ERIC ED358733: The Performance of the Japanese Case Particles in Children's Speech: With Special Reference to "Ga" and "O."

22 Pages·1993·0.29 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 358 733
FL 021 300
AUTHOR
Miyata, Hiroko
TITLE
The Performance of the Japanese Case Particles in
Children's Speech: With Special Reference to "Ga" and
Ito
II
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
22p.; For the complete volume, see FL 021 293. Paper
based on a Master's Thesis, Osaka University,
Japan.
PUB TYPE
Research/Technical (143)
Reports
Journal
Articles (080)
JOURNAL CIT
MITA Working Papers in Psycholinguistics; v3 p117-136
1993
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Case (Grammar); *Child Language; Foreign Countries;
*Japanese; *Language Acquisition; Language Research;
Linguistic Theory; *Oral Language; Semantics;
Structural Analysis (Linguistics); Syntax; Testing;
Toddlers; Visual Measures; Young Children
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that
children's use of Japanese case particles obeys the grammatical
principles introduced at the earlier stage of language development.
In previous studies concerning the acquisition of Japanese case
examined through the experimental method, it has been suggested that
children acquire the functional use of case particles at around 5
years of age. This study examines the performance of Japanese case
particles in children's natural speech in 2- to 5-year-olds within
the framework of the theory of generative grammar. Data focusing on
the phenomena "case marker drop" is analyzed. In conclusion, this
paper demonstrates that 2-year-olds use Japanese case particles in
much the same way that adults do and it will be further suggested
that their use of case particles obeys the hierarchical structure of
the Japanese language as well as that of the semantic structure.
(VWL)
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IN
THE PERFORMANCE OF THE JAPANESE CASE PARTICLES
CHILDREN'S SPEECH: With Special Reference to
ga and 0
Hiroko Miyata
Osaka University
'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
UV--\
CENTER (ERIC)
t2fn.5 document has been reproduced as
ace.ved Iron, the person Or organuatton
C.)\-
or.g.nM,NO
r MInOr changes have been made to improve
reproduction Ovally
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Fonts of new or optmons stated .n this decu
rhent do not necessaroy represent official
INFORMATION CENTER ;ERIC)
OE RI 00S11.on or pol.Cy
MITAWPP 3 (1993) 117-136
PARTICLES IN
CASE
THE JAPANESE
OF
PERFORMANCE
THE
Reference to
CHILDREN'S SPEECH: With Special
RA and Aj
Hiroko Miyata
Osaka University
1.INTRODUCTION
Japan
acquisition in
The study of first language
certain
collecting
a
through
examined
been
has
extended over a long time
specific child's utterances
that
find, however,
We
experiments.
and designing
linguistic
studies combined with
very few
there are
theory.
demonstrate
is to
The main purpose of this paper
particles
Japanese case
the
use of
that children's
the
introduced at
principles
grammatical
obeys the
previous
In
of language development.
earlier stage
Japanese case
acquisition of
concerning the
studies
method,
the experimental
examined through
particles
the
acquire
children
that
suggested
been
has
it
5 years of
of case particles at around
functional use
Iwatate,1980;
Sano,1977;
(Hayashibe,1975;
age.
study
This
others)
and
Goto,I988;
Hakuta,1982;
case particles
of Japanese
the performance
examines
5yearolds
to
in 2
speech
natural
children's
in
generative
of
theory
the
framework of
the
within
on the
focusing
the data
will analyze
grammar.
I
drop'.
Phenomena of 'Case marker
that 2
paper demonstrates
conclusion, this
In
the
in much
particles
Japanese case
use
year olds
further
be
will
and
it
do
adults
that
same way
the
of case particles obeys
suggested that their use
as
Japanese language
of the
structure
hierarchical
structure.
well as that of the semantic
language
of
modularity
the
Assumption
on
1 .1
acquisition process
acquisition has been
The process of the language
years.
It
many
linguists for
the
discussed among
the
mind:
human
the
of
aspects
several
involves
physical development, cognitive
of pragmatic
the development
development and
mental
and comprehend
must learn
The child
skills.
social
and
items
lexical
individual
of
moaning
the
the
must understand
then,
or she
He
sentences.
proper use
in
the form into
and put
linguistic form
finally acquires
she, then,
situations. He
or
real
zorrect grammar.
the language which is based on
generative
theory of
Within the framework of the
Chomsky and others, acquisition
developed by
grammar
Language Acquisition
by
achieved
language is
of
a
possesses innately. LAD
which the human
Devise (LAO)
117
tJ
118
consists
stage grammar
initial
called
of
of
an
Universal
Grammar,
which
has
small
number
of
a
principles and
principles
some
of learnability
for
individual
data which
languages! Intake
child
the
gets during
the acquisition
process makes UG
active
this
and
realized
a core
UG
grammar
as
of
is
a
particular
language.
