ESTONIAN CHILDREN'S CASE FORM ERRORS INDICATE A DIVERSE HOME LANGUAGE BACKGROUND

While some Estonian words have only one way to express the partitive plural case, others have two. Counterintuitively, a new study reveals that Estonian children make more errors with these dual-form words, even though one might expect more correctness with two options. However, Estonian children still learn to use grammatical cases significantly earlier than their English-speaking peers.

"There is a relatively large amount of variation in Estonian," says Virve-Anneli Vihman, Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Tartu (UT). This variation is partly due to the history of the Estonian written language, which has been influenced by different dialects and contact languages. Different word forms may also be used depending on the level of formality or social background, and their use changes over time. "For example, in my own life, I've noticed a change in whether we say head reisi (good trip - partitive singular) or head reisu (older form). My father, who used the Estonian of the pre-war generation, said head reisu. Now head reisi is said: the use of -i is expanding," the professor illustrates.

She addressed language variation in her new study. Together with Mari Aigro, a research fellow in morphosyntax at UT, and colleagues from Croatia, she comparatively studied how children with Estonian and Croatian as their mother tongues acquire parallel forms. The study involved 60 Estonian and 80 Croatian children aged three to six. In Estonian, the researchers looked at the acquisition of different forms of the partitive plural, while in Croatian, they examined the genitive plural. "The results were very different in the two languages, and the language acquisition process looked very different," Vihman notes.

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The children participating in the study underwent a word elicitation task. This meant they were shown drawn pictures of, for example, a rabbit and apples. Initially, a puppet with a recorded voice told each child that the picture was an apple, and the child had to repeat the word õun (apple - nominative singular). "Then a picture was shown where the rabbit is looking at many of these things. The child had to explain to the puppet how 'The bunny sees many...' and then say either õunu or õunasid or õune or õuni (apples - partitive plural)," Virve Vihman describes.

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According to her, previous studies have shown that Estonian children are relatively skilled in forming cases and case forms by the age of three. Compared to three-year-old English-speaking children, they have a good grasp of, for example, irregular plural forms and past tense forms. "The question is, do they use both parallel forms? Also, when they make mistakes, what kind of mistakes do they make?" Vihman discusses.

In her study's experiment, children in both languages made more mistakes with words that have parallel forms. In the case of Estonian, they were more likely to incorrectly form vowel-ending forms like õun-õunu, where the final vowel differs in the partitive. At the same time, it was easier for children to form -sid ending forms like õun-õunasid.

"Perhaps children have noticed that there is some uncertainty associated with these words because different forms are used."

According to Vihman, the result is interesting because words that can only be inflected in one way, such as kass-kasse (cat-cats - partitive plural) and porgand-porgandeid (carrot-carrots - partitive plural), and words that have multiple inflection possibilities, such as luik-luiki-luikesid (swan-swans - partitive plural) and saba-sabu-sabasid (tail-tails - partitive plural), both belong to the Estonian language system. If the system allows one word to be correctly formed in several ways, one might think that the child has less room for error. "With the word õun, for example, there are two variants, and both are correct. However, with banaani (banana) or auto (car), only one variant is correct. Yet it turned out that children made more mistakes specifically with words that have parallel forms," Vihman points out.

The professor says the finding shows that even if children themselves only use one parallel form, the different forms of the word have influenced them. "Perhaps children have noticed that there is some uncertainty associated with these words because different forms are used," she suggests. In such a case, the child is still seeking clarity in this uncertainty and is adjusting the system for themselves. For example, they try to grasp whether there is any difference in the use or meaning of the two forms. "On the other hand, all plural forms are less frequent than singular forms, and the child doesn't hear them as much. If there are two different forms, they hear that one form even less," Vihman reasons.

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In Croatian, -a is the most frequent genitive plural form, in both parallel and uniformly inflected words. General frequency influenced children's use of forms: according to the professor, they ignored the parallelism and chose only one, the -a form. "The distribution of forms in Croatian is different, and the -a form is more often one of the parallel forms in Croatian. When in doubt, -a is a 'safe' choice," Vihman describes.

In Estonian, on the other hand, the input heard by the child is more diverse, according to the professor's assessment: "There is no single form that the child could mostly use and be more or less accurate. They have to learn the different forms because even those words that have only one form can be both vowel-ending and -sid ending."

Comparison of Languages is Scarce

According to Virve Vihman, the study provides new knowledge for speech therapists and teachers about how Estonian is acquired as a first language, but the aim of the experiment was different. "Linguists and psychologists are interested in the more general question of how language variation is acquired. Does a child initially use two parallel forms interchangeably and then learn their different contexts of use? Or vice versa, do they make the task easier for themselves, choose one and then start adding the other?" she discusses. Researchers are also interested in how a child learns the second parallel form and to what extent they notice the difference in the use of the two variants.

"Theoreticians suggested a few years ago that children tend to choose one form at the beginning. Then they add the second and use one in one context and the other in another. Finally, there is overlap in their use of forms," Vihman states. The experiment with Estonian children also showed that both forms are already present in their language use by the age of three, and they use both.

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However, it became clear that if parallel forms occur in a word, children do not acquire these words as quickly. "You can have both a -sid ending and a vowel ending, but you still need to know what that vowel ending is. This takes more time," the professor explains. In words like kala-kalu (fish-fish - partitive plural), nuga-nuge (knife-knives - partitive plural), or muna-mune (egg-eggs - partitive plural), the partitive plural also means that the stem's final vowel changes. According to Vihman, such words consistently emerge as error-prone in every study of Estonian first language acquisition. "Where there are parallel forms, children tend to choose the safer -sid form. For example, they say kivisid (stones - partitive plural) instead of kive," she points out.

"By the age of three, children already use most cases with at least some words, except for the rarest cases."

In general, Estonian is a case-rich language, according to Vihman, which is why a child acquiring Estonian as their mother tongue immediately starts using them. "They grasp a certain form as a single word and start using it. For example, they say õue (outside - illative singular) before õu (yard - nominative singular) because people talk about õue minek (going outside)," the professor illustrates. A child starts using one word in two different cases or one case with different words around the age of two. "By the age of three, children already use most cases with at least some words, except for the rarest cases," Vihman notes.

According to her, the new study was important because it provided an opportunity to compare two languages belonging to different language families. "Both in linguistics in general and in children's language acquisition, there is too much emphasis on English and other Indo-European languages," she says. Although studies of different languages are increasing, their methodology is too different for comparison. "In our morphology research project led by the University of Sheffield, we used exactly the same methodology in both languages. This makes it easier for us to define where the difference between the languages comes from," Vihman concludes.