幼児期の「対象語行為語」構文の理解の手がかりについて

格助詞ヲ, 二の獲得の時期的ずれの検討から

抄録

This study was conducted to determine whether Japanese preschoolers could distinguish between the case particles -o and -ni in Object-Action sentences. Case particles are post-positioned case markers. They are syntactic cues of Japanese sentence comprehension: -O indicates Objective, while -ni indicates Goal case. On acting out tasks, 3-year-old children could not distinguish between -o and -ni, tending to comprehend as if they were all -o, which shows they considered the object word in those sentences as Objective case. Five-year-olds could distinguish between them on these tasks. But on verbal tasks where children were to respond verbally to Objective(-o)-questions and Goal(-ni)-questions after watching the E act out the sentences of [Agent +Objective+Goal+Action], even 5-year-olds could not respond correctly to the Goal-questions. This showed their inability to select Goal case from those sentences because of its serial position, despite their ability to differentiate between the two case particles.