A further series of analyses aimed at determining whether the uses of temporal-aspectual markings were determined by discourse functional factors.
These analyses involved two steps. A first step consisted of determining different strategies in speakers’ overall use of inflections in the Indo-European languages, where narratives were distinguished as a function of their temporal anchoring (anchoring in the past vs. non-past). A second step consisted of examining more closely a subset of the narratives, namely those in which children alternated different inflections (Indo-European languages) or the uses and non-uses of different particles (Chinese). The aim of these more specific analyses was to determine whether the temporal-aspectual shifts in these narratives occurred in particular types of discourse contexts that could indicate their discourse-internal functions in the grounding of information across clauses.
10.3.1 Temporal anchoring in the Indo-European languages
The analyses concerning temporal anchoring in the Indo-European languages first determined for each narrative the extent to which the past vs. non- past was the predominant tense used (independently of aspectual distinctions). The narratives fell into the following three main types, as summarised in (A) to (C) below: narratives that exclusively contained either non-past or past tenses and a third category of mixed narratives in which both tenses co-occurred. Furthermore, the last category of narratives contained several types of cases, depending on whether or not the past or non-past was more frequently used. Among these cases, some clearly contained more past forms and others clearly contained more non-past forms (75%
or more of one inflection type), while very few narratives showed no predominance of one or another type of form (50% of each inflection type).1
(A) Exclusive use ofthe non-past:
narratives that only contained non-past inflections.
(B) Exclusive use ofthe past:
narratives that only contained past inflections.
(C) Mixed narratives:
narratives that displayed the conjoined uses of both past and non-past inflections and which included three types:
(C1) non-past-based mixed narratives:
narratives that were anchored in the non-past, i.e. that contained more non-past inflections than past ones (at least 75% non-past inflections);
(C2) past-based mixed narratives:
narratives that were anchored in the past, i.e. that contained
Discourse determinants more past inflections than non-past ones (at least 75% past inflections);
(C3) mixed narratives with no predominant tense:
narratives in which there were as many past as non-past inflec- tions (50% of each).
It can be seen that two main patterns emerge, as summarised below. The first one involves anchoring in the non-past and corresponds to two types of cases: narratives that are exclusively anchored in the non-past (type A) and mixed narratives that are non-past-based (type C1). In contrast, the second pattern involves anchoring in the past and corresponds to two other types of cases: narratives that are exclusively anchored in the past (type B) and mixed narratives that are past-based (type C2). The remaining category (type C3) includes a few cases that do not show any particular strategy with respect to temporal anchoring.
r Pattern 1: anchoring in the non-past:
–exclusive use of the non-past (type A) –non-past-based mixed narratives (type C1)
r Pattern 2: anchoring in the past:
–exclusive use of the past (type B) –past-based mixed narratives (type C2)
r No temporal anchoring:
–mixed narratives with no predominant tense (type C3).
These different cases are illustrated below from the corpora of the different languages. Examples from the French and German corpora illustrate narratives that are characterised by temporal anchoring in the non-past. The first two exam- ples (10.1) and (10.2) correspond to cases of exclusive anchoring in the non-past (type A):
(10.1) Alors c’est un cheval qui court . . . dans un pr´e . . . et mum . . . apr`es i s’arrˆete . . . i regarde un taureau . . . (pause) et i se remet `a courir pour sauter par-dessus la barri`ere pour essayer de – d’aller dans le champ du taureau . . . (pause) et en sautant . . . i mum . . . c’que – ses jambes elle cognent contre la barri`ere . . . (pause) i tombe . . . et mum . . . apr`es y’a le taureau, y’a . . . un oiseau qui am`ene une fin – une boˆıte . . . d’infirmerie . . . (pause) il am`ene . . . une bande, le taureau lui met une bande . . . et . . . apr`es il se – il gu´erit. (10 years)
(‘So there’s a horse that’s running in a meadow and then it stops, it looks at a bull and it starts running again to jump over the fence to try to go to the field of the bull and in jumping its legs they hit against the fence . . . he falls and then there’s the bull, there’s a bird that brings a
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nurse’s box, it brings a bandage, the bull puts the bandage on him and then he gets better.’)
