47%) 4 (21%)

17 (74%) 22 (96%) 23 (100%) 17 (74%)

Stage II

19 (100%) 18 (95%) 11 (58%) 11 (37%) 16 (84%) 8 (42%) 16 (84%)

15 (79%) 18 (95%) 18 (95%) 11 (58%) 9 (47%) 1 (5%) 7 (37%) 6 (32%)

6 (32%) 18 (95%) 15 (79%) 8 (42%)

Stage III

Table 9.4 The number (percentage) of children using items (in statement) in Can-LARSP

24 (100%) 22 (92%) 19 (79%) 11 (46%) 15 (63%) 11 (46%) 24 (100%)

21 (88%) 24 (100%) 24 (100%) 21 (88%) 11 (46%) 3 (13%) 15 (63%) 10 (42%)

3 (13%) 24 (100%) 20 (83%) 15 (63%)

Stage IV

24 (100%) 23 (96%) 16 (67%) 13 (54%) 20 (83%) 8 (33%) 23 (96%)

21 (88%) 24 (100%) 24 (100%) 23 (96%) 15 (63%) 4 (17%) 12 (50%) 11 (46%)

7 (29%) 21 (88%) 22 (92%) 15 (63%)

Stage V

24 (100%) 22 (92%) 19 (79%) 11 (46%) 16 (67%) 6 (25%) 23 (96%)

18 (57%) 24 (100%) 24 (100%) 20 (83%) 16 (67%) 13 (54%) 13 (54%) 12 (50%)

3 (13%) 22 (92%) 20 (83%) 9 (38%)

Stage VI

186 Prof iling Grammar

VO VO2 VO3 VC M(attri)H M(adv)H M(adv)H2 M(attri)2H PrepO

M(attri) H M(adv)H M(adv)H2 M(adv)H3 M(adv)H4 M(adv)H5 M(neg)H M(neg)H2 V12V2 Coord1Coord2

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Phrase (L3) 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

2

Items

No.

1 (20%)

2 (40%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%)

3 (60%) 1 (20%)

4 (80%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%) 2 (40%)

1 (20%) 2 (40%) 2 (40%)

Stage I

23 (100%) 14 (61%) 5 (22%) 17 (74%) 19 (83%) 13 (57%) 2 (9%) 4 (17%) 14 (61%)

7 (30%) 19 (83%) 20 (89%) 16 (84%) 6 (26%) 3 (13%) 13 (57%) 12 (52%) 10 (43%) 4 (21%)

Stage II

19 (100%) 12 (63%) 6 (32%) 11 (58%) 16 (84%) 10 (53%) 4 (21%) 8 (42%) 9 (47%)

6 (32%) 17 (89%) 13 (68%) 10 (53%) 8 (42%) 4 (21%) 10 (53%) 12 (63%) 14 (74%) 6 (32%)

Stage III

24 (100%) 22 (92%) 15 (63%) 21 (88%) 23 (96%) 13 (54%) 8 (33%) 10 (42%) 19 (79%)

10 (42%) 23 (96%) 22 (92%) 23 (96%) 15 (63%) 3 (13%) 16 (67%) 12 (50%) 17 (71%) 8 (33%)

Stage IV

Table 9.4 The number (percentage) of children using items (in statement) in Can-LARSP (Continued)

24 (100%) 22 (92%) 9 (38%) 20 (83%) 23 (96%) 20 (83%) 12 (50%) 11 (38%) 13 (54%)

15 (63%) 22 (92%) 24 (100%) 21 (88%) 16 (67%) 6 (25%) 16 (67%) 13 (54%) 10 (42%) 10 (42%)

Stage V

(Continued)

24 (100%) 21 (88%) 15 (63%) 21 (88%) 21 (88%) 18 (75%) 14 (58%) 13 (54%) 11 (46%)

16 (67%) 24 (100%) 20 (83%) 23 (96%) 19 (79%) 14 (58%) 20 (83%) 19 (79%) 8 (33%) 14 (58%)

Stage VI

Cantonese L AR SP 187

Phrase (L4) 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Phrase (L5) 46 Phrase (L6) 47

No.

6 (26%) 2 (9%)

M(attri)H

M(attri)H

9 (39%) 1 (4%)

Stage II

4 (17%) 15 (65%) 3 (13%) 2 (9%)

1 (20%)

Stage I

VO VO2 VO3 VC M(attri)H M(attri) 2H M(adv)H

Items

3 (16%)

11 (58%)

8 (42%) 7 (37%) 3 (16%) 4 (21%) 13 (68%) 4 (21%) 2 (11%)

Stage III

4 (17%)

13 (54%)

18 (75%) 4 (17%) 2 (8%) 10 (42%) 23 (96%) 8 (33%) 6 (25%)

Stage IV

Table 9.4 The number (percentage) of children using items (in statement) in Can-LARSP (Continued)

5 (21%)

12 (50%)

13 (54%) 23 (96%) 7 (29%) 14 (58%)

19 (79%) 8 (33%)

Stage V

13 (54%)

19 (79%)

23 (96%) 14 (58%) 12 (50%) 17 (71%) 21 (88%) 13 (54%) 10 (42%)

Stage VI

188 Prof iling Grammar

2;1 2;3 2;4 2;7 2;8 2;8 2;8 2;9 2;8 2;9 2;9 2;10 3;4 4;4

pfv (咗) dur (住) neg-c (唔) ge-nom (嘅) pl (哋) prog (緊) ge-attri (嘅) exp (過) ge-attri (嘅) exp (過) sup (最) ge-poss (嘅) dak-c (得) pre-fix (第) 4 (80%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%)

Stage I

6 (26%) 5 (22%) 6 (26%) 2 (9%) 3 (13%) 3 (13%) 3 (13%) 3 (13%) 1 (4%) 2 (9%)

18 (78%)

Stage II

1 (5%)

15 (79%) 1 (5%) 4 (21%) 4 (21%) 6 (32%) 2 (11%) 3 (16%) 5 (26%) 3 (16%) 5 (26%)

Stage III

Note: Markers: 1st, the age (year; month) of the first emergence of the word column items.

1st

Items

Table 9.5 The number (percentage) of children using word column items in Can-LARSP

22 (92%) 2 (8%) 9 (38%) 5 (21%) 9 (38%) 4 (17%) 6 (25%) 8 (33%) 6 (25%) 8 (33%) 2 (8%) 5 (21%) 3 (13%)

Stage IV 21 (88%) 1 (4%) 9 (38%) 8 (33%) 12 (50%) 1 (4%) 8 (33%) 12 (50%) 8 (33%) 12 (50%) 1 (4%) 4 (17%) 3 (13%) 1 (4%)

Stage V

4 (17%) 2 (8%)

6 (25%) 9 (38%) 10 (42%) 3 (13%) 11 (46%) 10 (42%) 11 (46%) 10 (42%) 7 (29%)

22 (92%)

Stage VI

Cantonese L AR SP 189

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Prof iling Grammar

than the SP in the above six stages, and subordinate sentences with more than two clauses (‘Sub 1 +’), and multiple sentences (‘Multiple 1’ and ‘Multiple 1 +’). The third is ‘Phrase’, also consisting of complex phrasal SSs which are more complex than those in the above six stages. Another part is ‘(−)’, consisting of the incorrect use of connectives, SSs and word column items. For Cantonese-specific constructions, the percentage of children using them across the six stages did not reach 50%. The reason may be that these constructions are likely to be elicited in particular contexts instead of in a free-play situation. In the Can-LARSP chart there is a row including four types of Cantonese-specific constructions. The chart ends with the row consisting of five quantitative indices. The first is ‘Total No. of Utterances’, the second is ‘Mean No. of Utterance Per Turn’, the third is the total number of syntactic structures (‘NOSS’), the forth is total different number of different syntactic structures (‘NODSS’) and the last one is mean length of utterance in word (‘MLUw’). The reason to include MLUw, NOSS and NODSS in Can-LARSP is that MLU is a decent indicator of children’s early syntactic development (Cheung, 1998; Huttenlocher et al., 2002; Rondal et al., 1987). It is reasonable to predict that the longer an utterance is, the higher MLU and the more NOSS it contains. But MLU and NOSS do not go without criticism. The ‘same can be less’ issue on MLU (Johnston & Kamhi, 1984; Leonard & Finneran, 2003; Scarborough et al., 1991) may distort NOSS as well, in the sense that two utterances with the same NOSS may be different in complexity. Utterances with the same MLUw and NOSS may show differences in NODSS. Table 9.6 is the MLUw, NOSS and NODSS of the six stages in Can-LARSP. It demonstrates that all the three indices increase steadily from Stage I to Stage VI, with girls generally higher than boys.

Flexibility of SSs in Can-LARSP On top of MLUw, NOSS and NODSS, there is one more index named ‘flexibility’ in the present study. Flexibility refers to the number of syntactic constituent slots that an SS can occupy. It provides quantitative information on the number of syntactic constituent slots in which an SS is utilized, and qualitative information on the types of syntactic constituents in which a child is able to place an SS. For example, VO is used by Stage I children with a flexibility of six (Table 9.7). It means that VO is used in six syntactic constituent slots (P of SP, O of VO, V2 of V1V2, H of M(adv)H, H of M(neg)H and V2 of V1O/SV2). We believe that children with more advanced syntactic ability will use SSs with higher flexibility. Based on the data of the present study, we calculated the flexibility of each SS. Table 9.7 shows the flexibility of each SS at each stage. For most of the SSs listed below, the flexibility increases with children’s language development. The number of children who used an SS at a particular syntactic

Cantonese L AR SP

191

Table 9.6 The MLUw, NOSS and NODSS in Can-LASRP Stage

Gender

MLUw

NOSS

NODSS

Stage I

F M Total F M Total F M Total F M Total F M Total F M Total

2.01 1.71 1.83 2.79 2.58 2.69 2.88 3.15 3.01 3.87 3.15 3.51 3.99 3.80 3.90 4.59 4.28 4.44

31 22 26 71 65 68 72 86 79 120 94 107 120 112 116 131 132 131

12 9 10 22 21 22 23 27 24 33 27 30 35 34 34 38 37 37

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV

Stage V

Stage VI

Table 9.7 Flexibility of each SS at each stage SS Top-Com SP VO VC M(attri)H M(appo)H M(adv)H M(neg)H PrepO V1V2 V1O/SV2 VOdOi VOiOd Coord1Coord2 V1OdOi/SV2

Stage I

6 2 2 2 1 1 1 2

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV

Stage V

2 9 7 11 1 7 3 2 2 3 1

2 13 6 12 4 8 5 3 6 3 1

3 14 9 14 2 10 4 5 5 4 2

6 13 7 15 6 10 6 3 7 5 2

7

7

10 1

1

Stage VI 1 8 14 8 15 4 12 7 4 8 4 2 1 10 1

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Prof iling Grammar

constituent slot at a particular stage (e.g. at Stage I, ‘1/5’ in the row of ‘VO’ and in the column of ‘O’ means that there are a total of five children at Stage I, and one of them was found to use VO at O). The use of flexibility provides a clear picture of how Chinese children utilize SSs. For example, Chinese relative clauses can be analyzed into M(attri)H with an SS which contains a verb like VO, SP, VC and V1V2 at the slot of M(attri) (24). In Can-LARSP analysis, if any SSs with a verb are found below M(attri), it will be easy to tell that the utterance is a Chinese relative clause. (24) 我

有

切

佢

嘅

刀。

Ngo5 jau5

cit3

keoi5

ge3

dou1.

I

cut

it

ge-attri knife.

have

‘I have a knife that can be used to cut it.’ C: P:

S V

P4

Level 1

O3

Level 2

M(attri)2 V

H O

Level 3 Level 4

Case Study One 15-minute spontaneous one-to-one free-play speech sample obtained from a native Cantonese-speaking child (C1 hereafter) was analyzed in the framework of Can-LARSP. The case was a boy of 5;4, diagnosed with ASD. A 15-minute speech sample was transcribed and only major utterances were analyzed. Figure 9.2 shows the results of the speech sample of C1 in Can-LARSP analysis. In the 15-minute speech sample, 70 major utterances were produced, with MLUw 2.09, NOSS 61 and NODSS 15. Although the NOSS produced were close to the average of Stage II, the NODSS produced is only 15, which lies between Stage I and Stage II NODSS (Table 9.6). Figure 9.2 demonstrates that C1 was able to use almost all Stage I items and some Stage II items. Although his NOSS is 61, 46% of the utterances are ‘VO’. Quite a few types of SSs are found missing (‘Coord1Coord2’, ‘V1V2’, and ‘M(appo)H’). Besides, C1 was poor at using ‘M(attri)H’ and ‘M(adv)H’. Each of them was produced only once at Stage II. All of the 70 utterances were simple sentences; no connectives or multiple sentences were found. The word column tells us that C1 was also

Cantonese L AR SP

193

Figure 9.2 Can-LARSP analysis of C1 at 5;4 Notes: Markers: NOSS, number of syntactic structures; NODSS, number of different syntactic structures; MLUw, mean length of utterance in words. Source: ©Man-Tak Leung, Cantonese version 2014, after Crystal, Fletcher and Garman (1981).

quite poor at using particles and affixes. Only two aspect markers (‘pft, 咗’ and ‘exp, 緊’’) were seen in his sample. The flexibility of C1’s use of SSs appeared poorer than Stage I children. For example, he was limited to using VO at only three different syntactic constituents, whereas Stage I children could use VO with flexibility 6 (Table 9.7). In summary, Figure 9.2 and Table 9.8 show that C1 was at Stage II at most. First, no connectives or complex sentences which are used by Stage III normal children were produced. Secondly, the clausal structure SP was used at no more than four

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Prof iling Grammar

Table 9.8 Flexibility of SS of C1 SS

Flexibility

(S)P

(V)O

VO PrepO VC M(attri)H M(adv)H

3 1 2 1 1

√

√

V(O)

(V)C

(M(adv))H √

√ √

√

√ √

levels ‘SP4’. Thirdly, the MLUw, NOSS and NODSS do not reach the average of those at Stage II. Fourthly, only two-word column items were used, whereas normal Stage II children are usually able to use almost all word column items. Fifthly, the flexibility of C1’s use of SSs was much lower than that of Stage I children.

