Understanding temporal information at the beginning of acquisition 2) the event time system (1;6-2;6),

3) the restricted reference time system (2;6-4;0),

2.1. The early temporal system - Smith (1980) & Weist et al. (1991) 4) the free reference time system (4;0 onwards).
Wagner (2001): children encode tense relations through the inflectional
1) the speech time stage (before 1;6): the child processes only one temporal
morphology, being able to distinguish between the present, the past and the future.
interval (ST = RT = ET) and there is an emphasis on the here-and-now.
a) How is children’s temporal system organized and how does it evolve at various
- children do not make tense, aspectual, modal distinctions.
ages?
This might be interpreted in two ways, either that "child language is tenseless" or
b) Is the child’s temporal system similar to/different from the adult’s temporal
that "the only tense at this primary stage is present tense".
system?
-The verbal forms that emerge during this age interval are probably unanalyzed.
c) In what order do the linguistic expressions of temporality emerge?
(5) CHI: tăceţi ! (Child B. 1;6)
According to Reichenbach (1947), when adults process tense information they
establish relations between three time intervals: the event time (ET), the speech
(6) MOT: ia zi: Dolly ...
time (ST), and the reference time (RT). The latter is crucial in the interpretation
CHI: Dolly ... (Child B. 1;6)
of perfect tenses.
MOT: are...
CHI: are +...
Smith (1980): the Reichenbachian notions of Speech Time, Reference Time and
MOT: şase ...
Event Time can be used to build a theory of the child temporal system.
CHI: şase ...
MOT: pui .
The child's temporal system is not essentially different but only simpler than the
CHI: pui .
adult system: “both have the essential property of relating a time to an orientation
time by simultaneity and sequence” (1980:265).
(7) a. CHI: nu-i . (Child B. 1;6)
[While looking at the pictures in a magazine .]
“Children’s early temporal ordering system differs from the adult system in 2
ways: only 2 times are involved, and orientation is fixed at ST” (1980:265). The
child's tense system also comprises relations of simultaneity and sequence.
2) the event time stage begins at around 1;6-2;0.
- the child is already able to make tense distinctions between the past and the non-
In the first stages (by age 4) children can conceive of a time other than ST,
past, aspectual distinctions between the imperfective and perfective viewpoints in
anterior to ST, but the temporal orientation is always towards ST => children work
Slavic languages, and is able to assign modal values
with 2 temporal parameters: ET and ST, but for them RT = ST
(7) b. vine mu(s)ca. B. 1;11.26
At a later stage the children learn how to work with a RT that is distinct from ST
"The fly is coming."
c. a venit (r)aţa. B. 2;2.23
Weist et al. (1991) elaborate on Smith's model and suggest that the child goes
has come duck-the
through four stages or “temporal systems”:
"The duck has come."
d. o să vină. B. 2;2.13
1) the speech time system (age 1;0 -1;6),
O SĂ come-SUBJ
 "(The duck) is going to come." 4) during the final free RT stage (which begins around 4;0) children separate RT
from ET. Thus RT is no longer fixed, but flexible. The temporal system of the
e. perfective child includes 3 distinct time intervals and this allows the emergence of the past
pochital (Andrej, 2;4) perfect (around 4;0-4;5) and connectives like before and after.
"He read a while" Buja (2008): found evidence of the use of the Romanian pluperfect (mai-mult-ca-
f. imperfective perfectul) by 5-year-old children in story-telling, but not by children of younger
chital (Andrej, 2;5) ages, which suggests that Weist's developmental calendar is on the right track.
"He read"
(8) C: a fost odată ca niciodată un copil, un cîine şi o broscuţă; iar copilul
acesta avea o broscuţă într-un borcăne:l (...) [Da!] (...) foarte frumoasă;
During the event time stage, the child separates ET from ST, but not RT from ST. iar după o zi, (..) broasca ieşise din borca:n. (Claudiu, 5;5)
The child can place ET before/at/after ST, hence he can describe past, present and
future events (ET =/= ST). The reference time is still not independent, it is fixed at 2.2. Experimental evidence Weist et al. (1991)
ST (RT = ST) (Smith 1980).
Subjects: Polish, American and Finnish children
3) The restricted RT stage starts at 2;6-3;0 - the onset of the use of temporal
adverbs and clauses which indicate RT (Weist 1991:69). Children start using 5 age groups for each country and 12 children in each age group
temporal adverbs and adverbials to locate RT.
average age: Polish: 2;6/3;6/4;6/5;5/6;7
(7') a. ştii ce-am mîncat la grădi aseară cînd ne~am trezit? (Child I. American: 2;8/ 3;6/4;6/ 5;6/6;5
3;1) Finnish: 2;7 / 3;6 /4;6/ 5;7/6;6

