The Acquisition of Relative Clauses by Turkmen Speaking Children

Researchers have engaged in a spirited debate regarding the acquisition of relative clauses for the past two decades (de Villiers, Tager Flusberg, Hakuta & Cohen, ۱۹۷۹; Sheldon, ۱۹۷۴; Slobin, ۱۹۷۱; Tavakolian, ۱۹۸۱). Early studies on the comprehension of relative clauses, referred to as RCs, utilized interactive tasks involving toys, revealing that children performed randomly until the age of five. However, a subsequent study by Hamburger & Crain (۱۹۸۲) on American children, which controlled for probable processing and pragmatics effects in experimental tasks, demonstrated that four-year-olds exhibited comprehension and production abilities above chance levels. Similarly, a later study by Crain et al. (۱۹۹۰) observed the production of such sentences by two- and three-year-old Italian children. The conflicting findings in studies on RC acquisition have prompted extensive research primarily focused on postnominal languages like English, German, and other European languages (Sheldon, ۱۹۷۴; Flynn & Lust, ۱۹۸۰; Tavakolian, ۱۹۸۱; Goodluck & Tavakolian, ۱۹۸۲; Hamburger & Crain, ۱۹۸۲; Lebeaux, ۱۹۹۰; Labelle, ۱۹۹۰; ۱۹۹۶). Conversely, there is a scarcity of studies on the L۱ acquisition of RCs in prenominal languages. It is crucial to consider typologically diverse languages (e.g., Arnon, ۲۰۱۰; Courtney, ۲۰۰۶; Ozeki & Shirai, ۲۰۱۰) to ascertain both the universal and specific aspects of language acquisition.

کلیدواژه ها:

Relative Clause ، Turkmen Speaking ، acquisition