Discussion The purpose of developing Can-LARSP is to provide language assessment for both typically and atypically developing Cantonese-speaking children by analyzing their SSs. As indicated in the case study, NOSS, NODSS, the presence and absence of SSs and the flexibility measure can be used as a basis for therapeutic management as it provides information on the loci of subjects’ strengths and weakness. The fact that Can-LASRP can be used to distinguish Cantonese-speaking children with language impairment from normal developing children serves to provide helpful information to language therapists to decide on patients’ remediation plans. Based on the LARSP profile, SSs that the students have mastered and the flexibility of each SS, teachers can make a sensible decision on the choice of SSs and the context in which teaching materials occur in their teaching plans. The development of Can-LARSP, as well as being helpful for Cantonese-speaking children, has the potential for developing a language assessment tool for other Chinese dialects. However, there are a number of areas remaining to be enriched and problems to be solved. The Can-LARSP was developed on the basis of data including 119 samples, and the subject distribution in Table 9.1 demonstrates that the number of subjects from 2;0 to 2;5 is far less than that of the other stages, with no samples of subjects below 2;0 collected. The distribution of the items is likely to be influenced because of the small sample size of early stages. For example, the one-word items like ‘V’ and ‘N-dup’ are predicted to be placed at the stage running from 1;0 to 2;0, but are placed at Stage I running from 2;0 to 2;5 in the present Can-LARSP. Therefore, modifications may be needed after more data from early stages are collected.

Cantonese L AR SP

195

In our data, command sentences, phrasal structures in questions and specific constructions like the double object and passive constructions were not found to be produced by as many as 50% of children at a particular stage. The reason may be that these sentences and constructions could be a result of specific contexts which may not be generalized easily. Therefore, specific contexts that are likely to elicit the production of these sentences and constructions may be considered for sample collection later.

Appendix 1: Can-LARSP Profile

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Prof iling Grammar

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the Hong Kong Christian Service and TWGHs Lions Club of Metropolitan Hong Kong Kindergarten for their kind help in sample collection.

Notes (1) The double object construction includes three constituents; coordinate and serialverb constructions may include more than two constituents. (2) The Cantonese transcript system used in the present paper is Jyutping.

References Cheung, H. (1998) Utterance length and the development of Mandarin Chinese. See http:// ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/246246/20060927123130945247 (accessed 29 May 2012). Cheung, S.H.-N. (2007) A Grammar of Cantonese as Spoken in Hong Kong (revised edn). Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. Chien, Y.C. and Lust, B. (1985) The concepts of topic and subject in first language acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Child Development 56 (6), 1359–1375. Crystal, D. (1979) Working with LARSP. London: Edward Arnold. Crystal, D. (1992) Profiling Linguistic Disability (2nd edn). San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing. Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (1989) Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability (2nd edn). London: Cole & Whurr. Fletcher, P., Leung, C.-S., Stokes, S. and Weizman, Z. (2000) Cantonese Pre-school Language Development: A Guide. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Standing Committee on Language Education and Research. Huang, B.R. and Liao, X.D. (2002) Xiandai Hanyu [Modern Chinese]. Beijing: China Higher Education Press. Huttenlocher, J., Vasiyeva, M., Cymerman, E. and Levine, S. (2002) Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology 45, 337–374. Johnston, J.R. and Kamhi, A.G. (1984) Syntactic and semantic aspects of the utterances of language-impaired children: The same can be less. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 30 (1), 65–85. Lau, S. (1977) A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Leonard, L.B. (2014) Children with Specific Language Impairment (2nd edn). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Leonard, L.B. and Finneran, D. (2003) Grammatical morpheme effects on MLU: ‘The same can be less’ revisited. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 46 (4), 878–888. Li, C.N. and Thompson, S.A. (1981) Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Matthews, S. and Yip, V. (1994) Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge. Paul, R. (2001) Language Disorders from Infancy through Adolescence: Assessment and Intervention. St Louis, MO: Mosby. Rondal, J., Ghiotto, M., Bredart, S. and Bachelet, J. (1987) Age-relation, reliability and syntactic validity of measures of utterance length. Journal of Child Language 14, 433–446. Scarborough, H.S., Rescorla, L., Tager, H., Fowler, A. and Sudhalter, V. (1991) The relation of utterance length to syntactic complexity in normal and language-disordered groups. Applied Psycholinguistics 12, 23–45.

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Shi, D.X. (2000) Topic and topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese. Language 76 (2), 383–408. Tommerdahl, J. and Drew, M. (2008) Difficulty in SLI diagnosis: A case study of identical twins. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 22 (4–5), 275–282. Yam, J.T.-W. (2004) A Linguistic Introduction to Chinese Languages. Hong Kong: Qesosa Education. Zhu, D.X. (1982) Yufa Jiangyi [Notes on Chinese Grammar]. Beijing: Commercial Press. Zhu, D.X. (1985) Yufa Dawen [Q and A on Syntax]. Beijing: Commercial Press.

10 Japanese: Devising the J-LARSP Tomohiko Ito and Manabu Oi

Introduction There are no large-scale normative data on grammatical developmental stages in Japanese. This chapter describes the Japanese version of the Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure (henceforth, J-LARSP), i.e. an adaptation of the LARSP profile for Japanese. It is based on data collected as part of a longitudinal and cross-sectional study. As well as providing an overview of the acquisition of Japanese syntax and morphology, the profile will also serve as a descriptive outline of contemporary spoken Japanese, an agglutinative and verb-final language. In addition, the J-LARSP profile is a procedure developed for assessing language impairment in Japanese. Moreover, it can be used to compare the language of different children as well as that of the same child at different stages of development. The rationale for developing the J-LARSP was to provide Japanese speech and language therapists and other language professionals with a general language assessment of the level of language development in Japanese. Although many articles and books on Japanese grammar have been published, there is still no comprehensive and authoritative source on the development of Japanese available which provides information about the varieties of structural patterns in this language. The structure of Japanese is of considerable interest, since it shares a number of features with both agglutinative and verb-final languages. Therefore, linguistic profiling of Japanese should be able to shed new light on the entire process of language acquisition.

The Corpus To devise the J-LARSP we used a large pool of data of typically developing monolingual Japanese children, including that of a longitudinal study of seven children (Atake & Ito, 2012), whose range in age was 1;6–1;9, 1;6–1;10, 198

Japanese

199

1;8–2;0, 1;9–2;2, 1;10–1;11, 1;10–2;4 and 1;8–2;3, and that of a cross-sectional study of 95 children (Atake & Ito, 2013), who ranged in age from 1;9 to 2;11. In addition, cross-sectional data of 46 children were used, whose range in age was from two to six (i.e. seven aged two children, 10 aged three children, 11 aged four children, 12 aged five children, and six aged six children).These children were the 50 participants reported by Ito (1982). Moreover, the longitudinal data of Child K were used to exemplify the J-LARSP profile. Her development from Stage I to Stage IV is presented. In the longitudinal study (Atake & Ito, 2012), utterances in situations of free play were audio-recorded for approximately two hours a day every week at a nursery school. In the cross-sectional study (Atake & Ito, 2013), the speech samples of each child were taken experimentally with a semi-structured technique. In the cross-sectional study (Ito, 1982), the participants were nursery school children. About 100 utterances of each child were recorded in situations of free play. The recordings of these studies were transcribed orthographically and analyzed. The utterances in the longitudinal data of Child K were collected twice a month. In addition, the longitudinal and cross-sectional data of Fujiwara (1977), Noji (1974–1977) and Okubo (1967) were referred to.

A Brief Outline of Japanese Grammar Word order Shibatani (1990) characterizes Japanese as an SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language in the sense that the word order of ‘dependent-head’ is consistently maintained with regard to all types of constituents. Nominal relations are expressed by postpositional particles, as shown in (1). (1) Taroo-ga Hanako-ni hon-o Taro-NOM Hanako-DAT book-ACC ‘Taro gave a book to Hanako.’

yat-ta. give-PAST

Demonstrative, numeric and descriptive adjectives precede the head noun in that order, as shown in (2). (2) sono san-nin no ookina otoko that three-person of big man ‘those three big men’ Genitive nouns precede the possessed head noun, as shown in (3). (3) Taroo-no hon Taro-GEN book ‘Taro’s book’

200

Prof iling Grammar

Relative clauses precede the modified noun, as shown in (4). (4) [Taroo-ga kat-ta] hon Taro-NOM buy-PAST book ‘the book Taro bought’ Proper nouns precede non-proper nouns, as shown in (5). (5) Taroo ozisan Taro Uncle ‘Uncle Taro’ Adverbs precede modified verbs, as shown in (6). (6) hizyoo-ni hayaku hasir-u very fast run-PRES ‘run very fast’ Auxiliaries follow main verbs, as shown in (7). (7) ik-e-na-i Go-can-not-PRES ‘cannot go’ Comparative expressions take the order shown in (8). (8) Taroo-yori kashiko-i Taro-than smart-PRES ‘smarter than Taro’

Scrambling While SOV is the basic word order, Japanese does allow the reordering of preverbal major constituents. This phenomenon is referred to as ‘scrambling’. However, the verb is never moved from the sentence-final position. One of the major typological differences between English and Japanese is the phenomenon of scrambling. According to Nakayama (1996), English has a relatively rigid phrase structure, not allowing free word order or scrambling (word permutation at the surface level). Japanese, however, allows scrambling before the verb, as shown in (9), in which ‘S’ in parentheses indicates the subject, ‘IO’ the indirect object, ‘DO’ the direct object, and ‘V’ the verb. (9) (a)

John-ga Mary-ni ringo-o age-ta. (S IO DO V) John-NOM Mary-DAT apple-ACC give-PAST ‘John gave Mary an apple’ (b) Ringo-o John-ga Mary-ni ageta. (DO S IO V) (c) Mary-ni John-ga Ringo-o ageta. (IO S DO V) (d) John-ga Ringo-o Mary-ni ageta. (S DO IO V) (e) Mary-ni Ringo-o John-ga ageta. (IO DO S V) (f) Ringo-o Mary-ni John-ga ageta. (DO IO S V)

Japanese

201

The Japanese examples in (9) demonstrate the different order of noun phrases before the verb. This word permutation is permitted in Japanese because Japanese explicitly marks case with particles.

Case and case markers While English case is rarely phonologically realized except with pronouns, Japanese case is usually overtly expressed with postpositional particles that follow noun phrases, as shown in (10): (10) Taro-ga Jiro-o osita. Taro-NOM Jiro-ACC push-PAST ‘Taro pushed Jiro.’ In (10), ‘ga’ and ‘o’ are the phonological realizations of nominative case and accusative case, respectively. They are referred to as case markers or case particles. According to Fukuda and Fukuda (1999), Japanese case marking is morphologically indicated on all lexical noun phrases in Japanese. There are at least two types of case markers. One is structural case, which serves to identify the NP’s structural position; the other is inherent case, which is associated with a specific thematic role in the sentence. There are at least two structural case markers in Japanese: the nominative case marker, ga, and the accusative case marker, o, which are associated with the subject and object positions, respectively. In addition, the dative case marker, ni, has been argued to be a ‘secondary’ structural case which is also associated with the subject position of an embedded clause. In contrast, inherent (or semantic) case markers such as de (locative), e (goal), ni (benefactive), de (instrumental) and kara (ablative) denote specific thematic roles. The latter are sometimes referred to as postpositions, which are comparable to prepositions in English. In Japanese, these morphological case markers are always obligatory except in cases where the accusative case marker o is omitted in pre-verbal positions.

Nouns and noun phrases Japanese nouns have neither a gender nor a countability distinction. In addition, there are no definite or indefinite articles in Japanese. Moreover, while there is a difference between the single form (e.g. ‘an apple’) and the plural form (e.g. ‘apples’) in English, Japanese does not make such a distinction between the single form (e.g. ‘ringo’) and the plural form (e.g. ‘ringo’). In addition, as already noted in the section on ‘Case and case markers’, Japanese case is usually overtly expressed with postpositional particles that follow noun phrases.

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Prof iling Grammar

Pronouns According to Shibatani (1990), Japanese has a highly elaborate honorific system, which extends to the use of pronouns (and their avoidance) as well as to other personal referential terms. The speaker can refer to himself not only by the so-called first person pronouns of different forms depending on the occasion (e.g. ‘ore’, ‘watashi’) but also by other referential terms such as sensei ‘teacher’, otoosan ‘father’, ozisan ‘uncle’, and others depending on the relationship between him and the addressee. Similar to noun phrases, pronouns are also marked for case. For example, ‘he’, ‘his’ and ‘him’ in English, respectively, correspond to ‘kare-ga’ (nominative), ‘kare-no’ (genitive) and ‘kare-o’ (accusative) in Japanese.

Empty pronouns Another difference between English and Japanese concerns empty pronouns. Nakayama (1996) explains the differences between English and Japanese as follows. In English tensed clauses, empty pronouns cannot appear in either subject or object positions, as shown in (11a)–(11c). (11) (a) *John hit [e]. (b) *[e] hit Bill. (c) *[e] hit [e] On the other hand, empty pronouns are permitted in both positions in Japanese, as seen in (12a)–(12c). (12) (a) John-ga [e] tatai-ta. John-NOM hit-PAST ‘John hit him/her/it them.’ (b) [e] Bill-o tatai-ta Bill-ACChit-PAST ‘He/she/they hit Bill’ (c) [e] [e] tatai-ta. hit-PAST ‘He/she/they hit him/her/it/ them.’

