Acquisition of noun derivation in Estonian and Russian L1

Abstract

Acquisition of derivation is not a well-studied area in first language research and a comparative approach to the acquisition of derivation in different languages doesn’t exist. There is no information on how a child acquires derivation in a language with a rich and regular system of derivational patterns, or in a language where derivation is productive, but the system of derivational patterns is opaque. According to general ideas of complexity in a language, the child should start to use simplex stems first and, only after that, complex ones, that is, complexity should increase in the course of acquisition. Our paper is intended to address these issues, based on longitudinal child data from typologically different languages, Estonian and Russian. The results revealed significant differences in the acquisition of noun derivation in the two languages under observation. The system of noun derivation is acquired at a faster pace in Russian, while Estonian children have far fewer noun derivatives in their speech and they use different derivation suffixes with less regularity. Even so, the so-called building block model may be applied for both languages only partially. *** Nimisonatuletuse omandamine varases eesti ja vene keeles Nimisonatuletuse omandamine ei ole esimese keele omandamise uuringute kuigi pohjalikult uuritud valdkond ning nimisonatuletuse omandamise eri keeli korvutavat kasitlust veel ei ole. Seetottu puudub informatsioon ka selle kohta, kuidas laps omandab erinevad tuletusmallid ja -liited keeles, kus tuletussusteem on rikas ja reegliparane, voi sellises keeles, kus see susteem on kull iseenesest rikas, kuid mitte kuigi labipaistev. Uldiste keelelise kompleksusega seotud pohimotete jargi peaks laps alustama omandamist koigepealt lihtsonadest ja alles parast seda komplekssetest sonadest, st komplekssus peaks kasvama arengu kaigus. Siinse artikli aluseks on kahe tupoloogiliselt erineva keele, eesti ja vene keele pikiuuringu andmed. Tulemused osutavad kahe tuletussusteemi omandamise markimisvaarsetele erinevustele. Tuletus omandatakse vene keeles kiiremini. Eesti laste kones on tunduvalt vahem nimisonatuletisi ning nad kasutavad vaiksemat arvu tuletusliiteid. Komplekssete struktuuride omandamise uldine pohimote ehk nn “lihtsamalt keerulisemale” (ingl  building block model ) kehtib molema keele nimisonatuletuse omandamise kohta ainult osaliselt.