Russian Children and Their Relatives: What Can a Free Word Order Language Reveal About the Subject/Object Asymmetry?

The present study revisits the well-attested phenomenon of Subject/Object Asymmetry in relative clause comprehension by monolingual Russian pre-school children. Additionally, it examines the NP-V and the V-NP word order types when the embedded NP precedes or follows the verb. Both the word orders ar...

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Publicado en:Language Learning & Development Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 118 - 142
Autor principal: Edeleva, Julia
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Apr-Jun2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Apr-Jun2025
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      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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        183843078
        10.1080/15475441.2024.2372247
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        atl: Russian Children and Their Relatives: What Can a Free Word Order Language Reveal About the Subject/Object Asymmetry?
      aug:
        au: Edeleva, Julia
        affil: Department of German Studies, TU, Braunschweig, Germany
      su:
        Sound recordings
        Children
        Phonological awareness
        Descriptive statistics
        Thematic analysis
        Russians
        Data analysis software
      sug:
        subj:
          Sound recordings
          Children
          Integrated Record Production/Distribution
          Record Production
          Sound recording merchant wholesalers
          Phonological awareness
          Descriptive statistics
          Thematic analysis
          Russians
          Data analysis software
      ab: The present study revisits the well-attested phenomenon of Subject/Object Asymmetry in relative clause comprehension by monolingual Russian pre-school children. Additionally, it examines the NP-V and the V-NP word order types when the embedded NP precedes or follows the verb. Both the word orders are grammatical for Russian subject and object relative clauses alike. Object relative clause comprehension difficulty was evidenced across all the age groups. Word order alternation (V-NP vs NP-V) did not significantly affect the accuracy rates. Besides the efficacy of the agent-first strategy, growing morphological knowledge compels children to update their ongoing structural analysis, which results in embedded NP errors. Yet, even at 6 years of age, children do not display word order preferences to go with a particular relative clause type that are found in Russian-speaking adults. Restricted exposure to written texts at pre-school age as well as low validity of word order as a cue to thematic role assignment are discussed as possible reasons for children's insensitivity to word order manipulation in Russian relative clauses.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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