Subject of modal utterances in Russian child speech (case study)

This study is dedicated to the functioning of means of expressing subject semantics (personal pronouns and nouns) in relation to the development of modal (deontic and epistemic) evaluation of utterances, considered in the context of modally unmarked verb-based constructions. The repertoire of early expressions for each predicative category is identified, their frequency and distribution characteristics are determined and the features of the corresponding utterances are discussed. Modal constructions and the means of expressing the subject within them in the child’s speech production are compared with similar data in the speech of adults — child-directed speech and adult-directed speech. The material for the study is a longitudinal corpus of data, transcribed and morphologically coded in accordance with CHILDES (over 8 hours of audio and video recordings, containing more than 15,500 tokens). The target informant is a typically developing, three-year-old Russian-speaking boy from a middle socio-economic status family. An oral sub-corpus of the Russian National Corpus is used to compare the subject and modal preferences of speakers in the «adult — child» dyad and in adult-directed speech. The results of the analysis of the subject component in child utterances indicate the dominance of personal pronouns with first-person semantics over other personal semantics and their expressions. Within the modality domain, deontic semantics predominates over epistemic. Within the former obligation prevails, while within the latter uncertainty is dominant. Deontically and epistemically marked utterances show a strong correlational relationship. In terms of the frequency of modal-marked utterances, child speech production is comparable to the adult-directed speech, while in terms of the preferences for subject expression means, it aligns with parental input. In modal utterances in the «adult — child» dyad, the proportions of personal pronoun subjects and their pro-drop are equal, whereas in adult-directed speech, personal pronouns are used more frequently than omitted. A common feature for all speakers is the lower frequency of nominal subjects.