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Establishing discourse referents

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Establishing discourse referents: indefinite noun phrases in German pre-‐schoolers’ narratives* *This work was partly supported by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Grant 01UG0711. I would like to thank my colleagues at the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft in Berlin, Dagmar Bittner, Natalia Gagarina and Milena Kühnast for helpful comments. Special thanks go to Ute Bohnacker for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Insa Gülzow Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Schützenstr. 18 D-‐10117 Berlin


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Abstract The use of indefinite noun phrases by German children aged 1;11-5;05 and adults was investigated with a story-telling task in a situation of mutual knowledge. While adults produced typical antecedent constructions, two-year-olds used indefinite noun phrases mainly as nominal predicates in naming constructions. Children in the older age groups used less indefinite noun phrases and produced higher proportions of definite expressions. Especially the three-year-olds used comparatively high proportions of pronominal determiners for referent introductions. The results suggest that children initially employ a context-bound (naming) strategy and overestimate the role of deictic pronouns and mutual knowledge in a narrative task. The strategy becomes more cohesion-oriented in the older children and displays the basic requirements of referential linking, but still lacks the systematic use of indefinite noun phrases for referent introduction.


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Introduction

The use of an indefinite noun phrase (NP) is dependent on knowledge both on the level

of morphosyntax and pragmatics. In naming structures like (1) for instance, the

indefinite NP acts as a predicate identifying the class membership of a referent, while in

(2) the indefinite NP is an argument introducing a discourse-‐new referent.

(1) That’s a fox.

(2) And then the bird notices a fish on the table and goes for it.

The current study will explore the role of these two use types in the early narrative

productions of German children. Previous studies in various languages have shown that

indefinite NPs as part of naming structures appear early at about two years of age (e.g.

Kupisch, 2006, Rozendaal & Baker, 2008 for spontaneous production; Karmiloff-‐Smith,

1979 for experimental data). The appearance of indefinite determiners to mark a

discourse-‐new referent on the other hand is dependent both on the text type and the

children’s ability of taking the listener’s perspective into account. Preschool English

children mark discourse-‐new referents with indefinite NPs in spontaneous speech

(Rozendaal & Baker, 2010) and in elicitation experiments (Schaeffer & Matthewson,

2005) before they do so in narratives (Hickmann, 2003) and French nine-‐year-‐olds

master the use of indefinite NPs in no mutual knowledge (NMK) contexts before eleven-‐

year-‐olds do so in mutual knowledge (MK) contexts (Kail & Hickmann, 1992). These

findings suggest that the predicative use of indefinite NPs and the use of indefinite NPs

as arguments in a narrative MK context lie relatively far apart. Studies exploring German

children’s narrative strategies show similar results. Bamberg (1986) found that children

around age three hardly use indefinite NPs for referent introduction in a MK context at

all and it is reported by Hickmann (2003) that the use of indefinite NPs for first

mentions approaches adults’ distribution around age seven in a NMK context. The


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results of a study by Gülzow and Gagarina (2007) suggest that at phases in development

when children are still learning to differentiate and express perspectives other than

their own, indefinite NPs are used in functions other than the head of a referential chain.

Similar proportions of indefinite NPs are documented in the narrative data of two-‐year-‐

olds and adults tested in a MK context. Clearly, the use of indefinite NPs by two-‐year-‐

olds contrasts with the near absence of this expression in older children and calls for an

explanation.

The present study will focus on how children who are in the process of acquiring

their target system of referential expressions use indefinite NPs in a narrative MK

context. As it seems that in this context a gap occurs between the children’s use of

indefinite NPs as predicates and as arguments, the study will also address the children’s

use of other referential expressions. It is well known that children use the definite

determiner (e.g. de Cat, 2009; Hickmann, 2003; Karmiloff-‐Smith, 1979; Maratsos, 1974,

1976; Rozendaal & Baker, 2008; Schafer & de Villiers, 2000; Wigglesworth, 1990) in

places where the indefinite determiner would be (more) appropriate. Less is known

about children’s use of pronouns instead of indefinite NPs, but Bamberg (1986) for

instance found that German children use pronouns to introduce referents in narratives.

These children generally mark the main protagonist with pronouns irrespective of

whether the character is introduced, reintroduced, or reference is maintained. The

overuse of the definite determiner on the other hand is explained by the children’s

failure to take the listener’s perspective into account (e.g. de Cat, 2009), or an

overestimation of the role of deixis (e.g. Karmiloff-‐Smith, 1979). Deixis is a characteristic

element of children’s early references and precedes referential linking. Karmiloff-‐Smith

(1979) noted in her experimental studies that children use definite determiners to

signal the deictic function before they use them to signal an anaphoric relation. In


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German, pronominal reference is possible with two forms that mark the same

distinction: while one form displays a clear deictic component, the other appears mainly

as an anaphor. If at early stages of development children overuse definite forms and

preferably encode deixis, it can be expected that not only definite determiners are used

to introduce referents in a MK context but also pronominal forms encoding deixis.

