Incomplete acquisition of the Turkish differential object marking

Abstract

The differential object marking (the Accusative case) emerges very early, with very few errors in the speech of children acquiring Turkish. However, its early use is restricted to definite objects, although in adult speech it can be used with a variety of different interpretations, among which are specificity, presuppositionality, and wide scope with respect to other constituents. In this study, through experiments, 4;0, 5;0 and 6;0 year old children's comprehension of Accusative indefinites was tested. The results of the experiments suggested that the children did not differentiate Accusative-marked and non-case-marked objects in terms of their scope-taking properties, therefore provided evidence for an incomplete acquisition pattern despite the early emergence of the Accusative case in spontaneous productions.