Article published in:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:2 (2020) ► pp. 216–248

The acquisition of relative clauses in Russian and Polish in monolingual and bilingual children

| University of Amsterdam
| University of Amsterdam
| University of Amsterdam | University of Stellenbosch
In this paper, we present the results on (re)production of relative clauses in a sentence repetition task by Russian and Polish monolingual and bilingual children (3;6–6;6 years). Russian and Polish both involve overt case marking in the relative clause formation, but the case marking in Polish is more regular and transparent. Our results suggest that, when case marking is the only disambiguating cue, its transparency and regularity contributes to a significantly better performance. This explains why the Polish children, both monolingual and bilingual, were more successful in reproduction of subject and object relatives compared to their Russian peers.
Keywords: acquisition of relative clauses, transparency in case marking, Slavic languages
Published online: 30 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17031.pee
References

References

Arnon, I.
(2011) Relative clause acquisition in Hebrew and the learning of construction. In E. Kidd (Ed.), The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Processing, Typology and Function (pp. 81–106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Benţea, A.
(2012) Does “Case” Matter in the Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Romanian? Retrieved from http://​www​.bu​.edu​/bucld​/files​/2012​/07​/Bentea​-36​.pdf
Chan, A., Matthews, S., & Yip, V.
(2011) The acquisition of relative clauses in Cantonese and Mandarin. In E. Kidd (Ed.), The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Processing, Typology and Function (pp. 197–226). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, B.
(2007) The Acquisition of Relative Clauses in relation to Language Typology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2), 301–308. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Croteau, K. C.
(1995) Second language acquisition of relative clause structures by learners of Italian. In F. R. Eckman, D. Highland, P. W. Lee, J. Mileham, & R. R. Weber (Eds.), Second language acquisition theory and pedagogy (pp. 115–128). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.Google Scholar
Dasinger, L., & Toupin, C.
(1994) The Development of Relative Clause Functions in Narrative. In R. A. Berman, & D. I. Slobin (Eds.), Relating Events in Narrative (pp. 457–514). Hillsdale, NJ – Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.Google Scholar
De Villiers, J. G., & De Villiers, P. A.
(1985) The Acquisition of English. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Volume 1: The Data (pp. 27–140). New Jersey – London: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.Google Scholar
Diessel, H.
(2007) A Construction-Based Analysis of the Acquisition of East Asian Relative Clauses. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2), 311–320. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Diessel, H., & Tomasello, M.
(2005) A New Look at the Acquisition of Relative Clauses. Language, 81(4), 882–906. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Duinmeijer, I.
(2016) Persistent grammatical difficulties in Specific Language Impairment. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Eliseeva, M. B.
(2015) Stanovlenie individual’noj jazykovoj sistemy rebënka. Rannie ėtapy [Formation of an individual language system of the child. Early stages]. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
Flynn, S.
(1983) A study of the effects of principal branching direction in second language acquisition: The generalization of a parameter of Universal Grammar from first to second language acquisition. PhD dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Flynn, S., & Foley, C.
(2009) Research Methodology in Second Language Acquisition from a Linguistic Perspective. In W. C. Ritchie, & T. K. Bahtia (Eds.), The New Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 34–48). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.Google Scholar
Friedmann, N., & Novogrodsky, R.
(2004) The acquisition of relative clause comprehension in Hebrew: A study of SLI and normal development. Journal of Child Language, 31, 661–681. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, E.
(1998) Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition, 68, 1–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goldschneider, J. M., & DeKeyser, R. M.
(2001) Explaining the “Natural Order of L2 Morpheme Acquisition” in English: A Meta-analysis of Multiple Determinants. Language Learning, 51(1), 1–50. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez-Mangado, M. J.
(2011) Children’s comprehension of relative clauses in an ergative language: the case of Basque. Language Acquisition, 18(3), 176–201. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez-Mangado, M. J., & Ezeizabarrena, M. J.
(2014) Asymmetry in child comprehension and production of Basque subject and object relative clauses. Retrieved from https://​www​.researchgate​.net​/publication​/260343266​_Asymmetry​_ in​_child​_comprehension​_and​_production​_of​_Basque​_subject​_and​_object​_relative​_clauses
Gvozdev, A. N.
(2007) Voprosy izučenija detskoj reči [Problems of studying child speech]. Sankt-Peterburg – Moscow: Detstvo-press – Tvorčeskij centr Sfera.Google Scholar
Hawkins, J.
(1987) Implicational universals as predictors of language acquisition. Linguistics, 25, 453–473. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hyltenstam, K.
(1984) The use of typological markedness conditions as predictors in second language acquisition: The case of pronominal copies in relative clauses. In R. W. Andersen (Ed.), Second languages: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 39–60). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Janssen, B.
(2016) The acquisition of gender and case in Polish and Russian. A study of monolingual and bilingual children. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Pegasus.Google Scholar
Kallestinova, E. D.
(2007) Aspects of word order in Russian. PhD thesis. Iowa. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kanno, K.
(2007) Factors Affecting the Processing of Japanese Relative Clauses by L2 Learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2), 197–218. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, E., Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M.
