Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?

The present paper investigates the acquisition of one basic cognitive concept – the causativity. Using a cross-linguistic study on French and Bulgarian, we seek to understand which specificity of the causativity makes it difficult to acquire: its semantics or its morphosyntactic realization in langu...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yanka Bezinska, Iva Novakova, Jean-Pierre Chevrot
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française de Linguistique Cognitive 2018-07-01
Series:CogniTextes
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/cognitextes/938
id doaj-0c9d5f8358b048c6931c3fbda77f35b4
record_format Article
spelling doaj-0c9d5f8358b048c6931c3fbda77f35b42020-11-25T01:50:22ZengAssociation Française de Linguistique CognitiveCogniTextes1958-53222018-07-011710.4000/cognitextes.938Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?Yanka BezinskaIva NovakovaJean-Pierre ChevrotThe present paper investigates the acquisition of one basic cognitive concept – the causativity. Using a cross-linguistic study on French and Bulgarian, we seek to understand which specificity of the causativity makes it difficult to acquire: its semantics or its morphosyntactic realization in languages. Our study includes 209 participants, among them 113 French native speakers (71 children and 42 adults) and 96 Bulgarian native speakers (56 children and 40 adults). Children are divided into three age groups (3-4, 4-5 and 5-6 years of age). They are filmed in the kindergarten during two experimental tasks – production (which consists in watching animated cartoons with causative actions) and comprehension (an act-out task where participants are asked to simulate causative actions using plastic figurines). Adults are recorded at work during the production task only. Our data reveal that complex semantic representation of the causativity cannot really explain the difficulty for children to acquire this cognitive concept. Others factors among which the multiplicity of the causative mechanisms, their morphosyntactic complexity (lexical units, relatively regular and clear morphological devices, complex predicates and periphrastic constructions), as well as their productivity (or input frequency) play a crucial role in the developmental process.http://journals.openedition.org/cognitextes/938acquisitioncausativitycausative mechanismscross-linguistic approach
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Yanka Bezinska
Iva Novakova
Jean-Pierre Chevrot
spellingShingle Yanka Bezinska
Iva Novakova
Jean-Pierre Chevrot
Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
CogniTextes
acquisition
causativity
causative mechanisms
cross-linguistic approach
author_facet Yanka Bezinska
Iva Novakova
Jean-Pierre Chevrot
author_sort Yanka Bezinska
title Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
title_short Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
title_full Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
title_fullStr Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
title_full_unstemmed Acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
title_sort acquisition de la causativité chez des enfants français et bulgares âgés de 3 à 6 ans : complexité syntaxique ou complexité sémantique ?
publisher Association Française de Linguistique Cognitive
series CogniTextes
issn 1958-5322
publishDate 2018-07-01
description The present paper investigates the acquisition of one basic cognitive concept – the causativity. Using a cross-linguistic study on French and Bulgarian, we seek to understand which specificity of the causativity makes it difficult to acquire: its semantics or its morphosyntactic realization in languages. Our study includes 209 participants, among them 113 French native speakers (71 children and 42 adults) and 96 Bulgarian native speakers (56 children and 40 adults). Children are divided into three age groups (3-4, 4-5 and 5-6 years of age). They are filmed in the kindergarten during two experimental tasks – production (which consists in watching animated cartoons with causative actions) and comprehension (an act-out task where participants are asked to simulate causative actions using plastic figurines). Adults are recorded at work during the production task only. Our data reveal that complex semantic representation of the causativity cannot really explain the difficulty for children to acquire this cognitive concept. Others factors among which the multiplicity of the causative mechanisms, their morphosyntactic complexity (lexical units, relatively regular and clear morphological devices, complex predicates and periphrastic constructions), as well as their productivity (or input frequency) play a crucial role in the developmental process.
topic acquisition
causativity
causative mechanisms
cross-linguistic approach
url http://journals.openedition.org/cognitextes/938
work_keys_str_mv AT yankabezinska acquisitiondelacausativitechezdesenfantsfrancaisetbulgaresagesde3a6anscomplexitesyntaxiqueoucomplexitesemantique
AT ivanovakova acquisitiondelacausativitechezdesenfantsfrancaisetbulgaresagesde3a6anscomplexitesyntaxiqueoucomplexitesemantique
AT jeanpierrechevrot acquisitiondelacausativitechezdesenfantsfrancaisetbulgaresagesde3a6anscomplexitesyntaxiqueoucomplexitesemantique
_version_ 1725002365165109248