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Related Experiment Videos

A developmental perspective on the Imperfective Paradox.

Nina Kazanina1, Colin Phillips

  • 1Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, 401 Arts Hall, 70 Laurier ave. East, Ottawa, Ont. K1N 6N5, Canada. ninaka@uottawa.ca

Cognition
|November 10, 2006
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Children learning language struggle with the Imperfective Paradox, incorrectly assuming completed actions. Russian-speaking children aged 3-6 need explicit time cues to understand incomplete events described by imperfective verbs.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental psycholinguistics
  • Language acquisition
  • Semantics and pragmatics of aspect

Background:

  • The Imperfective Paradox describes how progressive verb forms can refer to incomplete events, posing challenges in language understanding.
  • While philosophical and linguistic treatments exist, the Imperfective Paradox is less explored in the context of child language acquisition.
  • Russian language features salient imperfective morphology, making it a valuable case study for developmental research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the developmental trajectory of understanding the Imperfective Paradox in young Russian-speaking children.
  • To examine how children aged 3-6 comprehend imperfective verb meanings, specifically regarding event completion.
  • To identify the specific linguistic or cognitive factors contributing to non-adultlike interpretations of imperfectives.

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Main Methods:

  • Four experiments were conducted with Russian-speaking children aged 3 to 6 years.
  • Children's comprehension of sentences using imperfective verb morphology was assessed.
  • Experimental designs manipulated the presence of temporal modifiers to test children's understanding of event intervals.

Main Results:

  • Younger children incorrectly attributed completion to imperfective verb constructions, contrary to adult patterns.
  • Despite this, children demonstrated an understanding that imperfectives can denote incomplete events.
  • Children's comprehension was contingent on explicit temporal modifiers that defined a relevant time interval ending before event failure.

Conclusions:

  • The findings suggest that young children's difficulty lies not in recognizing incompleteness, but in evaluating imperfective statements within appropriate temporal contexts.
  • The results support theories of the Imperfective Paradox that incorporate temporal perspectives for resolution.
  • Developmental acquisition of aspectual meaning is sensitive to the interplay between verb morphology and temporal framing.