The German system of referring expressions

Pronominal reference usually signals an anaphoric relationship to a previously

mentioned referent, but pronouns can also be used for first mentions together with a

deictic gesture. In German the personal pronoun ermasc/siefem/esneut ‘he/she/it’ (PRO) or

the PRONOMINAL DETERMINER dermasc/diefem/dasneut (PRO det) can be used to indicate a

referent present in the shared discourse. The term DEMONSTRATIVE is avoided here, as it

may cause confusion with the proximal/distal pair of pronominal expressions in German

dieserprox/jenerdist ‘this/that’. While deixis easily relates the pronominal determiners

dermasc/diefem/dasneut to referents in MK contexts, deictic personal pronouns

ermasc/siefem/esneut ‘he/she/it’ are the dis-‐preferred option.

(3) DERmasc/ERmasc (pointing at one student) kam zu spät.

PRO det/PRO came too late

‘HE was late’.

In a narrative, deictic reference is not common even if the referents are present or

provided on pictures and pointing would in principle be an option. However, the

different deictic potentials clearly separate the two German pronominal forms into a

more exophoric (pronominal determiner) and a more endophoric (personal pronoun)

form. In the present study the distribution of different referential expressions is


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analyzed. If the distributional analysis shows an effect of the er/der contrast in a phase

were children overuse definite determiners this will add to our understanding of how

children master the shift from a predominantly context-‐bound, deictic system of

reference to a system displaying the potential of marking more textually oriented

reference. Indefinite NPs that occur as arguments in anaphoric chains clearly represent

a relatively advanced stage in this development. The predicative use of indefinite NPs in

naming structures has so far not been related to the development of referential linking

or deictic reference. If naming structures do not represent an isolated use type, but are

an integral part of young children’s reference systems, it should be possible to relate

them to the children’s early deictic phase as well.

Naming structures and deixis

In his classical study, Brown (1973: 347f) argued that in naming structures like That’s a

train or That’s a bear children identify a referent by its lexical label in a MK context. This

reflects the on-‐going process of acquiring an entity’s label. Once the child has acquired

the name of the category, the definite determiner can be used as in Look at the train and

Look at the bear. Karmiloff-‐Smith studied the acquisition of French determiners in an

extensive number of experiments and found that the “indefinite article is initially used

as part of a procedure for naming, i.e. in its appellative or nominative function”

(Karmiloff-‐Smith, 1979: 216). While Brown makes his observation on the basis of whole

sentences like That’s a train, Karmiloff-‐Smith’s data consists of indefinite NPs only as

children answered questions like What’s in the bag? for instance with A doll. This is an

important point to note as Karmiloff-‐Smith discusses the role of deixis for early uses of

the definite determiner, but not for the indefinite determiner although naming

structures that are realized by a whole sentence involve a deictic element in preverbal


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position. In the German example below, the preverbal position is taken by the deictic

pronominal determiner dasneut and the indefinite NP functions as a nominal predicate

assigning a property to the referent of the subject NP.

(4) Das ist EIN BÄR.

that is a bear

‘That’s a bear’.

The main function of this construction is to assign class membership to an entity that is

deictically identified. The preverbal position can also be taken by the local deictic

expression da.

(5) Da ist EIN BÄR.

there is a bear

‘There’s a bear’.

German da allows both a deictic and an existential interpretation. In a MK context, da

can be deictic: the location indicated by da can be associated with the referent of the

indefinite NP. Together with examples like (4), these (with deictic da) will be called

NAMING STRUCTURES in the present study.

Indefinite NPs in pre-‐ and postverbal position

Naming structures realize the NEW-‐LAST PRINCIPLE (cf. Hickmann, 2003: 61); the indefinite

NP presents new information in post-‐verbal position. Küntay and Koçbaş (2009) show

that in the narrative data of preschool English and Turkish children “a very high

percentage of presentational constructions attract the indefinite marker” and conclude

that the choice of the indefinite determiner is related to the choice of construction


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(Küntay & Koçbaş, 2009: 90). In the study of Hickmann (2003: 231) and similar to the

Küntay and Koçbaş study, most post-‐verbal referent introductions are marked with the

indefinite determiner by German and English children from seven years onwards. It is

therefor likely that the preschool children in the present study prefer to use indefinite

NPs in post-‐verbal position, both in naming structures and as referring arguments. As

referring arguments, indefinite NPs can represent post-‐verbal objects and subjects;

examples will be given in the results section.

The current study will address German children’s early use of indefinite NPs in a MK

narrative. It will focus on the changes that can be observed in the children’s use of

indefinite NPs as predicates and as arguments and on the co-‐occurring distributional

changes regarding the children’s use of definite referring expressions. In a narrative,

information about hearer knowledge may be in conflict with the successful use of an

indefinite NP produced in a MK context and the children must be willing to violate the

rule linking indefinite NPs to NMK contexts in spontaneous speech. On the basis of

previous results, the following questions will be addressed in this study:

(A) How is the transition from using indefinite NPs as highly informative naming

devices to using indefinite NPs as referring arguments reflected in the data?

