The Acquisition of Russian Aspect by Sabine Erika Stoll Grad.

296 Pages·2002·0.64 MB·English

by  Balthasar Bickel

The Acquisition of Russian Aspect
by
Sabine Erika Stoll
Grad. (University of Munich) 1993
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Slavic Languages and Literatures
in the
GRADUATE DIVISION
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Committee in charge:
Professor Alan Timberlake, Chair
Professor Johanna Nichols
Professor Dan I. Slobin
Fall 2001
Meinen Eltern in Liebe und Dankbarkeit
Table of Contents
Abstract...............................................................................................................vii
Acknowledgments................................................................................................ix
Introduction...........................................................................................................1
1. Theoretical background.............................................................................2
1.1 The two major approaches to acquisition............................................2
1.2 Criteria for acquisition.......................................................................4
1.3 Context..............................................................................................6
1.4 Data used in acquisition studies..........................................................7
1.5 The acquisition of aspect..................................................................10
1.6 Previous research on the acquisition of Russian aspect.....................10
2. Questions and goals of this dissertation....................................................14
3. Major hypotheses.....................................................................................14
4. Methods...................................................................................................15
5. Data analysis...........................................................................................17
6. Results of this dissertation.......................................................................20
7. Structure of the dissertation.....................................................................21
Part I: Russian aspect
Chapter 1: The Semantics of Russian aspect........................................................27
1. Introduction.............................................................................................27
2. The structuralist approach: Russian aspect as a binary category...............29
2.1 'Totality' as the invariant feature.......................................................31
2.2 'Boundaries' or boundedness as the invariant feature........................32
2.3 Status of the features [+/± totality] and [+/± boundary]....................34
3. Semantic definition of the perfective aspect used in this study.................37
4. The approach of this dissertation: a neo-structuralist approach.................38
Chapter 2: Aktionsarten.......................................................................................41
1. Introduction.............................................................................................41
2. Aktionsarten in Russian...........................................................................45
2.1 The telic Aktionsart..........................................................................49
2.2 The ingressive Aktionsart.................................................................49
2.2.1 Synthetic ingressives................................................................49
2.2.2 Analytic ingressives.................................................................51
3. Systemic and communicative status of Russian Aktionsarten...................54
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Chapter 3: The Morphology of Russian Aspect...................................................57
1. Introduction.............................................................................................57
2. Russian aspect: inflectional or derivational?............................................58
3. Morphological markers of Russian aspect................................................61
4. Tense and aspect combinations................................................................64
5. The role of verbal pairs in Russian aspect................................................66
5.1 Theoretical status of aspectual pairs.................................................66
5.2 The empirical status of pairs in language use....................................72
Chapter 4: The Pragmatics of Russian Aspect.....................................................75
1. Introduction.............................................................................................75
2. Aspectual functions.................................................................................77
2.1 Perfective aspect..............................................................................77
2.2 Imperfective aspect..........................................................................82
2.2.1 The durative function...............................................................82
2.2.2 The statement-of-fact-function.................................................83
3. The role of aspect in discourse structure..................................................87
3.1 Sequentiality and foregrounding......................................................89
3.2 Importance and foregrounding.........................................................94
4. The transitivity hierarchy.........................................................................95
Chapter 5: An Integrative Approach to Russian Aspect.......................................99
1. Introduction.............................................................................................99
2. Inherent markedness..............................................................................103
2.1 Morphological markedness............................................................103
2.2 Semantic markedness.....................................................................108
2.2.1 General semantic markedness.................................................109
2.2.2 Aktionsart specific semantic markedness................................109
3. Contextual markedness..........................................................................110
4. The role of markedness in language acquisition.....................................117
Part II: The acquisition of Russian aspect
Chapter 6: Comprehension of Isolated Utterances (Level 1)..............................123
1. Introduction...........................................................................................123
2. Hypotheses............................................................................................125
3. Design of the experiment and procedure................................................127
4. Results...................................................................................................132
5. Conclusions...........................................................................................141
Chapter 7: Description of Isolated Events (Level 1)...........................................147
1. Introduction...........................................................................................147
