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Mapping linguistic cues to causal events: A cross-linguistic study

Authors:
Ebru Ger at Universität Bern
Ebru Ger
Larissa Stuber
Larissa Stuber
Larissa Stuber
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Tilbe Goksun at Koc University
Tilbe Goksun
Aylin C Küntay at Koc University
Aylin C Küntay
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Abstract

Do the different linguistic causality cues affect causal form to meaning mapping?
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Mapping linguistic cues to causal events:
A cross-linguistic study
•English-speaking children use syntactic frame (number of noun phrases) to map novel verbs to causal events as early as at the age of two.
•Different languages with other linguistic cues to causality, such as Turkish which marks causality by means of verbal morphology, are understudied.
•We examine Turkish-and Swiss-German-speaking children’s ability to map causal sentences to causal scenes. In Turkish, causality can be expressed
with only a syntactic cue, only a verbal morphological cue, or both cues, whereas in Swiss-German causality is expressed with a syntactic cue.
•RQ: Do the different constructions of causality influence children’s ability to map causal sentences to causal events?
•Is the syntactic cue universal or do language-specific cues predominate?
Background
•Participants: 45 Swiss and 135 Turkish 3- to 4-year-olds
•Preferential pointing task, positive and negative prompts
•4 causal-noncausal event pairs
Method
•Both Swiss and Turkish children were able to make use
of the causality cues in their respective languages.
•Syntax might be a universal cue to causality while
language-specific cues such as the causative marker
might compensate for the occasional lack of the former.
Results & Discussion
Language
Cue
Prompt (positive)
Swiss
-
German
Syntactic
Zeig emol. Wo het s’ Meitli s’ hoche
Ding
tammt?
(Show me. Where did the girl
tam
the tall thing?)
Tur k i sh
Syntactic
Göster bakalım. Kız nerde uzun bir
şey
fezdi?
(Show me. The girl where a tall
thing VERB
-PST-3SG?)
Tur k i sh
Verbal
morphological
Göster bakalım. Kız nerde
fezdirdi?
(Show me. The girl where VERB
-
CAUS
-PST-3SG?
Tur k i sh
Syntactic +
verbal
morphological
Göster bakalım. Kız nerde uzun bir
şey
fezdirdi?
(Show me. The girl where a tall
thing VERB
-CAUS-PST-3SG?)
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
Positive prompt Negative prompt
Mean causal preference
Group
Swiss syntax
Turkish syntax
Turkish verbal morphology
Turkish syntax + verbal morphology
Ebru Ger,1Tilbe Göksun2, Aylin Küntay2, Sabine Stoll1Moritz M. Daum1
1University of Zurich, Switzerland, 2Koç University, Turkey
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