Verbs According to Shibatani (1990), there are three parts of speech that inflect in Japanese: verbs, adjectives, and auxiliary verbs (including the copula ‘da’). Since Japanese is an agglutinative language, derivational and inflectional suffixes are added to the stem of words in abundant combinations. The typical order of these verbal suffixes is generally fixed, as shown in (13) (Shibatani, 1990). The order of suffixes following the V-stem is causative, passive, aspect, desiderative, negation and, finally, tense.

Japanese

203

(13) V-stem-causative-passive-aspect-desiderative-negation-tense An example of the order of suffixes after the V-stem is shown in (14) (Shibatani, 1990). (14) ika-se -rare -taku -na -i go-CAUS-PASS-DESI-NEG-PRES ‘do not want to be made to go’

Tense In Japanese, tense is realized in the form of an inflectional bound morpheme which attaches either directly to the verbal stem or after all other inflectional suffixes such as negation and passive. There are two tense morphemes: -(r)u, which represents the present tense (or the non-past), and -ta, which encodes the past. The examples are provided in (15a) and (15b) (Fukuda & Fukuda, 1999). In Japanese, the form of an inflection depends on the final sound of the stem. Verbs in which the stem ends with a consonant are called consonant verbs, and the verbs in which the stem ends with a vowel are called vocalic verbs. The examples in (15a) are verbs which are consonant-final (i.e. consonant verbs) and those in (15b) are vowel-final (i.e. vocalic verbs). (15) Present (a) Consonant-final verbs: (b) Vowel-final verbs:

Past yom-u tabe-ru

yon-da tabe-ta

‘read’ ‘eat’

Aspect Aspect in Japanese is marked by attaching the gerundive suffix -i-ru to the V-te form. The aspectual construction, V-te-i-ru, expresses the continuation of an action or state. (16) Aspect (present progressive) (a) Consonant-final verbs: yon-de-iru (b) Vowel-final verbs: tabe-te-iru

‘be reading’ ‘be eating’

(Fukuda & Fukuda, 1999)

Negation In Japanese, the suffix na-i is attached to main verbs or modal auxiliaries to indicate negation. According to Sano (2002), the negative marker na-i is a verbal predicate which carries finite tense in itself. In this respect, the Japanese na-i is different from the English not and many other negative markers in European languages, which are non-verbal elements (e.g. French ne and pas, German nicht). This being the case, negating a finite verb or an adjective does not simply involve the addition of a negative marker to an

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affirmative finite verb or adjective, as in many European languages. Japanese verbs and adjectives are turned into non-finite forms in negative sentences, where finiteness is realized by the negative marker na-i. Sano (2002) explains this phenomenon as follows. When finite verbs and adjectives are negated, as in (17a), the tense morpheme is realized by the negative marker na-i, rather than by the verb or the adjective. The tense inflection on na-i is the same as that on adjectives: the past form is nak-at-ta, as shown in (17b) below. (17) (a) Taro-ga eiga-o mi-na-i Taro-NOM film-ACC see-not-(PRES) ‘Taro does not see a film/ will not see a film’ (b) Taro-ga eiga-o mi-nak-at-ta Taro-NOM film-ACC see-not-(PAST) ‘Taro did not see a film’

Interrogatives According to Nakayama (1996), in interrogative sentences English has subject-aux inversion in the matrix clause, as shown in (18b), while Japanese uses the interrogative marker (Q-marker)-ka, as shown in (19b). Subject-aux inversion does not exist in Japanese. In (19), ‘POL’ refers to the politeness morpheme. (18) (a) John will eat that apple. (b) Will John eat that apple? (19) (a) John-ga sono ringo-o John-NOM that apple-ACC ‘John will eat that apple’ (b) John-ga sono ringo-o John-NOM that apple-ACC ‘Will John eat that apple?’

tabe-masu. eat-POL tabe-masu-ka? eat-POL-Q

Sentence (18b) is the interrogative counterpart of (18a).The auxiliary ‘will’ and the subject ‘John’ are inverted in the English interrogative. Sentence (19b) is the interrogative counterpart of (19a). In the Japanese interrogative (19b), the Q-marker-ka is attached to the verb. Furthermore, English requires overt wh-movement in wh-questions as shown in (20a) and (20b), while Japanese permits wh-phrases to stay in situ as shown in (20c) (Nakayama, 1996). (20) (a) What will John eat? (b) *What John will eat? (c) *Will John eat what?

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(d) John-ga nani-o tabe-masu-ka? John-NOM what-ACC eat-POL-Q ‘What will John eat?’ The well-formed sentence (20a) and the ill-formed sentences (20b, c) show that in English, not only is subject-auxiliary inversion required but also wh-movement. However, in Japanese, the wh-phrase nani can stay in situ, and the resulting sentence will be well-formed, as shown in (20c).

Passive and causative constructions As noted in Fukuda and Fukuda (1999), in the Japanese passive construction, the nominative particle ga marks the subject (patient), the dative particle ni marks the oblique agent, and the passive morphology is marked by adjoining the bound affix -(r)are to the root, as shown in (21) below. (21) (a) Active Taroo-ga Hanako-o osi-ta. Taro-NOM Hanako-ACC push-PAST ‘Taro pushed Hanako.’ (b) Passive Hanako-ga Taroo-ni os-are-ta. Hanako-NOM Taro-DAT push-PASS-PAST ‘Hanako was pushed by Taro.’ In addition, in the causative construction, the nominative particle ga marks the subject of the matrix clause, the dative particle ni marks the subject of the embedded clause, and the accusative particle o marks the object of the embedded clause when the causative complex contains a transitive base verb, as shown in (22): (22) Causative Taroo-ga Jiroo-ni Hanako-o Taro-NOM Jiro-DAT Hanako-ACC ‘Taro made Jiro push Hanako’

os-ase-ta. push-CAUS-PAST

J-LARSP Overall design of the profile chart An illustration of the J-LARSP profile is given in the Appendix 1. Since sections A–D in the LARSP chart are not language-specific, these same sections have been retained in the J-LARSP profile chart. As for the stages of the LARSP, the categories of command, question and statement have also been retained in the J-LARSP, as have the columns labeled ‘connectivity’, ‘clause’,

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‘phrase’ and ‘word’, as well as the developmental Stages I–VII. Moreover, the J-LARSP chart, like LARSP, is presented on a single page because one of the aims of the J-LARSP is to facilitate the assessment process for Japanese speech and language therapists. However, since there are some notable differences between English and Japanese grammar, there are many constructions and elements of the J-LARSP which are different from those of the original LARSP. Detailed description of the J-LARSP is as follows.

Detailed description of the J-LARSP chart The elements listed in the J-LARSP chart have been derived from two main sources. The first are the data collected by one of the authors and his students (e.g. Atake & Ito, 2012; Ito, 1982). The second are the previous findings of other researchers (e.g. Fujiwara, 1977; Noji, 1974–1977; Okubo, 1967). These studies yielded the following broad stages of morphosyntactic development in Japanese young children from one to four years of age. It goes without saying that the age ranges are general approximations in relation to language development. We will now present detailed descriptions of the J-LARSP chart from Stage I to Stage VII. The ‘word level’ category is explained in detail following the Stage VII description.

Stage I (approximately 0;9–1;6) An illustration of a Stage I pattern is as follows (Figure 10.1). It involves a typically developing child aged one year and three months (henceforth, 1;3). We refer to this child as Child K in this chapter. The data were collected when the child was talking with her mother and father. Child K in this sample (talking with her mother and father) produced 52 utterances, all of which were one-word sentences. Over half of the utterances were minor sentences, in which one of the utterances was classified as vocative and 10 of them as Other. Twenty-seven of the utterances were classified as problems.

Stage II (approximately 1;6–2;0) Let’s now take a look at the structure of a sentence or the sentence pattern at Stage II. In the command column (‘comm.’), the word order is XV in the J-LARSP whereas it is VX in the LARSP. The reason for this is that the canonical word order is SOV in Japanese. In the question column (‘quest.’), the word order is XQ in the J-LARSP. The reason for this is that Japanese allows wh-phrases to stay in situ (Nakayama, 1996). In the statement column, VO in the clause category of the LARSP chart has become OV in the J-LARSP.

Figure 10.1 An example of Stage I profile

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Figure 10.2 An example of Stage II profile

As for the phrase category, PrN has been changed to NPo in the J-LARSP. Moreover, VV and ‘V part’ in the LARSP have not been retained in the J-LARSP, because Japanese does not have such constructions. In addition, ‘DN’ of the LARSP has not been retained in the J-LARSP, since Japanese does not have such articles as ‘a’ and ‘the’ as in English. Figure 10.2 shows an illustration of Stage II, the J-LARSP profile of Child K at age 1;9. In this sample (a conversation with her mother and father), twoword sentences were observed in both the clause and phrase category. In the word column, 11 verbs with the tense-marker ‘-ta’ were observed. In addition, the verbal suffixes ‘-na-i’, ‘-te(i)-ru’ and ‘-ru’ were produced. Moreover, the case marker ‘no’ was also uttered.

Stage III (approximately 2;0–2;6) As for the clause level, the VXY category in the command column of the LARSP has been changed to XYV in the J-LARSP, since the canonical word order of Japanese is SOV. In addition, ‘let XY’ and ‘do XY’ have not been retained in the J-LARSP, because they are English constructions. In the question column, QXY in the LARSP has been changed to XQY in Japanese, given that Japanese permits wh-phrases to stay in situ. In addition, the VS(X) category in the question column of the LARSP has not been listed in the J-LARSP, because subject auxiliary conversion does not exist in Japanese. In the statement column, SVO in the LARSP has been changed to SOV, since Japanese is an SOV language. The SVC and VCA categories of the LARSP have been changed to SCV and ACV, respectively, for the same reason. Neg XY has also not been listed in the J-LARSP. This is because, as we have noted in Stage II, the form of negation in Japanese is different from that in English. As for the phrase level, PrDN in the LARSP has not been retained in the J-LARSP, since Japanese does not have an equivalent structure. Cop is included in the J-LARSP, because Japanese has the copula ‘da’ (Shibatani, 1990). In addition, ‘Aux MO’ has not been retained in the J-LARSP either, because Japanese does not have auxiliaries equivalent to modals and other auxiliaries in English. An illustration of a Stage III profile is that of Child K when she was 2;4 (Figure 10.3). Child K produced not only three-word but also four-word

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Figure 10.3 An example of Stage III profile

sentences. In the phrase column, cop (copula) was used productively. In the word column, the case markers ‘ga’ and ‘no’ were observed. In addition, complex sentences began to be produced. Both coordinate and subordinate structures were observed, as well as conjunctions.

Stage IV (approximately 2;6–3;0) In the command column, ‘+S’ category, which refers to questions such as ‘You sit down’ in the LARSP, has not been retained in the J-LARSP. This is because such constructions are rare in Japanese. In addition, ‘VXY+’ has been changed to ‘XY + V’. In the Question column, QVS, QXY+ and VS(X+) have not been listed in the J-LARSP, since these constructions are related to subject-auxiliary inversion which does not exist in Japanese. In addition, the ‘tag’ in the Quest column has not been retained in the J-LARSP, given that there is no equivalent construction in Japanese. In the statement column, SVOA, SVCA and SVOdOi in the LARSP have been changed to SOAV, SACV and SOdOiV, respectively. In addition, SVOC has not been retained in the J-LARSP, because Japanese does not have an equivalent construction. ‘Passive’ is included in J-LARSP, because passive sentences began to be observed in this stage in Japanese children. As for the phrase level, the NP Pr NP category has not been retained in the J-LARSP since Japanese has postpositions, not prepositions. Pr D Adj N of the LARSP has not been retained in the J-LARSP, since there is no equivalent in Japanese. Furthermore, at phrase level, ‘cX’ has not been included in the J-LARSP, since such an expression is rarely used in Japanese. Moreover, 2Aux in the LARSP has not been retained in the J-LARSP, because there are no such constructions in Japanese. An illustration of Stage IV was taken from Child K at 2;10 years of age (Figure 10.4). The characteristic features of this stage are similar to those of

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Figure 10.4 An example of Stage IV profile

Stage III. Child K produced more than two-word sentences. The copula was used productively. The case markers ‘ga’ and ‘no’ were observed. Complex sentences began to be produced. Both coordinate and subordinate structures were observed. Conjunctions were also used.

Stage V (approximately 3;0–3;6) The ‘and’ has not been retained in the J-LARSP, since we cannot find such a frequently used connector in Japanese. An ‘Elliptical’ category has been added to the clause category in Stage V of the J-LARSP. Elliptical sentences in this stage refer to complex sentences without main clauses – in other words, those with only subordinate clauses which have subordinate particles (e.g. ‘kara’). Examples of Elliptical sentences were as follows. (23) (a) Aisukuriimu ima age-ru-kara-ne Ice creamu now [I] give-PRES-CP (conjunctive particle)-FP (final particle) ‘As I will give you an ice cream’ (b) Okaasan-ne oyatsu motte-ku-ru-kara-ne. [My] mother-FP a snack bring-come-PRES-CP-FP ‘As my mother will bring us a snack’

The ‘comm.’ and ‘quest.’ columns of the J-LARSP do not differ from those of the LARSP. In addition, the ‘Postmod.’ category of the LARSP has been changed to the ‘Premod.’ category in the J-LARSP; Japanese does not have the post-modifying structures of English.