b. *IOA: în [*] toate pozele astea' s pozele tale? Method: - sentence-picture matching task
*CHI: da.
*CHI: şi ăsta sînt eu. (...) Children were presented with two pictures .The experimenter read two sentences
*IOA: şi viteazu(l) ăsta? and then asked: Which one shows... and then he repeated one of the two
*CHI: da. alternatives.
*CHI: cînd eram eu mic.
*CHI: (...) cînd eram eu mare (...) şi cînd aveam eu cal
adevărat. 1) the event time stage: - children are supposed to know :
- the difference between the present, the past and the future
During this stage, the child can separate ET from ST (ET =/= ST), but he keeps - the difference between perfective and imperfective morphology
RT fixed either at ET (RT=ET), or at ST (RT=ST) (Swift 2004:118). He can
describe past, present and future events with the appropriate tenses, but is unable Absolute tense: past versus future:
to describe events in which the ET, RT and ST are distinct (e.g. he would not use
the Romanian mai mult ca perfect or the English past perfect for which ET < RT < The pictures display an anticipated event with a completed event
ST).
Test questions
English: The girl threw / will throw the snowball.
Polish Dziewczyna (rzuc - i - ł-a - ø / rzuc -i - ø) kulką. Present Perfect: ST = now
throw-pfv-past-fem-3sg // throw-pfv-non-past-3sg RT =
Finnish: Tyttö (heitt-i- ø / heittä - ø- ä) lumipallo-n ET
throw-past-3sg / throw-nonpast-3sg snowball ACC
Polish: the verb is perfective past. The perfective non-past (present) form = future
Finnish: verbs have past and non-past forms. The non-past form combines with a Father bought the Christmas tree yesterday
direct object in the accusative case to produce future meaning.
Past Tense: ST = now
Aspect: imperfective versus perfective RT =
ET
The pictures display a completed event and an incomplete event
All the sentences contained adverbs that clarified RT:
Test questions just => RT = now
yesterday => RT = past
English: The girl (was drawing / drew ) a flower
Polish: Dziewczyna ø-rysowa - ł - a - ø / na-rysowa- ł - a - ø kwiatek English and Finnish have a contrast between a simple past and a present perfect
impf-draw-past-fem-3sg/ pfv-draw-past-fem-3sg Polish - only the past perfective form - the adverbs serve to realize the distinction

Finnish: Tyttö piirs-i- ø kukka-a / kuka -n 3) the free RT stage: children are able to use the past-perfect
draw-past-3s flower-PART / flower -ACC
Past perfect versus simple past
2) The restricted RT stage:
Each picture portrays two situations. In one picture two events occur at the same
- children start using adverbs and adverbials to locate RT time. In another picture one event is completed before the other event starts
- they should be able to distinguish between recent past (RT = now) [present
perfect] and remote past (RT = ET) Test questions

Test questions English: The boy scout started /had started the fire when his friend arrived.

