Choi Soonja
Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2020 Mar 11;11:256. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00256. eCollection 2020.
Korean is a language with the verb at the end of a clause/sentence. In chaining several clauses [each consisting of a subject and a verb] in a sentence, a conjunction (e.g., "and then," "because, and so") is suffixed to the verb of a non-final clause. Korean has an extensive set of conjunctions that connect to the next clause, expressing temporal, causal, and contrastive relations among others. In this paper, I lay out a developmental trajectory of clause chaining construction in Korean based on longitudinal and cross-sectional data samples, focusing on conjunctive forms and functions as well as morphological and syntactic properties of connected clauses in a sentence. The database comes from longitudinal naturalistic speech data of five children collected regularly over different time periods between 2 and 5 years of age, and from elicited descriptions of short video events from children - aged 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 years - and adults. The results show that, at least from 2 years of age, the Korean children in the sample start connecting clauses using appropriate conjunctions. Within 6 months, they acquire several major conjunctions that express temporal, causal, conditional, and contrastive relations between events. By 4 years of age, the children's clause chains are quite adult-like in terms of the repertoire of conjunctive forms and functions, and of the morphological and syntactic features of the clauses that connect to the main clause. In particular they learn to express temporal relations that have some disjuncture between events. However, 4-year-olds still lack the ability to appropriately refer to differential subjects of the chained clauses and also to connect multiple clauses in a sentence. The elicitation data reveal that further development in clause chaining occurs over several years - with a milestone at 10 years - and through adulthood, particularly in relation to appropriate referential marking, conjunction frequency, and segmentation of a macro event into sub-events for clause-chaining construction. These developmental processes are presented from a cognitive perspective, in particular with regard to concept of temporal relation, reference specification involving two or more entities, and perceptual saliency of event type.
韩语是一种动词位于从句/句子末尾的语言。在一个句子中连接几个从句（每个从句都由一个主语和一个动词组成）时，连词（例如“然后”“因为，所以”）会加在非最后一个从句的动词后面。韩语有大量连接下一个从句的连词，可表达时间、因果和对比等关系。在本文中，我基于纵向和横断面数据样本，梳理出韩语中从句连接结构的发展轨迹，重点关注连词形式和功能以及句子中相连从句的形态和句法特性。数据库来自5名儿童在2至5岁不同时间段定期收集的纵向自然主义言语数据，以及3岁、4岁、6岁、8岁、10岁儿童和成年人对短视频事件的诱发描述。结果表明，至少从2岁起，样本中的韩国儿童就开始使用恰当的连词连接从句。在6个月内，他们掌握了几个表达事件之间时间、因果、条件和对比关系的主要连词。到4岁时，儿童的从句连接在连词形式和功能的全部技能以及与主句相连的从句的形态和句法特征方面已经相当像成年人。特别是他们学会了表达事件之间存在某种脱节的时间关系。然而，4岁儿童仍然缺乏恰当地指代连接从句的不同主语以及在一个句子中连接多个从句的能力。诱发数据显示，从句连接的进一步发展会持续数年——以10岁为一个里程碑——并贯穿成年期，特别是在恰当的指代标记、连词频率以及将一个宏观事件分割成子事件以进行从句连接结构方面。这些发展过程从认知角度呈现，特别是在时间关系概念、涉及两个或更多实体的指代说明以及事件类型的感知显著性方面。
