Afrikaans and its syntactic analysis in terms of Minimalist synta
MINIMALIST SYNTAX?
4.4.2. Typically developing controls
4.6.4.2. Tense: Production task
To assess the production of the grammatical feature tense, the participant was shown a picture of a person or animal performing an action, was told that this action is performed everyday, and was requested to provide information on what the person or animal did the day before. For instance, the participant was shown a picture of a boy brushing his teeth and told Hierdie kind borsel elke dag sy tande. Gister, net
soos elke ander dag, ... ‘This child brushes his teeth every day. Yesterday,
just like every other day, ...’. If the participant used the historic present tense, which would be appropriate due to the adverb gister which indicates past tense,126 the researcher provided the temporal auxiliary het,
as in Hierdie kind borsel elke dag sy tande. Gister, net soos elke ander dag, het ... The following types of verbs were included:
(i) Four main verbs which take the ge- prefix in the past participial form – as in the borsel-example given above.
(ii) Two main verbs which do not take the ge- prefix in the past participial form – e.g., betaal ‘pay’ in Hierdie vrou betaal elke dag die
verwer. Gister, net soos elke ander dag, ... ‘This woman pays the painter
every day. Yesterday, just like every other day, ...’.
(iii) Two be forms – e.g., Hierdie katjie is elke dag hier. Gister, net soos elke ander dag, ... ‘This kitten is here every day. Yesterday, just like every
other day, ...’.
(iv) Two have forms – e.g., Hierdie seun het elke dag ’n nuwe maatjie. Gister, net soos elke ander dag, ... ‘This boy has a new friend every day.
Yesterday, just like every other day, ...’.
(v) Six modal auxiliaries – e.g., Hierdie eendjie wil elke dag swem. Gister, net
soos elke ander dag, ... ‘This duckling wants to swim every day.
Yesterday, just like every other day, ...’.
(vi) Two hendiadyses – e.g., Hierdie man staan elke dag en wag vir die bus.
Gister, net soos elke ander dag, ... ‘Every day, this man stands waiting
for the bus. Yesterday, just like every other day, ...’.
4.7. DATA TRANSCRIPTION AND SCORING
4.7.1. Language sample
The utterances occurring in the first 30 minutes of each language sample were transcribed orthographically. Hereafter, the first 100 complete and fully intelligible utterances were identified. Following Hunt (1970:4), an utterance was considered to be a T-unit, i.e., “one main clause plus whatever subordinate clause and non-clausal expressions are attached to or embedded within it”. Accordingly, want ‘because’, en toe ‘and then’, and
en dan ‘and then’ were each taken to introduce a new T-unit, as were en
‘and’ and maar ‘but’ if these two were followed by a clause containing a verb, as shown in the examples below, where “/” indicates the start of a new T-unit.
(80)
hy wil nie staan nie / want sy bene kan nie reguit nie ‘He cannot stand / because his legs cannot be straightened’
(81)
ek het groter geword / en toe verjaar ek in die gim / en toe is ek ses
‘I grew bigger / and then I had my birthday in the gymnasium / and then I was six’
(82)
hy maak dit alles reg / en dan werk hy en almal
‘He repairs it all / and then he and everybody else work’ (83)
want my ma werk lank / en sy het ’n nuwe werk
‘Because my mom works long hours / and she has a new job’ (84)
ons het ons besems en ons grawe vergeet ‘We forgot our brooms and our spades’ (85)
hulle het ’n werk hier naby / maar hulle wil dit nou in Bellville sit
‘They have offices close by / but they now want to move them to Bellville’ (86)
want ons kragboksie is al baie oud maar baie goed
‘Because our switch board is already very old but very good’ The following where not included in the 100 utterances: (i) Fillers such as mm or o ‘oh’ (cf. Brown 1973:54).
(ii) Utterances containing unidentifiable material (cf. Unsworth 2005:200).
(iii) Formulaic utterances, such as ek weet nie ‘I don’t know’, kyk hier ‘look here’, wag ‘wait’, or wat’s dit? ‘what’s this?’ (cf. Unsworth 2005:201).
(iv) Exact self-repetitions (cf. Johnston 2001:158), as in (87). (87)
maar Jani het eintlik twee / ek het net een / ek het net een ‘But Janie actually has two / I have only one/ I have only one’
(v) Exact repetitions of the conversational partner (cf. Johnston 2001:158), as in (88).
