A Case for Case: A dual task-and-language study

Abstract

This thesis investigates how children employ morphological case to identify argument roles in the Subject-Verb-Object and Object-Verb-Subject word orders. The use of morphological case is necessary for correct argument role assignment in the OVS word order, yet it is often challenging for children to achieve. Two main theories aim to explain children’s frequent struggle with argument role assignment in the OVS sentences with either a reference to a potentially underlying non-adultlike grammar or a non-adultlike cognitive state of development. The current study shows, using a dual task-and-language approach, that 4-to-6-year-old children’s behaviour with argument role assignment in the OVS word order can be best characterised as an outcome of combining grammatical knowledge and cognitive skills. The latter may be detrimental to correct argument role assignment when they have not matured yet. The languages studied are Russian and German, which allows for a controlled comparison across relevant and shared grammatical properties. The languages also differ concerning the availability of nonambiguous case markers and the relative frequency of the non-canonical OVS word order. This allows
us to determine to what extent properties relating to cue strength may be responsible for the differences in the success rates with argument role assignment. We are employing two tasks for measuring children’s accuracy with argument role assignment in the OVS word order: a picture selection- and a referent selection task. Both have been previously employed for investigating argument role assignment in children, yielding different results. Importantly, both tap into eliciting argument role assignment knowledge of children differently and can be associated with a different level of cognitive demands.
Controlling for both language and task in a single study allows us to ensure that each of the factors, as well as their potential interaction, is investigated without potential cross-study confounds.

Date of Award	Mar 2024
Original language	English
Supervisor	Juliana Gerard (Supervisor), Christina Sevdali (Supervisor) & Raffaella Folli (Supervisor)