How do 5-year-olds understand questions? Differences in languages across Europe - Université de Lille
Article Dans Une Revue First Language Année : 2016

How do 5-year-olds understand questions? Differences in languages across Europe

Reili Argus
  • Fonction : Auteur
Ewa Haman
  • Fonction : Auteur
Sari Kunnari
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

The comprehension of constituent questions is an important topic for language acquisition research and for applications in the diagnosis of language impairment. This article presents the results of a study investigating the comprehension of different types of questions by 5-year-old, typically developing children across 19 European countries, 18 different languages, and 7 language (sub-)families. The study investigated the effects of two factors on question formation: (a) whether the question contains a simple interrogative word like ‘who’ or a complex one like ‘which princess’, and (b) whether the question word was related to the sentential subject or object position of the verb. The findings show that there is considerable variation among languages, but the two factors mentioned consistently affect children’s performance. The cross-linguistic variation shows that three linguistic factors facilitate children’s understanding of questions: having overt case morphology, having a single lexical item for both ‘who’ and ‘which’, and the use of synthetic verbal forms.

Dates et versions

hal-02476913 , version 1 (13-02-2020)

Identifiants

Citer

Uli Sauerland, Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Maria Teresa Guasti, Darinka Anđelković, Reili Argus, et al.. How do 5-year-olds understand questions? Differences in languages across Europe. First Language, 2016, First Language, 36 (3), pp.169-202. ⟨10.1177/0142723716640236⟩. ⟨hal-02476913⟩
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