Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci
Low-level schemas or general rules?
The role of diminutives in the acquisition
of Polish case inflections
Ewa Da˛browska
*
Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Sheffield,
Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom
Accepted 14 February 2005
Abstract
Proponents of Ôusage-basedÕ models [Bybee, J.L., 1995. Regular morphology and the lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes 10, 425–455; Langacker, R.W., 2000. A dynamic
usage-based model. In: Barlow, M., Kemmer, S. (Eds.), Usage-Based Models of Language.
CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA, pp. 1–63; Tomasello, M., 2003. Constructing a Language:
A Usage-Based Theory of Child Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
MA] have argued that speakersÕ mental grammars are highly redundant, in that relatively specific, low-level generalizations and actual expressions co-exist with more general rules. Such
local generalizations are thought to play an important role in language use, and, in particular,
in language acquisition.
If this hypothesis is correct, speakers, and especially immature speakers, should be more
likely to supply the correct inflected forms of words which fall into densely populated phonological neighbourhoods (for which they are likely to have extracted low-level schemas) than
with words with few neighbours (for which no low-level schemas may be available). This paper
tests this prediction by investigating Polish childrenÕs ability to supply case inflections with
unfamiliar words. By far the most densely populated regions in Polish childrenÕs noun lexicons
are those defined by the three most productive diminutive suffixes (masculine -ek, feminine -ka,
*
Fax: +44 114 2220240.
E-mail address: [email protected]
0388-0001/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2005.02.005
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
121
and neuter -ko), since diminutives are very frequent in the input. Therefore, if the low-level
schema hypothesis is correct, children should be more productive with diminutives and diminutive-sounding words (i.e., words ending in -ek, -ka, and -ko) than with simplex forms. Results
indicate that this is indeed the case.
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Low-level schemas; Rules; Diminutive; Polish; Case marking; Language acquisition
1. Introduction
Modern linguistics sets great store by the principle of economy. It is taken as selfevident that any data that can be adequately accounted for by means of general
statements should be described using only such statements: a good description is
one that eliminates redundancies. Many researchers also assume, either implicitly
or explicitly, that speakersÕ mental grammars contain general rules and principles
analogous to the linguistsÕ generalizations.
In recent times, these assumptions have been challenged by a number of cognitively-oriented linguists, who have proposed that speakersÕ knowledge of the grammar of their language is best characterised in terms of schemas of varying degrees of
generality (Bybee, 1995, 1998; Langacker, 1987, 2000; Taylor, 2002; see also Albright, 2002). Even when a general rule or schema exists, speakers may represent
the same information redundantly by means of more specific schemas capturing various special cases. For instance, Da˛browska (2004a) has shown that Polish speakers
have a well-entrenched schema for producing the dative form of neuter nouns ending
in -nie in addition to, or possibly instead of, a fully general rule which applies to all
neuter nouns. There is also evidence that speakers store many nouns in their inflected
forms as well as the citation form (the nominative). Thus, information about how to
form the dative singular form of a neuter noun may be represented at three levels: as
a general schema (neuter nouns take -u in the dative), phonologically specific schema
(neuter nouns ending in -nie take -u in the dative) and lexically-specific representations (dziecku Ôchild-DATÕ, pytaniu Ôquestion-DATÕ, etc.).
These researchers have also suggested that speakers may actually prefer low-level,
lexically and/or phonologically specific schemas over general rules which apply
Ôacross the boardÕ. Low-level generalizations are more reliable (Albright, 2002)
and appear to be easier to apply (Da˛browska, 2004a). There is also considerable evidence that they play an important role in syntactic development: childrenÕs initial
generalizations are lexically specific patterns such as NP want NP and WhereÕs
NP? (Lieven et al., 1997; Tomasello, 1992, 2003; Da˛browska, 2004b), with more general rules emerging later in development.
This paper will investigate the role of low-level schemas in inflectional morphology, using data from a richly inflected language, Polish. If speakers have low-level
schemas as well as more general rules and find the former easier to apply than the
latter, they should be more productive with words which fall into densely populated
phonological neighbourhoods (for which they are likely to have extracted low-level
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
schemas) than with words with few neighbours (for which no low-level schemas may
be available). Furthermore, these differences should be most pronounced in children.