English: Father has just brought the Christmas tree. // Father bought the The boyscout started when his friend arrived.
Christmas tree yesterday ST= now
Polish: Tatuś właśnie przyniós - ł - ø / Wczoraj tatus przynios - ł- ø- ø choinkę RT
daddy just bring-pf-past-masc-3sg / yesterday daddy bring-pf-past- ET
masc-3s
Finnish: Isä on-ø juuri tuo-nut / to-i- ø eilen joulukuusen The boyscout had started when his friend arrived.
be- non-past-3sg just bring-PP / bring-past-3sg yesterday
ST= now
Father has just brought the Christmas tree. RT
ET
 Cartoons: children were asked to tell a story about a set of 3 pictures

Table 3 The earliest age at which two-thirds of the children produced the
relevant contrastive verbal forms

Language specific predictions Event Time stage Restricted RT Free RT

stage stage
Aspect Aspect Tense Past vs Past Pf.
English, Polish: aspect is marked systematically Pres.Pf
Polish has minimal pairs of perfective and imperfective verbs Polish 2;6 2;6 - -
English: progressive morphology for imperfective meaning English 2;6 2;6 - -
Finnish: aspect is coded in multiple ways: verbal derivational morphology, the 3rd Finnish 4;6 2;6 3;6 -
infinitive [a nonfinite verb plus a locative case suffix] and the partitive versus
accusative case distinction with transitive verbs only. In all three languages most children produced past and future forms. If we
compare this finding with the age in the comprehension test, it corresponds with
=> Polish and American children might learn aspect faster than Finnish children the Polish and English results. However, all Finish children produced the past and
non-past verb forms, but only at 6;6 did they pass the comprehension test.
Results
=> the tense comprehension experiment did not work well for Finnish
Table 2 The age at which children's performance was significantly better
than chance Polish and American children produced aspectually contrasting verb forms at 2;6 -
this parallels the results in comprehension.
Event Time stage Restricted RT Free RT
stage stage Most Finnish children did not produce the aspectual contrast until 4;6 - the same
Aspect Tense Past vs Past Pf. happened in comprehension.
Pres.Pf
Polish 2;6 2;6 6;6 - ---
English 2;6 2;6 5;6 - The Finnish children used the present perfect more than the American children - at
Finnish 6;6 6;6 6;6 6;6 3;6 the Finnish children produced present perfect forms, while American children
produced the present perfect infrequently - they never produced the past perfect

Production of tense & aspect forms Only Finnish children understood the past perfect in comprehension.

Method: elicitation
Questions: Tell me what happened earlier this morning.
What do you plan to do when we finish talking?
When did you last play with your favourite play?
The poor results on tense comprehension for Finnish children => due to the
sentences used in the experiment +> redesign
new results: at 2;6 Finnish children do not know aspect and tense distinctions, but
4;6 children performed well on tense and aspect.
General discussion

The children enter the Restricted Reference Time stage (the stage in which they
use adverbs to locate RT and distinguish between the simple past and the present
perfect) about the same age crosslinguistically - this is at around 4;6 - because
children aged 2;6 and 3;6 fail at making such distinctions while children aged 5;5
and 4;6 manage to make them.

This is connected to conceptual development - the emergence of the capacity for

decentration (the ability to assume a perspective other than your own)

- "The child must develop the capacity to view temporal location from different
perspectives, not just from the egocentric perspective of ST" (Weist et al. 1991)

"Johnston (1985) - there is a trnasition from spatial location based on proximity

and intrinsic object features to location based on order and projection relations.
This spatial transition occurs at a similar but slightly earlier phase in development
than the temporal transition. The transitions found in the spatial and temporal
domains are qualitatively similar as they both involve a shift from absolute to
relative location."

There are crosslinguistic differences w.r.t. the speed at which tense-aspect

forms are acquired.

-tense and aspect contrasts are more difficult for Finnish children than for Polish
and American children

- Polish and English have distinct morphologies for each tense/ aspect feature

form-meaning-mapping almost one-to-one

In Finnish: the partitive case on the object may express: partial object,
imperfective aspect, the object of negation