(B) How does the distribution of definite NPs (definite determiners, pronominal

determiners, personal pronouns) correlate with this transition?

Method

Participants

The narrative data of five age groups was collected and analyzed. A total of 60 pre-‐

schoolers between age two and five and 15 adults took part in the study. Due to


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technical problems only 13 of the transcripts in the age group of five-‐year-‐olds could be

used.

Table 1: Age and age range of subjects

Materials

The narrative was elicited using a sequence of six pictures that featured a bird, the

skeleton of a fish and a fox as well as a tree and a table (see Appendix 1). The pictures

were designed to offer opportunities for story telling and were mounted onto six pieces

of cardboard. Choosing protagonists with male gender in German eliminated gender

effects (der Fuchs ‘the fox’, der Vogel ‘the bird’, der Fisch ‘the fish’). Although little

reference to the inanimate entities was expected, these were also controlled for male

gender (der Tisch ‘the table, der Baum ‘the tree’). To avoid an effect of marking the

protagonist by one kind of NP (cf. Bamberg, 1986), active and passive involvement of the

fox and the bird in the action was distributed as evenly as possible.

Procedure

The children were normal hearing, monolingual speakers of German and recruited at

Kindergartens in Berlin and Potsdam, Germany. The adults were University students from

Berlin, also normal hearing, and monolingual speakers of German with no prior experience in

this kind of task. The parents of the children filled out a questionnaire documenting language

development and the languages spoken at home in order to avoid bilingual or multilingual

speakers and children with language impairment. Additionally, a reduced version of a

standardized test was used to assess typical language development in German (Kauschke &


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Siegmüller, 2009). The children were seen individually by one experimenter in a quiet room

with a table, two chairs and a video camera that recorded the children’s narration and filmed

their hands to capture all instances of pointing. The child and the experimenter sat opposite

each other at a low distance with no barrier between them to emphasize the situation of shared

attention. Once the children seemed comfortable at the table, the experimenter asked them to

take part in a story-telling task: Ich habe Dir ein paar Bilder mitgebracht, Du kannst gleich

eine Geschichte dazu erzählen ‘Here are some pictures for you to tell a story in a moment’.

Before the onset of the actual story-telling the children were presented the sequence of six

pictures in a row. Erstmal zeige ich dir alle Bilder, damit Du weißt, was in der Geschichte

passiert ‘First, I will show you all the pictures so that you know what happens in the story’.

When the children were ready to tell the story they were presented the first picture. Hier ist

das erste Bild. Was passiert denn da? ‘This is the first picture. What is happening’? After the

children had finished with the first, the second picture was positioned to the right side of the

first and served as the new stimulus. The subsequent pictures were presented in a way that the

picture on the left (e.g. the first) was taken away so that the subsequent picture (e.g. the

second) could take its place. Then the new picture (e.g. the third) would be placed on the right

and serve as the stimulus. Apart from the very first picture children always had two pictures

in front of them: the previous picture and the one serving as the current stimulus for the

narrative. The experimenter supported the production of utterances by encouraging the

participants and praising their performance Was passiert denn da? Prima. Und hier? ‘What’s

happening? Very good. And here’? Constant feedback also served to give the children a sense

of common ground. The experimenter avoided sentences that included NPs referring to the

participants so that the children were not influenced by the experimenter’s choice. The adults

were treated to the same procedure and were encouraged in the same way as the children.

This results in an experimental situation that is somewhat unnatural for the adults and

findings cannot be interpreted taking the adults’ performance to represent the norm. However,


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as adults behaved in the way they did, it will be assumed that the children’s productions

approach adult distributions in the course of language development.

It may seem a daunting task to ask two-‐year-‐olds to produce a narrative, but we

wanted to explore the narrative strategies of young children before they conform to

adult standards. The procedure was chosen because very young children could be

overburdened by looking at too many pictures at once. By reducing the number of

pictures we hoped to elicit more references as the children concentrated on one picture

at a time and could only switch to the next when the experimenter decided to let them

do so. As focusing attention on one picture may discourage children from producing a

coherent narrative and lead them into describing individual pictures instead (cf. de Cat,

2011), we hoped to support attempts at referential linking between pictures by making

the previous picture available.

Results

Types of constructions with indefinite NPs

The types of utterances in which indefinite NPs occur will be analyzed in this section.

The examples below are taken from the adult data of the present study (expect for the

first and the second) and represent the different categories used for analysis. The first

category includes examples of utterances without verbs:

(6) Ein Fisch. child 130: 2;4,6 [without verb]

a fish

‘A fish’.

Among the utterances with verbs, predicative naming structures constitute the next

category [NAM].


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(7) Das hier ist EIN RABE. child 76: 2;08,01 [Nam]

that here is a raven

‘That’s a raven here’.

Naming structures observe the new-‐last principle. So do structures with indefinite NPs

as referring arguments that appear as objects in post-‐verbal position [svO]; a capital

bold letter indicates the indefinite NP.