As noted in Da˛browska (2005), by far the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Polish childrenÕs noun lexicons are those defined by diminutive suffixes,
since diminutive forms are very frequent in speech addressed to children. Therefore,
diminutive words provide a good way of testing the local schema hypothesis: if children indeed begin with low-level, phonologically specific generalizations, they should
supply inflectional endings more reliably with diminutive and diminutive-sounding
nouns than with nouns belonging to less crowded neighbourhoods. On the other
hand, if children use general rules from the beginning, there should be no differences
in performance, since the same rule applies in both cases; or, to the extent that performance is affected by the phonological and/or morphological complexity of the
word, they should supply the target ending less frequently with diminutives and
diminutive-sounding words.
The following study will test these predictions by means of a nonce word production experiment examining Polish childrenÕs ability to supply case inflections with
simplex- and diminutive-sounding nouns. It is part of a larger project investigating
the development of case marking in Polish. In an earlier study (Da˛browska and Szczerbiński, submitted for publication), we investigated the effects of other possible
determinants of productivity: regularity, type frequency and phonological diversity.
This paper will concentrate on phonological neighbourhood effects and their interaction with other factors.
1.1. The Polish case marking system
The Polish case marking system is quite complex. There are seven cases, each
marked by several different endings (see Table 1). The endings signal number as well
as case, so in addition to the singular endings shown in Table 1, there is a different set
of endings for plural nouns. Nouns belonging to different genders typically require
different endings, although there is some overlap, especially in the masculine and
neuter endings. When there is more than one ending for a particular gender, the
Table 1
The Polish case marking system (the singular endings)
Case
Feminine
Masculine
Neuter
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Accusative
Instrumental
Locative
Vocative
-a (-Ø, -i)
-i/-y
-Õe, -i/-y
-ez (-Ø)
-a˛
-Õe, -i/-y
-o, -u, -i/-y, (-Ø)
-Ø (-a, -o)
-a, -u (-i/-y)
-owi (-u, -Õe, -i/-y)
-Ø, -a (-e˛, -o)
-em (-a˛)
-Õe, -u (-i/-y)
-Õe, -u, (-o)
-o, -e, -e˛
-a
-u
-o, -e, -e˛
-em
-Õe, -u
-o, -e, -e˛
Note: Endings in parentheses are very restricted in distribution. The [Õ] symbol indicates palatalisation of
the preceding consonant(s). The distribution of -i and -y is governed by very general phonotactic rules and
hence the two are regarded as variants of the same ending.
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
123
choice of ending is determined by phonological, semantic, and lexical properties of
the noun (see Orzechowska, 1998).
The experiment described below investigated Polish childrenÕs productivity with
the genitive, dative and accusative inflections with nouns of each gender. The best
period to investigate phonological neighbourhood effects is in the early stages of
development of case inflections, where such effects should be largest. Research on
Polish childrenÕs morphological development indicates that case-inflected nouns appear towards the end of the one-word stage; by age 2, children reliably supply singular case endings where required in naturalistic settings (Smoczyńska, 1985;
Da˛browska, 2001). Ideally, therefore, the experiment should involve children aged
from 1;6 to 2;0. However, it is difficult to conduct experiments with children of this
age; and, more importantly, because their articulatory abilities are still quite undeveloped, it is often difficult to determine which ending they are attempting to produce.
Therefore, the experiment described here was conducted with older children
(ages 2;4–4;8).
1.2. Polish diminutives
Diminutive formation is a very productive aspect of Polish derivational morphology: it is possible to add a diminutive affix to almost any concrete noun and also to
some abstract nouns. The main diminutive affixes are -ek (and its variants -ik and -yk)
for masculine nouns, -ka for feminines, and -ko for neuters.1 In addition, there are
two ÔfamiliesÕ of complex affixes which also end in -ek, -ka, and -ko (-usz-ek, -iszek, -asz-ek, -usz-ka, -usz-ko; -icz-ek, -ecz-ka, -ycz-ka, -ecz-ko); these are mostly used
to form second-order diminutives such as dzbanuszek Ôvery small jugÕ (cf. dzban
ÔjugÕ, dzbanek Ôlittle jugÕ) and gwiazdeczka Ôvery small starÕ (cf. gwiazda ÔstarÕ, gwiazdka
Ôlittle starÕ). Other evaluative affixes (e.g. -uś, -usia, -usio; -ulo, -ula) are more restricted
in distribution and are usually regarded as having a hypocoristic rather than diminutive function (Grzegorczykowa and Puzynina, 1998; Urbańczyk and Kucała, 1999).
