Work

Children Learn Causatives Despite Pervasive Ellipsis: Evidence from Turkish.

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: In this study, we explore how children learn causatives from the language they are exposed to in their everyday lives. Previous research has argued that argument structure is a crucial facilitator for learning causatives. Here, we examine the role of argument structure in the acquisition of morphological and lexical causatives. We use Turkish as a test case which allows argument ellipsis and ask whether reliable argument expression is a key factor in learning causatives. We use longitudinal data of 7 children spanning from 8 to 36 months of age and their surrounding environment. We show that ellipsis in child-directed speech is pervasive for both lexical and morphological causatives. However, such pervasive ellipsis does not seem to influence the acquisition process. This suggests that argument structure may not play a major role in the learning of causatives in a natural learning environment.

Source: Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern

DOI: 10.48620/89354

Authors: You, Guanghao, Ger, Ebru, Daum, Moritz M, Stoll, Sabine

Language: English

Topic: Language Development and Disorders

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W6929512848

FWCI:

Cites:

Cited by:

Related to: