Open AccessChildren’s comprehension of the verbal aspect in Serbian
Author(s) -
Maja Savić,
Maša Popović,
Darinka Andjelković
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
psihologija
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1451-9283
pISSN - 0048-5705
DOI - 10.2298/psi191120003s
Subject(s) - serbian , psychology , verb , comprehension , linguistics , meaning (existential) , semantics (computer science) , cognition , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , philosophy , neuroscience , psychotherapist , programming language
The aim of the study was to investigate how Serbian native speaking preschool children comprehend perfective and imperfective aspect in comparison to adults. After watching animated movies with complete, incomplete and unstarted actions, the participants were asked questions with a perfective or imperfective verb form and responded by pointing to the event(s) that corresponded to each question. The results converged to a clear developmental trend in understanding of aspectual forms. The data indicate that the acquisition of perfective precedes the acquisition of imperfective: 3-year-olds typically understand only the meaning of perfective; most 5-year-olds have almost adult-like understanding of both aspectual forms, while 4-year-olds are a transitional group. Our results support the viewpoint that children?s and adults? representations of this language category differ qualitatively, and we argue that mastering of aspect semantics is a longterm process that presupposes a certain level of cognitive and pragmatic development, and lasts throughout the preschool period.