Abstract
Transcripts of talk of three child-mother pairs taken from the CHILDES database were analyzed to investigate the order of emergence of the three-step system of ko-, a-, and so- series demonstratives in Japanese, and the factors which may influence the order of the emergence. Children were videotaped with their mothers in a free-play situation from around 16 months to 36 months of age. Contrary to the social cognitive hypothesis, individual differences were observed in the order, although the order of ko-, a-, then so- series predicted by the hypothesis was observed in some children. Furthermore, while there was some indication that individual differences in frequencies of demonstratives in mothers' speech were related to individual differences in the order of the emergence of the demonstratives in children's speech, the frequency in the linguistic input alone could not fully account for the order of emergence of the demonstratives. The need for more detailed analysis of linguistic as well as non-linguistic factors other than frequency of the demonstratives in caregivers' speech was discussed, and a longitudinal study investigating the relationship between social cognitive factors and acquisition of these demonstratives was suggested.