In this
shall assume
paper
I
the module
of language acquisition
of Input
is that
Data + UG + Cognitive capacity.
The relation of semantic and syntactic structure
1.2
preceding studies
pertaining
early word
to
In
and production,
comprehension
is suggested
that the
onset
of comprehension
advance
of production
is in
there
and
tendency that
children
comprehend
is
a
action words
better than objects
words in
the early
stage
(Benedict,1979)
utterance.
of
Cognitive
semantic
categories and
syntactic categories
relate
reciprocally
during
the
acquisition
process.
Grimshaw defines
this process as Canonical Structural
Realization(CSR).
CSR(object)
is projected
the
on
nominal, and CSR(action)
projected on the verb
is
in
syntactic categories.
Verbs assign 0-role directly or indirectly to the
lexical
0-marked
items
and
each
lexical
item
is
projected on the syntactic structure by 0-criterion.
The 0-roles
assigned to
a:e Agent.
NPs
Theme,
Goal.
Source,
Location,
Patient,
Experiencer,
and
Proposition as shown
in (1).
(1) a. Taro-ga hon-o tukue-no-ue-ni oi-ta
Agent
Location
Theme
(Taro put a book on the desk.)
hana-o
Junko-ni oku-t-ta.
Jiro-Lea
b
Source
Theme
Goal
(Jiro presented flowers to Junko.)
c. Taro-ga Jiro-o tata-i-ta.
Agent
Patient
(Taro hit Jiro.)
d. Sono news-wa kare-o odoroka-se-ta.
Experiencer
(The news suprised him.)
e. Kare-wa Hanako-ni isha-ni-iku-youni
proposition
settoku-shi-ta.
(Ho persuaded Hanako to go to see the
doctor.)
child who
acquired
A
a verb..oku"
(put) knows
that
verb
the
selects
throe
arguments
[kgont.
Theme.
Location].
other words,
he/she
who
has
In
.t
119
arguments
[Agent,
three
selects
verb
the
that
words, he/she
who
other
Location].
:las
Theme.
In
Agent puts
that 'an
'oku., knows
acquired the. verb,
something on somewhere'.
order to
two hypotheses together in
put
Thus
I
particles:
of case
examine children's performance
1)
starts
structure
grammatical
the
function
of
the
the onset
of the
stages while
the early
worf.iog at
cognitive
by the
triggered
language acquisition
is
use both semantic features
and
capacity. 2) children
their mother
their performance of
;yntactic ones for
tongue from the early stage of language development.
2. Case marker drop in adult speech
role
of
play
the
particles
case
Japanese
the noun
relation
grammatical
of
representing
the
is sometimes deleted
a sentence but
in
phrase in
it
what makes
look at
We will
colloquial expressions.
theoretical
through
possible
deletion
this
a
through
assumptions are made
hypothesis. Theoretical
examining three aspects - subject/object asymmetry,
a
stative sentence and unaccusative construction.
suggested that the nominative
First. Saito(1985)
whereas the
dative
dropped
not be
Case marker
can
in below (2).
case can be dropped as shown
ki-ta-nd
(2) a. Dare-*(ga)
come-PAST-0
who-NOM
'Who came?'
yonde-ru-no
nani(-o)
(Kimi-wa)
b.
reading PRES -O
what-ACC
you-TOP
'What are you reading?'
[Saito(1985) p.230]
this subject/object asymmetry with
argued that
Saito
is derived from the
to the "Case marker drop"
respect
Case assigned to each position.
He
difference of the
are assigned
Japanese
object
NPs
assumes
that
in
assigned nominative
abstract Case but subject NPs are
the
abstract.
Thus,
which
is not
by !NFL
Case
the NP
Case to
marker assigned abstract
object Case
subject Case marker can
not
can be dropped while the
be dropped.
In contrast with Saito's analysis, Takezawa(1987)
contexts where
Case
exists
there
out that
pointed
He argued Case
that
ga can
dropped.
marker
be
stativo
contexts
of
dropped
marker Da
can
be
in
accept
unconsciously
as
which
we
Predicate,
illustrated below in
(3)
wakar-u-no
nani-(ga)
(3) a. Kimi-ni
understand-PRES-0
what-NOM
You-DAT
'What do you understand?'
tJ
120
mondaiC -ga) deki-ru-ndai
b. Kimi-ni
dono
you-DAT which problem-NOM
can -do- PRES -O
'Which problem can you do?'
