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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
Establishing discourse referents
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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
Establishing discourse referents
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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.
Establishing discourse referents
22
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
Establishing discourse referents
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
Establishing discourse referents
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.
Establishing discourse referents
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
Establishing discourse referents
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
Establishing discourse referents
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’.
Establishing discourse referents
28
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
Establishing discourse referents
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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