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Perspective-shifts in event descriptions in Tamil child language

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Author

Summary, in English

Children are able to take multiple perspectives in talking about entities and events. But the nature of children's sensitivities to the complex patterns of perspective-taking in adult language is unknown. We examine perspective-taking in four- and six-year-old Tamil-speaking children describing placement events, as reflected in the use of a general placement verb (veyyii ‘put’) versus two fine-grained caused posture expressions specifying orientation, either vertical (nikka veyyii ‘make stand’) or horizontal (paDka veyyii ‘make lie’). We also explore whether animacy systematically promotes shifts to a fine-grained perspective. The results show that four- and six-year-olds switch perspectives as flexibly and systematically as adults do. Animacy influences shifts to a fine-grained perspective similarly across age groups. However, unexpectedly, six-year-olds also display greater overall sensitivity to orientation, preferring the vertical over the horizontal caused posture expression. Despite early flexibility, the factors governing the patterns of perspective-taking on events are undergoing change even in later childhood, reminiscent of U-shaped semantic reorganizations observed in children's lexical knowledge. The present study points to the intriguing possibility that mechanisms that operate at the level of semantics could also influence subtle patterns of lexical choice and perspective-shifts.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

99-124

Publication/Series

Journal of Child Language

Volume

33

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Keywords

  • placement
  • event description
  • first language acquisition
  • perspective-taking
  • cause motion
  • Tamil

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-7602