The three most productive diminutive affixes for each gender also have other functions. Furthermore, there are also stems ending in -ek, -ka, and -ko, as well as a few
lexicalised diminutives (e.g. młynek ÔgrinderÕ from młyn ÔmillÕ, wózek Ôpram, pushchairÕ from wóz Ôcart, wagonÕ, kuchenka ÔcookerÕ from kuchnia ÔkitchenÕ). As a result,
forms ending in -ek, -ka and -ko are very frequent in the input, accounting for 29% of
all masculine nouns, 48% of feminine nouns, and 30% of neuter nouns.2 Such forms,
therefore, should offer an excellent opportunity for the extraction of low-level
schemas.
1
Strictly speaking, the diminutive affix is -k. The -a and -o found in feminine and neuter forms are
gender markers. Masculine nouns are not overtly marked for gender, but the vowel [e] is inserted before
the diminutive affix in the nominative to break up what would be a phonotactically impossible consonant
cluster, giving the -ek ending in nouns such as kotek ÔkittyÕ.
2
These estimates are based on the Marysia corpus, which comprises 30 h of spontaneous conversation
with a two-year-old Polish girl.
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
2. Method
Fifty seven Polish children (29 boys and 28 girls) in three age groups: 2;4–2;8
(mean 2;7), 3;2–3;8 (mean 3;5) and 4;3–4;8 (mean 4;5) and 16 adult controls (mean
age 38 years) participated in the experiment. The participants were taught 12 nonce
nouns (four of each gender) referring to various toy animals of indeterminate sex. All
the nouns were phonotactically legal sequences and had gender-typical offsets (-a for
feminines, -o for neuters, and a hard consonant for masculines); they were introduced with an agreeing demonstrative which provided an additional grammatical
cue to gender. Half of the nonce words ended in -ek, -ka, or -ko and hence resembled
real nouns with diminutive suffixes; the other half could not be analysed as containing any affixes.
The experiment was divided into four sessions. During each session, the child
learned three nonce nouns (one of each gender). The nouns were presented in the
citation form (the nominative) in several different constructions together with their
referents. The children were then invited to play a series of games during which they
were required to use the nonce nouns as well as a matching set of familiar nouns in
grammatical contexts requiring the genitive, dative and accusative inflections. For
each gender, we elicited the most widely applicable endings that can be used with animate nouns (given in bold in Table 1).
There were two versions of the experiment: nouns which were presented in the
simplex form in version 1 were presented in the diminutive in version 2, and vice
versa. Half the participants in each age group were tested with version 1 and half
with version 2. All the nouns used in the experiment are listed in Appendix A; full
details of the training and elicitation procedure can be found in Da˛browska and
Szczerbiński (submitted for publication).
3. Results
3.1. Real words
All participants produced at least one correct genitive form and at least one correct non-neuter accusative form (the accusative neuter form is identical to the nominative, and hence correct usage does not necessarily indicate grammatical
knowledge). Furthermore, all but three participants produced at least one correct dative form. The number of target responses ranged from 60% at 2;7 to 91% in the
adult group.3 This shows that the participants had understood the task and knew
which case was required in the grammatical context in which the words were elicited.
3
The less-than-perfect performance of the adults is due not to actual errors, but to a tendency to
substitute morphologically related masculine nouns for neuter nouns, which is probably an avoidance
strategy: see Da˛browska and Szczerbiński (submitted for publication) for discussion.
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
125
3.2. Nonce words: target responses
Table 2 presents the mean number of target responses for each category of nonce
words and each age group. The data were analysed using a 4 (age) · 3 (gender) · 2
(phonological neighbourhood) split-plot ANOVA. The F statistics reported below
were computed using the multivariate PillaiÕs trace method. All significant main
effects and interactions were followed up with post-hoc tests (Games–Howell or
t-tests, as appropriate).
The analysis revealed significant main effects of Age (F(3, 69) = 8.097,
p < 0.001, g2 = 0.260), Gender (F(2, 68) = 62.280, p < 0.001, g2 = 0.645), and phonological neighbourhood (F(1, 69) = 8.254, p = 0.005, g2 = 0.107). Performance improved with age, with four-year-olds and adults supplying the target form
significantly more often than the two-year-olds (p = 0.002 and p < 0.001 respectively); the difference between the three-year-olds and adults approached significance
(p = 0.058). With respect to gender, participants produced significantly more target
responses for masculine nouns than for feminine and neuter nouns (for masculines
vs. feminines, t(72) = 3.861, p < 0.001; for masculines vs. neuters, t(72) = 8.276,
p < 0.001), and significantly more target responses for feminines than for neuters
(t(72) = 6.044, p < 0.001). Finally, with respect to phonological neighbourhood, participants were significantly more accurate with diminutive-sounding nonce words
than with simplex forms.