(88)
Adult: ek gaan hierdie hoed vat ‘I am going to take this hat’ Child: ek gaan hierdie hoed vat
‘I am going to take this hat’
(vi) Proper names in response to wh-questions where the response contained only the so-called queried constituent (cf. Unsworth 2005:200), as shown in (89).
(89)
Adult: in wie se klas is jy? ‘In whose class are you?’ Child: Karen
(vii) Utterances which trailed off (cf. Unsworth 2005:201), as in (90). (90)
ons kyk nou of die… ‘We now look if the…’
(viii) Ja ‘yes’ and nee ‘no’ (and their equivalents, such as jip, uh, uh-huh,
huh-uh, OK), whether occurring (a) as an answer to a question, as in
(91); (b) as an acknowledgement of the adult’s previous utterance, as in (92); or (c) during self-talk, as in (93) (cf. Johnston 2001:158- 159).
(91)
Adult: hou jy van kerrie? ‘Do you like curry?’ Child: ja
‘Yes’ (92)
Adult: jy het ’n baie mooi kombuis / alles is blou en wit
‘You have a very pretty kitchen / everything is blue and white’ Child: ja
(93)
o die ding moet so staan / nee hy moet so om kom
‘Oh, this thing must stand like this / No, it must be this way around’
The words in the first 100 complete and fully intelligible utterances were then counted and the mean determined,127 in order to calculate the MLU.
Verbs consisting of noun+verb compounds, such as motorry ‘drive’ (literally ‘car+ride’); adjective+verb compounds, such as mooimaak ‘beautify’ (literally ‘pretty+make’); and preposition+verb compounds, such as optel ‘pick up’ (literally ‘up+pick’), were counted as one word (see examples (94a), (95a), and (96a), respectively), unless the verb part of the compound occurred before the noun, adjective, or preposition, as in (94b), (95b), and (96b-c).
(94a) dan kan ek fietsry then can I bicycle+ride ‘Then I can cycle’
(94b) want al die ander kinders ry fiets by die skool
because all the other children ride bicycle at the school ‘Because all the other children ride their bicycles at school’ (95a) hulle wil nie skoonmaak nie
they want-to not clean+make not ‘They do not want to clean’ (95b) die pa maak heeltyd skoon
the dad make all-the-time clean ‘The dad cleans all the time’ (96a) moet hom weer teruggooi
must him again back+throw ‘Must throw him back again’
127 Several researchers have found a high correlation between MLU measured in words
(MLUw) and in morphemes (MLUm) (see, e.g., Arlman-Rupp, Van Niekerk de Haan, and Van der Sandt-Koenderman 1976; Hickey 1991; Oetting and Rice 1993; Thordardottir and Weismer 1998). MLUw was chosen above MLUm, as it is a simpler process to decide what constitutes a word than it is to decide what counts as a morpheme (cf. Hickey 1991:268). Also, as stated by Miller and Deevy (2003:1157- 1158), care had to be taken not to create a confound: Morphemes were being examined (in both the experimental tasks and the language samples); therefore, employing MLU measured in morphemes seemed inappropriate.
(96b) hy val af
he fall off ‘He is falling off’ (96c) vang hy nou my op?
catch he now me up ‘Is it recording me now?’
Merges of dit/wat/hier ‘it/what/here’ with a preposition (as in
dit+op=daarop ‘on it’), as they appear in examples (97a), (98), and (99),128
were also counted as one word. However, if the preposition occurred before dit, as in example (97b),129 the preposition and dit were counted as
separate words.130
(97a) moet ouma daarin klim must granny it+in climb ‘Must granny get into it’
(97b) ek wil kyk of die seuntjie op dit kan ry
I want-to see whether the boy-DIM on it can ride ‘I want to see whether the little boy can ride on it’ (98)
hier is die pad waarop ons gaan werk here is the road what+on we will work
‘Here is the road on which we are going to work’ (99)
so nou kan ons net goed hierin bêre so now can we just stuff here+in away-put ‘So now we can just put stuff away in here’
Also for these first 100 complete and fully intelligible utterances, the number of occurrences of the following was tallied:
128 dit and wat change their form when combined with a preposition: dit changes to daar-
(e.g., op dit changes to daarop) and wat changes to waar- (e.g., uit wat changes to waaruit). In this regard, see Oosthuizen (2000).
