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

Author:

Sauerland Uli1,Grohmann Kleanthes K.2,Guasti Maria Teresa3,Anđelković Darinka4,Argus Reili5,Armon-Lotem Sharon6,Arosio Fabrizio3,Avram Larisa7,Costa João8,Dabašinskienė Ineta9,de López Kristine10,Gatt Daniela11,Grech Helen11,Haman Ewa12,van Hout Angeliek13,Hrzica Gordana14,Kainhofer Judith15,Kamandulytė-Merfeldienė Laura9,Kunnari Sari16,Kovačević Melita14,Kuvac Kraljević Jelena14,Lipowska Katarzyna12,Mejias Sandrine17,Popović Maša4,Ruzaite Jurate9,Savić Maja4,Sevcenco Anca7,Varlokosta Spyridoula18,Varnava Marina2,Yatsushiro Kazuko19

Affiliation:

1. ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australia; Center for General Linguistics (ZAS), Germany

2. University of Cyprus, Cyprus

3. University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

4. University of Belgrade, Serbia

5. Tallinn University, Estonia

6. Bar-Ilan University, Israel

7. University of Bucharest, Romania

8. NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal

9. Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

10. Center for Applied & Developmental Psychological Science, Aalborg University, Denmark

11. University of Malta, Malta

12. University of Warsaw, Poland

13. University of Groningen, The Netherlands

14. University of Zagreb, Croatia

15. University of Salzburg, Austria

16. University of Oulu, Finland

17. Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium

18. University of Athens, Greece

19. Center for General Linguistics (ZAS), Germany

Abstract

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.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Linguistics and Language,Education,Language and Linguistics

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