56th Linguistic Colloquium

ALVARADO BARRA, CAROLA; CRESPO ALLENDE, NINA; KOZA, WALTER; SILVA, MARÍA LUISA

Conferencia; 56th International Linguistics Colloquium; 2020

International Linguistics Society

This study aims to describe the extent in which children recognize the conceptualization of adverbial subordination and, therefore, how they linguistically encode these instances (Cristofaro, 2003; 2008, 2014). We compared the Typical development (TD) and Developmental Language Delay (DLD) child performances in a task designed to elicit orally adverbial subordinates (Alvarado, 2010). The theoretical and methodological framework is the development of syntactic complexity children’s language and Conceptual Subordination (CS) (Cristofaro, 2003). 10 years old Spanish-speaking children, 15 with DLD and 25 with TD (N=40), were evaluated. The analysis considered the frequency of CS linkages, focusing on the relationship between conceptual and linguistic encoding comparing TD and DLD performances. The results show no significant difference between groups in the number of conceptual linkages, but if we consider the different clausal forms of encoding adverbial relationships, we find a significant difference. This data indicates that DLD children do not have problems making adverbial conceptual linkages but have observed the use of different range of linguistic options to encode such links.