Evidential sentences guiding Estonian preschoolers’ exploration of novel objects and their properties
The article focuses on the effect of the Estonian evidential on preschoolers’ exploratory play, contrasting it with the effect of normal indicative sentences. The methods involved a behavioral experiment, where 4 and 6-year-old children were presented with one single instance of a new object (“a blicket”). A property was demonstrated (“being a magnet”) with other objects. The experimenter then ascribed the magnetic property to the demonstrated novel object in two different ways. In Condition 1, the magnetic property was ascribed to the object by means of a neutral, indicative statement. Condition 2 used an evidential sentence. Inert, non-magnetic blickets and paperclips were placed in front of the children, who were then asked if they wanted to play with blickets. The duration of their play, the number of attempts to test the properties of the object, and the number of blickets were measured on the basis of the videotaped material. We found that the evidential sentences increased the number of attempts to explore the properties among 4-year-olds, but not among 6-year-olds. The increased play that occurred with evidentials may tentatively be attributed to the novelty of the grammar for the children and their expectations of its effect.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aksu-Koç, Ayhan 1988. The Acquisition of Aspect and Modality. The Case of Past Reference in Turkish. (= Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Supplementary Volume.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511554353.
Aksu-Koç, Ayhan, Dan Slobin 1986. A psychological account of the development and use of evidentials in turkish. – Evidentiality: the Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Ed. Wallace Chafe, Johanna Nichols. (= Advances in Discourse Processes 20.) Norwood, New Jersey, 159–167.
Aksu-Koç jt 2009 = Ayhan Aksu-Koç, Hale Ögel-Balaban, I. Ercan Alp. Evidentials and source knowledge in Turkish. – New Directions in Child and Adolescent Development 125, 13–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cd.247.
Argus jt ilmumas = Reili Argus, Kadri Suurmäe, Andra Kütt, Anne Tamm. Eesti keele evidentsiaalsuse omandamisest: mõistmiskatse tulemused. – Tallinna ülikooli eesti keele ja kultuuri instituudi toimetised 16. Tallinna Ülikool.
Butler, Lucas P., Ellen M. Markman 2012. Preschoolers use intentional and pedagogical cues to guide inductive inferences and exploration. – Child Development 83, 1416–1428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01775.x.
Carlson, Gregory N., Francis Jeffry Pelletier 1995. The Generic Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Choi, Soonja 1995. The development of epistemic sentence-ending modal forms and functions in Korean children. – Modality in Grammar and Discourse. Ed. Joan Bybee, Susanne Fleischman. (= Typological Studies in Language 32.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 165–204.
Erelt, Mati 2013. Eesti keele lauseõpetus. Sissejuhatus. Öeldis. (= Tartu Ülikooli eesti keele osakonna preprindid 4.) Tartu.
Fitneva, Stanka 2001. Epistemic marking and reliability judgments: evidence from Bulgarian. – Journal of Pragmatics 33 (3), 401–420.
Giardini jt ilmumas = Francesca Giardini, Stanka A. Fitneva, Anne Tamm. Source manipulation and strategic information giving: an experimental study on epistemic markers in competitive and cooperative contexts.
Hendriks, Petra, Helen de Hoop 2001. Optimality theoretic semantics. – Linguistics and Philosophy 24, 1–32.
Kehayov, Petar 2004. Eesti keele evidentsiaalsussüsteem mõne teise keele taustal. Morfosüntaks ja distributsioon. – Keel ja Kirjandus 11, 812–829.
Kolk jt 2010 = Anneli Kolk, Triin Raud, Mariliis Kaldoja. Sotsiaalsete oskuste ja n-ö mõtete lugemise võime areng lastel nooremas koolieas. – Eesti Arst 89 (11), 725−732.
Kütt jt 2014 = Andra Kütt, Anne Tamm, Reili Argus. Evidentsiaale kasutame strateegilise suhtlusvahendina. – Oma Keel 1, 51–58.
Laaha, Sabine, Steven Gillis (ed.) 2007. Typological Perspectives on the Acquisition of Noun and Verb Morphology. (= Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 112.) Antwerp: University of Antwerp.
Nelson, Katherine 1996. Language in Cognitive Development. The Emergence of the Mediated Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174619.
Papafragou jt 2007 = Anna Papafragou, Peggy Li, Youngo Choi, Chung-hye Han. Evidentiality in language and cognition. – Cognition 103, 253–299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2006.04.001.
Slobin, Dan, Ayhan A. Aksu 1982. Tense, aspect, and modality in the use of the Turkish evidential. – Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics. Ed. Paul J. Hopper. Amsterdam, Philadephia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 185–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/tsl.1.13slo.
Zufferey, Sandrine 2010. Lexical Pragmatics and Theory of Mind. The Acquisition of Connectives. (= Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 201.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.201.
Tamm, Anne 2009. The Estonian partitive evidential. Some notes on the semantic parallels between the aspect and evidential categories. – Papers from TAM TAM. Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality. Ed. Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop, Andrei Malchukov. (= Linguistics Today 148.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 365–401.
Villiers jt 2009 = Jill de Villiers, Jay Garfield, Harper Gernet-Girard, Tom Roeper, Margaret Speas. Evidentials in Tibetan: acquisition, semantics, and cognitive development. – Evidentiality: A Window into Language and Cognitive Development. Ed. Stanka A. Fitneva, Tomoko Matsui. (= New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 125.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 29–47.
