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Form and function of negation in early developmental Cantonese
1University of Hong Kong, 5/F, 34 Hospital Road, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
Journal of Child Language
|July 14, 2001
Summary
This study examined how Cantonese-speaking children acquire negation, finding that non-existence emerges before rejection and denial. The research tracked negative markers and semantic categories in young children
Area of Science:
- Child Language Acquisition
- Linguistic Development
- Developmental Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Understanding the acquisition of grammatical structures like negation is crucial for developmental linguistics.
- Cantonese presents unique linguistic features for studying negation development.
- Previous research (Bloom, 1970, 1991a) established semantic categories for negation acquisition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the sequence of emergence for Cantonese negative markers (mou5, m4, mei6).
- To analyze the acquisition trend of 11 semantic categories of negation in Cantonese-speaking children.
- To examine the interplay between form and function in early language negation.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal analysis of spontaneous language samples.
- Utilized data from the Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus.
- Included eight children aged 1;5 to 3;8.
Main Results:
- Identified the emergence sequence of specific Cantonese negative markers.
- Documented the acquisition trend across 11 semantic categories of negation.
- Observed that the semantic category Non-existence preceded Rejection and Denial, aligning with prior research.
Conclusions:
- The study provides insights into the developmental trajectory of negation in Cantonese.
- Findings support existing theories on the semantic basis of negation acquisition.
- Highlights the importance of longitudinal data in understanding language development.
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