engleski

Expression of possession in typically develloped (TD) Croatian children and children with speech language impairment (SLI) at age of 3 to 6

In Croatian, possession may be expressed by possessive adjective, possessive pronoun, possessive genitive and possessive dative. All grammarians give clear preference to possessive adjective to express possession. Children at age of 3-6 most often use od+gen for expressing possession. A reason for their frequently and long retained usage lies in the fact that it is easier for a child, who has not master morphologic yet, to express possession with od+gen, because od+gen in contrast to possessive adjective has minimal morphological transformation (Kuvač&Palmović, 2007.). The aim of this study was to find out how SLI and TD children express possessive relations at age of 3-6. The possessive expression was tested with15 pictures which contain animate and inanimate possessors divided into masculine, feminine and neutral gender. For each possessor we constructed three examples of possessed in each gender and possessive relations refer to kinship relation, body-part and object- owner relations. The materials were applied on two groups of examinees, children with SLI and TD children, while each group was divided into three age groups. Result has shown that SLI children and TD children at the age 3-6, most often use od+gen for possession expression for animate and inanimate. In both cases, adjectives are very rare and their frequency is not extended with an increase in their age. Younger SLI children often express possession by nominative, od+nom, dative, accusative, descriptive adjective and non- preposition genitive. Possession for inanimate is always expressed with od+gen by TD children, while possession for animate is expressed with od+gen or occasionally with possessive adjective. SLI children in possession expression, and especially in formation of adjectives, have made considerably more morphological mistakes. It is obvious that TD children acquire those possessive adjectives which are frequently used in their input, but still not generalizing the rules of possessive adjective formation.

possesion ; specific language impairment ; Croatian language

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