(8) Also, der Vogel klaut EINE FISCHGRÄTE. adult 13, [svO]

well the bird steal a fishbone

‘Well, the bird is stealing a fishbone’.

A subject indefinite NP in preverbal position indicates newness not by position but

morphological marking; both a post-‐verbal object [Svo] or a post-‐verbal adverbial [Svx]

is possible.

(9) EIN VOGEL sieht das und... adult 16, [Svo]

a bird see that and

‚This is seen by a bird and…’.

(10) EIN VOGEL fliegt über die Wiese. adult 12, [Svx]

a bird fly across the lawn

‘A bird is flying across the lawn’.

In German, subject-‐verb inversion occurs if some other element occupies the first

position [xvS].


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(11) Auf dem Teller liegt EIN TOTER FISCH. adult 12, [xvS]

on the plate lie a dead fish

‘A dead fish is lying on the plate’.

A first step compares the number of utterances without verbs to the number of

utterances with verbs (Figure 1). In this first analysis, the categories [Nam], [svO], [Svo],

[Svx], and [xvS] are collapsed into the category ‘with verbs’.

Figure 1: Use of indefinite NPs with and without verbs

Figure 1 shows that the majority of indefinite NPs used by two-‐year-‐olds are

utterances that contain no further constituent (81%, N=62). While structures with verbs

increase proportionally across age groups, raw numbers show that their overall use

decreases. In the next step, the children’s utterances with verbs will be analyzed with

regard to the type of construction that contains the indefinite NP (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Clause structure of utterances with indefinite NPs

Figure 2 shows that two-‐year-‐olds exclusively produce naming structures (12) when

using an indefinite NP together with a verb. Three-‐year-‐olds and four-‐year-‐olds use

naming structures in a majority of cases while in the data of the five-‐year-‐olds indefinite

NPs are mainly used as referring arguments. In the data of the adults there is only one

example of a naming structure, the remainder are indefinite NPs used as referring

arguments.

(12) Hier ist EIN VOGEL. child 105: 2;07,17

here is a bird


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‚Here’s a bird’.

Of the few examples of indefinite NPs used as referring arguments that are documented

in the data of the children, most occur in post-‐verbal position. In a majority of cases,

these indefinite NPs are objects rather than subjects.

(13) Und da hat der Vogel EIN FISCH. child 79: 4;05,28

and there has the bird a fish

‘And the bird has a fish there’.

In the adults’ data, utterances are almost evenly distributed between the three

categories svO, Svo/Svx and xvS. Thus in a majority of cases indefinite NPs are subjects

rather than objects, but only about half of the subjects occur in topic position. In the

children’s data, examples with subject indefinite NPs in preverbal position are not

documented.

NP types in first mentions

Six categories were used for analysis: indefinite NPs like ein Vogel ‘a bird’ (14) and

definite NPs like der Vogel ‘the bird’ (15); for the children bare nominals like Fisch ‘fish’

were also included (16). Pronominal NPs included pronominal determiners like der

‘PRO det’ (17) and personal pronouns like er ‘he’ (18). In German, it is not easy to

distinguish between an utterance with the pronominal determiner dermasc and the

personal pronoun ermasc if the preceding word ends in an alveolar plosive dann rennt

er/der ‘the he runs’. The decision was made for the personal pronoun er if a pause was

detectable before the pronominal form. The rest category includes other types of


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referring expressions such as the reflexive pronoun sich ‘x-‐self’ and null subjects, or

demonstrative dieser ‘this’.

(14) Und das ist EIN VOGEL… child 28: 3;0,22

and that is a bird

‘And that’s a bird’.

(15) DER VOGEL will den Fuchs auffressen. child 28: 3;0,22

the bird wants the fox eat

‘The bird wants to eat the fox’.

(16) Da hat der FISCH gefangt. child 20: 3;4,2

there has PRO det fish caught

‘There he has caught the fish’.

(17) DER fällt ins Wasser child 48: 4;0,10

PRO det falls into water

‘He falls into the water.

(18) Dann will ER den Raben fressen. child 53: 4;5,17

then want he the raven eat

‘Then he wants to eat the raven’.

NPs that refer to a participant for the first time are regarded as first mentions. NPs

that do not refer to a participant for the first time are regarded as subsequent mentions.

In the present study, subsequent mentions are not further differentiated into reference

maintenances and referent reintroductions. The design of the study is an inadequate

testing ground for the maintenance/reintroduction contrast as the three participants

closely interact, they all have male gender and there is no main protagonist. It has been

shown that the need to resolve ambiguity in this study setting leads to the use of lexical

expressions even in cases where reference is maintained (cf. Bittner & Kühnast, 2012).


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This aspect will be returned to in the discussion where results are also related to the

Bamberg (1986) study.

