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Development of forms and functions of interrogatives in children: a longitudinal study in Tamil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

R. Vaidyanathan
R. Vaidyanathan*
Affiliation:
Nair Hospital, Bombay
*
School of Audiology and Speech Therapy, Nair Hospital, Bombay 400008, India.
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Abstract

The development of the forms and functions of interrogatives in parent-child interaction in the early stages of language acquisition is discussed with illustrative examples from data relating to two Tamil-speaking children and their parents. The analysis of the data reveals that children first acquire and use intonation questions followed by enga ‘where’, enna ‘what’ and yaari ‘who’. Yes/no questions using the interrogative marker -aa are acquired in the next stage when the children are able to use verb endings. Similarly question words that take case markers are acquired in the next stage. It is emphasized that interrogatives serve a multiplicity of communicative functions and are not restricted to the information-seeking role. Children, when they begin to use interrogatives, model their usage of them on the adult behaviour patterns to which they have been exposed, both in terms of form and function.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 1988 , pp. 533 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Professor R. Narasimhan, Computer Group, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, for his valuable guidance and advice during this study and in the preparation of the manuscript. I would like to thank the Dean, T. N. Medical College for her kind permisson to carry out this study.

References

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