These effects were qualified by three two-way interactions. First, phonological
neighbourhood interacted with Gender: F(2, 68) = 15.297, p < 0.001, g2 = 0.310
(see Fig. 1). The advantage for diminutives was robust and highly significant with
masculine nouns (t(72) = 5.354, p < 0.001) and relatively small and marginally significant for feminine nouns (t(72) = 1.745, p = 0.085). Performance on diminutivesounding neuter nouns, on the other hand, was significantly worse than on simplex
neuters (t(72) = 2.212, p = 0.030). Phonological neighbourhood also interacted
Table 2
Percent target responses
Condition
Age 2;7
(N = 18)
Age 3;5
(N = 20)
Age 4;5
(N = 19)
Adults
(N = 16)
All ages
(N = 73)
Masculine
Simplex
Diminutive
37 (25)
62 (32)
63 (36)
73 (30)
75 (20)
89 (15)
94 (15)
99 (4)
66 (32)
80 (27)
Feminine
Simplex
Diminutive
42 (24)
52 (30)
53 (28)
61 (27)
65 (25)
71 (29)
79 (22)
77 (30)
59 (28)
65 (30)
Neuter
Simplex
Diminutive
Overall
47 (19)
40 (20)
47 (16)
46 (14)
47 (19)
57 (19)
49 (22)
46 (17)
66 (14)
43 (18)
29 (14)
70 (10)
46 (18)
41 (19)
60 (17)
Note: The figures in parentheses represent standard deviations.
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
Masculine
Target responses
100
80
60
40
diminutive
20
simplex
0
2;7
3;5
4;5
Adult
Age
Feminine
Target responses
100
80
60
40
diminutive
20
simplex
0
2;7
3;5
4;5
Adult
Age
Neuter
Target responses
100
diminutive
80
simplex
60
40
20
0
2;7
3;5
4;5
Adult
Age
Fig. 1. Performance on simplex and diminutive-sounding nonce words.
with Age: F(3, 69) = 2.907, p = 0.041, g2 = 0.112. The advantage for diminutivesounding words was largest in the two-year-old group (t(17) = 3.108, p = 0.006)
and somewhat smaller in the three-year-olds (t(19) = 2.431, p = 0.025). It approached significance in the four-year-olds group (t(18) = 1.977, p = 0.064), and
was absent in adults (t(15) = 0.870, p = 0.398). Finally, the analysis revealed a
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
127
Target responses
12
10
masculine
feminine
neuter
8
6
4
2
0
2;7
3;5
4;5
Adult
Age
Fig. 2. Performance according to gender.
Gender · Age interaction: F(6, 138) = 6.596, p < 0.001, g2 = 0.223 (see Fig. 2). There
are no significant differences between genders in the two-year-old group. The threeyear-olds showed a moderate advantage for masculine and feminine nouns over neuters. The four-year-olds displayed much more robust advantage for masculine and
feminine nouns over neuters and moderate advantage for masculines over feminines.
The same pattern was found in adults, except that the differences between genders
were even more pronounced. These differences are due entirely to improvement in
performance on feminine and especially masculine nouns: performance on neuter
nouns did not improve, and in fact declined slightly with age.
3.3. Nonce words: errors
The most common error types were overgeneralizations, i.e., uses of gender-inappropriate endings (e.g. a masculine ending with a feminine noun or vice versa), and
nominative errors, which involve use of the citation form instead of the case required
by the grammatical context (see Table 3). These two types of errors, as well as errors
classified as ÔotherÕ (failure to respond, substitution of a familiar word, use of an
incorrect case or the plural) were further analysed using three split-plot ANOVAs.
Since individual error types were relatively infrequent, data for all three genders were
pooled together. Thus there were two factors: Age (four levels) and phonological
neighbourhood (two levels).
