CNCSIS IDEI nr. 1979: The correlation between morphology and syntax in the acquisition of Romanian as L1 [2009-2011]

Project coordinator: Larisa Avram

Aim: to investigate the correlation between morphology and syntax from the perspective of first language acquisition with a focus on the acquisition of the morpho-syntax of Romanian by monolingual children (age range 1-5 years) from a generative perspective.

Main directions
I.The acquisition of the functional categories of the verb: the acquisition of verbal morphology and its implication for the acquisition of the syntactic properties of the language (word order, the null subject parameter), the correlation between form and semantic interpretation in the acquisition of tense, aspect and mood;
II.The acquisition of the functional categories of the noun: the acquisition of determiners (morphology, syntax, semantics), with a focus on the acquisition of the article (definite and indefinite), the means of expressing possession and demonstratives in child language, the link between the acquisition of the article and that of pronominal clitics, as well as the correlation between the acquisition of determiners and anaphoric elements;
III.The acquisition of the functional categories of the adjective: the acquisition of the degrees of comparison of the adjective in relation to the acquisition of its semantic properties (gradability, genericity, temporariness, etc.);
IV.The acquisition of the preposition: at the borderline between the lexical and the functional domains: the link between the acquisition of the preposition and case;
V.The acquisition of negation: the correlation between the acquisition of negation and of finiteness.

Research team
Alexandra Cornilescu

The structure of the Determiner Phrase in Romanian: predictions for acquisition

Main properties of the Romanian adjective: predictions for acquisition

Negation in Romanian: predictions for acquisition

Mihaela Tănase-Dogaru

longitudinal corpus of monolingual Romanian (video recordings and transcribing data)

the acquisition of the Determiner Phrase in child Romanian

the acquisition of the adjective in child Romanian

the acquisition of negation

Anca Sevcenco

revising the available longitudinal corpora

experiment design

the acquisition of Dative clitics (longitudinal and experimental data)

the role of agreement and case in the acquisition of Relative Clauses (experimental data)

Daria Protopopescu

revising the available longitudinal corpora

longitudinal corpus: transcribing data

the acquisition of adverbs; (i) the correlation between the acquisition of functional categories and the acquisition of the order of adverbials and (ii) the correlation between the category of mood and modal adverbs in the acquisition process; (iii) the acquisition of tense and time adverbs

Veronica Tomescu

longitudinal corpus of Romanian in a bilingual setting (Romanian-Hungarian) (audio recordings and transcribing the data)

the acquisition of prepositions

the acquisition of vocabulary in a bilingual setting (Romanian – Hungarian)

the acquisition of clitic doubling constructions

Larisa Avram

the acquisition of tense

the acquisition of aspect

the acquisition of subjects

the acquisition of Accusative clitics