Table 2: NPs used for first mentions

Table 2 shows that references are mostly nominal (bare nominals, NPs with definite

or indefinite determiners) and that none of the participants in the study use the

pronouns ermasc/siefem/esneut ‘he/she/it’ for first mention of a referent. Two-‐year-‐olds

predominantly use bare nominals and indefinites for first mentions. Across age groups,

the use of bare nominals decreases with age, which is a clear sign of the children’s

reference systems becoming more adult-‐like. The proportion of indefinite NPs also

decreases, which sharply contrasts with the adults’ data where indefinite NPs are used

for first mentions in a majority of cases. Across age groups children increase their use of

the definite determiner. While adults do not use pronominal NPs for first mentions at all,

children use the pronominal determiner dermasc/diefem/dasneut. Especially the data of the

three-‐year-‐olds displays a high proportion of pronominal determiners for referent

introduction.

Table 3: NPs used for subsequent mentions

NP types in subsequent mentions

In subsequent mentions children of all age groups produce all five referential

expression types. Adults use no indefinite NPs or bare nominals, but rely on NPs with a

definite determiner in a majority of cases. Quite to the contrary, two-‐year-‐olds


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predominantly use indefinite NPs and bare nominals. This use decreases to adult level

across age groups for both the indefinite determiner and bare nominals. The remaining

referential expressions used by adults are personal pronouns and pronominal

determiners plus a rest category that mainly consist of the reflexive pronoun sich ‘x-‐self’

(62 out of a total of 136). In contrast to the adults, all age groups of children and

especially the three-‐year-‐olds use a high amount of pronominal determiners. They

increase their use of personal pronouns from almost zero in the group of two-‐year-‐olds

above the level of adults in the group of five year-‐olds.

When comparing first with subsequent mentions within age groups, no significant

differences were found for the group of two-‐year-‐olds (χ2=6.55, d.f.=4, p=.161). For all

other age groups on the other hand, the difference between first and subsequent

mentions is significant (three-‐year-‐olds: χ2=26.87, d.f.=4, p<.001; four-‐year-‐olds:

χ2=54.13, d.f.=4, p<.001; five-‐year-‐olds: χ2=47.15, d.f.=4, p<.001; adults, χ2=411.2,

d.f.=3, p<.001). This finding suggests that there is a categorical shift between the two-‐

year-‐olds and the older children in that the youngest children do not differentiate their

marking of first and subsequent reference by the use of different types of NPs. Fisher’s

exact test was performed across ages for first and subsequent mentions. Results reveal

significant differences between age groups both for first mentions (χ2=110.5, d.f.=16,

p<.05) and subsequent mentions (χ2=772.9, d.f.=20, p<.05).

Discussion

The aim of the present study is to determine the role and ontogenesis of indefinite NPs

in young German children’s narratives produced in a MK context. The results of the

study suggest that preschool German children who are faced with a narrative task do

not use indefinite NPs in the same way as adults do, but start with a nominative naming


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strategy. The oldest children in the study have not yet developed full control of the

adults’ use of indefinite NPs as antecedents in MK contexts, but clearly, they have

abandoned the naming strategy. In the following, the results of the study will be related

to the two questions that were raised in the introduction. It will be shown that despite

the near absence of indefinite NPs in the older children’s data, they have achieved

important steps on their way to referential linking.

The naming function in German narratives

The first research question concerns the nature of the children’s transition from using

indefinite NPs as highly informative naming devices to using indefinite NPs as referring

arguments. I will first comment on the distribution of the two use types across age

groups and then briefly discuss their relation in terms of the syntactic position of the

indefinite NP.

Similar to findings in spontaneous production (e.g. Brown, 1970; Kupisch, 2006) and

experimental data (cf. Karmiloff-‐Smith, 1979) the children in the study initially use the

indefinite determiner to signal the naming function. As long as children fail to realize

that the task in the present study demands the production of a cohesive narrative, or the

task verges on their linguistic and cognitive abilities, it is likely that they rely on the

conventions of spontaneous speech. The two-‐year-‐olds in the study exclusively produce

naming structures, three-‐ and four-‐year-‐olds use indefinite NPs both in naming

structures and as referring arguments, five-‐year-‐olds use indefinite NPs predominantly

as referring arguments, and adults use indefinite NPs only as referring arguments.

Clearly, the change in the distribution of the two use types marks a developmental

change towards a more adult like usage of indefinite NPs.


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At the onset, the children’s use of indefinite NPs mirrors labeling routines that can

frequently be found in spontaneous speech (19).

(19) adult: What’s that?

child: A fox.

adult: Yes, and what’s that?

child: A fox.

The example shows that the multiple appearances of indefinite NPs in places other than

first mentions are licensed in labeling. Unlike adults who use indefinite NPs no more

than once to introduce a new referent in a MK narrative context, children up to the age

of four produce indefinite determiners both in first and subsequent mentions.