Analysis of nominative errors revealed a main effect of phonological neighbourhood (participants made fewer zero-marking errors on diminutive-sounding nonce
words: F(1, 69) = 10.613, p = 0.002) and a main effect of Age, with older participants
making fewer errors (F(3, 69) = 8.061, p = 0.001), with no interaction (F(3, 69) =
1.089, p = 0.360). Errors classified as ÔotherÕ appear to show a similar pattern; in this
case, however, parametric tests could not be applied because their assumptions were
violated, so the data were analysed non-parametrically. Analysis indicated that there
were indeed significantly fewer errors on diminutive-sounding words (Wilcoxon
signed ranks z = 2.254, N = 73, p = 0.024) and that, for both types of words, older
participants made fewer errors (Kruskal Wallis: for simplex nouns, v2 = 24.721,
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
Table 3
Target responses and errors on simplex and diminutive-sounding forms
Response type
Age 2;7
(N = 18)
Age 3;5
(N = 20)
Age 4;5
(N = 19)
Adults
(N = 16)
All ages
(N = 73)
Target
Simplex
Diminutive
42 (17)
51 (16)
54 (20)
60 (20)
63 (16)
69 (14)
72 (13)
68 (13)
57 (20)
62 (17)
Nominative
Simplex
Diminutive
38 (18)
29 (22)
28 (23)
21 (20)
17 (16)
14 (14)
9 (9)
7 (8)
23 (20)
18 (19)
Overgeneralizations
Simplex
Diminutive
9 (8)
11 (10)
10 (9)
12 (10)
14 (9)
15 (10)
19 (9)
25 (8)
13 (9)
15 (11)
Other
Simplex
Diminutive
11 (9)
8 (10)
8 (9)
7 (8)
6 (7)
1 (3)
0 (0)
0 (0)
7 (8)
4 (7)
Note: The figures in parentheses represent standard deviations.
df = 3, p < 0.001; for diminutives, v2 = 18.390, df = 3, p < 0.001). Analysis of overgeneralization errors also showed a main effect of phonological neighbourhood
(F(1, 69) = 4.006, p = 0.049) and Age (F(3, 69) = 8.750, p < 0.001), and no interaction (F(3, 69) = 0.573, p = 0.634); in this case, however, participants made more
errors on diminutive-sounding nonce words, and older participants made more
errors.
3.4. Substitutions of simplex and diminutive stems
Participants in all age groups occasionally substituted diminutive stems for simplex forms before inflecting the noun, producing responses such as baran-k-a
(ram-DIM-GEN), lim-k-a (lim-DIM-GEN), and klot-c-e (klot-DIM-DAT) as the
genitive and dative forms of the noun baran and the nonce nouns lim and klota.4
Although such responses were fairly rare, they offer a particularly interesting source
of evidence that diminutive and diminutive-sounding forms were easier for participants to inflect than simplex forms. Most of the diminutive substitutions occurred
with real words (cf. Table 4), but the children sometimes added [k] to nonce words,
as in the last two examples given above. As shown in Table 4, the opposite type of
substitution (simplex for diminutive) was also attested, although less frequently;
note, too, that at least some of the responses that were classified as substitutions
of the simplex stem were probably mispronunciations due to simplifications of
consonant
clusters in the diminutive stem: kloty [klOt–ı ] for klotki
[klOtci], zajaz ca
y
y
[zaj~ntsa] for zajaz czka, which children often pronounce [zaj~ntska].
c
c
4
Such substitutions were not classified as errors if the participant added the correct ending to the
diminutivised stem.
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
129
Table 4
Stem substitutions
Substitution type
Age 2;7
(N = 18)
Age 3;5
(N = 20)
Age 4;5
(N = 19)
Adults
(N = 16)
All ages
(N = 73)
Real nouns
Diminutive for simplex
Simplex for diminutive
15
6
34
12
18
5
10
5
77
28
Nonce nouns
Diminutive for simplex
Simplex for diminutive
2
4
4
5
3
1
2
0
11
10
4. Discussion
The experiment described above revealed several differences in Polish childrenÕs
and adultsÕ performance on diminutive- and simplex-sounding nonce words. Participants supplied the target ending more reliably, but were also more likely to use gender-inappropriate endings, with diminutive nonce words. Simplex nonce words, on
the other hand, attracted more avoidance errors such as use of the citation form,
substitution of a familiar word, or failure to respond at all. These results suggest that
diminutive-sounding words were easier for the participants to inflect.
Except for masculine nouns in the younger children, the advantage for diminutive-sounding words was relatively modest; overall, it accounted for only 11% of
the variance. This is probably attributable to the fact that virtually all of the participants were already quite productive with case inflections: even the two-and-a-halfyear-olds supplied the target ending for 47% of the nonce words.