Stage VI (approximately 3;6–4;6) There are some differences between the J-LARSP and the LARSP at this stage. The first is that in the ‘(+)’ column, ‘initiator’ and ‘coord.’ in the NP category and ‘complement’ in the clause category have not been retained in

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the J-LARSP, since Japanese does not have the equivalent to such terms. The second is that passives have also been deleted. The reason is because Japanese children can use passives at Stage IV. Finally, the third is that the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the clause category of the LARSP have been deleted in the J-LARSP, because young Japanese rarely produce such constructions like ‘How nice it is’, ‘What a pretty dress (she was wearing)’. As for the ‘(−)’ column, the ‘and’ of the ‘conn.’ category has not been retained in the J-LARSP – again, because this is not a Japanese word. In addition, in the ‘NP’ category at the phrase level, ‘Pr’ of the LARSP has been changed to ‘Po’, because while English has prepositions, Japanese has postpositions. Moreover, the categories including ‘D’ have not been retained in the J-LARSP, since Japanese does not have the equivalent. In addition, PronP has been deleted in the J-LARSP, because of the unique pronoun system of Japanese, and due to the fact that Japanese children use few personal pronouns. As a result, personal pronoun errors are rarely observed. Moreover, ‘dem’ has been added to the NP category of Phrase in the J-LARSP, which refers to demonstratives. The reason is because demonstratives are used by many typically developing children in Japan. Furthermore, errors with demonstratives appear to be one of the characteristic features of children with language impairment in Japanese (Ito et al., 2009). In addition, ‘AuxM’ and ‘AuxO’ have been deleted in the J-LARSP, because there are no such Japanese structures. -Rare and -sase in the VP category at the phrase level were added to the J-LARSP, since such suffixes are used for passives and causatives, respectively. Both of these suffixes are well-known to be basic yet difficult constructions to acquire in Japanese. In the ‘word’ column, ‘irreg’ and ‘reg’ have been omitted in the J-LARSP, because Japanese makes no such distinctions The case markers ga and o, as well as the suffixes -ru, -ta and -na-i have been listed in the J-LARSP. The reason is because errors with such case markers and suffixes have been reported in Japanese children with not only SLI but also with hearing impairments (Fukuda et al., 2007; Ito, 1998; Ito et al., 2009; Murao & Ito, 2013; Murao et al., 2012).

Stage VII (approximately over 4;6) Stage VII begins at approximately 4;6 years of age and over. According to Crystal (1992), Stage VII has little assessment value, and provides only a mnemonic concerning the importance of three general acquisitional themes, i.e. discourse, syntactic comprehension and style. Except for the existential ‘it’ and ‘there’, which do not exist in Japanese, other categories of the Stage VII LARSP chart have been retained in the J-LARSP (see Appendix 1).

Word level Japanese involves a fair amount of affixation in its verbal morphology. In addition, case markers are crucial not only in the structure but also the acquisition of Japanese. This is why there have been so many studies on the

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acquisition (e.g. Atake & Ito, 2012; Ito, 1997) and disorders of case markers (e.g. Fukuda et al., 2007; Ito, 1998; Murao et al., 2012). Therefore, elements of verb morphology and case markers have been listed in the word column of the J-LARSP. The suffix ‘-ta’ is listed at the top of the word column for good reason. Murasugi and Fuji (2009) reported that, in adult Japanese, bare verb stems cannot appear without tense or aspect morphemes, and suggested that the past-tense ‘ta’ form is the default full verb form. In fact, the suffix ‘ta’ is observed very early in many previous findings in research on Japanese language development. According to Atake and Ito (2013), 100% of the children used ‘ta’ in the youngest group (11 children aged 1;09 to 1;11). Atake and Ito (2013) also investigated the order of acquisition of four types of verbs (the past tense form V-ta, the non-past tense form V-ru, the aspectual form V-te (i)-ru, and the non-past negative marker V-na-i). Elicited production tasks were used. The participants were 95 typically developing children aged 1;9–2;11. The results suggest that young Japanese children acquire V-ta first, then V-na-i, followed by V-te (i)ru and V-ru. Moreover, these four forms all appear to be acquired before the age of three. Thus, we have listed V-ta, V-na-i, V-te (i)-ru and V-ru in the word column in Stages II–IV in the J-LARSP. Atake and Ito (2012) examined the relationship between the appearance of tense morphemes and the case marker ‘ga’ in young Japanese children. The hypothesis is that the nominative case is licensed by the functional category ‘T’, predicting that the case marker ‘ga’ would not be produced before tense morphemes appear. Consequently, Atake and Ito (2012) focused on the appearance of the tense morphemes -ru and -ta and the case marker ga. They analyzed the longitudinal speech data of seven typically developing children aged one to two. In all children, the case marker ‘ga’ appeared after the production of both ‘ru’ and ‘ta’. Hence, the case marker ga was included below the suffixes -ta and -ru in the word column of the J-LARSP. Ito (1997) investigated the mechanism behind the transition from the two-word to the multiple-word stage. Longitudinal data of utterances from the two- to the multiple-word stage in three normally developing young children were analyzed. From such data, it was found that the case marker ‘ga’, the genitive case marker ‘no’ and multiple-word utterances occurred almost simultaneously. Thus, the case markers ‘ga’ and ‘no’ were included in parallel in the same stage of the J-LARSP. According to previous findings, ‘ga’ and ‘no’ appear before age 2;6. Therefore, ‘ga’ and ‘no’ have been listed before Stage IV. According to Sano (2002), children acquiring Japanese optionally attach the negative auxiliary -na-i to finite (non-past) forms (i.e. external negation), while negated verbs must be obligatorily inflected for the non-finite irrealis form in adult Japanese. These types of negation (which are errors of adult grammar), have been reported by several researchers who investigated the

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development of Japanese (e.g. Clancy, 1985; Ito, 1990; Okubo, 1967). Sano (2002) examined the data of three children, and pointed out that when external negation is marked on around 60% of consonantal verbs, it is as rare as 5% on vocalic verbs. Sano argued that external negation is caused by an immaturity in irrealis formation of consonantal verbs, which is more complex than that of vocalic verbs. Thus, we included ‘-na-i’ in the error column of Stage VI.

Conclusions The J-LARSP profile chart described above provides a means of assessing the level of language development in Japanese. It is based on data obtained from both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of Japanese-speaking children. The resulting chart is able to represent the full range of grammatical structures which are crucial in the development and disorders of Japanese children. It provides a detailed description of normal language development from Stage I to Stage VII. In this way, the J-LARSP profile can be used as a preliminary assessment tool to compare both the language development of the same child at different stages and that of different children across various stages. We hope that the proposed profile will make for a better understanding of children with language disorders and their appropriate treatment.

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Appendix 1: LARSP Profile for Japanese

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Shinji Fukuda, Suzy E. Fukuda, Sachiyo Matsumoto and Aimi Murao for their valuable comments on this chapter. We are also indebted to Suzuka Atake and Erina Katsura for their generous assistance in collecting the data, and to Saburo Takahashi for his help with the completion of the LARSP chart.

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References Atake, S. and Ito, T. (2012) Kenjooji ni okeru jiseiji no hatsugen to kakujoshi ‘ga’ no shutsugentono kankei: Yooji 7 mei no juudan-deta no kentoo [Appearance of tense morphemes and the case marker ‘ga’ in Japanese young children: A longitudinal study of seven children]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 53, 144–147. Atake, S. and Ito, T. (2013) Gengokakutoku-shoki no tenkeihattatsuji ni okeru dooshi no keitaironteki sokumen no kakutoku [Acquisition of verb morphology in young Japanese children]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 54, 174–178. Clancy, P. (1985) The acquisition of Japanese. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Cross-linguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 1 (pp. 373–524). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Crystal, D. (1992) Profiling Linguistic Disability (2nd edn). San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing. Fujiwara, Y. (1977) Yooji no Gengo-Hyoogen-Nooryoku no Hattatsu (The Development of the Ability of Linguistic Expression in Young Children). Hiroshima: Bunka Hyooron Shuppan. Fukuda, S.E. and Fukuda, S. (1999) Specific language impairment in Japanese: A linguistic investigation. NUCB Journal of Language, Culture and Communication 1, 1–25. Fukuda, S., Fukuda, S.E., Ito, T. and Yamaguchi, Y. (2007) Nihongo o bogo to suru tokuiteki gengo-shoogaiji ni okeru kaku no bunpoo-shoogai [Grammatical impairment of case assignment in Japanese with specific language impairment]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 48, 95–104. Ito, K. (1990) Kodomono Kotoba: Shuutokuto Soozoo [Language in Children: Acquisition and Creation]. Tokyo: Keisoo Shoboo. Ito, T. (1982) Yooji no hatsuwa ni okeru hiryuuchoosei to gengo-shuutoku to no kankei [Language acquisition and patterns of disfluency in spontaneous speech of young children from 2 to 6 years of age]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 23, 211–220. Ito, T. (1997) Gengo-rirono kiban to suru gengo-kakutokukenkyuu: Nigo-hatsuwadankai kara tago-hatsuwa dankai he no ikoo ni tsuite [Studies of language acquisition based on linguistic theories: Transition from the two to multiple-word stage]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 38, 291–296. Ito, T. (1998) Chookaku-shoogaiji ni okeru kakujoshi no goyoo: Gengogakuteki setsumei no kokoromi [Linguistic analysis of case-marker errors in the utterances of hearingimpaired Japanese children]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 39, 369–377. Ito, T., Fukuda, S. and Fukuda, S.E. (2009) Differences between grammatical and lexical development in Japanese specific language impairment: A case study. Poznan´ Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 45, 211–221. Murao, A. and Ito, T. (2013) Tokuiteki gengo-hattatsu-shoogaiji 2 reino shizen-hatsuwaniokerugoyoono tokuchoo [Characteristics of errors in spontaneous speech of 2 Japanese children with specific language impairment]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 54, 251–255. Murao, A., Matsumoto (Shimamori), S. and Ito, T. (2012) Tokuiteki gengo-hattatsushoogaiji 2 rei ni okeru kakujoshi no goyoo no tokuchoo [Case-marker errors in the utterances of 2 children with specific language impairment: Focusing on structural and inherent case]. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics 53, 194–198. Murasugi, K. and Fuji, C. (2009) Root infinitives in Japanese and the late acquisition of head-movement. Online Proceedings Supplement of BUCLD 33, 1–12. See http://www. bu.edu/bucld/files/2011/05/33-Murasugi.pdf (accessed 29 May 2015). Nakayama, M. (1996) Acquisition of Japanese Empty Categories. Tokyo: Kuroshio Shuppan. Noji, J. (1974–1977) Yooji no Gengo-Seikatsu no Jittai [Facts in the Language Life of Young Children] 1–4. Hiroshima: Bunka Hyooron Shuppan [in Japanese].

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Okubo, A. (1967) Yooj iGengo no Hattatsu [Language Development in Young Children]. Tokyo: Tokyodoo Shuppan [in Japanese]. Sano, T. (2002) Roots in Language Acquisition: A Comparative Study of Japanese and European Languages. Tokyo: HitsujiShoboo. Shibatani, M. (1990) The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11 Korean Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure Soyeong Pae

Introduction This chapter provides a Korean adaptation of LARSP (K-LARSP) to describe a Korean-speaking child’s grammatical development relative to a developmental outline similar to that of the LARSP for English (Crystal et al., 1989). The Korean LARSP is suggested for clinical settings which require a convenient tool to describe and assess a child’s grammatical development. Although summary measures such as MLUm (mean length of utterance in morphemes) or MLTm (mean length of T-units in morphemes) and NDW, derived from language samples, are reported among Korean speech language pathologists (SLP), they are time consuming to calculate by hand, and without norms available the numbers are difficult to interpret. There are standardized speech-language assessment tools for young Korean children (Kim et al., 2007, 2009; Pae & Kwak, 2011). These tools are used to screen, identify or assess a child’s progress in speech or language development. Spontaneous speech data are also used to investigate Korean language development for clinical purposes (Kim, 1997a; Pae, 2006). However, to date there is no standard procedure for examining a child’s grammatical status in detail. Korean children with specific language impairment (SLI) or language learning disability have difficulties in Korean grammar development. It seems to be timely to develop a Korean LARSP for Korean language-impaired children given that Korean SLPs want to describe a child’s grammatical development using a procedure which is both efficient and valid. Grammatical development has both language-universal characteristics and language-specific characteristics. Korean children follow the universal grammatical developmental path from one word to word combination to complex sentences. The Korean language is a language with SOV word order, 216

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rich in grammatical morphemes. Korean young children are sensitive to the features of Korean grammar from early on (Han, 2009; Kim, 1997a; Lee, 2009; Lee & Cho, 2009). They explore various types of grammatical morphemes while expanding their grammatical level by utterance length with content words. A minimal orthographic unit divided by space in a Korean sentence is an eojeol. An Eojeol is composed of at least one content word and/or grammatical markers, such as noun-related particles or predicate-related markers. A bound noun or an auxiliary predicate can form an eojeol. The development of grammatical morphemes is very important in Korean acquisition since they can produce different types of sentences as well as mood and voice changes. Unlike English, question and negation sentences in Korean are easily expressed by adding a grammatical morpheme without the reordering of words or adding a dummy subject or an auxiliary verb. Before proposing the Korean LARSP, features and structures in Korean grammar are described in brief. The development of Korean grammar is summarized based on developmental stages. Finally Korean LARSP is described and sample charts are reported.

Korean Grammar Korean is an agglutinating and pro-drop language with various grammatical morphemes which lead grammatical aspects of an utterance (Lee & Ramsey, 2000; Nam & Ko, 1985). An English sentence ‘I love you’ is composed of three words. In Korean it is possible to use three content words ‘na (I) neo (you) salanghae (love)’ and grammatical morphemes can be attached to each content word depending on the social/linguistic contexts. ‘I love you’ can be expressed grammatically in many ways with and without subject (I) or object (you) in Korean. Grammatical morphemes are very important to express syntactic and morphological features in Korean. The basic form of a content word is transformed with grammatical morphemes to deliver more sophisticated meanings and syntactic features. For example, ‘na (I) neo (you) salanghae (love)’ can be transformed as ‘na-neun (I-semantic special particle) neo-leul (you-objective case particle) salanghae-yo (lovepolite ending marker)’.

