Temporal Connectives in Child Language

260 Pages·2012·6.11 MB·English

Temporal Connectives in Child Language:
a Study of Greek

By
Maria Papakonstantinou

A thesis submitted
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy in Psycholinguistics
at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
School of English
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

November 2015
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek / M. Papakonstantinou ii
Acknowledgments
Now that the writing of this thesis is accomplished, I want to thank a number of persons
that contributed to the realization of it.
First and foremost, I want to express my deepest esteem to my primary
supervisor Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli, for a number of reasons. First, I deeply thank her for
trusting me the very challenging and original research topic of L1 Greek connective
acquisition. I would also like to express my gratitude to her for giving me the
opportunity to work on my PhD, at the language development lab of the English school,
which she directs, where she taught me step by step how to conduct psycholinguistic
research. There, I benefited from the everyday discussions with her on my test design,
data collection and analysis. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her genuine
interest and fruitful comments on my data, as well as for her constant guidance, the
sharing of her knowledge, help and inspiration throughout this thesis. I would also like
to thank her for her encouragement, support as well as for her patience with me. The
ideas, ideals and feelings I gained during the years I had the opportunity to work with
her, will guide me through life.
I would also like to express my very deep esteem and to thank from my heart
Despina Papadopoulou, as I benefited from her unfailing and detailed guidance with the
statistics of this thesis. I owe her a very special thank for her fruitful comments on issues
concerning the test design and her true interest in my research as she was always there,
whenever I needed her guidance.
I would also like to express my warmest thanks to Marina Matthaioudakis, for
aiding the realization of this thesis. I thank her for always being there to help providing
me with an immediate access to the Experimental Primary School of Evosmos, which is
under the governing board of the English school. In the Experimental Primary school of
Evosmos, I recruited 90 out of the 135 participants of the study.
I would also like to thank Thomais Alexiou, who, as a member of the governing
board of the Experimental Primary School of Evosmos, provided me with an immediate
access to it.
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek / M. Papakonstantinou iii
I would also like to thank Anastasios Tsangalidis for suggesting relevant
bibliography on aspect and connectives. I also thank a number of researchers, for their
fruitful comments on parts of my work, which were presented in various conferences.
Special thanks go to the participants of my experiments, i.e. the students of the
experimental primary school of Evosmos, the pupils of the 13th & 22nd kindergarden of
Triandria and of the private kindergarden ‘magemeno dasos’, the university students,
relatives and friends who comprised the control group, as well as the directors and
teachers of the aforementioned schools whose supportive attitude promoted the
realization of this thesis.
I would also like to thank friends and colleagues from the team of the Language
Development Lab of the English School for their help and support, starting with Georgia
Fotiadou, Maria Kaltsa, Kalliopi Katsika and Maria Dimitrakopoulou. I also thank Elena
Peristeri, Maria Kotroni, Evagelia Asproudi and Maria Andreou for their support. I
would also like to thank Tasos Pashalis, who offered help in cases where technical
support was needed.
I would also like to thank the Greek Ministry of Education for approving me an
educational leave from work in order to conduct my experiments and realize this thesis. I
also thank the headmasters of the state schools in which I worked, while doing my PhD
research, for their support.
A very special thank goes to the parents of my husband for their support and
especially to his mother, Tula, for long hours of babysitting young Marina during the
writing part of this thesis.
My esteem and gratitude goes to my parents Giorgos and Anatoli for
communicating me their love for learning. I also deeply thank them for their enthusiasm,
support and confidence in me through the years, as well as for babysitting Marina during
the writing part of the thesis.
Special thanks go to my brother, Antonios, for always encouraging and
supporting my choices, as well as for participating in the control group of my
experiments.
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek / M. Papakonstantinou iv
I specially thank my husband, Ioannis, for challenging me to start the present
research. He showed enthusiasm on my research topic always asking interesting
questions on my project. I would also like to thank him very much for his patience, as
well as for his technical and babysitting support in cases of need, as well as for
participating in the control group of the experiments.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my young daughter Marina for her
patience, but most of all for all her sweetness and love.
Parts of this work have been presented in the following conferences:
 Papakonstantinou M. (2013). Exploring the development of Greek
(non)temporal connectives with a story retelling production task. 21st International
Symposium of Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, 5-7April 2013. Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, Greece.
 Papakonstantinou, M. (2011). The development of temporality in Greek
child language: Acting-out the interaction between connectives and cognitive complexity.
32nd Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics. School of Philosophy, AUTh, 6-8
May 2011.
 Papakonstantinou, M. (2011). The acquisition of (non)temporal adverbial
clauses: the role of connectives and aspect. 20th International Symposium of Theoretical
& Applied Linguistics, 1-3 April 2011. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
 Papakonstantinou M. (2011). The development (non-) temporal
interpretation in L1 Greek adverbial clauses. 10th International Conference on Tense,
Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality, Aston University. Birmingham, UK.
 Papakonstantinou M. (2011). Temporal connectives in L1 acquisition:
evidence from Greek. 10th international Conference on Tense, Aspect, Modality and
Evidentiality, Aston University. Birmingham, UK.
 Papakonstantinou M. (2011). The development of temporality in Greek
child language: Acting-out the interaction between connectives and cognitive complexity.
32η Συνάντηση Τομέα Γλωσσολογίας, Α.Π.Θ., 6-8 Μάη, 2011.
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek / M. Papakonstantinou v

