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Development of forms and functions of negation in the early stages of language acquisition: a study in Tamil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

R. Vaidyanathan
R. Vaidyanathan*
Affiliation:
Nair Hospital, Bombay
*
Audiology and Speech Therapy School Nair Hospital, Bombay-400 008, India.
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Abstract

The development of forms and functions of negation in parent–child interactions in the early stages of language acquisition is discussed with illustrative examples from field data relating to two Tamil-speaking children and their parents. An attempt is made to provide a scheme for analysing the negatives in children's speech, maintaining the three basic functions of Bloom (1970) unaltered. Subcategories of these functions are introduced, taking into consideration the interactional situations as they are perceived by the parents and children. Children, it is observed, acquire the forms and functions of negation in a clear developmental sequence. They acquire and use the free forms naanaa (veeṇḍaam) ‘No, I don't want’ first, followed by negatives involving bound forms. Certain forms like maaṭṭeen ‘I won't’, muḍiyaadi' I can't’ and even veeṇḍaam are used in isolation (as free forms) first. Only later are they used with verb infinitives. The development of functions of negation follows the sequence: rejection, non-existence, prohibition and denial. Thus the children of this study show preference for rejection over non-existence as observed by earlier scholars.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 51 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

I express my sincere thanks to Professor R. Narasimhan, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for his guidance and valuable suggestions in the preparation of this paper. I would like to thank the Dean T. N. Medical College for her kind permission to carry out this study.

References

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