Word order in Korean Korean uses SOV (subject object verb) order, although word ordering is relatively free in speech. Verbs are more like predicates in Korean given that adjectives and verbs act quite similarly in Korean grammar. Grammatical morphemes seem to influence the freedom in word order given that josa (noun-related postpositional particles) and eomi

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(predicate-related postpositional markers) are abundant in the Korean language (see below for details). Three Korean words ‘na (I), neo (you), salanghae (love)’ can be combined as ‘I you love’, ‘love I you’ or ‘you love I’ in Korean, especially when noun-related particles are used to represent syntactic positions or semantic information.

Ellipsis in Korean Korean allows subject drop or object drop in a sentence. In conversational speech it is possible to speak grammatical sentences without subject or object. In the sentence ‘I love you’, Korean can be expressed without subject and object as in ‘salanghae (love)’, without object as in ‘na (I) salanghae (love)’, and without subject as in ‘neo (you) salanghae (love)’. This elliptical nature of Korean sometimes demands contextual interpretation. Here is an utterance without a subject: kamyeon cohni? This utterance can be translated in six English words although only four morphemes are needed in Korean. The listener should infer who is going and who is happy, because the subjects could be either you or I. If the speaker explicitly says who is going and who is happy, the listener has less burden to interpret the exact meaning of the utterance: ka-myeon coh-ni? go-if happy-interrogative ending marker? ‘Are you/Am I happy if I/you go?’

Grammatical morphemes There are two representative types of grammatical morphemes in Korean: noun-related grammatical morphemes, termed josa, and predicaterelated grammatical morpheme, termed eomi. Neither josa nor eomi morphemes can stand alone and have to be attached to a content word. Josa morphemes assign case or special meaning, while eomi morphemes decide whether it is ending a word/sentence or connecting words or clauses. There are prefinal or non-ending eomis which are followed by an ending eomi and after a content word stem. The English sentence ‘I love you’ is expressed in Korean as follows: na-neun tangsin-eul sarangha-pnita. I-special/semantic particle you-objective case particle love-polite ending marker. ‘I love you.’ There are three types of josa: case particle (e.g. subjective -ka/-i, objective -(l)eul/-l, adverbial -e, -eseo, dative -eke/-hanthe), special meaning particle

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(e.g. only -man, also -to, contrastive -neun), and coordinating particle (and -lang, -hako, -wa). Examples of noun-related particles are: eomma-ka (mommy -subject case particle) eomma-leul (mommy -object case particle) eomma-neun (mommy -special particle, contrast) eomma-lang (mommy -connective particle meaning ‘and’) There are ending eomis used to terminate a sentence or an utterance. Question or requesting sentences can be produced simply by changing an ending eomi following the predicate word stem. For example, meok-ni (eat-question ending eomi), meok-ca (eat-requesting ending eomi) include frequently used ending eomis in Korean. Ending eomis known as mood markers are used to differentiate various pragmatic intentions: -ca (suggestive) –ta (declarative), -ci (supposition), -llae (volition), -yo (politeness), -tae (quotation). There are other types of ending eomi used to connect words or clauses. Connecting word-final eomis are adnominal or adverbial. Examples of adnominal connecting eomis are -(n)eun/-n, -l, -n/-eun. An adnominal eomi could contain the past tense as in -n/-eun or future time as in -l. Examples of adverbial connecting eomis are -ko (and), -seo (because), -myeon (if), -ciman/ -neunte (but), -lyeoko/-leo (to infinitive). An adverbial connecting eomi connects either words or clauses. Past tense is expressed via prefinal-ending eomis or adnominal ending eomis. Prefinal-ending eomis such as -ass-/-ass-/-ss- represent the past tense and are combined with various ending eomis while adnominal connecting ending eomi -n/-eun connects the following noun. Examples of tense marked eojeols include: ka-ss-ta (go -past tense prefinal ending eomi -declarative terminating ending eomi) ka-n (go -past tense adnominal connecting eomi)

Combinations of grammatical morphemes A Korean eojeol, naekeman, could be translated by three English words, ‘only to me’. Another Korean eojeol, mekoeosskesscimanyo, could be translated by three English words (‘probably ate but’) along with the honorific ending marker -yo. naekeman na – eke-man I – dative marker – only, special particle ‘Only to me’ Meokeosskesscimanyo meok – eoss—kess -ciman eat – past tense -probably, prefinal ending -but, adverbial connecting marker -polite ending ‘probably ate but’

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Question Question sentences are constructed by attaching interrogative grammatical morphemes such as ‘-ni, -kka’ or by rising intonation. Question words, such as what, how, which, how many, are used to deliver the specific information that the speaker wants. There is no word order change in interrogative sentences. For example, ‘Are you hungry’ can be expressed in Korean as paeka kopheoni?, ‘pae (stomach) -ka (subjective case particle) kopheo (hungry) -ni (interrogative ending eomi)?’ The declarative counterpart of this sentence is paeka kopha, ‘pae (stomach)-ka (subjective case particle) koph (hungry)-a (declarative ending eomi)’.

Politeness Korean uses grammatical morphemes representing politeness (-yo, -pnita, -si-) frequently depending on the relationship between the speaker and listener. Agreement at the pragmatic/grammatical level is required to use polite markers. Older persons are respected and register variation is needed. Therefore, in Korean, the selection of a specific type of eomi is very important in conversational speech.

Sentence Eojeols are components of a sentence/utterance in Korean. A nounfocused eojeol is constructed with a noun accompanied with a case particle and/or a special semantic particle, while a verb-focused eojeol is constructed with predicates such as verbs and adjectives combined with connecting and/ or ending markers. The Korean language has simple and complex sentences as in other languages.

Negation There are two types of negation structures in Korean. One is the short form which adds the adverb ‘an (no)’ or ‘mos (can’t)’ followed by a predicate. The other is the long form which adds grammatical morphemes -ci anh- or -ci mosha after the predicate. For example, ‘I don’t eat bread’ is expressed in Korean using the short form negation as ppang an meokeo, ‘ppang (bread) an (no) meok-eo (eat)’. With the long form negation, this utterance is changed to ppang meokci anha, ‘ppang (bread) meok (eat)-ci anh-a (no)’. •

•

Short negative ‘an’ form: ppang an meokeo ppang (bread) an (not) meok (eat) -eo (ending eomi) ‘(I) don’t eat bread.’ Long negative form ‘-ci anh -’: ppang (bread) meok (eat) -ci anh (not) -a (ending eomi) ‘(I) don’t eat bread.’

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Complex sentence Complex sentences have main and subordinate clauses as in other languages. There are five types of subordinate clauses in Korean: adverbial, nominal, adnomial, quotative and descriptive. Adverbial clauses and adnominal clauses in complex sentences seem to be very important in Korean language acquisition. Adverbial clauses include various ending eomis such as -ko, -neunte, -seo, -nikka, -myeon, -lyeoko/-leo. Adnominal clauses, which are similar to relative clauses in English, are used to construct both relativization and complementation. If a child can express both adnominal clause and adverbial clause in an utterance, it is evident that he/she has a sophisticated Korean grammar. Here is an example of a complex sentence which includes both adnominal clause and adverbial clause in seven eojeols. The Korean sentence, eomma-ka mandeu-n ppang-eul meokeo-seo, pae-neun an koph-a-yo can be roughly translated in English as ‘Because I ate the bread that mommy made, I am not hungry’. Approximately seven content words and seven grammatical morphemes are used in Korean, while 12 words are used in the English sentence: eomma-ka mandeu-n ppang-eul meokeo-seo, pae-neun an koph-a-yo. mommy -subject case particle make – prenominal eomi bread – object case particle eat – cause adverbial eomi, stomach – contrastive semantic particle no hungry – ending eomi-honorific eomi ‘Because I ate the bread that mommy made, I am not hungry.’

Typical Grammatical Development in Korean Children Korean children show a universal pattern in grammatical development, moving from one word to simple word combinations to complex sentences. Since there is a relatively large number of grammatical morphemes in syntactic development, Korean children need to be sensitive to those grammatical morphemes. Korean children’s general or specific grammatical development is described and explained in detail by a number of authors (Han, 2009; Kim, 1997b; Lee, 2009; Lee & Cho, 2009). Korean young children seem to be very sensitive to the forms and functions of eojeols. After exploring various types of ending eomi attached to predicates and several case and semantic particles, Korean children actively develop connecting eomis and prefinal ending eomis. Adnominal clauses and/or adverbial clauses seem to contribute to the development of complex sentences. The grammatical development of Korean children is outlined in Pae (1995).

One word stage Before using syntactic utterances, Korean infants universally use vocalizations and gestures to signal communicative intentions to other people. Although their phonetic accuracies are low, Korean one year olds actively

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start to use single words. Even though children sometimes use a grammatical morpheme attached form in the one word stage, it is usually a rote form with low productivity.

Two word/eojeol combination stage Around the 18th month children start to combine two words. Nouns, verbs and adjectives are combined while exploring subject (S), object (O), predicate (P) and adverbial word (A) actively. Korean children start to use grammatical morphemes, focusing on ending eomis or subjective case particle although the number of grammatical morphemes is relatively small compared to the basic grammar stage from age two to three. O P mamma (food) cwueo (give) S P appa (daddy) ka (go) kom (bear) -i (subject case particle) iss (exist) -ta (declarative ending eomi) A P ppally (quickly) wa (come) Children combine two noun words at this stage as well. A bound noun keo (thing) is frequently heard at this stage. They also seem to start to use grammatical morphemes productively. Several noun-related grammatical morphemes and predicate-related grammatical morphemes are used. N N appa (daddy) ppapang (car) appa (daddy’s) keo (thing) A grammatical morpheme or an auxiliary verb attached: appa (daddy) -ka (subject case particle) meok (eat) -ca (suggestive ending marker) yeoleo (open) -wuo (auxiliary verb meaning request)

Basic grammar stage Korean children demonstrate basic syntactic and morphological structures of the Korean language around the ages of two and three. Children use three to five eojeols at this stage of exploring Korean syntactic structures. With major syntactic categories of subject (S), object (O), adverb (A) and predicate, they combine three to five eojeols at the basic grammar stage. Utterances without subject are observed abundantly from young children. There are eojeols including grammatical morpheme(s) in an utterance.

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The number of different types of grammatical morphemes is dramatically increased compared to the two-eojeol combination period. They actively explore the noun-focused particles known as josa and the predicate-focused grammatical morphemes of eomi. Some utterances with three eojeols include double subject words and a predicate (P) which is a primitive form of a predicate clause in Korean. Children use a conjoining and listing strategy at the basic grammar stage with or without a subject. When a child uses four to five eojeols, he/she seems to start to investigate Korean subordinate clauses although some utterances are incomplete.

Beyond the basic grammar stage Korean young children broadly explore complex sentences at this stage. They use adnominal clauses and/or adverbial clauses frequently in their conversational speech. There seems to be no restriction in length given that children use very long utterances. It is sometimes difficult to parse utterance boundaries since children use a lot of connecting ending eomis rather than using utterance final ending eomis. Korean children actively explore the syntactic structure of Korean complex sentences, focusing on adnominal clauses and adverbial clauses at this stage. Tag questions are used by adding one to two eojeols (keolae, keoleohci, keoleohci anha) at the end of an utterance.

Korean LARSP Overall design and analysis/charting procedure To develop a Korean LARSP, conversational speech data from a total of 50 children was used. Fifty children aged from one to five, 10 in each age group, contributed to the development of the K-LARSP chart. Utterances are used for K-LARSP rather than sentences considering conversational data which include incomplete sentences. About 2000 utterances were coded by the number of eojeols and complexity groups, while grammatical morphemes in each eojeol were analyzed based on specific categories of nounrelated markers and predicate-related markers. A six-stage model is proposed for the K-LARSP chart. The initial K-LARSP chart was tested for five Korean children with SLI and five age-matched normally developing children. The children with SLI showed a delayed pattern in grammatical development with reference to their K-LARSP charts.

Transcription and analysis for K-LARSP Children’s utterances transcribed in Korean Hangeul are used. Songs or number counts are excluded from the analysis in addition to abnormally imitated utterances. Exclamations, interjections and non-fluent sequences are

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excluded as well. Utterances are categorized in terms of intelligibility. The numbers of unintelligible utterances and partially intelligible utterances are recorded in addition to the number of fully intelligible utterances. Utterances are divided into responses to the conversational partner and spontaneous utterances which are initiated and maintained. Under responses, utterances including imitation are recorded either in normal or abnormal responses. Normal/ developmental imitations are subdivided by total, partial and transformed ones. Abnormal imitations are not used for charting K-LARSP. Fifty fully intelligible utterances are recommended for the K-LARSP chart. Listing type utterances using -ko, -seo, -neute are divided into separate utterances when they are used more than once. The K-LARSP chart is presented in the Appendix 1. A grammatical morpheme is not counted separately if it is used as a rote form or if intelligibility is low. A bound noun is treated as a separate eojeol unless it is used as a rote form (e.g. kae in se kae, and keo in appa keo). A compound word is treated as one word (e.g. cakeunappa (uncle), who is a younger brother of father). An eojeol of terminating ending eomi ‘-eo/-a’ is not counted as a separate grammatical morpheme since one terminating ending eomi is obligatory and ‘-eo/-a’ is not explicit when the predicate stem ends with a vowel (e.g. ka ca capa meokeo). An auxiliary predicate is treated as a separate eojeol only when there is attached grammatical morpheme(s) to separate an eojeol (e.g. ttecwo, tte-seo cwo, tte cu-ko).