As noted in the introductory section, one would expect phonological neighbourhood effects to be much more pronounced during earliest stages of grammatical
development. Consistent with this prediction, the advantage for diminutive-sounding
nouns was greatest in the two-year-old group and gradually diminished with age,
showing that younger children indeed rely more strongly on phonologically specific
patterns.
There was no effect of phonological neighbourhood in adults. This could be taken
as indicating that in the course of language acquisition learners develop more general
schemas which replace the initial phonologically specific generalizations. However, it
is also possible that the two co-exist in adults, and the latter interpretation is more
consistent with earlier research (Da˛browska, 2004a).
The experiment also revealed a very robust effect of gender: performance was best
on masculine nouns and worst on neuter nouns. This is probably due to a combination of several factors: type frequency, phonological structure of the domain of
application, phonological salience of the affixes, and participantsÕ reliance on product-oriented schemas (see Da˛browska and Szczerbiński, submitted for publication,
for discussion).
The effect of phonological neighbourhood was strongest for masculine nouns, and
was actually reversed in neuters: that is to say, diminutive-sounding neuter nouns
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
were significantly more difficult than simplex forms. This is an unexpected result
which is difficult to explain in any framework. It also contradicts earlier research:
Da˛browska (2004a) did find an advantage for diminutives with neuter nouns (in
adults). Thus, this finding must be treated with caution.
4.1. Why better on diminutives?
As predicted by the local schema hypothesis, Polish children supply the correct
inflections more reliably with diminutive-sounding nonce nouns than with simplex
nouns, in spite of the fact that such nouns are morphologically and phonologically
more complex. This finding is problematic for rule-based theories, since the simplex and diminutive conditions required the addition of the same endings to nouns
belonging to the same transparently marked gender classes. However, before concluding that the results support the local schema account, it is necessary to
consider an alternative explanation: specifically, the possibility that the better performance on diminutives is attributable to the fact that they are inflected more
regularly than simplex nouns. This hypothesis was advanced by several researchers studying a closely related language–Russian. Olmsted (1994) observes that Russian diminutives define a kind of simplified register with fewer inflectional types,
fewer stem alterations, fully predictable gender, and regular stress, and concludes
that
The world of Russian diminutives . . . constitutes a strikingly simplified subset
of Russian nominal declensional morphology. . .. this diminutive subset plays a
helpful role in language acquisition—used by parents and other adults when
talking with children, and mastered with relative ease by children as they are
simultaneously venturing into the wilder fuller nominal system of Russian at
large (166).
Kempe et al. (2001) also argue that diminutives facilitate development of Russian
inflectional morphology, and attribute this effect specifically to the fact that diminutive forms are fully transparent with respect to gender marking. In Russian, as in
Polish, gender can usually be fairly reliably predicted from the phonological form
of the nominative: the majority of feminine nouns end in -a, and the majority of masculine nouns end in a ÔhardÕ (unpalatalised) consonant. Some nouns, however,
including those ending in a ÔsoftÕ consonant, are ambiguous with respect to gender
assignment. For example, the noun kostÕ ÔboneÕ is feminine, while gostÕ ÔguestÕ is masculine. Crucially, the diminutive forms (kostochka, gostek) have gender-typical endings, and hence can be easily assigned to the correct class. Later research by Kempe
and colleagues appears to support the hypothesis that diminutives help learners master gender distinctions. Kempe and Brooks (2001) found that adult learners of Russian as a second language who were trained with diminutives performed better on a
gender agreement task than the control group, who were trained with simplex words;
and a gender agreement elicitation study with Russian children (Kempe et al., 2003)
revealed that they, too, made fewer agreement errors with diminutive nouns, both
familiar and novel.
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
131
Since Russian and Polish are very similar in the relevant respects, an analogous
argument could be made for Polish. It is possible, in other words, that the better performance on diminutives is attributable to the fact that they are more regular; and
hence oblique case forms can be more reliably predicted from the nominative form.
However, this explanation presupposes that regularity facilitates generalization,
which does not appear to be the case: when other factors such as type frequency
and phonological diversity are controlled for, children are not more productive with
more regular endings than with irregular ones (Da˛browska, 2004a; Da˛browska and
Szczerbiński, submitted for publication). The pattern of errors observed in the experiment also does not support the transparency hypothesis: as we have seen, participants in all age groups were more likely to use gender-inappropriate endings with
diminutive-sounding nouns. Confronted with a simplex form, on the other hand,
they were more likely to avoid inflecting it and use the nominative form, substitute
a familiar word, or not respond at all. In other words, the participants were more
productive, but not more accurate, with diminutive-sounding nouns—a finding
which is compatible with the local schema hypothesis but not the transparency
hypothesis.