(10.2) Da is ein Vogel mit drei K¨ucken. (pause) Eh . . . der Vogel fliegt weg, weil er f¨ur die K¨ucken Futter holen will. (pause) Da steht eine Katze, die will die K¨ucken fressen. Sie klet – die let – die Katze klettert dann am Baum hier hinauf. (pause) Da kommt ein Hund. Und der Hund will nicht, daò die Katze die Kăucken frisst. Da kommt der Vogel zurăuck.
Da beiòt der Hund der Katze in den Schwanz und zieht sie runter. Da kommt wieder der Vogel wieder mit em Wurm und der Hund jagt die Katze davon. (10 years)
(‘There is a bird with three chicks. uhm . . . the bird flies away because it wants to get food for the chicks. There stands a cat, it wants to eat the chicks. Then the cat climbs up the tree. There comes a dog. And the dog does not want the cat to eat the chicks. There the bird comes back. There the dog bites the cat in the tail and pulls it down. There the bird comes back again with a worm and the dog chases the cat away.’) Examples (10.3) and (10.4) also show the predominant use of the non-past for anchoring. However, in contrast to (10.1) and (10.2), these cases correspond to non- past-based mixed narratives, where a few uses of past tenses occur (type C1, past forms are shown in bold):
(10.3) Alors un jour c’´etaitune – un grand oiseau avec ses trois petits enfants.
Ils´etaientdans un nid. La maman elle s’en va chercher du manger pour ses petits enfants et y’a un chat qui arrive. Et il regarde un peu les trois petits enfants et il grimpe `a l’arbre. Et . . . apr`es y’a un autre chien qui arrive, y’a un chien qui arrive et qui lui tire la queue. Et la maman elle vient avec le manger et le manger c’est un ver de terre. Un petit ver de terre. Et apr`es le chat, d`es qu’ila vula maman, il part et le chien . . . il court apr`es. (7 years).
(‘So one day itwas [IMP]a big bird with its three little children. They were [IMP]in a nest. The mother she goes away to fetch some food for her little children and there’s a cat that comes. And he looks a little bit at the three little children and he climbs up the tree. And then there’s another dog that comes, there’s a dog that comes and that pulls its tail. And the mother she comes with the food and the food it’s a worm. A little worm. And then the cat, as soon as hehas seen [PC]
the mother, he leaves and the dog . . . he runs after him.’)
(10.4) Ein Pferd ist auf seiner Weide und freut sich und springt herum. Da sieht sie am gegnersichen Zaun ein Stier – oder ist das ne Kuh? ne Kuh . . . sie
Discourse determinants will zu ihr und springt ¨u – ¨uber den Zaun. Da bleibt sie h¨angen und f¨allt runter. Siehatsichwehgetan. (pause) Danach kommt en Vogel . . . mit m Verbandskasten und hilft ihm. Und die Kuh verbindet . . . das ist aber noch – verbindet den Fuò. Eh . . . und bald geht es ihr besser. (10 years) (‘A horse is in its meadow and has fun and runs around. There it sees on the other side of the fence a bull – or is it a cow? A cow . . . it wants to go to her and jumps over the fence. There it is hanging and falls down. Shehas hurt [PFK]herself. Afterwards a bird comes with a first-aid kit and helps him. And the cow ties . . . but this is still – ties the foot. Uhm . . . and soon he gets better.’)
Examples (10.5) to (10.8) show narratives from the English corpus characterised by an anchoring in the past. The following two examples (10.5) and (10.6) corre- spond to narratives that exclusively contain past forms (type B):
(10.5) Once there was this horse [ . . . ] named Fudge. And Fudgie was run- ning and he came up to this fence . . . and there was a cow. And he stopped . . . and then he decided he’d jump over the fence. So Fudgie came up and he jumped over. The one mistake . . . his leg . . . hit the fence and it broke the fence and his leg got hurt. So then . . . the cow (pause) decid – the bird that was sitti – there was a bird sitting up on the fence, he noticed. And the bird came down with the first-aid kit.