(2007) Object relatives made easy: A cross-linguistic comparison of the constraints influencing young children processing relative clauses. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22(6), 860–897. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kwon, N., Kluender, R., Kutas, M., & Polinsky, M.
(2013) Subject/object processing asymmetries in Korean relative clauses: Evidence from ERP data. Language, 89(3), 537–585. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lavine, J. E.
(2003) Resumption in Slavic: Phases, Cyclicity, and Case. In W. Browne et al. (Eds.), Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, 11 (pp. 355–372). Michigan: Michigan Slavic Publications.Google Scholar
Lust, B., Flynn, S., & Foley, C.
(1996) What children know about what they say: Elicited imitation as a research method for assessing children’s syntax. In D. McDaniel, C. McKee, & H. Cains (Eds.), Methods for Assessing Children’s Syntax (pp. 55–76). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mak, W. M., Vonk, W., & Schriefers, H.
(2002) The influence of animacy on relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 50–68. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marinis, T., & Armon-Lotem, S.
(2015) Sentence Repetition. In S. Armon-Lotem, J. de Jong, & N. Meir (Eds.), Assessing Multilingual Children: Disentangling Bilingualism from Language Impairment (pp. 95–150). Bristol – Buffalo – Toronto: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Mecklinger, A., Schriefers, H., Steinhauer, K., & Friederici, A. D.
(1995) Processing relative clauses varying on syntactic and semantic dimensions: An analysis with event-related potentials. Memory and Cognition, 23(4), 477–494. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Meir, N., & Armon-Lotem, S.
(2015) Disentangling bilingualism from SLI in Heritage Russian: The impact of L2 properties and length of exposure to the L2. In C. Hamann, & E. Ruigendijk (Eds.), Language Acquisition of Development: Proceedings of GALA 2013 (pp. 299–314). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Meir, N., Armon-Lotem, S., & Walter, J.
(2015) Disentangling bilingualism from SLI using Sentence Repetition Tasks: the impact of L1 and L2 properties. International Journal of Bilingualism. Published on line before print, Crossref.Google Scholar
Mills, A. E.
(1985) The Acquisition of German. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The Cross-linguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Volume 1: The Data (pp. 141–254). New Jersey – London: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.Google Scholar
Mróz, M., & Flynn, S.
(2010) Pre-literacy Development: Bilinguals at Risk. Retrieved from http://​www​.education​.ox​.ac​.uk​/wordpress​/wpcontent​/uploads​/2010​/08​/Mroz​-Flynn​.pdf
Peeters-Podgaevskaja, A. V.
(2008) Problemy osvoenija russkogo jazyka kak vtorogo rodnogo det’mi 5–7 let i sozdanie adekvatnogo učebnogo posobija [Problems of the acquisition of Russian as L2 in children aged 5 to 7, and compilation of an appropriate language course]. In E. de Haard, W. Honselaar, & J. Stelleman (Eds.), Literature and beyond: Festschrift for Willem G. Weststeijn on the occasion of his 65th birthday (pp. 609–627). Amsterdam: Pegasus.Google Scholar
Podgaevskaja, A. V., & Honselaar, W.
(2007) Praktische grammatica van de Russische Taal. Amsterdam: Pegasus.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M.
(2007) Reaching the end point and stopping midway: different scenarios in the acquisition of Russian. Russian Linguistics, 31(2), 157–199. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Relative Clauses in Heritage Russian: Fossilization or Divergent Grammar? Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, 16. Retrieved from http://​scholar​.harvard​.edu​/files​/mpolinsky​/files​/FASL07​.Polinsky​_updated013108​.pdf
Rifkin, B.
(2002) A Case Study of the Acquisition of Narration in Russian: At the Intersection of Foreign Language Education, Applied Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition. Slavic and East European Journal, 46(3), 465–481. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sevcenco, A., Avram, L., & Stoicescu, I.
(2012a) Subject and direct object relative clause production in child Romanian. In L. Avram, & A. Sevcenco (Eds.), Topics in Language Acquisition and Language Learning in a Romanian Context (pp. 51–85). Bucharest: Editura Universtǎtii Bucuresti.Google Scholar
(2012b) Relative Clauses: Variable Input and Language Change. In S. Ferré, P. Prévost, L. Tuller, & R. Zebib (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the Romance Turn IV Workshop on the Acquisition of Romance Languages (pp. 240–260). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishers.Google Scholar
Smoczyńska, M.
(1985) The Acquisition of Polish. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Volume 1: The Data (pp. 595–685). New Jersey – London: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.Google Scholar
Tuller, I.
(2015) Clinical use of parental questionnaires in multilingual contexts. In S. Armon-Lotem, J. de Jong, & N. Meir (Eds.), Assessing Multilingual Children: Disentangling Bilingualism from Language Impairment (pp. 301–330). Bristol – Buffalo – Toronto: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Timberlake, A.
(2004) A reference grammar of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Udes, R.
(2013) The Expression of Definiteness in Russian within Functional Discourse Grammar. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Van der Meer, M., van Atteveldt, W., Coopmans, P., & Philip, W.
(2001) Subject-object asymmetry in Dutch children’s comprehension of wie-questions. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 18(1), 167–176. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van de Scheur, L.
(2012) Development of the SASIT-NL. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Vinnitskaya, I., Flynn, S., & Foley, C.
(2003) The Acquisition of Relative Clauses in a Third Language: Comparing Adults and Children. In J. M. Liceras et al. (Eds.), Proceeding of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2002) (pp. 340–345). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Warren, T., & Gibson, E.
(2002) The influence of referential processing on sentence complexity. Cognition, 85(1), 79–112. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yip, V., & Matthews, S.
(2007) Relative Clauses in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: Typological Chalenges and Processing Motivations. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2), 277–300.Google Scholar