4.2. Diminutives in childrenÕs speech and in CDS
Why do children use diminutives? The obvious answer to this question is that do
so because their parents do: diminutive forms appear with similar frequencies in
child speech and child-directed speech (Kempe et al., 2001; Melzi and King, 2003).
But why do adults use diminutives when talking to children? Again, the answer
seems rather banal. Diminutives have two main functions: to refer to small things,
and to express affection or sympathy, either for the referent of the dimunitivised
noun or for the addressee. Young children are small; the things associated with
them–their clothes, toys, beds, etc.—are also small; and, needless to say, parents often want to express affection when addressing their children.
However, cross-linguistic research on the frequency of diminutives in child-directed speech shows that this cannot be the whole story. While diminutives appear to be
universally more frequent in CDS than in adult-directed-speech, cross-linguistic research by Kempe et al. (2001) suggests that the differences are much more pronounced in those languages (such as Russian and Spanish) where the use of
diminutive affixes helps to make gender or some other important morphological distinction more transparent. On the other hand, in English, where diminutives do not
help the learner, or German, where their presence actually complicates the rules for
gender assignment (since adding the diminutive affix changes the gender of the base
noun), child-directed speech contains fewer diminutivised forms. Kempe et al. conclude that ‘‘CDS registers tend to emphasise or even conventionalise features that, as
a by-product, may facilitate language acquisition, and to de-emphasise features that
may be detrimental to the process’’ (2001:1242).
This suggestion, while interesting, raises an intriguing question, namely, why and
how such features come to be emphasised or conventionalised in CDS. It is extremely unlikely that parents are aware that the use of diminutive morphology helps
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
children master the grammatical system of their language. A more plausible explanation for childrenÕs frequent use of diminutives is their reliance on low-level schemas
in the early stages of grammatical development. The particularly high frequency of
diminutives in the CDS registers of languages such as Polish or Russian may be a
result of generations of parents accommodating to their childrenÕs speech style.
The research described here provides strong evidence in favour of the first part of
this explanation. We saw that Polish children are not only more productive with diminutive-sounding words, but also sometimes substitute a diminutive for a simplex form
(particularly with familiar words, for which they already know the diminutive form).
When confronted which simplex-sounding nouns, on the other hand, they are more
likely to use the nominative form in contexts which require an oblique case, produce
an irrelevant answer, or fail to respond at all. Some additional, less direct evidence
in favour of the local schema hypothesis can be gleaned from HamanÕs (2003) diarybased study of one childÕs use of diminutives between the ages of 1;0 and 2;2. Haman
found that in the earliest stages of language development the child used proportionally
fewer diminutives than the adults in her environment (3–10% of all noun tokens). In the
next stage (ages 1;5–1;10) the frequency of diminutives in her speech increased rapidly
to a high of 30%; then, between 1;11 and 2;2, the use of diminutives decreased slightly
until it reached levels similar to those found in input (about 20%). Crucially, the period
of rapid increase in the frequency of diminutive forms in the childÕs speech coincided
with the emergence and early development of case inflections (cf. Smoczyńska, 1985;
Da˛browska, 2001), suggesting that the phenomena may be related.5
How, then, do diminutives come to be such a prominent feature of the CDS registers of languages such as Spanish, Russian and Polish? On the basis of the evidence
reviewed above, one may tentatively propose the following scenario: Parents use
more diminutives when talking to children than in other discourse contexts because
they frequently refer to small objects, and they frequently want to express affection;
and Polish parents also use many non-diminutive nouns ending in -ek, -ka, -ko. Because children hear so many nouns with these endings, they develop productive schemas for them before they develop schemas for other nouns. As a result, they begin to
use diminutives more frequently: when they do not know how to inflect a simplex
form they sometimes substitute a diminutive, and when they do not know the diminutive they may not use the word at all. Perceiving the higher frequency of diminutivised forms in the speech of their children, parents begin to use more diminutives,
which in turn causes the children to use them even more, and so on. The process also
has a sociohistorical dimension: because individual parents frequently use diminutives when addressing their children, over a number of generations it becomes
5
However, Haman found no evidence that the girlÕs parents accommodated in any way to the increase
of diminutives in her speech, as required by the scenario proposed here (see below). This could be due to
relatively thin sampling, which forced the author to collapse data across periods of 4–5 months. It is also
possible that the absence of any increase in the use of diminutives in the input is simply due to the fact that
the parents already used such forms quite frequently at the beginning of the study: in other words, once
diminutives become a conventional feature of the CDS register, parents adjust their speech when talking to
children by using the conventional register.
