Omissions and Overgeneralizations of Reflexive Clitic in the Acquisition of Reflexive Constructions in Croatian as L1

Abstract

Verb constructions with a reflexive marker are termed “reflexive constructions”. Reflexive constructions in language acquisition research have been studied mainly within a formal theoretical framework while focusing on developmental differences in comprehension of syntactically bound or free pronominal elements. The present study aimed to determine the acquisition pathway of reflexive constructions in Croatian by examining the errors that children produce in early stages of acquisition. Correct and erroneous reflexive verb constructions were extracted from the spontaneous language production of three children previously recorded and transcribed for the Croatian Corpus of Child Language (Kovačević 2003). Errors were classified as omissions or overgeneralizations and further analyzed with respect to the type of reflexive construction, the complexity of the verb’s argument structure and consistency between the reflexive marker and verb. The results showed that children initially omitted the reflexive marker, then gradually introduced it into their production, occasionally overextending its use and thus producing overgeneralization errors. With age they became more successful in producing reflexive constructions. Consistent use of a reflexive marker alongside the verb in child-directed speech influenced the error rates in different types of reflexive constructions, while potential influence of the complexity of argument structure needs to be studied further.