(Takezawa(1987) p.124.125]
stative
assigned
NPs
He analyzed
the
that
pa
in
proposed
object status
the
and
contexts
have
the
premise
'Case marker drop'
on the
generalization of
that surface Case is an abstract Case as shown below.
(4) When an NP is adjacent to and c-commanded by V,
it (whether o
then the Case marker attached to
or pa) can be dropped.
Case Marker Deletion (optional): Delete o/gaif
to and
is adjacent
NP containing
them
c-
the
commanded by V in PF.
ETakezawa(1987) p.126]
is pointed out
Another phenomenon of
dropping pa,
He proposed
the construction
Nishigauchi(1992).
by
the subject
of the unaccusative
sentence' where
has
functions
verb
0-role
Theme has
two
the
and
transitive and intransitive such as 'aku' vs.
'akeru'
subject
that
analyzed
NP
the
(open).
He
in
was generated
onto the
object
unaccusative sentence
RA
could
marker
case
position
the
and
that
be
dropped!
(5) a. Ah, doa-(ga)
a-i-ta!
Oh, door-(NOM) open-PROG-PRES
Oh, the door opened!)
(
b. Asoko, nani -Cga) ochi-to -ru-ka mi-te- kite.
the ground over there.)
Go and see what is on
(
CNishigauch1(1992)pp.45]
his analysis
of case
marker ni
result of
As a
and
preceding
studies marker
drop'
'case
the
of
(Saito(1985), Shibatani(1986)). Nishigauchi
suggested
the following conditions of
case marker drop.
(6) The condition of Case marker drop:
(i) governed by lexical category that
assigns Case
(ii) adjacent to
it and
(iii) receive strong s-selection of the lexical
category
that the conditions of
the 'case
Here assume
I
marker drop' suggested by Nishigauchi(1992),
that can
be represented as follows.
121
I
V'
NP
2A
V
NP
(o),(ga)
children's speech
3. Performance of case particles in
3.1 The data for analysis
case
use
of
the
analyze
section
this
In
I
speech focusing
on
children's natural
Particles
in
source shown in (7).
use three
drop'.
'Case marker
I
individual children
and (b) are from
The data in
(a)
2 to 9 year
and data (c) contains 2500 utterances of
olds from various areas in Japan.
(7)
(a) Data of a threeyearold girl for the
duration of 6 months
(b) You_ji no Kotoba Shiryou (1).(5), National
Japanese Research Institute
Group Eruson
(c) Kodomo no Kotoba
3.2 The data analysis
phenomena
represented the
of
In section
2,
I
in adult speech and the conditions
'case marker drop'
position
which obey the structural
requisite for
it,
That is, the case particle
the Japanese language.
of
position can not
in subject
which assigned to NP
Ra
pa
and
particle
o
case
whereas
the
dropped
be
dropped. How
can be
the object position
assigned to
the
make
thus,
children,
Japanese
native
do
when
and
particles
9a
o
between
the
distinction
it was
tudies.
preceding
language?
acquiring
In
case
utter
comes
child
to
that
out
pointed
a
20 months to 26 months and
particles at approximately
using the knowledge
of
he/she understands a sentence
If this
years.
a half
particles after four and
case
following question will naturally arise.
is true, the
years
the ago of 5
children especially under
How do
correctly
readily
and
particles
case
these
use
To
having any formal grammatical background?
without
analyze
will
point
interesting
this
examine
I
containing
data
The
spontaneous speech.
toddlers'
and
ago
classified
by
were
object
subject
and
122
were
categories
which
according
analyzed
the
to
the structure as
the positions on
distinguished from
shown below (8).
(8)
A. Classification of case particle 'ga'
'ga' assigned to NP of subject position
a.
b. stative predicates
adjective, stative predicate
1.
eg. "aru"(exist)."ooi"(many),"sukunai"(few).
"iru"(need)
NP of the object position with stative
2.
Predicate
eg. subject marked Re with follow predicates
"wakaru"(understand), "dekiru"(can),
"kikoeru"(hear). "hoshii "(want),
"sukida"(like)
c. subject marked ga in an unaccusative
construction
d. dropping RA
B. Classification of case particle o
a. object with o
b. object dropped o
four to
five
data of
analyzed
the
Firstly.
I
already
to have
children, who
said
are
years
old
case particles.
Among
180
acquired the knowledge of
with the
cases were
a subject, 162
cases containing
found 18
cases
That is,
particle 2a.
overt case
1
analyzed that
However
case particle
dropped
RA.
