THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBJECT CLITICS IN FRENCH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND REAL-TIME...

Léger, E.1,2, Prévost, P.1,2, Tuller, L.1,2, Haiden, M.3, Martineau, J.2, Aguillon-Hernandez, N.2

1: University of Tours 2 : UMR Inserm U930 3 : University of Lille 3, UMR 8163

THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBJECT CLITICS IN FRENCH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND REAL-TIME INTERPRETATION VIA EYE-TRACKING WHILE LISTENING

INTRODUCTION

11/09/13 GALA, OLDENBURG, 5 SEPTEMBER 2013 2

3RD PERS. OBJECT CLITICS IN FRENCH


•  A non-canonical position for the object (i.e: before the verb) :

Marie mange sa pomme ! Marie la mange Mary eats her apple Mary itfem/acc eats

•  A structure involving complexity (Jakubowicz et al, 1998), leading to delayed acquisition compared with subject clitics and reflexive clitics (Jakubowicz et al, 1998, 2003; Zesiger et al, 2010; Hamann et al, 1996).

3RD PERS. OBJECT CLITICS ACQUISITION


Age Comprehension of object clitics

Production of object clitics

3;9 80% (Jakubowicz 1998) 45,6% (Grüter 2005) 5;8 90% % (Jakubowicz 1998) 78,7% (Paradis & Crago 2003) 7;6 Ceilling effect 97,6% (Paradis & Crago 2003)

GAP : There is no study about the online comprehension of object clitics.

3RD PERS. OBJECT CLITICS ACQUISITION:


Picture matching task:

ONLINE PROCESSING OF OBJECT CLITICS: EYE-TRACKING


Why use eye-tracking to find out about the processing of object clitics?

Looking at a picture/thing present in one’s field of vision when hearing about it is an automatic process (Cooper, 1974). It detects quasi immediate effects (under 100ms – Altmann 2010) and is able to provide data for short elements such as French determiners (Dahan et al, 2000) Eye-traking has proven to be reliable to study word recognition and sentence processing with children ( Nation, 2003, Sedivy, 2010)

(Borovsky et al., 2012)

WHAT DOES PROVIDE EYE-TRACKING ?

Proportion of looks toward each of 4 pictures (one measure every 17 ms.)

METHODOLOGY


32 items with object DP

8 with Masculine clitic

8 with Feminine clitic

8 masculine DP (no clitic)

8 feminine DP ( no clitic)

EYE-TRACKING TASK


Only 8 verbs : each presented in the 4 conditions (pseudo-randomized order)

Structures with clitics: Subject – Clitic – Verb – Adverb – Det – Noun Structures without clitics: Subject – Verb – Adverb – Det - Noun

EYE-TRACKING TASK

Maman le conduit facilement, le camion Mummy itmasc/acc drives easily, the truck


Pictures Match for gender

Match for semantics

Target YES YES

Semantic competitor

NO YES

Gender competitor

YES NO

Filler NO NO

EYE-TRACKING TASK




Match for semantics

Target YES YES

Semantic competitor

NO YES

Gender competitor

YES NO

Filler NO NO

ELICITED PRODUCTION TASK


Q: Que fait le monsieur avec la voiture ? (What is the man doing with the car?) Target answer : Il la lave He itfem/acc is washing 8 items specifically targeting 3rd pers. object clitics.

PPPC (Clitic pronouns production protocole, Tuller et al, 2004)

PARTICIPANTS


•  Excluding criteria: -  Language impairment -  Hearing or visual impairment -  Developmental disorder -  Bilingualism

Age Mean SD Younger children (n=13) 4;7 to 6;7 5;6 0;9

Older children (n=9) 7;1 to 9;10 8;6 1;0

RESULTS


RESULTS: PRODUCTION


Rate of correct production of object clitics according to age

RESULTS: PRODUCTION


0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

4 y.o 5 y.o 6 y.o 7 y.o 8 y.o 9 y.o

Rate of correct production of object clitics according to age

RESULTS : PRODUCTION


Rate of production of object clitics according to age

*

RESULTS : PRODUCTION


0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

4 y.o 5 y.o 6 y.o 7 y.o 8 y.o 9 y.o

Rate of object clitic production according to age

RESULTS: EYE-TRACKING, OLDER CHILDREN


Sentences without object clitic Look toward target and semantic competitors clearly

separate while the noun is being heard

0%#

20%#

40%#

60%#

80%#

100%#%"of"loo

k"

Target#

Seman2c#comp.#Gender#comp.#

Filler#

RESULTS: EYE-TRACKING, OLDER CHILDREN


0%#

20%#

40%#

60%#

80%#

100%#

%"of"loo

k"

Target#

Seman2c#comp.#Gender#comp.#Filler#

Sentences with object clitic Look toward target increased before the end of the adverb

= the clitic has been processed

RESULTS: EYE-TRACKING, YOUNGER CHILDREN


Sentences without object clitic Look toward target and semantic competitors clearly

separate while the noun is being heard (as in older children)

0%#

20%#

40%#

60%#

80%#

100%#

%"of"loo

k" Target#

Seman2c#comp.#Gender#comp.#Filler#

RESULTS: EYE-TRACKING, YOUNGER CHILDREN


0%#

20%#

40%#

60%#

80%#

100%#%"of"loo

k"

Target#

Seman2c#comp.#Gender#Comp.#Filler#

Sentences with object clitic Look toward target increased before the end of the adverb

= the clitic has been processed

DISCUSSION


DISCUSSION


•  Do children aged 4-10 process object clitics ? ! YES, even young children aged 4-5. •  Why didn’t young children perform as well as older

children ? ! Processing in younger children may not be as

efficient as in older children because grammatical knowledge may not be the only needed competence for a well-processed sentence Young children have more immature executive functions (Zelazo et al, 2003). So they may have difficulties inhibiting the second answer (the semantic competitor) compatible with the verb semantics.

DISCUSSION


•  If young children do have the grammatical knowledge to process object clitics, why didn’t they produce them systematically ?

! Systematic production could be prevented by non-linguistic factors such like working memory, considering object clitic do involve complexity.

! Production has been shown to involve articulary and planning and coordination (Lobley et al, 2005), which are not involved in comprehension.

DISCUSSION : Is the comprehension better than production ?


0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

70,00%

80,00%

90,00%

100,00%

4 y.o 5 y.o 6 y.o 7 y.o 8 y.o 9 y.o

Rate of correct production according to age

Correct production

Look of younger children toward pictures while listening to structures with clitics

CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES


•  These results are promising and need to be confirmed with a larger population of young children (between 3;6 and 5) in order to be strengthened.

•  Production of object clitics being particularly difficult for children with SLI but also for children with ASD (Tuller et al., in prep), we plan to study object clitic processing in populations with pathological language development such as children with SLI and children with ASD.

SPECIAL THANKS TO…

And thank you for your attention.


All the members of UMR 930 Team « Autism »

Thanks to the schools directors, all the children and their family

THE DEVELOPMENT OF OBJECT CLITICS IN FRENCH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND REAL-TIME...

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