For my family
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek / M. Papakonstantinou vi

Αντί για πρόλογο…

Κάθομαι στην καρέκλα μου και γράφω.
Ξάφνου, ακούω φωνές μικρών παιδιών να αντηχούν στα μπαλκόνια των απέναντι
πολυκατοικιών.
Κλείνω τα μάτια.
Λιβάδια απλώνονται στα μάτια μου και παιδιά που τρέχουν στο χορτάρι, που
παίζουν, που γελούν…..
Πώς κλείστηκε το φως μέσα στους τοίχους;
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek /M. Papakonstantinou vii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………......…ii
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………….vii
List of Tables…………………………………………………………………...……..…xii
List of Graphs…………………………………………………………………………....xv
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………...…xvi
List of Abbreviations………………...………………………………………………....xvii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………….……....…xix
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..…..21
Chapter 1
Τheoretical background………………………..………………………………………25
1.1. The connectives……………………………………………………………………..25
1.1.1. The connectives in Modern Greek…………………………………………….…..26
1.1.2. Frequencies of Greek connectives in corpora………………………………….….29
1.1.3. Greek connectives and boundedness………………………………………….…..29
1.2.Aspect…………………………………………………………………………….….35
1.2.1. The Greek Aktionsart……………………………………………………………..40
1.2.2. Viewpoint Aspect- The morphology of Greek aspect…………………………….41
1.2.3. The semantics of Aspect………………………………………….………….……43
1.2.4. The syntax of Greek aspect………………………………………………………..46
1.2.5. Interim Summary……………………………………………………...…………..47
1.3. The semantics of Tense…………………………………………………….…….….47
1.3.1. The semantics of Tense in Greek…………..……………………………..….……50
1. 4. The syntax of temporal adverbial clauses ………………………………………….53
1.4.1. The syntax of the Greek temporal adverbial clause…………………………….....56
1.5. On the interface of syntax with semantics and pragmatics……………………...…..58
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek /M. Papakonstantinou viii
Chapter 2
Literature review…………………………………………………………………….60
2.1. Semantic complexity accounts….………………………………………………..60
2.2. Processing accounts for the acquisition of complex sentences……………..……63
2.2.1. Processing and ordering requirements………………………..………………..64
2.2.2. Iconicity and ordering……………………………………...…………………..66
2.3. Previous studies on the acquisition of connectives………….………………….. 67
2.3.1. Cross-linguistic studies…………………………………………..…………….67
2.3.2. Studies for the acquisition of Greek (non)temporality…………..…..…………75
2.4. Greek studies on syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse interface
phenomena…………….………………………………………………..…………….77
Chapter 3
The present study………………………………………..…………………………....79
3.1. Main aim………………………………………………………..………………....79
3.2. Research questions………………………………………….…………………....80
3. 3. Methodology…………………………………………………………………….87
3.3.1. Pilot-testing…………………………….……………………………………....87
3.3.2. Participants…………………………………….…………………………….....88
3.3.3. Methodological procedure………………………………...…………………....89
3.4. Comprehension Experiment I: Acting-out temporal relations (the act-out task)....90
3.4.1. Aims…………………………………………………………………………….90
3.4.2. Materials…………………………………………………………………….…..91
3.4.3. Procedure………………………………………………………………………..93
3.5. Comprehension Experiment II: The Truth-Value Judgment Task…………..........94
3.5.1. Aims.....................................................................................................................94
3.5.2. Materials………………………………………………………...………………94
3.5.3. Procedure………………………………………………………………………..97
3. 6. Production Experiment I: The Sentence-Completion Task ……………………..98
3.6.1. Aim……………………………………………………………………………...98
3.6.2. Materials………………………………………………………………………...98
3.6.3. Procedure…………………………………………………………………..…..100
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek /M. Papakonstantinou ix