I
NPs which dropped ga were all classified to A-b
these
the above classification (8) except in one
and A-c in
the case
dropped
those NPs
means that
This
case.
position
the
object
belonged
particles
to
in
an object,
containing
cases
for the
structure.
As
cases with overt
with an object, the
among 144 cases
o were 42.
the analysis of 4 to 5-year-
From the results of
didn't drop
case
was observed
they
that
olds,
it
subject
assigned
were
which
the
to
Particles
case particles
to drop
they tended
while
position,
feature also
object position
This
to the
assigned
in adult's speech
tends to be true
this same
about younger children?
Then, how
Is
of even
speech patterns
reflected in
phenomena
the
suggested
studios
preceding
children?
The
younger
function
acquired the grammatical
that they have not
If this assumption is correct,
of case particles
yet.
k.J
123
should
be
performance
speech
their
then,
of adults'.
from those
correspondingly different
according to
to 3-year-olds
data for 2
analyzed the
a specific
(8) and observed
the above classification
(Refer to
case particles.
their use of
Phenomena in
Appendix 1.)
the subject. 47 cases
Among 326 cases containing
RA and
case particle
without the overt
were uttered
the overt
without
the NPs
almost
all
furthermore,
object
the
were seen
be
to
particle
in
ga
case
predicate or
with stative
sentences
thu
position
the
In the case of
with unaccusative constructions.
123 cases out of 161 dropped case particle o.
object,
The results of these analysis showed that the use
same
to 3-year-olds were the
particles of 2
of case
case
drop
the
do not
adults':
they
those
of
as
while
subject position
to the
ga assigned
particle
and o assigned to
they tend to drop case particles RA
the object position.
(9) A 5-year-old Child's Utterance
INFL
VP
V'
V
NP
Kotaro-chan RA
tuku-t-ta yo.
gamu de abuku (o)
yo.
Kotaro-chan ga gamu de abuku (0) tuku-t-ta
Kotaro-chan NOM chewing gum with bubbles (ACC)
foam-PAST.
(Kotaro foamed bubbles with chewing gum.)
of the above analyses,
up the results
To sum
1
have shown the following two points.
between the
an asymmetry
there is
found that
1. We
position with respect
subject position and the object
toddlers
drop in toddlers speech.
to the case marker
subject
the
on
particles
ga
case
don't drop
the
ofton drop the case particles. ga
position while they
case
use of
Their
position.
the object
o on
and
particles is almost the same as that of adults
2-year-olds' usage
of
oven
that
is assumed
It
2
knowledge
to the
is related
Japanese case particles
of the syntactic structure.
124
Performance of ga and 0 by Thematic Relation
3.3
both syntactic
forth the
hypothesis that
put
I
and semantic ones are already developed from
features
the early language development. According
stage of
question arose.
hypothesis, following
this
the
to
semantic features of the noun both
What are the
on a
position?
subject
position
object
and an
can
We
semantic
predict specific
should
ther3
that
be
features in toddlers' use
of case particles.
this
In
how the semantic
section, briefly examine
will
I
features are related
child's use of
to the
the case
will lead
0-role which
focusing on the
Particles by
reanalyze the
syntactic
structure.
data
will
to
I
shown in
(7).
0-role for a subject are
The possible
the Agent
role (10(A)), the Theme
role (10(B)), and the
source
role (10(C)).
(10)
a. Ken -ga Jiro-o tata-i-ta.
Patient
Agent
(Ken hit Jiro.)
b. Densha-ga to -i-ta.
Theme
(The train arrived.)
c. Taro-qa Hanako-ni shashin-o oku-t-ta.
Source
Theme
Goal
(Taro sent a picture to Hanako.)
on the
other
one
hand then hand,
the
On
it,
in
0-roles for an object
are the Theme role,
possible
and the Experiencer role. the Theme
the Patient role,
role can be assigned to both a subject and an object.
and the Theme role
focused on the Agent
Here
role
I
for this analysis.
Theme role
Verbs which select the
an argument have an 'action' meaning, that -ts,
as
it
something
affects exchanged.
moved
being
by
or
Miyagawa(1989)
character
defines
this
the
of
affectedness as:
(21)
A partial characterization of affectedness
a. That which
is exchanged:
(tori)-Kaeru 'exchange'
b. That which
is created: tukuru 'make',
kosiraeru
tateru
'write',
kaku
'build',
'concot', hanasu 'speak', yobu 'call out',
sakobu 'cry out'
That
which
naosu
'correct,
converted.
c.
is
repair'