And then the cow started wrapping a bandage around his leg (pause) so it would get better. And that’s the end. (10 years)
(10.6) Once there was a bird in her nest and a cat came along and the bird was flying and the cat was looking up at the nest and the cat – and a dog came along and the cat was trying to climb up the tree and he was almost there and the dog bit the dog – bit the cat’s tail . . . and the cat . . . ran away. (7 years).
Examples (10.7) and (10.8) also show an anchoring in the past, but these cases correspond to past-based mixed narratives (type C2), that is narratives with a pre- dominant use of past forms, but in which a few non-past forms occur (shown in bold):
(10.7) There was a horse running . . . then he stopped. So he star – then he started running and jumped over the fence . . . then hejumps. . . and cracked the fence and he hurt his leg. (pause) And they . . . and they helped him bandage it up. That’s all. (7 years)
(10.8) Well, there’s a horse an’ he’s walking by this fence . . . and then he sees a cow . . . and I guess he wanted to – he was his friend or
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something . . . an’ he tried to jump over the fence to see the cow. And he broke the fence . . .’cause he hit the fence and bro – and he broke his leg or . . . hurt his leg . . . and all through thisthere’sa bird on the fence . . . and while – the minute he fell, the bird started to fly away . . . then he came back with a tool box in his hand to fix the . . . horse’s leg.
And that’s all. Then the cow helped . . . put it on . . . to put the band-aid on. He put a ban – a cast. (10 years)
Finally, example (10.9) shows one of the few mixed narratives that were found in the English corpus, in which no predominant tense is used (as many past and non-past inflections):
(10.9) The horse is running . . . the horse came to a fence . . . the horse is jump- ing over the fence. The horse fell. (4 years)
We first examine the distribution of narratives that displayed the exclusive use of the non-past, the exclusive use of the past, and mixed uses of both past and non- past forms. Figures 10.8 and 10.9 show for each story (HORSE and CAT stories,
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Figure 10.8 Overall temporal anchoring in English, French, and German HORSE stories
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Figure 10.9 Overall temporal anchoring in English, French, and German CAT stories
respectively) the proportions of subjects who used these different strategies within each Indo-European language (collapsing ages). Overall, the narratives in each language group are roughly equally divided between those that were mixed and those that were exclusively anchored in one tense (past or non-past). However, exclusive anchoring in the past is more frequent in English than in French or German, where such a strategy is very rare as compared to an exclusive anchoring in the non-past.
A similar pattern can be observed in both stories.
Figure 10.10 further shows the distribution of these types of anchoring across ages within each language (collapsing stories). It can be seen that the same overall distribution holds at all ages within each language group, with the following notable exceptions. First, exclusive anchoring in the past increases from four/five to ten years in English to decrease at adult age. Second, mixed uses of past and non-past forms tend to be most frequent in German at all ages as compared to English or French, although this difference is more marked at seven years.
We now turn to the different types of mixed narratives as a function of whether they were predominantly past-based, non-past-based, or not based either in the past or in the non-past. Figures 10.11 and 10.12 show the distribution of these
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Figure 10.10 Temporal anchoring in English, French, and German across ages
mixed narratives within each story and language group (collapsing across ages). In all languages most mixed narratives are non-past-based, although two differences across stories are notable in this respect. In English, non-past-based mixed narratives are more frequent in the CAT story than in the HORSE story, whereas the reverse pattern occurs in French. Only a few mixed narratives show no temporal anchoring in English. As for German, non-past-based mixed narratives are predominant in both stories.
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Figure 10.11 Overall temporal anchoring in English, French, and German mixed HORSE stories
Figure 10.13 shows the distribution of these different mixed strategies across ages within each language group (collapsing stories). Some differences across age groups can be observed in this respect, particularly in French and in English. In French, mixed non-past-based narratives are most frequent at all ages, except at ten years where mixed past-based narratives are even more frequent. In English mixed non-past-based narratives increase with age, becoming more frequent than mixed past-based narratives at ten years and at adult age. The few cases of mixed narratives containing as many past as non-past inflections occur at four/five and seven years in English (a total of five narratives) and in two of them the children used frequent idiosyncratic forms. As for German mixed non-past-based narratives are predominant at all ages, while mixed past-based narratives are rare (four/five years, seven years, adults) or do not occur at all (ten years).
