Children’s comprehension of the verbal aspect in Serbian

Psihologija

article

Anđelković Darinka¹  Popović Maša¹  Savić Maja³ 

[1] Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade;Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade;Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

关键词: verbal aspect;    language development;    comprehension;    Serbian language;   

DOI  :  10.2298/PSI191120003S

学科分类：内科医学

来源: Drustvo Psihologa Srbije

【 摘 要 】

The aim of the study was to investigate how Serbian native speaking preschool children comprehend perfective and imperfective aspect in comparison to adults. After watching animated movies with complete, incomplete and unstarted actions, the participants were asked questions with a perfective or imperfective verb form and responded by pointing to the event(s) that corresponded to each question. The results converged to a clear developmental trend in understanding of aspectual forms. The data indicate that the acquisition of perfective precedes the acquisition of imperfective: 3-year-olds typically understand only the meaning of perfective; most 5-year-olds have almost adult-like understanding of both aspectual forms, while 4-year-olds are a transitional group. Our results support the viewpoint that children’s and adults’ representations of this language category differ qualitatively, and we argue that mastering of aspect semantics is a long-term process that presupposes a certain level of cognitive and pragmatic development, and lasts throughout the preschool period.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-SA