3.7. Production Experiment II: The Short-Story Retell Task………………………..101
3.7.1. Aims…………………………………………………...………………………101
3.7.2. Materials………………………………………………...…………………….102
3.7.3. Procedure…………………………………………………….………………..103
3.8. Analyses and measurements…………………………………….………………104
Chapter 4
The results……………………………………………………….……….….………..105
4.1. Comprehension experiments- The act-out task……………………………….…..105
4.1.1. Total results…………………………………………………………...…………106
4.1.2. Accuracy per connective………………………………………………………...107
4.1.3. On the predicted universal priority of sequential over simultaneous
connectives………………………………………………………………...…………..112
4.1.4. The role of adverbial-matrix clause ordering in the comprehension of sequential
connectives……………………………………………………………………..….……115
4.1.5. Task and event structure complexity effects……………………………….……117
4.1.6. Error analysis…………………………………………………………………….123
4.1.7. The act-out task: summary of results…………………………………...………..135
4.2. Comprehension Experiment II: The truth-value judgment task…………...………136
4.2.1. Overall results…………………………………………………………………...136
4.2.2. Accuracy in the temporal and non-temporal interpretation of ambiguous
connectives…………………………………………………………………………..….138
4.2.3. Accuracy of afu, eno and kathos in their temporal and non-temporal readings....140
4.2.4. Direct comparison of the two interpretations of the connectives…………...…...144
4.2.5. Order of acquisition of temporal and non-temporal relations………..…………..145
4.2.6. Error analysis…………………………………………………………………….148
4.2.7. The TVJ task: summary of results………………………………….……………151
4.3. Summary of the comprehension experiments………………………….…………..152
4.4. Production experiment I- The sentence-completion task……………….……….....152
4.4.1.The results……………………………………………………………...…………153
4.4.2. Error analysis…………………………………………………………….………155
4.4.3. The sentence-completion task: summary of results…………………….……..…157
Temporal Connectives in Child Language: a Study of Greek /M. Papakonstantinou x
4.5. Production experiment II- The short-story retell task…………………………......157
4.5.1. Total accurate production…………………………………………………….….158
4.5.2. Frequency of production………………………………………………………...160
4.5.3. Production in primed environments……………………………………………..162
4.5.4. Temporal vs. non-temporal interpretation……………………………………….163
4.5.5. Productions of the meaning primed……………………………………………..165
4.5.6. Maintenance of sequential and simultaneous temporal readings………………..173
4.5.7. Maintenance of form…………………………………………………………….174
4.5.8. Towards syntactic priming: productions of connective, aspect and predicates of the
sentence prime………………………………………………………………………….182
4.5.9. The SSR task: summary of results………………………………………………192
4.6. Summary of the production experiments…………………………………………..192
4.7. Item Analysis………………………………………………………………………193
4.7.1. The act-out task…………………………………………………………….…….193
4.7.2. The truth-value judgment task…………………………………………………...195
4.7.3. The sentence-completion task……………………………………………………196
4.7.4. The short-story retell (SSR) task…………………………………………………197
4.8. Conclusion………………………………………………………………................199
Chapter 5
Discussion…………………………………………………………………………..….200
5.1. On the priority of the temporal interpretation of ambiguous connectives…………200
5.2. Temporal connectives: Sequential vs. Simultaneous readings…………………….203
5.3.Non-temporal interpretation of ambiguous temporal connectives: premise and
concessive readings……………………………………………………………………..206
5.4. Clause Ordering and Iconicity……………………………………………………..209
5.5. Task type and sentence complexity effects…………………………………….......210
5.6. Summary of Discussion……………………………………………………………212
5.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………213
5.8. Limitations of the present study and future research………………………………214
References……………...………………………………………………………………215
Appendix 1. The act-out task: testing items & material………………….…………228