Understanding of Active and Passive Constructions in 7- to 10-Year-Old Russian-Speaking Children: Reliance on Inflections or Word Order

Tatiana V Akhutina,Alexey A Korneev,Rosa M Vlasova,Yana R Panikratova,Ekaterina Yu Matveeva

doi:10.11621/pir.2019.0101

Abstract

Background. The background of the present study includes analysis of the understanding of active and passive grammatical constructions (GCs) in Russianspeaking aphasic patients and in children aged 3, 4 and 5 years (Akhutina, 1989; Akhutina, Velichkovskiy, & Kempe, 1988). Data regarding the reorganization of the children’s strategies are further compared to GC understanding in children speaking different languages, and their interpretations.

Highlights

The present study has a considerable background, linked to researching the mechanisms of syntax production and comprehension in models of aphasia and language acquisition
Regarding the persistence of the rule “The first noun is the agent”, we suggest that in children it may coexist with the rules of grammatical constructions (GCs) understanding of different levels: a procedural one, and one that is more mature, close to an adult level
The stability of the word order rule we found may be linked to the agent advantage in event recognition: If the Agent is in the first place, that facilitates the interpretation of events (Cohn, Paczynski, & Kutas, 2017; Hafri, Trueswell, & Strickland, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

The present study has a considerable background, linked to researching the mechanisms of syntax production and comprehension in models of aphasia and language acquisition. In a longitudinal study of reverse development of syntactic aphasia symptoms, she revealed three variants of syntactic disorders, differing in severity. Patients began to use the rule of word order, making self-corrections like “Dinner...bread...no...mother bread...”, and generating contrast pairs: “I went neighbors, neighbors...went I”. These patients began to use regular marking of a direct object with inflections or even prepositions (notably, earlier marking was random). The background of the present study includes analysis of the understanding of active and passive grammatical constructions (GCs) in Russianspeaking aphasic patients and in children aged 3, 4 and 5 years (Akhutina, 1989; Akhutina, Velichkovskiy, & Kempe, 1988). Data regarding the reorganization of the children’s strategies are further compared to GC understanding in children speaking different languages, and their interpretations

Results

Discussion

Conclusion