2. Design of the experiment and procedure................................................150
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3. Qualitative differences between Level 1 comprehension and
production data......................................................................................154
4. Hypotheses............................................................................................157
5. Results and Discussion..........................................................................159
5.1 Distribution of Aktionsarten over age.............................................159
5.2 Distribution of aspect across age....................................................164
5.2.1 General distribution of aspect.................................................164
5.2.2 Distribution of aspect within the telic Aktionsart....................166
6. Conclusions...........................................................................................170
Chapter 8: The Description of Short Events (Level 2).......................................173
1. Introduction...........................................................................................173
2. Design of the experiment and procedure................................................174
3. Hypotheses............................................................................................177
4. Results and Discussion..........................................................................179
4.1 Version 1.......................................................................................179
4.1.1 Distribution of Aktionsarten over age.....................................179
4.1.2 Distribution of aspect over age...............................................182
4.1.2.1 General distribution of aspect.............................................182
4.1.2.2 Distribution of aspect within the telic Aktionsart................184
4.1.3 The distribution of tense within the durative Aktionsart..........186
4.1.4 Types of telic imperfectives used............................................187
4.2 Version 2.......................................................................................189
4.2.1 Distribution of Aktionsarten over age.....................................191
4.2.2 Distribution of aspect over age...............................................192
4.2.2.1 General distribution of aspect.............................................192
4.2.2.2 Distribution of aspect within the telic Aktionsart................195
4.3 On the variation within and across age groups................................196
5. Conclusions...........................................................................................199
Chapter 9: Complex Narratives (Level 3)..........................................................203
1. Introduction...........................................................................................203
2. Design of the experiment and procedure................................................205
3. Hypotheses............................................................................................207
4. Results and Discussion..........................................................................209
4.1 Distribution of Aktionsarten over age.............................................209
4.2 Distribution of aspect over age.......................................................220
4.2.1 General distribution of aspect.................................................220
4.2.2 Distribution of aspect within the telic Aktionsart....................225
4.3 The role of anchor tense in narratives.............................................229
4.3.1 The anchor tense strategy.......................................................230
4.3.2 Preferred tense within the anchor tense strategy......................236
4.3.3 Mixed tense strategy...............................................................237
4.3.4 Anchor tense and its correlation with story-telling..................238
5. Conclusions...........................................................................................239
vi
Chapter 10: Two Complementary Aktionsarten: Ingressives vs. Telics..............243
1. Introduction...........................................................................................243
2. Ingressives and telics in the comprehension experiment (Level 1)..........245
3. Hypotheses............................................................................................247
4. Telics and Ingressives in production: narratives (Level 3)......................249
4.1 Synthetic ingressives......................................................................250
4.2 Analytic ingressives.......................................................................253
5. Telics and Ingressives in Production: isolated events (Level 1).............256
6. Conclusions...........................................................................................260
Chapter 11: Conclusions..................................................................................265
1. Findings and explanations......................................................................265
2. Relevance of this study for theories of language acquisition ..................271
Appendix..........................................................................................................275
References........................................................................................................277
Abstract
The central goal of this dissertation is to introduce and provide evidence for the
Hypothesis of Context-Driven Learning, which states that linguistic forms and
functions are first acquired in highly specific contexts before their usage becomes
generalized. Support for this hypothesis comes from one comprehension and three
production experiments with children aged 2 – 6. The experiments vary with regard to
the complexity of the discourse context in which aspectual forms are embedded. Their
analysis leads to four major conclusions.
First, Russian aspect is not an innate category or a category that is readily
available from the beginning of language acquisition. The acquisition of this category,
with its complex morphology, semantics and pragmatics, is a long process that is not
completed even by age 6.
Second, aspect acquisition is directly influenced by a multitude of factors:
Aktionsarten (lexical temporal specifications of verbs), morphology, discourse
complexity, and narrative competence. For example, the developmental pattern is
different for telic and ingressive Aktionsarten, for synthetic and analytic morphology,
for isolated and concatenated utterances; and the development of aspect competence
is tied to the development of narrative competence.
Third, the distribution of aspectual forms within each level of discourse
complexity is approximately the same across age groups, but differs widely across
these discourse levels. Thus, children are sensitive to adult-like contextual frequency
distributions from early on. However, younger children do not yet master the full
range of canonical functions of these forms. For example, the backgrounding function
of the imperfective emerges relatively late, i.e., only when children’s narrative
competence has developed sufficiently.