The children’s willingness to use indefinite NPs in subsequent mentions (with and

without verbs) correlates with a general predominance of naming structures over

indefinite NPs used as referring arguments. That is, children who give up naming

structures in MK narratives more clearly mark subsequent mentions by the use of forms

other than indefinite NPs. This relation is especially evident in the two-‐year-‐olds: these

children exclusively produce naming structures when using indefinite NPs together with

verbs and do not differentiate between first and subsequent mentions in their use of

referring expressions at all. All other age groups use indefinite NPs (also) as referring

arguments and show a distributional difference between the referential expressions

used for first and subsequent mentions. It can therefore be concluded that not only the

first appearance of the use type itself (indefinite NP as referring argument) marks an

important step in referential linking, but its appearance in the group of three-‐year-‐olds


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coincidences with the realization of a basic requirement of referential linking: the

general differentiation of first and subsequent mentions.

Parallel to the increase in the proportion of indefinite NPs used as referring

arguments, the use of indefinite NPs generally decreases to 10% (N=4) in the oldest age

group (cf. Bamberg, 1986; Hickmann, 2003). The somewhat contradictory finding that

children increase their skills regarding the formation of anaphoric chains and expand

the variety of structures with indefinite NPs (see below) while at the same time they

seem to abandon their use will be returned to when discussing the second research

question.

The new-‐last principle

Although naming structures can in principle serve as antecedents in referential linking

(That’s a fox. The fox is chasing the bird.), the adults in this study introduce referents

with indefinite NPs used as referring arguments. In these structures, subject indefinite

NPs are most typical with 30% occurring in preverbal (Svo/Svx) and 32% occurring in

post-‐verbal position (xvS). These results align with those of Hickmann (2003: 202) who

found that the German adults in her narrative study use a majority of post-‐verbal

subjects in subject-‐verb inversions (about 50%) and a high number of preverbal

subjects (about 30%) when introducing referents with an indefinite NP (Hickmann,

2003: 203f). Regarding position, post-‐verbal indefinite NPs realize the NEW-‐LAST

PRINCIPLE (Hickmann, 2003: 231) and are typical in the adult data of the present study. In

addition to 32% post-‐verbal subjects (xvS, see above) adults produce another 24% post-‐

verbal objects (svO). When using indefinite NPs as referring arguments, children do not

produce examples of pre-‐verbal Svo and Svx structures, but only produce examples of


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xvS (20), (21) and svO (22). These share the post-‐verbal position of the indefinite NP

with naming structures (23).

(20) Da taucht ein Fuchs auf. adult 2, [xvS]

there appears a fox verb.part

‘A fox appears there’.

(21) Auf dem Teller liegt ein toter Fisch. adult 12, [xvS]

On the plate lies a dead fish.

‘A dead fish lies on the plate’.

(22) Der Vogel hat einen Fisch auf dem Tisch gefunden. child 189: 5;5,13, [svO]

the bird has a fish on the table found

‘The bird found a fish on the table’.

(23) Da ist ein Fuchs. child 20: 3;4,2, [Nam]

there is a fox

‘There is a fox’.

Besides the post-‐verbal position of the indefinite NP, examples of xvS often exhibit a

sentence-‐initial locative expression that they share with naming structures. The

sentence-‐initial position can either be filled with the locative da ‘there’ (21) typical for

naming structures, or some other locative expression such as auf dem Teller ‘on the

plate’ (22). In the present study, children older than two produce utterances

representing both the xvS and the svO category, but no examples of Svo/Svx. It can

therefore be argued that the children are sensitive to input frequencies with regard to

the post-‐verbal position of indefinite NPs and that they observe the new-‐last principle.

The children gradually expand the naming structure by using verbs other than the

copula and a wider variety of locative expressions in xvS structures and preserve the

post-‐verbal position both in their use of xvS and svO.


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Definite referring expressions

The second research question concerns the use of definite referring expressions and the

relation of their distribution to the children’s transition regarding the use of indefinite

NPs as described above. I will discuss the general distribution of referring expressions in

each age group and comment on the main changes between adjacent age groups.

Two-‐year-‐olds: indefinite NPs and naming structures

The exclusive use of indefinite NPs in naming structures is typical for the two-‐year-‐olds

whose referential systems consist mainly of bare NPs, NPs with definite determiners

and especially NPs with indefinite determiners (cf. Table 2 and Table 3). These children

do not differentiate between first and subsequent mentions in their choice of referential

expressions and anchor reference in the situational context. The referential systems of

two-‐year-‐olds are mainly nominal and incorporate deixis when using naming structures

for the identification of referents.

Three-‐year-‐olds: pronominal determiners and deictic reference

As already mentioned, the appearance of indefinite NPs as referring arguments in the

data of the three-‐year-‐olds contributes to the shift towards referential linking which is

also documented in the finding that different distributions of forms occur in first and

subsequent mentions. In comparison to the two-‐year-‐olds, the referential systems of the

three-‐year olds become more definite and less nominal; uses of bare nominals and the

indefinite determiner decrease and uses of the definite determiner and the pronominal

determiner increase both in first and subsequent mentions. Children are gradually

abandoning the naming strategy and it is likely that they begin to relate referents across


23

pictures in order to construct a story line. The definite determiner is the most frequent

expression in first mentions and the pronominal determiner is the most frequent

expression in subsequent mentions (cf. Table 2 and Table 3). Clearly, this distribution of

forms displays some basic knowledge of adequately ranking expressions to encode

different degrees of hearer knowledge (cf. Gundel, Hedberg & Zacharski, 1993) and thus

represents another step towards referential linking. In comparison to the adults, the use

of the pronominal determiner for first mentions in narratives is atypical (for

spontaneous production see Rozendaal & Baker, 2010) and will be interpreted here as a

symptom of a referential system that is still firmly anchored in the situational context.

