Acquisition of Coordination in Turkish Children: Additive Connectives
Cukurova University
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to investigate the acquisition of additive connectives by Turkish children between the ages of 2;0 and 6;0. After children start to combine words together, they make some semantic relations between them; and coordination is one of them. In this study, acquisition of additive connectives is under investigation in terms of their emergence, frequency, variety of types, and divergent uses of them. In the study data taken from CHILDES for 2;0 to 4;8 old children; and data collected by the researchers from children at the age between 4;6 and 6;0 have been used. The study results show that dA, ve, ile and bir de are the first additive connectives used by Turkish children. Also, dA, sonra, ve and bir de are the most frequently used additives respectively while bile and –arak affixes are used only one time. The variety of the connectives firstly shows an increase, then a stabilization; at the end a decrease. Apart from the additive connectives listed in the literature, the children also use some other tools such as ondan sonar(and then) and başka (other) to coordinate linguistic units.
KEYWORDS
Acquisition, Coordination, L1 Turkish, Additive Connectives