Analysis and completion of the chart The number of elements or eojeols is important in allocating a stage for an utterance. If an utterance is one eojeol, it is counted and analyzed in Stage 1, while an utterance of three eojeols is analyzed in Stage 3. After recording syntactic structures, grammatical morpheme(s) in each eojeol is/are recorded in the grammatical morpheme section. Question utterances are also recorded in the area of question. • • • •

• •

Add numbers of each type of syntactic structures. Add number of each type of grammatical morpheme and record number of different types in grammatical morphemes, josa and eomi. Add and record total number of eojeols and grammatical morphemes. Calculate and record mean number of utterances in eojeol (MLUeojeol) and mean number of utterances in morphemes (MLUm). MLUeojeol is calculated as the total number of eojeols divided by the total number of utterances, while MLUm is calculated as the total number of eojeols plus grammatical morphemes divided by the total number of utterances MLUeojeol and MLUm can be also calculated with the 10 longest utterances. Abbreviations for grammatical categories included in the K-LARSP are listed in Table 11.1.

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Table 11.1 Abbreviations for grammatical categories utts gm aux josa eomi MLUeojeol MLUm N Ngm Pgm S O P A CL + term conn

Utterances Grammatical morpheme Auxiliary predicate Noun-related grammatical morpheme Predicate word-related grammatical morpheme Mean length of utterances in eojeol Mean length of utterances in morphemes Noun Noun with attached grammatical morpheme(s) Predicate word with attached grammatical morpheme(s) Subject word Object word Predicate word, verb or adjective Adverbial word Clause Included Terminating Connecting

Developmental stages Stage 1 Korean babies start to use a word or an eojeol to communicate with other people at around 12 months of age. They actively search for ways to communicate although they use vocalizations or gestures as well at this time. Grammatical morphemes are used infrequently and seem to be used as a rote forms and children’s speech is low in intelligibility. They also seem to use imitation as a language developmental strategy. At this starting point of syntactic development, children use one element/eojeol. Nouns and predicate words which are meaningful for communication are used. Nouns such as eomma (mommy), appa (daddy), mamma (baby food), ikeo (this) are frequently used. Words such as cwo (give), meokeo (eat), twaesstta (OK), aniya (no/not) are examples of predicates.

Stage 2 An eojeol is combined with another eojeol at this stage. A predicate word or a noun plays a key component and a grammatical morpheme appears with productivity. Predicate words are used to represent Korean syntactic structures. A predicate word (P) is combined with a subject word (S) or an object

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word (O) or an adverb (A) in addition to two predicate words combined (PP). A subject word (S) is combined with an adjective or a verb. S P appa (daddy) ka (go) aka (baby) ippeo (pretty) O P mamma (baby food) cwuo (give) A 4P teo (more) cwuo (give) an (not) nawa (come out) P P yeolko (open) ka (go) Nouns are used to produce two-word combinations. A bound noun, keo (thing), plays a key role to produce a noun phrase at this stage in addition to the combination of two nouns. N keo eomma (mommy) keo (thing) appa (daddy) keo (thing) N N appa (daddy) sin (shoes) ikeo (this) ppang (bread) A noun is combined with particles -ka, -neun. Josas -ka, -neun appear actively at this stage as well as utterance-terminating ending eomis, ‘-ya (declarative with predicate particle), -ca (propositive), -nta (declarative), -ne (surprise), -ci (supposition)’. • •

•

Noun + grammatical morpheme of josa (Ngm): appa-ka (daddy -subject case particle) ikeo-neun (this -special contrastive particle) Predicate + grammatical morpheme of eomi (Pgm): ka-ca (go -propositive ending eomi) ca-nta (sleep -declarative ending eomi) meok-ne (eat -surprise ending eomi) iss-ci (exist -supposition ending eomi) Auxiliary predicate included: tte-cwo (unstick -auxiliary verb) yeoleo-pwa (open -see)

Stage 3 By the time a child uses three eojeols in Korean, s/he has developed Korean basic grammar. Since word order is relatively free, any three eojeol

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combinations are possible although a predicate word tends to appear at the end of an utterance. Utterances can be divided into those with subject included and those with subject omitted. Subject and predicate word included utterances provide active clause-level exploration among Korean children. Syntactic categories of S O A and P which are obtained at Stage 2 are used to expand utterance length. Double subjects are observed at this stage, leading to an early form of predicate clause in Korean. For example, ‘This is not a banana’ could be expressed in Korean as ‘ikeo (this) banana (banana) aniya (not)’. This utterance has two subjects, ikeo and banana, equally connected to a predicate (P) aniya. From three eojeol combinations, Korean children seem to be aware that they can put any noun in a subject position and two subjects can be put together easily with a predicate. An adnominal clause or a noun phrase including the bound noun keo is observed at this stage. There are utterances without a subject. If there are two predicate words in an utterance, it implies that the Korean children are investigating adverbial clauses at a primitive level. •

Subject included: S O P appa (daddy) mul (water) meokeo (eat). S A P appa (daddy) ppalli (quickly) wa-yo (come -polite ending eomi). S S P eomma-ka (mommy -S case particle) nun-i (eyes -S case particle) yeppeo (pretty). S P P eomma-ka (mommy -S case particle) meok-ko (eat -connecting eomi) ka(go). • Subject not included: O P P ikeo (this) neoh-(eu)myeon (put in -connecting eomi) (auxiliary verb). A P P tto (again) taeu-ko (ride -connecting eomi) ka-ss-(eo) (go -past tense). There is a type of a noun phrase at this stage which is difficult to assign syntactic categories of S O A to (e.g. uli (we) appa (daddy) keo (thing) = our daddy’s object). Korean children appear to use all basic grammatical morphemes in Korean from Stage 3 to Stage 5. At Stage 3, Korean children expand their interests in grammatical morphemes into various types of case particles as well as terminating eomis and connecting eomis. With terminating ending eomis, a Korean child delivers more detailed pragmatic/semantic intention to the listener while he/she continues to explore particles attached to nouns: •

Noun-related grammatical morphemes: Josa -i cup-i (cup -subject case particle)

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-e cip-e (house -adverbial case particle) -lang eomma-lang (mommy -connective particle, and) -to na-to (I -special particle, also) -man (I -special particle, only) na-man -hanthe na-hanthe (I -adverbial dative case particle) -(l)eul eomma-leul (mommy -object case particle) -eseo cip-eso (house -adverbial locative case particle) -lo ikeo-lo (this -adverbial case particle) -pakke na-pakke (I -special particle, nothing but) Predicate-related grammatical morphemes: eomi Prefinal ending eomi: -(eo,a)ssmeok-eoss-ta (eat -past tense prefinal eomi – ending eomi). -kessmeok-kess-ta (eat -prefinal eomi, will/shall – ending eomi). Terminating ending eomi -yo ka-yo (go -polite ending eomi) -llae ka-llae (go -volitional ending eomi) -ntae ka-ntae (go -indirectional quotative ending eomi) -kka? ka-kka? (go -interrogative ending eomi) -llke ka-llke (go -promising ending eomi) -seyo ka-seyo (go -polite ending eomi) -la ka-la (go -commanding ending eomi) -canha ka-canha (go -confident ending eomi) Connecting ending eomi -(neu,eu)n ka-neun (go -adnominal connecting eomi)

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-ko/-caciko ka-ko (go -connecting eomi, and) -(n)eun ka-n (go -past tense included adnominal connecting eomi) -neunte ka-neunte (go -connecting eomi, but/and) -seo ka-seo (go -connecting eomi, and/because) -myeon ka-myeon (go -connecting eomi, if) -nikka ka-nikka (go -connecting eomi, because)

Stage 4 Korean children move to Stage 4, expanding their utterance length and adding more words to subject (S), object (O) or predicate (P). Although they use simple sentences/utterances more frequently, they also use advanced forms of sentences/utterances more often compared to the previous stages. •

Subject included One predicate word: eonni-neun i caceonkeo tha-ko. sister-special particle this bicycle ride-ending eomi. ‘(My) sister rides this bike.’ eomma-ka nun-i neomu yeppeo. mommy -S particle eyes – S particle very pretty. ‘(My) mother has very pretty eyes.’

•

Two predicate words yeoki-e ancha-seo pap meok-ko. here-locative particle sit down -connecting eomi rice eat-ending eomi. ‘(I) eat rice sitting here.’ Subject not included yeoki chimtae mith-e sum-eoss-ci. here bed under-locative particle hide-past tense-ending eomi. ‘(He) hid here under the bed.’

Stage 5 Korean children actively explore the syntactic structure of complex sentences at this stage. Both clear adverbial clauses and adnominal clauses are observed with various types of connecting eomi to a predicate word. Four to five eojeols are used at this stage. The number of grammatical morphemes per utterance seems to be increased dramatically compared to the previous stages.

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Adnominal clause included: nae-ka cohaha-neun caek cwo. I -S particle like -connecting eomi book give ‘Give (me the) book that I like.’ appa-ka tha-neun cha-ka ceil coha. appa -S particle ride -connecting eomi car -S particle best like. ‘(The) car that daddy drives is best.’ Adverbial clause included: appa-ka manhi meokeo-seo pae-ka apha. appa -S particle too much eat -connecting eomi stomach-S particle sick. ‘Daddy (is) sick because (he) ate too much.’ Subordinate clause not included Keoliko keoki-eseo kicha-to tha-ss-ko eonni-lang. And there -locative particle train-special particle ride -past tense -connecting eomi sister -connective particle. ‘And (I) rode (on a) train there with (my) sister.’

Stage 6 At this stage, children seem to have no length restrictions in expressing their communicative intents in Korean although their long utterances are not error free and fluent all the time. Two or more predicate words are separated by several eojeols. In some utterances, both an adnominal clause and an adverbial clause are used together to produce more advanced forms of complex sentences in Korean. Children use complex sentences when they talk about their past experiences or stories. Children start to use advanced interrogative forms of tag questions at this stage: keolae/keoleohci (is it or does it) or keoleohci anha (isn’t it or doesn’t it) are added at the end of an utterance. Children use more advanced form of grammatical morphemes in Korean in addition to previously acquired forms. Josa, noun-related grammatical morphemes, are expanded to reveal more specific and sophisticated meanings such as -putheo (from) -kkaci (to), -eta (into) and -pota (than). Eomi is also expanded to convey more detailed and pragmatic differentiations, such as -cyo (supposition ending), -nya (interrogative ending), -kuna (new information ending), -pnita (formal ending), -psita (formal suggestive), -leoko/-leo (intentional connecting), -(la/ta)ko (quotative connecting) and teon (recollective connecting).

Examples of Korean LARSP Charts Two K-LARSP charts are presented from two four-year-old children. HS is a four year old (4;8) and was diagnosed with SLI. An initial assessment result showed that HS was at below one percentile on a comprehensive standardized language test and was limited in conversation. He has had language

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intervention for about four months after diagnosis. When he started receiving intervention, he used two-word combinations most frequently (MLUeojeol = 1.74, MLUm = 1.94) and the number of different content words was 36 based on 50 utterances. He used three grammatical morphemes (subject case particle -ka, semantic particle -neun, and terminating ending eomi -ya). Only -ya was used frequently (eight times) in 50 utterances obtained. He has had language intervention focusing on semantic and grammatical aspects of Korean while HS’s clinician used expansion and recast during facilitative play activities in addition to focused stimulation for grammatical morphemes. Figure 11.1 is the Korean LARSP chart for HS when he was 4;8, after four months of language intervention. HS had increased utterance length

HS 4;8

total utts 50

total ejeols 111

Unintelligible Utts

STAGE 1

Question Others spontaneous initation/maintenance response

MLUeojeol 2.22 MLUm 3.2 MLUeojeol (longest 10 utts) MLUm(longest 10 utts) 4.6 3.1 gm types 19 josa types 5 eomi types 14 partially intelligible intelligible normal imitation abnormal imitation full partial transformed gm josa

question

one eojeol

muo

P 1

nuku

two eojeols or 1 eojeol with 1productive gm Predicate + Noun + SP 8 keo + OP 4 AP 8 N+ 2 PP

STAGE 2

N 3

Socal

STAGE 3 eotiseo

three eojeols Subject + SOP 1 SAP 7 SP + 5

Pgm 2

eotteohkhe wae eonce museun eotteon

STAGE 5

myeonc

Subject + 1P 1 2 Ps

-ka 1 -(neu,eu)n -i 1

no Subject O and/or A + N+

ending term

-e 1 7

-(eo,a)ss 5

-lang -to 8

four eojeols STAGE 4

prefinal

1 gm or aux Ngm 2

aux+ eoti

eomi

no Subject P+ N+

-man -hanthe 2 -(l)eul

five eojeols or subordinate CL included 4 eojeols

-eseo

Subordinate Cl + Adnominal CL +

-lo

no Subordinate Cl

Adverbial CL +

-kess-

-ya 2 -ca 3 -ta 5 -nta -ne -ci 1 -yo 2 -lae 5 -tae -kka? 2 -ni? -llke -seyo 1 -la 2

-pakke

-canha

-putheo -kkaci -eta -pota

-cyo -nya -na -kuna -sio -pnita -psita

conn

-(neu,eu)n

-ko/ 1 -caciko

-(n)eun -(n)eunte 1 -seo 1 -myeon 2 -nikka

STAGE 6

-keurae? -keureohci? -keureohci anha?

six and more eojeols Subordinate Cl + Adnominal CL +

no Subordinate Cl

Adverbial CL + Adn. CL and Adv. CL +

Word order can be free as long as grammaticality is preserved for the K LARSP.