Bamberg (1986) also found that preschool German children introduce referents with

pronominal forms in a narrative and that they use proportionally more pronouns than

adults performing the same task. He argues that the children in his study use

pronominal forms for the main character irrespective of whether the character is

introduced or reintroduced or reference is maintained. Bamberg collapsed the der/er

forms into one category, which makes it impossible to assign different functions to the

forms and show developmental tendencies. In the present study however there is a clear

contrast: pronominal determiners are much more frequent than personal pronouns and

it is only the pronominal determiners that are used for referent introductions.

The deixis-‐first principle

Contrary to the Bamberg study, the setting of the present study does not feature a main

protagonist, but active and passive involvement of the characters ranking high on the

animacy scale (the fox and the bird) is balanced (see appendix 1). This study setting is

therefore an inadequate testing ground for Bamberg’s finding as children may find it

difficult to identify a main character. The fact that the results resemble Bamberg’s


24

findings nonetheless in addition to the fact that only pronominal determiners are used

in first mentions suggests a strong influence of factors in addition to or other than

differences between the marking of main and secondary characters. It is argued here

that one influence on the referential system of preschool children (among others) is

what will be called the DEIXIS-‐FIRST PRINCIPLE. The deixis-‐first principle is not restricted to

deitic expressions such as the pronominal determiner, but can affect different

expressions at different stages in development. In the case of naming structures it

applies to a whole structure and not to an individual expression, but the mechanism is

the same: indefinite NPs occur in structures that can be used for deictic reference before

they occur in structures that are typical for referential linking.

Lyons (1975) argued that deixis is the source of reference and that the anaphoric use

of pronouns is derivative of their function as deictics. If children’s understanding of

referring expressions is based on their prior understanding of deixis, it comes to no

surprise that an overuse of pronominal determiners with a strong deictic potential is

documented in the data of the younger children in the study. It can be argued that the

children use pronominal determiners to mark a salient referent in the common ground

available to both speaker and hearer, but (still) fail to realize that in a story-‐telling

narrative the use of pronominal NPs for referent introduction is non-‐standard.

As the progressive decline of naming structures that can be observed in the group of

three-‐year-‐olds reduces the children’s opportunities to deictically realize reference in

the situational context, the use of pronominal determiners represents an alternative for

this kind of use. In comparison to the two-‐year-‐olds, the referential system of three-‐

year-‐olds is reorganized with respect to the use of nominal and pronominal expressions

and the marking of first and subsequent mentions, but reference is in large parts still

anchored in the situational context.


25

Four-‐year-‐olds: definite determiners in first and subsequent mentions

In the group of four-‐year-‐olds the use of the pronominal determiner generally decreases

and the willingness of children to introduce referents with the pronominal determiner

drops down to 5 percent (N=2). This finding is a clear indicator that the children refrain

from following the conventions of spontaneous speech in their use of pronouns for

referent introduction (cf. Rozendaal & Baker, 2010). With regard to nominal expressions

on the other hand, children behave similar to adults in spontaneous speech when

introducing a new referent to a MK context and prefer to use the definite determiner (cf.

Rozendaal & Baker, 2008: 789). The indefinite determiner is also used for first mentions

but still as part of a naming structure in the majority of cases. It can therefor be

concluded that the children’s choice of a nominal expression for referent introduction is

strongly influenced by the deictic or ostensive potential of an expression. While naming

structures feature a deictic expression in sentence-‐initial position, definite determiners

used in a MK context are not deictic expressions per se but can be regarded as ostensive

in that they refer to entities present in the situational context (cf. Lyons, 1999: 160f).

Karmiloff-‐Smith (1979) has argued that the definite article functions as a deictic

(pointing) device in early phases of language acquisition. She separates the function of

articles into DESCRIPTORS, which link the visual and social context to language, and

DETERMINORS, which link linguistic contexts. According to Karmiloff-‐Smith, children

acquire the descriptor function of articles prior to their determinor function. Following

this line of reasoning, the deixis-‐first principle can be interpreted as an extension of

Karmiloff-‐Smith’s (1979: 215) model. The deixis-‐first principle affects the whole system

of referring expressions in preschool children which develop from deictic systems that


26

are anchored in the situational context to more textually oriented systems that allow the

expression of referential linking.