129 Note that hier cannot be separated from its preposition in the way that dit and wat
can. For instance, one can say daarop or op dit, and waarop or op wat, but one can only say hierop (not *op hier).
130 Only waar- forms (waarop, waarmee, etc.) occurred; there were no occurrences of
(i) Correct use of single nouns (e.g., my mamma gaan ’n koek bak ‘my
mommy is going to bake a cake’).
(ii) Incorrect use of single nouns (twee *juffrou ‘two teacher’). (iii) Correct use of plural nouns (ek hou van honde ‘I like dogs’).
(iv) Incorrect use of plural nouns (daar’s twee *byls instead of byle ‘there are two axes’).
(v) Person and case on pronouns correct (kom ons sit hom in ‘let us
put him in’).
(vi) Person and/or case on pronouns incorrect (waar’s *hom hoed?
instead of sy ‘where’s his hat?’).
(vii) se-construction correct (die pa se stoel is daar ‘the dad’s chair is
there’).
(viii) se-construction incorrect (daar’s hulle *se kos131 instead of hulle kos
‘there’s their food’ or *my sussie skool ‘my sister school’ instead of my
sussie se skool ‘my sister’s school’).
(ix) Each of the various kinds of present tense constructions correct (ek bak koekies ‘I am baking cookies’; ek wil nog speel ‘I want to play
some more’; ek het die zebra ‘I have the zebra’; jou naels is sterk ‘your
nails are strong’).
(x) Each of the various kinds of present tense constructions incorrect (nou moet daar nog ’n wit ding in *is instead of wees ‘now there must
still be a white thing in there’; *het jy het net een byl? instead of het jy net een byl? ‘do you have only one axe?’; *nou’s hy daar sit instead of nou sit hy daar ‘now he sits there’).
(xi) Use of historic present tense (toe sny ek my hier ‘then I cut myself
here’).
(xii) Each of the various kinds of past tense constructions correct (hulle
het weer afgeval ‘they fell off again’; het sy betaal? ‘did she pay?’; hierso’s hy wat see toe was ‘here is he who went to the sea’; sy het voor die tyd daai gehad ‘she had that beforehand’).
(xiii) Each of the various kinds of past tense constructions incorrect (*hulle seergekry instead of hulle het seergekry ‘they were hurt’; eenkeer
*het hulle baie stout gewees instead of eenkeer was hulle baie stout (gewees)
‘once they were very naughty’; toe het Jessica ’n sakkie gekan kry 131 Note that constructions such as hulle se kos are acceptable in certain dialects of
Afrikaans. However, according to their speech therapists and teachers, none of the participants in this study spoke a dialect in which such a construction would be acceptable.
instead of toe kon Jessica ’n sakkie kry /gekry het ‘then Jessica could
get a bag’).
(xiv) Passive constructions in the past tense form (dit was deur ’n hond
gekrap ‘it had been scratched by a dog).
Correct and erroneous occurrences of morphemes or grammatical features were not tallied from utterance 101 onwards. However, each utterance which (i) occurred after the hundredth one but before the end of the 30 minutes, and (ii) was in any way deviant (i.e., non-adult-like) was identified and placed in a separate data base.
4.7.2. Experimental tasks
All responses on the comprehension and production tasks were recorded on a score sheet. Self corrections were allowed, and the final response was the one scored. The codes given to the various responses are discussed in the chapters 5 to 7, where the results of each specific task are presented.
4.8. CHAPTER CONCLUSION
As yet, no research has been done to establish the characteristics of SLI as it presents itself in Afrikaans. In order to answer the specific research questions posed in chapter 1, the comprehension and production of the grammatical morphemes related to number, person, case, and tense were evaluated in the language of Afrikaans-speaking 6-year-olds with SLI and typically developing Afrikaans-speaking 4- and 6-year-olds. A language sample was obtained from each of the participants, and a series of experimental tasks was performed. Based on the available literature (cf. chapter 2), it was expected that the Afrikaans-speaking children with SLI would fare worse than their typically developing peers in terms of both comprehension and production of grammatical features, and that the responses of the children with SLI would also differ from those of the younger typically developing children. The findings of the language sample analyses and experimental tasks are presented in the next three chapters: Chapter 5 contains the results on number comprehension and production, chapter 6 on person and case, and chapter 7 on tense.