Published

The effect of givenness and referring expression on dative alternation in Norwegian: A reaction time study

m.vel — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 12:02:39 +0000

The effect of givenness and referring expression on dative alternation in Norwegian: A reaction time study m.vel Fri, 21/01/2022 - 13:02

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Anderssen,

Year

2021

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Nordic Journal of Linguisitcs

Issue / Page

1-36

Article Link

The effect of givenness and referring expression on dative alternation in Norwe…

This study investigates how givenness and pronominality affect the dative alternation in Norwegian. Previous studies have found givenness to influence the Double Object Dative (DOD) but not the Prepositional Dative (PD). Thirty-one Norwegian native speakers completed a speeded acceptability judgment task, in which given objects were expressed by definite DPs or pronouns, and either preceded or followed the new referent. DODs were found to be highly sensitive to givenness. Surprisingly, PDs also showed contextual dependency. Referring expressions affected the two structures differently: reaction times were faster with pronouns in DODs and slower in PDs. This suggests that the alternates have different processing biases, with the former preferring pronouns and the latter DPs. The results are further considered in relation to the notion of harmonic alignment, as PDs, in which the typically animate recipient is always the second object, and will thus consistently represent a suboptimal and non-harmonious order when givenness is adhered to.

The relative influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on word order in Croatian ditransitive structures

m.vel — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 08:08:15 +0000

The relative influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on word order in Croatian ditransitive structures m.vel Tue, 05/11/2019 - 09:08

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2019

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Selected papers on theoretical and applied linguistics

Issue / Page

23, 484-499

Article Link

m.velnic ISTAL 23

Attachment

The relative influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on word order in Croatian ditransitive structures

This paper aims to investigate how animacy, givenness, and focus influence word order in Croatian, as previous research has found that these factors have an effect on word order. Eighty-two participants completed an acceptability judgment task. The results showed, as expected, that animacy and givenness influence the animate/given object to precede the inanimate/new object, while focus provides the opposite effect. Focus is stronger than animacy because animacy has an influence only when focus is absent. Givenness has a weaker effect than the other factors because when animacy is balanced, there is a general preference for direct-indirect order. We thus reveal that these three factors are ordered hierarchically in the following way: focus > animacy > givenness.

Keywords: word order, ditransitives, givenness, focus, animacy, Croatian, Acceptability judgment task

Acquisition of a transparent gender system: A comparison of Italian and Croatian

m.vel — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 07:59:44 +0000

Acquisition of a transparent gender system: A comparison of Italian and Croatian m.vel Tue, 05/11/2019 - 08:59

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2020

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Frontiers in Psychology

Issue / Page

11/571674

Article Link

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.571674/full

Attachment

Velnic-Acquisition of a transparent gender system-manuscript.pdf

For a long time, transparency has been seen as a key facilitator for early acquisition of gender. This study compares the acquisition of the gender system of Italian and Croatian, both of which are considered transparent systems. The study focuses on the different degrees of transparency between the two languages by taking into account their extended nominal paradigms.

We have conducted an adjective elicitation task on a total of 60 monolingual Italian and Croatian children divided in two age groups (Italian=3;0 and 3;10, Croatian= 2;10 and 4;2).

The results reveal that the Italian gender system is mastered already by the youngest child (age=2;6) and that the two gender values are acquired simultaneously. However, the Croatian children show a significant difference in the error ratio between the two age groups, which indicates that the gender system is not yet acquired in the younger group (average age=3;0). Additionally, the results suggest that feminine is the first gender to be mastered in Croatian due to the regularity of its paradigm, and that neuter is the most problematic gender for the children, likely due to its lower frequency and syncretism with masculine throughout the case paradigm.

This paper adds to the body of research indicating that transparency of the gender system is not merely a binary feature, it underlines the relevance of placing the languages on a continuum with respect to transparency in order to make predictions related to the acquisition of the gender system.

Ditransitives structures in adult and child language: The role of animacy and givenness

m.vel — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 08:55:22 +0000

Ditransitives structures in adult and child language: The role of animacy and givenness m.vel Tue, 27/02/2018 - 09:55

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2017

Publication Status

Published

Journal

PhD Dissertation

Article Link

https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/12197

Attachment

The complete dissertation including the papers

This dissertation explores the effects that a semantic factor, animacy, and a pragmatic factor, givenness, have on the relative ordering of the two objects (IO-DO vs. DO-IO) in Croatian ditransitive structures. While the effects of animacy are explored only at a global level (object ordering), the effects of givenness are explored also in the choice of referring expressions. The effect that these factors have is explored both in adult and child language in a way that offers valuable insights for both groups. This research provides a new analysis in the acquisition of ditransitive structures as it reveals a major role of animacy in shaping children’s object order.

The results show that when the two factors are neutralised, there is an indication of DO-IO being the basic object order. Conversely, I find that the IO-DO is more frequently used both in naturalistic and in experimental data, but this frequency can be attributed to the fact that in double object structures the IO is prototypically animate and the DO is prototypically inanimate. I argue that both adults and children are sensitive to animacy, but children are more sensitive to it than adults. With regard to givenness, I find that it influences both object order and choice of referring expression in the adults, but only the choice of referring expression in the children’s data.

