Omission of Case Markers in Child-Directed Speech by Japanese-Speaking Caretakers

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  • 日本語母語話者の対乳幼児発話における格助詞省略
  • ニホンゴ ボゴワシャ ノ タイ ニュウヨウジ ハツワ ニ オケル カクジョシ ショウリャク

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Abstract

In the field of language development, one interesting issue is how Japanese-speaking<br> children acquire the case markers that play a role in understanding a sentence’s struc-<br>ture, because previous studies reported that caregivers often omit them when talking<br> to their children (e.g., Rispoli, 1991). Although grasping the characteristics of parental<br> input on case markers is crucial for understanding a child’s acquisition process of them,<br>the studies so far have shown insufficient data to clarify the qualitative and develop-<br>mental characteristics of case marker inputs because of small sample size or a limited<br> target age. This study used a larger sample of mothers (N=52) with children who<br> ranged from 1 to 3 to measure their tendency to talk to their children using a struc-<br>tured production-elicited task. Our results revealed that Japanese-speaking mothers<br> tended to omit case markers more frequently when speaking to children than to adults.<br> The omission rate also differed depending on the child’s age, the type of case mark-<br>ers, verb transitivity, and maternal views about speech to children. Additionally, the<br> mothers tended to omit arguments more frequently when speaking to children, sug-<br>gesting that Japanese-speaking children have fewer opportunities for listening to case<br> markers because of sentence simplification. These findings have important implications<br> for investigating the relationship between parental language input and child language<br> development.

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