In the subsequent mentions, the four-‐year-‐olds reach an adult level of definite

determiners (cf. Table 2 and Table 3). In both the adult’s and the children’s data, the

high amount of definite determiners in subsequent mentions can be interpreted as an

effect of frequent topic change since the story was controlled for an even distribution of

agency among the characters. Children are still unable to exploit the potentials of the

er/der contrast (see below) for marking different participants (cf. Bittner & Kuehnast,

2012; Bosch Rozario & Zhao, 2003), but a definite NP can be used to identify the

intended referent with a lexical label. The increasing amount of definite determiners in

subsequent mentions can therefore be interpreted as a consequence of understanding

the need to unambiguously identify a referent. In German adult L2-‐data for instance,

over-‐explication with nouns is attributed to a concern for communicative success

(Hendriks, 2003). In the present study, equal gender among the characters adds to the

same effect and may also explain the adults’ use of a comparatively high amount of

unambiguous reflexive pronouns.

As already mentioned, the proportion of the pronominal determiner in subsequent

mentions is much lower than in the three-‐year-‐olds but it is still well above the

proportion that adults produce. When using pronominal forms in subsequent mentions

adults rely on personal pronouns, which clearly signal referential linking and the need to

find an antecedent. Four-‐year-‐olds on the other hand rely on the potentially deictic

pronominal determiners when using pronominal forms in subsequent mentions. It can

be concluded that the four-‐year-‐olds systems of reference are similar to those of the

three-‐year-‐olds in that the anchoring of reference in the situational context is still visible

in their use of the indefinite determiner in naming structures, the predominance of the


27

pronominal determiner (in subsequent mentions) and the children’s use of the definite

determiner for referent introduction. The four-‐year-‐olds systems of reference are

similar to the adults on the other hand in that lexical expressions are used for referent

introduction and the most frequent expressions in subsequent mentions are NPs with

the definite determiner.

Five-‐year-‐olds: personal pronouns versus pronominal determiners, the er/der contrast

The indefinite determiner represents referring arguments in a majority of cases in the

group of five-‐year-‐olds. In subsequent mentions, the ratio of personal pronouns

increases and proportionally equals the children’s use of pronominal determiners (cf.

Table 2 and Table 3). Clearly, both findings must be interpreted as a further step

towards adult realizations of referential linking. Adults show a clear preference for

personal pronouns and thus demonstrate a textually oriented strategy of reference. It is

likely that the adults’ use of the pronominal determiner does not exploit the expression’s

deictic potential, but is motivated by the er/der contrast in German that allows a

differentiation of topic maintenance and topic shift. According to Bosch et al. (2003) the

German personal pronouns are more restrictive than the pronominal determiners in

that the former signal topic maintenance and the latter prefer less salient referents.

Along similar lines it is argued in CENTERING THEORY that the process of anaphor

resolution connects the shortest expression (ermasc/siefem/esneut ‘he/she/it’) to the most

salient discourse referent (Grosz, Joshi & Weinstein, 1995).

(24) Peri möchte mit Emilj ins Kino gehen. Eri / derj darf aber nicht.

Per wants with Emil to.the cinema go PRO / PRO det allow but not

‘Per wants to go to the cinema with Emil. But he isn’t allowed to’.


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In the example given, the personal pronoun ermasc ’he’ more easily relates to the topic of

the preceding sentence Per while the pronominal determiner dermasc more easily relates

to Emil and thus signals a topic change. This distinction is unavailable to preschool

children (cf. Bittner & Kuehnast, 2012), but may motivate the adult’s choices.

Across age groups personal pronouns are not used for first mentions even in the

youngest age group. This can be interpreted as a sign of an early awareness of the

expression’s different conditions of use in comparison to the pronominal determiner.

The comparatively late increase of personal pronouns can be interpreted as an effect of

the gradually unfolding competence of the children with regard to referential linking.

Expressions like personal pronouns that are closely associated with the need to find an

antecedent seem to attract the children’s attention relatively late. The children realize

that referent introduction on the basis of deixis or ostension is inadequate in a narrative

before they realize that German not only provides a pronoun that can index a referent in

the situational context but also a pronoun that can index a referent in the preceding text.

Definite determiners remain on a similar level both in first and subsequent mentions in

the group of five-‐year-‐olds; children still have to realize that indefinite determiners are

not unnecessarily unspecific, but can be used for referent introduction in MK contexts.

Conclusion

The children’s use of the indefinite determiner in narratives follows a similar direction

as their use of other referring expressions in development. Their early systems of

reference develop from context-‐bound to more textually oriented in that (potentially)

deictic realizations decrease and (potentially) anaphoric realizations increase. It has

been argued here that children initially follow a deixis-‐first principle that affects all

expressions; it could e.g. be shown to manifest in the children’s early use of indefinite


29

determiners in naming structures and in the distribution of the two German pronouns

er/der. When the use of expressions with a deictic potential becomes less frequent, the

decrease does not parallel a random increase of other expressions, but it could be shown

that the distribution of forms changes systematically towards more textual orientation.

The somewhat paradoxical findings that the use of indefinite NPs marks both the

onset and the end of the development of narratives in a MK context could be resolved as

it is different use types that dominate in the two phases. The use of indefinite NPs in

naming structures and as referring arguments is nevertheless not unrelated and it could

be shown that naming structures are structurally related to the children’s early use of

indefinite NPs as referring arguments.

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