Keywords: ditransitive structures, animacy, givenness, word order, referring expressions, language acquisition, Croatian

The effects of discourse topic on global and local markers in Croatian ditransitives

m.vel — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 08:45:50 +0000

The effects of discourse topic on global and local markers in Croatian ditransitives m.vel Fri, 10/11/2017 - 09:45

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2018

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

Issue / Page

3(1), 105

Article Link

velnic 2018 glossa

Attachment

velnic 2018 glossa

This study investigates the impact that discourse topic (DT) has on (i) word order (global marking) and (ii) referring expression (local marking) in ditransitive structures in Croatian preschoolers and adult controls.

According to general pragmatic principles, the DT argument is expected to be placed before the rest of the sentence, thus complying with the (discourse)topic-comment order (Gundel 1988). It is also expected to be more likely to be expressed with a clitic or omitted altogether (Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski 1993).

We tested 58 monolingual Croatian children (mean age= 4;4) and 36 adult controls (mean age=21) in three conditions with different DTs (subject, direct object and indirect object) by using storybooks to elicit ditransitive structures, either the direct object-indirect object (DO-IO) or the indirect object-direct object order (IO-DO).

The results reveal that DT has an impact both on adult word order (DT-comment order) and referring expressions choice, while it has an effect only on children’s referring expressions, as the children use IO-DO 75% of the time regardless of DT condition. This is in line with previous studies that find that children mark givenness/newness first on local and then on global markings (Hickmann et al. 1996, Anderssen et al. 2014, Mykhaylyk, Rodina, and Anderssen 2013). We also find that children are over-specific as their use of NPs is higher than the adults’ use throughout the task (p.value=0.0006347).

Keywords: discourse topic, givenness, ditransitives, word order, referring expressions

The Effects of Animacy and Givenness on Object Order in Croatian Child Language

m.vel — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 10:00:48 +0000

The Effects of Animacy and Givenness on Object Order in Croatian Child Language m.vel Wed, 06/09/2017 - 12:00

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2018

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Journal of Slavic Linguistics

Issue / Page

Volume 27, Number 1, pp. 85-125

Article Link

Velnic 2019

Attachment

velnic 2018 JCL

This study investigates how givenness and animacy influence object order (IO-DO vs. DO-IO) in ditransitive constructions in Croatian child language. We have conducted an elicitation task with 59 monolingual Croatian children (mean age=4;4) and 36 adult controls (mean age=21), in which the participants were asked to describe images depicting ditransitive actions. These actions differed with regard to givenness (DO given, or IO given) and animacy (IO animate, or both IO and DO animate). Both groups demonstrated an animacy effect, as the preference for DO-IO significantly increased when both objects were animate, compared to when only the IO was animate, with adults showing the highest preference. A givenness effect, however, was found only when the DO was given. The children exhibited a new>given preference when only the IO was animate, but, when both objects were animate, there was an indication of given>new. We conclude that adults prefer the DO-IO order, and children are strongly influenced by animacy.

The influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on object order in Croatian ditransitives

m.vel — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:09:34 +0000

The influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on object order in Croatian ditransitives m.vel Thu, 22/06/2017 - 13:09

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2018

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Studia Linguistica

Article Link

Velnic (2018) 'The influence of animacy, givenness, and focus on object order i…

Attachment

m.velnic AJT Croatian adults

This study aims to investigate how animacy, givenness, and focus influence object order (direct/indirect) preference in Croatian ditransitive structures. An online survey testing acceptability judgements of four target word orders in various contexts was conducted on 82 native speakers of Croatian. We found that all three factors have an effect on word order preference. The study reveals a preference for DO-IO orders once animacy is neutralized and found that focus influences object order more strongly than a simple given/new contrast. The preferred word order is verb-directindirect because of its high judgment score across the task, indicating a wide contextual applicability.

Velnic, M. (2015). Of good thieves and old friends: An analysis of Croatian adjectival forms. Poljarnyj vestnik, 18, 18-54.

m.vel — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 09:38:24 +0000

Velnic, M. (2015). Of good thieves and old friends: An analysis of Croatian adjectival forms. Poljarnyj vestnik, 18, 18-54. m.vel Fri, 03/02/2017 - 10:38

Authors

Velnić, Marta

Year

2015

Publication Status

Published

Journal

Poljarnyj vestnik

Issue / Page

18: 18-54

Article Link

Velnić 2015

Croatian adjectives have two forms in the masculine gender: the Long (L) form and the Short (S) form. The main distributional difference is that the Short adjective can be in predicative position and the Long one cannot, while both can be in attributive position. This difference between attributive and predicative can be related to a variety of other cross-linguistic distributions concerning adjectives (Alexiadou 2001). It has been stated (Aljović 2002, Trenkić 2004) for (Serbo-)Croatian that the two forms mark a distinction in definiteness or specificity with the long one being [+DEF/+SPEC] and the Short one [-DEF/-SPEC].

A survey on 32 adults was conducted in order to obtain more information about the distribution of the two forms in general; to find out whether it is definiteness or specificity that is being marked by the Long form; and to check whether one of the forms (the Long one) can function as a subject of a sentence in the absence of a noun. The results of the statistical analysis show that the predicative/attributive distinction is not as strict as described in the previous literature (Silić and Pranjković 2007); and that the Long form is related to specificity but does not express it.

I propose an analysis that builds on cross-linguistic parallelisms described in Alexiadou 2001 and I propose that Croatian Long and Short distributional patterns are caused by the same factors as Noun Raising in Romance and Determiner Spreading in Greek, even though we find that this is not as strict as in those languages. However, it is only with expanding our cross-linguistic analysis to more languages that we can fully understand the nature of what these subtle differences of adjectives mark.