Fourth, there is a stage in which children use aspect in a context-dependent way,
without making generalizations across contexts. In some contexts their form/function
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mapping corresponds to that of the target language, while in other contexts it does
not.
Together, these four results suggest that there are three stages involved in the
acquisition of Russian aspect, and perhaps in acquisition in general. Stage 1 is tied to
individual verb meanings, here Aktionsarten. Stage 2 is characterized by context-
driven learning. In Stage 3, the target stage, usage is no longer tied to specific
contexts.
Acknowledgments
This dissertation has a long and complicated history. The research was supported
by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Deutsche Akademische
Austauschdienst, the Departement of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of
California, Berkeley, and three Summer Humanities Grants. This support is gratefully
acknowledged.
There are many people who helped me on the way, and I want to express my
deepest gratitude to all of them. In 1994, I was awarded a Ph.D. fellowship at the Max
Planck Institute for Psycholinguisitics in Nijmegen. The ideas of the project
originated in the stimulating environment of the Max Planck Institute. I especially
want to thank Steve Levinson who was very supportive. I was then invited by Dan
Slobin, who was my advisor at the Max Planck Institute, to spend time as a Visiting
Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Dan introduced me to Alan
Timberlake and Johanna Nichols. I had many interesting and fruitful discussions with
Alan and Dan, and they influenced my thinking about aspect and language acquisition
immensely. This time in Berkeley changed my plans completely, because I decided
not to go back and get a Ph.D. in Europe, but instead to apply to Berkeley and go
through the Ph.D. program after my fieldwork in Russia. In Berkeley, I designed my
experiments and did the filming for two experiments. Back at the Max Planck
Institute in Nijmegen Gerd Klaasen helped me to cut my film material. Then I spent
an exiting year in the kindergartens and homes of children in St. Petersburg. There
were many people involved in this work and I am much indebted to all of them:
Natalija Guseva assisted in the administration of the experiments; she was
wonderful in the interaction with the children and provided important help in
conducting the experiments. Tatjana Krugljakova transcribed the data; she did a
wonderful job in all those years working in this project, which had become much
bigger than I had anticipated. Thanks, Tanja, without your help this project would
have been indeed impossible! Galina Dobrova provided essential logistic help in St.
x
Petersburg and made life much nicer and easier. She also introduced me to all the
kindergartens where I conducted the experiments. Nelli and Jurij Petro«cenkov made
my stay in St. Petersburg very pleasant and became great friends. Without them, I
would never remember this time as nice as it was. I also want to thank the kinder-
gartens and most importantly, the children who participated with such enthusiasm in
the experiments. It was really a lot of fun to work with them.
I came back to Berkeley in 1996 to start the Ph.D. program, and so my research
had to rest till the course work was finished. Alan Timberlake, Dan Slobin and
Johanna Nichols influenced my thinking immensely, and they were involved in all
stages of my research, I am very much indebted to all of them. U.C. Berkeley
provided ideal academic conditions and Alan, Johanna and Dan were a great
inspiration through all the time I have been in Berkeley. Actually, Alan’s and
Johanna’s teaching nearly made me change my dissertation topic. I got so exhited
about Historical Linguistics that I wanted to work on Historical Linguistics
exclusively. However, my fascination with language acquisition was stronger in the
end.
For discussions and comments on all versions of this dissertation I want to thank
Alan, Johanna and Dan. Especially Johanna took a great effort to go very thoroughly
through the last versions of this dissertation and her comments improved the
manuscript considerably.
Further, I am indebted to Daniel Diermeier and Daniel Stahl for statistical advice,
and Harald Schröpfer for help when filming the stimuli.
The last version of this dissertation was written at the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology. My thanks go to Mike Tomasello for inviting me and to
all my new colleagues for providing a stimulating environment for this last and
important phase.
I am most indebted Balthasar Bickel who provided inspiration, support, interes-
ting discussions and challenge all along. His comments on all stages of this disserta-
tion were invaluable. Without him, this dissertation would probably never have been
written.