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Object pronouns, clitics, and omissions in child Polish and Ukrainian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2015

ROKSOLANA MYKHAYLYK  and
ALDONA SOPATA
ROKSOLANA MYKHAYLYK*
Affiliation:
Harvard University and Arctic University of Norway
ALDONA SOPATA
Affiliation:
Adam Mickiewicz University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Roksolana Mykhaylyk, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail: roks.mykhaylyk@gmail.com
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Abstract

Polish and Ukrainian pattern together syntactically in allowing various omissions in the same discourse settings, for example, when the referring element has been mentioned in a previous context. However, Ukrainian employs full object pronouns morphologically, whereas Polish uses clitics in the same environments. We exploit this contrast to compare the acquisition of clitics versus full pronouns, enriching previous accounts of omissions in child speech. The results of an elicited production experiment reveal that, in the two languages considered, 3- to 6-year-old children make no errors in direct object realization, but prefer to use null arguments up to the age of 5. It is crucial that there is no obvious difference between the acquisition patterns for clitics versus pronouns, which suggests that the morphophonological properties of direct objects are not primary predictors of object realization in languages that allow discourse-related omissions.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 1051 - 1082
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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