E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
133
conventional for adults to use such forms when addressing any child; in the end,
adults may use diminutives even more frequently than children.
Is it plausible to assume that parents adjust their speech to be more like that of
their children? Accommodation to the speech style of oneÕs interlocutor (in co-operative situations) is a well-attested phenomenon in sociolinguistics; over time, it leads
to a convergence of speech styles in individuals who spend a great deal of time together (Giles, 1994; Hudson, 1996). There is no reason to suppose that parent–child
conversational settings are exceptional in this respect, although of course the children do most of the accommodating, since in the long run, it is they who end up
speaking like their parents, rather than vice versa. It is interesting to note in this connection that accommodation tends to involve one or two salient features of the interlocutorÕs speech style, rather than across-the-board adjustment involving a number
of parameters. Since use of diminutives is clearly a very salient aspect of young childrenÕs speech, it is not surprising that parents should choose this feature as the one to
accommodate to.6
5. Conclusion
Polish children hear many diminutive nouns in the citation form as well as in various inflected forms. As a result, they develop productive schemas for such words,
and use these more reliably than more general rules which apply to much larger classes. They also appear to avoid nouns which do not fit these schemas, sometimes
substituting diminutivised forms instead. These findings support the hypothesis that
Polish speakers use low-level, phonologically-specific schemas, at least in the early
stages of language development.
Such relatively low-level schemas probably co-exist with more general ones which
apply to larger classes of stems, although it is possible, in principle, that speakers rely
exclusively on phonologically-specific schemas–in other words, that they have separate rules for nouns ending in -ka, -la, -ra, -wa, etc., and no general rule for all nouns
ending in -a, or all feminine nouns. If this were the case, then the poorer performance
on nouns belonging to some of the clusters defined by these final syllable of the stem
could be attributed to the fact that they are less densely populated, and hence the
schemas are less entrenched.
Having local rules or schemas for special cases which can be subsumed under a
more general rule is, of course, redundant: the same data could be more economically described using just the general rule. The experiment described here demonstrates that what linguists regard as the ÔsimplestÕ rule—i.e., the most general
one—is not necessarily the simplest or easiest for language users.
6
Research by Melzi and King (2003) on the use of diminutives in Spanish suggests that the mechanism
responsible for accommodation in mother–child pairs is imitation. The authors found that mothersÕ
imitations of childrenÕs diminutives promotes childrenÕs use of diminutives; conversely, childrenÕs
imitations of the mothersÕ diminutives appears to be conducive to mothersÕ use of diminutives.
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E. Da˛browska / Language Sciences 28 (2006) 120–135
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by British Academy grant RB 100556. I would like to
thank Ewa Borek, Mariola Busławska, Małgorzata Ciołek, Ewa Czerlińska, Celina
Kośmider, Małgorzata Michalak, and Bo_zena Pławska for their help in collecting the
data, Marcin Szczerbiński for numerous helpful discussions, and Barbara Da˛browska for organizational support throughout the duration of the project. Very special
_
and warm thanks go to the children from Złobek
nr 1 and Przedszkole nr 81 in
Gdańsk who participated in the experiment.
Appendix A. Words used in the experiment
Gender
Real words
Nonce words
Masculine
baran/baranek ÔramÕ
zaja˛c/zaja˛czek ÔhareÕ
ptak/ptaszek ÔbirdÕ
robak/robaczek ÔbugÕ
z_ aba/_zabka ÔfrogÕ
krowa/krówka ÔcowÕ
mapa=mapka ÔmonkeyÕ
ryba/rybka ÔfishÕ
zwierze˛/zwierza˛tko ÔanimalÕ
ciele˛/cielae˛tko ÔcalfÕ
kurcze˛/kurcza˛tko ÔchickenÕ
piskle˛/piskla˛tko ÔchickÕ
pur/purek
lim/limek
czumas/czumasek
grut/grutek
zora/zorka
gryma/grymka
ksiuda/ksiudka
klota/klotka
toso/tosko
z_ ulo/_zulko
klimo/klimko
prato/pratko
Feminine
Neuter
Note: The second form given is the diminutive.
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