Figure 11.1 Korean LARSP HS, 4;8, SLI

-reoko /-reo -(la/ta)ko -ke -teoni -teon

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(MLUejeol = 2.22, MLUm = 3.2) based on 50 utterances. The numbers of different content words and different grammatical words were 63 and 19 based on Korean LARSP. HS’s utterance length was increased by using three-eojeol combinations frequently while adding one or two grammatical morphemes in three-quarters of the utterances. However, HS needs to develop more advanced syntactic/morphological structures in Korean. Expanding utterance length and clausal development seem to be the next step for HS to speak with peers appropriately. A 4;5 normally developing Korean boy, JH’s Korean LARSP chart is provided for reference in Figure 11.2. Both HS (an SLI child) and JH (a normally developing child) produced quite a lot of utterances with two to three eojeols. Both

JH 4;5

total utts 50

MLUeojeol 2.82 total ejeols 141

Unintelligible Utts

STAGE 1

Question Others spontaneous initation/maintenance response

question

one eojeol

muo 1

P 1

nuku

gm josa N 5

Socal

eomi prefinal

two eojeols or 1 eojeol with 1productive gm Predicate + SP 4 OP 1 AP 4 PP

STAGE 2

MLUm 4.04

MLUeojeol (longest 10 utts) 5.0 MLUm(longest 10 utts) 7.2 gm types 24 josa types 8 eomi types 16 partially intelligible intelligible normal imitation abnormal imitation full partial transformed

term

Noun + keo +

1 gm or aux Ngm

N+ 2

Pgm 3 aux+

-ka 3 -(neu,eu)n 3

eoti -i 2

three eojeols STAGE 3

STAGE 4

Subject +

no Subject

eotiseo

SOP 3 SAP 1 SP + 3

O and/or A + N+ 1

eotteohkhe 1 wae

four eojeols

eonce museun 1 eotteon STAGE 5

myeonc 1

no Subject P+ 2

2 Ps 1

N+

STAGE 6

-lang -to 1

-hanthe 2 -(l)eul 1

-kess5

-ya 2 -ca -ta 1 -nta -ne 1 -ci 2 -yo 5 -lae -tae 1 -kka? 9 -ni?

Subordinate CL + Adnominal CL +

no Subordinate CL 4

-seyo 1 -la 1

six and more eojeols Subordinate CL +

-pakke

no Subordinate CL

Adnominal CL + Adverbial CL + 2 Adn. CL and Adv. CL +

Word order can be free as long as grammaticality is preserved for the K LARSP.

Figure 11.2 Korean LARSP_4;5 JH

-eseo 1 -lo

-putheo -kkaci -eta -pota

conn

-(neu,eu)n 4

-ko/ 2 -caciko

-llke

five eojeols or subordinate CL included 4 eojeols

Adverbial CL + 2 -keurae? -keureohci? -keureohci anha?

-(eo,a)ss

-e 2 8

-man

Subject + 1P 2

ending

-canha 1 -cyo -nya -na -kuna -sio -pnita 1 -psita

-(n)eun -(n)eunte 2 -seo 1 -myeon 2 -nikka -reoko /-reo -(la/ta)ko -ke -teoni -teon

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children used various types of josa and eomi in their speech (19 for HS and 24 for JH). However, JH’s MLUm (4.04) is longer than HS’s MLUm (3.2) based on 50 utterances, and MLUm gap is bigger when the longest 10 sentences are involved (JH’s 7.2 versus HS’s 4.6). JH’s utterances include 13 utterances of Stages 4–6 while HS’s longest utterance was one with four eojeols, representing Stage 4.

Conclusions The Korean LARSP chart is proposed and provided for developmental and clinical purposes to assess young children’s language developmental level based on their conversational utterances and to chart developmental changes at a glance. This chart can be used efficiently in clinical settings in combination with standardized test results and/or questionnaires for parents and educators to tap into a child’s language/grammar use in social contexts. Korean SLPs need to collect and transcribe conversational utterances and to analyze the syntactic or morphological structures of each utterance. K-LARSP needs to be studied further to examine its clinical validity and reliability. Expanding the data for K-LARSP into school-aged children in addition to language-impaired children and selecting the size and range of representative utterances (e.g. 50 utterances versus 10 longest utterances, narratives versus conversational samples) could provide better evidence for clinical practice. Grammatical morphemes differentiating language impairment or grammatical development need to be further studied with more data.

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Appendix 1: Korean LARSP Profile MLUeojeol total utts

total ejeols

Question Others

full

Unintelligible utts

response

MLUm

MLUeojeol (longest 10 utts) gm types partially intelligible normal imitation partial

MLUm(longest 10 utts) josa types eomi types Intelligible abnormal imitation

transformed

spontaneous initation/maintenance

STAGE 1

question

one eojeol

muo

P

Gm josa N

prefinal nuku

two eojeols or 1 eojeol with 1productive gm Predicate + SP OP AP PP

STAGE 2

1 gm or aux Ngm

N+

Pgm

-ka

aux+

-(neu,eu)n -i

three eojeols no Subject

SOP SAP SP +

O and/or A + N+

eotiseo

eotteohkhe wae STAGE 4

Subject +

eonce museun eotteon myeonc

-(eo,a)ss

-lang -to

Subject + 1P

no Subject P+

-hanthe

2 Ps

N+

-(l)eul

-yo -lae -tae -kka? -ni? -llke

-kess-

no Subordinate CL

-lo

-(neu,eu)n

-ko/ -caciko

-seyo -la

-(n)eun -(n)eunte

-eseo five eojeols or subordinate CL included 4 eojeols

conn

-ya -ca -ta -nta -ne -ci

-e

-man

four eojeols

Subordinate CL + Adnominal CL +

STAGE 5

ending

term

Noun + keo +

eoti

STAGE 3

eomi

Socal

-canha

-pakke

-seo -myeon -nikka

Adverbial CL +

-keurae? -keureohci? -keureohci anha? STAGE 6

six and more eojeols Subordinate CL +

no Subordinate CL

Adnominal CL + Adverbial CL +

-putheo -kkaci -eta -pota

-cyo -nya -na -kuna -sio -pnita -psita

-reoko /-reo -(la/ta)ko -ke -teoni -teon

Adn. CL and Adv. CL +

Word order can be free as long as grammaticality is preserved for the K LARSP.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Hyojin Yoon, Gayoung Shin and Ahyoung Seol for their insightful analysis and comments as well as the children who provided language data for their valuable Korean utterances to adapt the first version of Korean LARSP.

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References Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (1989) Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability (2nd edn). London: Cole & Whurr. Han, H. (2009) Development of functional categories in child Korean. In C. Lee, G. Simpson and Y. Kim (eds) The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, Vol. 3 (pp. 175–186). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Y. (1997a) The acquisition of Korean. In D.I. Slobin (ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol. 4 (pp. 335–443). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kim, Y. (1997b) Hankuk 2–4 se atongeui palhoakilie kwanhan kichoyeonku [Basic research on utterance length of 2–4 year old Korean children]. Mal-eoneocangaeyeonku 2, 5–26. Kim, M., Pae, S. and Park, C. (2007) Atongyong paleum pyeongka [Assessment of Phonology and Articulation for Children: APAC]. Seoul: Human Brain Research & Consulting. Kim, Y., Hong, G., Kim, K., Jang, H. and Lee, J. (2009) Suyong ⋅ pyohyeon ehuilyeok keomsa [Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test: REVT]. Seoul: Cangaeinconghappokcikwan. Lee, C. (2009) The acquisition of modality. In C. Lee, G. Simpson and Y. Kim (eds) The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, Vol. 3 (pp. 187–220). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, C. and Cho, S.W. (2009) Acquisition of the subject and topic nominals and markers in the spontaneous speech of young children in Korean. In C. Lee, G. Simpson and Y. Kim (eds) The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, Vol. 3 (pp. 23–33). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, I. and Ramsey, S.R. (2000) The Korean Language. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Nam, K. and Ko, Y. (1985) Phyocun kukeo munpeoplon [Standard Korean Grammar]. Seoul: Tap Chulpansa. Pae, S. (1995) Ulinara atongeui eoneopaltal: Eoneopaltal cintaneui ilchaceok calyo [Korean children’s language development: Preliminary references to language assessment). Eoneochilyoceonmunyowonkyoyuk [SLP Professional Education]. Seoul: Hankukeoneopyeonglihakhoi. Pae, S. (2006) Hankukeo paltalteukseongkwa haklyeoceonki mumpeophyeongthaeso [Development of Korean young children’s grammatical morphemes]. Hankukeohak 31, 31–45. Pae, S. and Kwak, K. (2011) Hankukphan makateo peicheu euisasothong paltal pyeongka [Korean Adaptation of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories]. Seoul: Mind Press.

12 Language-specific Issues for the Bulgarian LARSP Profile and Adult Aphasia Examinations Cynthia M. Vakareliyska

Introduction This chapter focuses on language-specific issues relevant to the Bulgarian version of LARSP from the perspective of adult native speakers of Bulgarian with aphasia (on the stages of Bulgarian first-language acquisition see, for example, Gheorgov, 1908). Because this chapter gives an overview of Bulgarian grammar, however, the conclusions and aphasia profile in the Appendix 1 should also be relevant to development of a Bulgarian version of the LARSP child language assessment profile. Until 1996, diagnostic tests for Bulgarian aphasia patients were typically modeled on Russian tests based on Aleksander Luria’s aphasia classification system, even though Bulgarian grammar differs considerably from Russian. Since 1996, the most commonly used diagnostic test has been the Bulgarian version of Goodglass, Kaplan and Barresi’s Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (2001, hereafter BDAE; Alexandrova et al., 1996). The Bulgarian version makes some cultural adaptations to the original BDAE, including replacing stories with well-known Bulgarian folk tales, but it makes no language adaptations: the tokens are generally slavish translations from the English and are sometimes nonsensical from a Bulgarian grammar standpoint. Moreover, because it is entirely based on English, a poorly inflected language, the Bulgarian adaptation does not test for paragrammatism, i.e. errors of selection among inflectional suffixes, and does not operate on any assumptions regarding the most common or salient verb form or aspect form in Bulgarian agrammatism. 236

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The likely reason for the apparent complacency with regard to the makeshift nature of the Bulgarian version of the BDAE is that in Bulgaria, the concern of most speech pathologists and therapists is simply to assess very generally whether a patient has a production or comprehension deficit, and not to track how patients perform on specific grammatical tasks. Moreover, there are few published clinical studies of how native Bulgarian aphasia patients handle language-specific grammatical features. A LARSP-based chart like the one in the Appendix 1 can serve as a basis for designing a complete aphasia assessment examination that tests the performance of aphasia patients on Bulgarian-specific phonological issues, grammatical constructions and word order. In this way, the LARSP-based model can make a major contribution to more accurate diagnoses of aphasias, by delineating the specific features of Bulgarian grammar that typically cause difficulty for patients with different types of aphasia. This chapter discusses the features of Bulgarian grammar that are included in the LARSP-based chart in the Appendix 1 for measuring the extent of grammatical deficits in adult native Bulgarian speakers with aphasia. Of particular focus is paragrammatism, which is characteristic of the fluent aphasias but which has traditionally been underexamined in Bulgarian and other inflected languages, even though it is more clearly observable in them than in inflectionally poorer languages like English (see Vakareliyska, 1994a). The first section below gives a rough sketch of the Bulgarian morphological pronoun, noun, adjective and verb paradigms, with emphasis on those inflectional forms that are frequently omitted or substituted in aphasia, and on aspectual markings, the comprehension of which can be affected in the fluent aphasias. The second section focuses on specific Bulgarian syntactic constructions and word orders that are relevant to diagnosing agrammatism and paragrammatism. The third section provides a checklist of the grammatical features that should be included in any Bulgarian diagnostic aphasia test. The final section, ‘Conclusions’, outlines the Bulgarian aphasia chart which appears in detail in the Appendix 1. This consists of a morphosyntax section modeled on the LARSP, followed by a morphology section for tracking inflectional errors.