In summary, relatively few children in the English corpus anchor their narratives in the non-past (exclusive non-past strategy or mixed non-past-based strategy), although this type of anchoring increases with age. Most English-speaking children anchor their narratives in the past, either relying exclusively on past inflections or producing past-based mixed narratives until ten years. In contrast, very few subjects
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Figure 10.12 Overall temporal anchoring in English, French, and German mixed CAT stories
use an exclusive past anchoring in French or in German, while most use either an exclusive non-past anchoring or a mixed strategy with non-past anchoring. The same pattern holds for both stories, despite a few variations that were noted across them in English and French.
10.3.2 Temporal-aspectual shifts
We now examine the discourse contexts in which temporal-aspectual shifts occurred in the narratives. Byshiftis meant here the following phenomena.
In the Indo-European languages shifts correspond to all uses of tense markings that did not correspond to the main anchoring (shifts from the past to the non-past or vice versa) in a given narrative (mixed narratives, by definition). In Chinese we saw that, although most utterances contain no aspect markers, almost all narratives contain some utterances with aspect particles (see Table 10.2 above). As shown in more detail below, these narratives contain two types of shifts: shifts from the use to the non-use of particles or vice versa, and shifts from one type of particle to another. In all languages, temporal-aspectual shifts occur in the context types described under (a) to (f).2
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Figure 10.13 Temporal anchoring in English, French, and German mixed narratives across ages
(a) Overlaps:utterances that represent events or states as being in some relation of simultaneity, partial anteriority/posteriority, or temporal proximity with other situations.
(b) Referent introductions:utterances that introduce referents either at the very beginning of the story (setting) or later into the plot, regardless of whether these first mentions are marked by indefinite forms and/or special constructions.
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(c) Narrator’s comments:utterances in which the narrator provides a comment upon his or her own narrative, e.g. typically when returning retrospectively to complement an earlier part of the narrative or to provide a summary of a sequence of events previously described.
(d) Explanations:utterances that provide explicit reasons or causes (other than mere internal states below) for events or states described in the story.
(e) Internal states:utterances in which the narrator describes cognition, volition, or desire on the part of a protagonist, thereby implicitly pro- viding a reason for subsequent states or actions.
(f) Descriptions:other utterances that describe events and/or the results of events (other than internal states) in the absence of any evidence indicating that they are part of a larger discourse context (e.g. part of overlaps) or that they belonged to another category (e.g. referent introductions).
Figure 10.14 provides a global overview of the discourse contexts of all shifts as a function of language, collapsing ages and stories, as well as different types of anchoring strategies, to which we return below. Overall, the majority of shifts occur in three types of discourse contexts: descriptions, referent introductions, and overlaps, while other discourse contexts are less frequent. This distribution can be observed in all languages, despite small differences, such as the somewhat more frequent descriptions and less frequent introductions in French and Chinese as compared to other languages.
Figure 10.15 further displays the relative proportions of temporal-aspectual shifts that occurred in the most frequent discourse contexts (descriptions, introductions, overlaps) as a function of age within each language (collapsing stories). In all languages shifts in descriptions decrease with age and those in overlaps increase with age, despite some fluctuation (e.g. in German). In French descriptions are most frequent and introductions least frequent at four/five years. In Chinese descriptions are most frequent, but introductions remain relatively infrequent at all ages.
Figure 10.16 summarises the proportions of all shifts that involved some poten- tial grounding distinction in discourse (all contexts excluding descriptions) as a function of age (collapsing stories). In all languages, these shifts increase with age.
In the Indo-European languages, this increase occurs particularly after four and five years, then again between ten years and adult age. In Chinese, however, this in- crease is more gradual from four and five years to adult age and shifts with a ground- ing function are generally less frequent than in the other languages, except at ten years.