BCCCD22

Slack: https://bcccd.slack.com/archives/C02R5FG16LA

Elena Galkina 1, Sofia Krasnoshekova 2
1 Pavlov Institute of Physiology RAS, Russia, St. Petersburg
2 Institute of Linguistics RAS, Russia, St. Petersburg

It is known that infants start developing causal thinking skills at the age of about 9 m. (Sobel, Kirkham 2006). In this study we ask how the Russian toddlers start expressing causality in the very beginning: what meanings come first? We regard a causal situation as two interrelated events that the speaker sees as dependent on each other.
The data: 14 typically developing Russian children aged 10–22 m., 280 earliest spontaneous one-two-words causal utterances, collected longitudinally, analyzed by functional semantical method.
The first «causal phrases» noticed at the pre-verbal period (11-14 m.), by facial expressions and gestures. The first meaning is “problem and asking for help” (“thirsty, open the bottle”). Infants use a language for expressing the causality since about 13 m., at the one-word stage the semantics is “make it so that” expressed by words similar in function to causal verbs: 13-15 m. “request” (“dat” = give, “tuda” = move me there); 14-16 m. “effect of one’s own activities”: changing the state of a physical object (“bаbаh” = destroy); changing one’s own condition (“cucu” = not visible).
At the 2-word stage the semantics become more varied, already at 22 m. they are able: to explain his request (“strashnо, uberi” = scary, take it away; “nikak, pomogi” = can’t do it, help); to talk about the cause and effect of one’s own activities (“bakh, oooy”= throw, crashed ;“gulya, buu” = a bird ran away, I scared it), indicate one’s own condition and its cause (“bo-bo, kus” = pain, bitten; “mukha, boyus”= fly, I’m afraid), give reasons for refusal (“nibudu, kruzhus” = won’t do anything more, I’m swinging; “nidam, mayo” = don’t give, it’s mine). Causal phrases correspond to the principle of functionality and subjectivity.

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