Bulgarian Morphology Personal and reflexive pronouns Clitic pronouns Bulgarian has two sets of personal pronouns: object clitic pronouns (OCPs) and long-form pronouns. Like most languages with a clitic/long-form pronominal opposition, Bulgarian leans toward the pro-drop end of the spectrum: it tends to reserve overt subject pronouns for emphatic or disambiguation purposes, but is more flexible than, for example, Polish or Spanish, The personal

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and reflexive OCPs have a largely suppletive morphological dative/accusative (Dat/Acc) opposition:

1Sg 2Sg 3SgFem 3SgMascNeut Refl

Dat mi ti i mu si

Acc me te ja go se

1Pl 2Pl 3Pl

Dat ni vi im

Acc ni vi gi

The Bulgarian Dat forms are true datives: they mark not only the indirect object of a ditransitive verb, as ‘to’ does in English, but objects of monotransitive verbs that subcategorize semantically for the dative case (see p. 239) in many Indo-European languages, such as ‘help’, and ‘trust’. Because Bulgarian does not have nominal case inflections, Dat-Acc paragrammatic errors are observable primarily in the choice of Dat versus Acc OCP. As the unmarked object pronoun forms, the OCPs are very high frequency; hence any Bulgarian diagnostic aphasia test should include fill-in-theblank and grammaticality judgment tokens and elicitations testing for Dat-Acc paragrammatic errors in OCPs, particularly in fluent aphasias (for sample test tokens, see Vakareliyska, 1990a, 1994b). Although it is assumed by most aphasiologists that paragrammatic case errors are random, Bulgarian and other patients with transcortical sensory (acoustico-amnestic) aphasia have been found to make more Dat-Acc case errors in sentences where the semantic features of the verb were not clearly associated with one or the other case form (Vakareliyska, 1990a, 1994b). For this reason, assessment of Dat-Acc case-marking is included in the chart in the Appendix 1. However, because Dat and Acc forms are identical in the 1Pl and 2PPl OCPs, they should be avoided in test tokens designed to test for paragrammatic case errors. Possessive pronominal constructions are usually formed by attaching the Dat OCP either to the host noun or to the host verb (see p. 248 and 253; here ‘S’ represents an overt subject, ‘Pro0’ represents a non-overt subject, ‘Posses’ represents a possessive OCP, and ‘N’ represents the predicate NP): (1) (a) Toj e bašta mi. he is father me-DAT ‘He is my father.’ S Cop N Posses (c) Bašta mi e. father me-Dat is ‘He is my father.’ Pro0 N Posses Cop

(b) Toj mi e bašta. he me-Dat is father ‘He is my father.’ S Posses Cop N

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Long-form personal pronouns and reflexives Bulgarian has only a nominative/non-nominative (Nom/nonNom) distinction in the long-form stressed personal pronouns. As in the noun system, the Dat case is marked by the particle na, which attaches to the left of the NonNom pronoun form:

1Sg 2Sg 3SgFem 3SgMasc 3SgNeut Refl

Nom áz tí tjá tój tó –

Dat na méne na tébe na néja na négo na négo na sébe si

Acc méne tébe néja négo négo sébe si

1Pl 2Pl 3Pl

Nom níe víe té

Dat na nás na vás na tjáx

Acc nás vás tjáx

The omission of the Dat proclitic na before a long-form pronoun results in the Acc form. This omission can occur, with different motivations, in both agrammatism and paragrammatism and, for this reason, should not be interpreted necessarily as an agrammatic error of omission. Bulgarian language assessment tests should instead focus on the substitution of the Nom versus Acc for agrammatism and selection of the Acc versus Dat for paragrammatism. The Dat/Acc long-form Refl pronoun (na) sebe si is the only instance of grammaticalized object clitic doubling in Bulgarian (see p. 249). Since sebe si ‘myself, yourself, himself, herself, etc.’ is a very high-frequency collocation, one can expect that it is stored as a single mental representation, such that, unlike the Dat marker na, the clitic si will not generally be omitted in agrammatism (see Menn & Duffield, 2013). In developing aphasia test tokens, care must also be taken to distinguish between true Dat-marking na constructions, in which na denotes solely dative case, and prepositional na constructions, in which the clitic na is the equivalent of the English prepositions ‘to’, ‘of’, ‘at’, ‘on’ and ‘onto’ and can represent the locative, genitive, Dat and Acc of motion: e.g. na koncérta ‘at/to the concert’.

Inflection of nouns and indefinite adjectives Although Bulgarian does not have nominal case inflections, most nouns and adjectives share a single set of portmanteau singular inflectional suffixes that mark for an Masc-Fem-Neut grammatical gender opposition as well as for the Sg-Pl inflectional opposition: Masc Sg -Ø (although there are some MascSg adjectives in -i); Fem Sg -a/-ja (and some nouns in -Ø); Neut Sg -o/-e; MascFem Pl -i and less common Masc Pl -ove; and NeutPl -a/-ja. Like the long-form pronouns, Bulgarian NPs are Dat-marked by the left-attaching clitic na.

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Although paragrammatic gender agreement errors have often been assumed to be the result of either short-term memory loss or random selection of gender markers, a study of normal native Bulgarian speakers by Andonova et al. (2004) suggests that testing for grammatical gender-marking errors and gender agreement errors should be a part of a Bulgarian language assessment examination. The authors of that study found that on gender monitoring, Fem nouns appeared to be associated with shorter reaction times (RTs) when other variables were controlled. Words were presented auditorily in randomized lists in two experiments. In the first, the subjects were to repeat the word as quickly as possible; in the second, they were to determine the grammatical gender of the noun as quickly as they could by pressing the appropriate button. The authors observed that the Bulgarian Masc nouns in their dataset tended to be higher in concreteness, animacy and human quality, more often correlated with semantic gender than Fem or Neut nouns, and more likely to be classified as generic, referring to either Masc or Fem animate referents. They also observed that, unlike the situation in Russian, Bulgarian Masc nouns rarely occur as diminutives (indeed, the most common Bulgarian diminutive suffix, -če, makes Masc and Fem nouns grammatically neuter: drugár-Masc ‘comrade’ : drugár-če–Neut ‘buddy, pal’), and that this may explain why diminutive forms on the test appeared to be associated with shorter RT in gender monitoring, when other variables were controlled. Andonova and colleagues also noted that Bulgarian Masc nouns never occur as deverbal nouns (although an exception that they did not take into account are the large number of new English deverbal loanwords ending in -ing), and that they tend to be shorter than Fem and Neut nouns, since in the Sg form they have a zero portmanteau gender-number ending. The Fem nouns in the database were found to tend toward a lower degree of concreteness. On the other hand, they noted that a few Fem nouns had a Sg zero ending like Masc nouns and that, like Masc nouns, Fem nouns in the database did not occur as deverbal nouns. Noting that nouns referring to animates with recognizable semantic gender elicited faster and more accurate gender classifications than inanimate nouns, the authors concluded that semantic gender had a bigger impact in Bulgarian than had been shown in an earlier study with Italian, which has only Masc and Fem grammatical gender forms (Bates et al., 1995), because grammatical gender likely has higher cue validity in a three-gender language like Bulgarian and thus is correlated better with semantic gender (Andonova et al., 2004: 502). They acknowledged, however, that they had used a somewhat different definition of semantic gender from that in the Italian study, basing it on assessments of biological sex that are obvious and accessible to laypersons. Andonova et al. (2004) suggest that since the Fem gender is the most marked among the three morphological genders, it may be the most salient gender form in tasks that require attention to gender; however, although

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they refer to earlier in the paper for discussion of this, they do not explain anywhere how they have drawn the conclusion that Fem is the most marked (which was Jakobson’s (1960 [1971, 1984]) conclusion for Russian). They also found that nouns with atypical gender marker (presumably including Fem Sg nouns in bare-stem form like záxar ‘sugar’ and Masc Sg nouns in -a like pijánica ‘drunkard’) were associated with a significantly shorter word repetition RT when other variables were controlled for, probably because many of the mismatched words were rather easy to recognize from their initial segments: e.g. the adjective mlád ‘young’ is nominalized by adding the Fem zero-ending abstract noun suffix -ost to form mládost ‘youth’. A particularly interesting finding by Andonova et al. is that the noun gender selected by the subjects tended to reflect a bias toward their own semantic gender, particularly in the case of female subjects, since the Fem form is the marked form for animates in Bulgarian, as in the other Slavic languages. Moreover, they also found that women showed slightly shorter RT for Fem nouns and males for Masc nouns. Their paper stresses the important point, which has so far been missed by Bulgarian adapters of aphasia tests for other languages, that language-specific lexical and phonotactic features must be considered when designing methodologies for the assessment of auditory lexical access. Since the chart in the Appendix 1 is based on LARSP, which tracks speech production only, it does not track comprehension of gender and number inflections, which was the issue examined by Andonova et al. (2004).

Vocative inflection Only nouns have a vocative (Voc) marker, in the Masc and Fem Sg: MascSg -e, -u; FemSg -o/-e. The Fem Sg Voc inflection on a personal name tends to sound disparaging or disapproving, but it has no pejorative connotations when used with other nouns, including kinship and endearment terms: májko! ‘Mom!’; dušíce! ‘Honey!’ (lit. ‘soul’-DIM). The Voc inflection occurs in the Masc only in certain adjectives used commonly as greetings: míl-i, sku ˘´p-i, drág-i ‘dear’. Since in most instances the Nom form is an acceptable substitute for the Voc, the chart in the Appendix 1 does not assess use of the Voc.

Quantity marker Bare-stem Masc count nouns take a special inflectional suffix -a instead of the Pl suffix (-i or -ove) when modified by certain quantifiers in a quantifier phrase. This suffix, called the ‘counting number’ (brójno čisló), is used after numerals and the adverbs kólko ‘how many’ and njákolko ‘a few’: pét/ njákolko grád-a ‘five/a few cities’. The Pl suffix, however, is used with mnógo ‘many’ and málko ‘few’: mnógo/málko gradové ‘many/few cities’. The -a ‘counting’ suffix is always unstressed. Stem-stressed Masc nouns that do not shift stress to the Def Art -u ˘t are pronounced the same in the quantified form as they are in the Def form.

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Definite articles and definite adjectives The indefinite article is the numeral ‘one’ (Masc edín, Fem edná, Neut ednó), which agrees with the head NP in gender and number. The definite articles (Masc Sg Nom -u ˘t, NonNom -a; Fem Sg -ta, Neut Sg -to; MascFem Pl -te, Neut Pl -ta) are postpositive clitics. Although these are written as part of the host word (kníga : knígata ‘book : the book’), that they are separate constituents is indicated by the fact that they do not affect vowel-zero alternation in the host word: for example, Masc Sg teátu ˘ r, Pl teátri, but Masc Sg Def teátŭrŭt (represented as ‘ND’ in the chart in the Appendix 1). Although there is an orthographic distinction between the Masc Sg Nom (-u ˘t) and NonNom definite forms (-a), they are both generally pronounced as /u ˘/. The /t/ in -u ˘t is sometimes pronounced by television and radio announcers, and by the general population to indicate contrastive emphasis (i.e. ‘the book, not a book’); otherwise, articulation of the /t/, which is an artificial grammatical convention, comes across as bookish. As clitics, the definite articles are placed in second position within the NP. This means that the article will right-attach to an attributive adjective (or the first in a series of attributive adjectives) preceding the noun: e.g. goljámata kníga ‘the big book’ (AdjDN); see also p. 250). The Masc Sg form that right-attaches to an adjective is Nom -ijat, Non/Nom -ija. Here too, both forms are usually pronounced as /iju ˘/, for the same reasons. Definite articles are used together with possessive markers: e.g. knígata mi, mójata kníga (both ‘my book’). Most kinship terms, however, do not receive the definite article together with a possessive OCP: brát-Ø mu but négovijat brát ‘his brother’.

The verb system Bulgarian has a highly inflected verb system that includes personal markings on NonPast and preterite verb forms, and on the auxiliary (AUX) to perfect-tense, evidential and dubitative constructions; in addition, the -lparticiples, which occur in the perfect tenses and the evidential and dubitative moods, are marked for gender and number agreement with the subject. Almost all verb forms have a morphological perfective/imperfective (Pf/Impf) aspectual opposition. Additionally, the preterite has a morphological aorist/imperfect (Aor/Imperf) Aktionsarten opposition. The future tense form consists of a Pf or Impf NonPast verb form preceded by the future AUX particle šte (represented by ‘Fut’ in the Appendix 1 chart). The present tense form consists of an Impf NonPast verb form.

What is the ‘default’ verb form in agrammatism? Bulgarian no longer has an infinitive form except in a few idioms. The nonfinite equivalent to an infinitive is the subjunctive construction, which consists of the particle da (‘SUBJUNC’) followed by a Pf or Impf NonPast matrix verb form. The dictionary verb form is the 1PSg NonPast form.

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The determination of the most frequently used form in agrammatic speech is essential to the development of a morphosyntax assessment section of a diagnostic aphasia test, but there do not appear to be any published studies that indicate which Bulgarian verb form is encountered most frequently as a default naming form in agrammatism equivalent to the infinitive in other Slavic languages and the English deverbal noun in -ing. Despite the apparent assumption by the editors of the Bulgarian version of the BDAE (Aleksandrova et al., 1996), it is unlikely that the most common agrammatic form is the deverbal noun, because this form in Bulgarian does not share a morpheme with other verb forms as English -ing does. It is more likely that the most salient Bulgarian verb form in agrammatism is the NonPast, since it is the dictionary ‘name’ of the verb.

Conjugational categories Bulgarian has three conjugations, based on the NonPast thematic vowels -a-, -i- and -e-: pítaš ‘you-Sg ask’, xódiš ‘you-Sg go’, četéš ‘you-Sg read’. Verbs have a NonPast stem, which forms the present and future tenses, the imperfect preterite, the present active participle and the imperative forms; and an aorist stem, which forms the aorist (Aor) preterite and the past active and past passive participles. All finite verb forms carry person and number markers, which can be subject to paragrammatic errors in aphasia.

Aspect marking Bulgarian has a morphological perfective/imperfective opposition in all tenses but the present, which occurs only in the Impf NonPast form. As in the other Slavic languages, the perfective (Pf) and imperfective (Impf) forms of a given verb are listed in the dictionary as separate lexemes. Linguists differ over whether Slavic Pf and Impf forms of the same verb stem, which may or may not be of the same conjugation class, are in fact two separate lexemes (Hauge, 1999: 86; Lindstedt, 1985) or a single morpheme (Kuehnast, 2010). Most verbs that occur without either a prefix or a suffix are Impf. They are usually perfectivized by adding an Aktionsart prefix which, depending on the combination of the given prefix and stem, can also refine the meaning of the verb: e.g. píš-a ‘write-Impf’ : na-píš-a ‘write-Pf’, but prepíš-a ‘rewrite-Pf’. The Impf equivalent of a prefixed Pf verb is formed by replacing the verb’s thematic vowel suffix and corresponding set of personal endings, with an imperfectivizing suffix (-av-/-v- or -a-) followed by the a-conjugation personal endings: e.g. e-conjugation pre-píš-a ‘rewrite-Pf’: a-conjugation pre-pís-v-am ‘rewrite-Impf’. Some unprefixed i-conjugation verbs are Pf. They are imperfectivized by replacing the thematic -i- suffix and i-conjugation personal endings with the -v- or -a- imperfectivizing suffix and a-conjugation endings. This can result in consonant palatalization across the morpheme boundary: víd’-u ˘ (