POSSESSIVE CHOICE IN SPEECH PRACTICE OF CHILDREN OF PRESCHOOL AND SCHOOL AGE (ACCORDING TO THE RESULTS OF THE LINGUISTIC EXPERIMENT)

The concept of ownership, personal belonging is an integral part of understanding the world around us. To a greater extent, it depends on the culture and mindset of the particular people. The category of possessivity as one of the major linguistic categories is represented in all the languages of the world. Ownership in linguistics is interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, ownership can refer to a legal right to own something, possessor's direct ownership (the subject), where the possessor is an animate object (a person or an animal), and the possessed (the object) is an inanimate one. On the other hand, “in a broader sense of possessivity, it may contain not only a particular object of possessivity, but also an action or a characteristic represented as a kind of a substance in the language” [10, P. 202]. In this article, we adhere to a narrower understanding of possessivity which can be expressed in several ways in the Russian language: By an attributive (using a noun in the genitive case, possessive pronoun, and adjective) and a predicate (using verbs of possession, for example, an auxiliary verb “to be” and an independent verb “to belong”.) Scientists in the field of Philology [5], [6], [9] consider the category of possessivity and the ways of its expression from the point of view of theoretical linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics. In this case, related languages are analyzed (such as Czech and Russian, English and German). Linguists described possessive constructions with possessive pronouns [7] and verbs that express the idea of ownership [8] in detail, but they didn't fully cover the adjectives that, in our opinion, have greater structural and semantic diversity. In Russian, there is a special category of adjectives used to indicate possession – these are possessive adjectives, the fate of which, as in Vinogradov's precise phrase, “is devoid of prospect” [2, P. 197], but the reasons of that attitude are still unknown.

Adjectives are essentially a bookish word form, so the use of this part of speech in oral communication is of particular interest, especially in children's speech. After all, kindergartens and schools are working on the development of speech; the attention is given to adjectives as well. The main task of adjectives is to make speech more expressive, more precise. In this connection, we conducted an experiment, the aim of which was to identify language preferences when it comes to the choice in possessive position.

The experiment was conducted from March to July 2016 in schools and kindergartens of Omsk and Omsk region (Gymnasium No. 84, School No. 47, School No. 144, Irtysh School; Kindergartens No. 339, 354, 24, 87, 247, 206, 349, 101, 44, 130, 379). The study involved 2 189 people who gave responses to 16 621 questions. All participants were divided into three groups (with a certain degree of conventionality) due to their social status and educational curriculum in the Russian language: The first group consisted of preschoolers who are familiar with the language system on “a natural” level, primary school students comprised the second group as they have not yet studied possessive adjectives deliberately, and the third group encompassed students of 6-9 grades as they have already studied possessive adjectives.

In the course of the experiment students were asked to answer 9 questions in writing based on 9 pictures, each of the questions began with “whose?” (whose collar, whose scarf, whose pointer, etc.) Respondents recorded anonymous answers on separate forms, providing information about their sex and age. They were allowed to give multiple answers, but during the analysis of the results we took into account only the first one, even if this response was struck through by the respondent. Students could not explain the reason for the change of the answer, they just shrugged their shoulders. Most likely, they were influenced by the choice of the word by their neighbour; students assumed that their answers were incorrect after seeing the responses of the others – that is why they struck it through.

As for preschoolers, the experiment was conducted orally: Each child was shown 5 images and asked to describe them. Children were asked some leading questions like who is that? what is he holding in his hands? what is there next to him? the key question was whose? and it was asked as the last one.

The results of the experiment were divided into groups depending on the age and sex of the respondents, as well as based on the morphological principle of their answers.  4 categories were singled out: Nouns in the genitive case, adjectives (this group includes both possessive adjectives and also relative ones, indicating, in the opinion of respondents, the relations of belonging), pronouns and other. The category of “other” includes words that do not contain the answer to the question, for example, there were nouns in the nominative case and even whole sentences (e.g., the collar belongs to the dog, the pointer belongs to the teacher), which, are appropriate, of course, but, their number is unessential (23 responses out of 16 621), and secondly, they were all created following the same pattern with the help of the verb “to belong,” and, therefore, they are of no special interest for the research. The category “other” also includes works with no answer to a certain question (the reason for the absence of the answer is unknown). These were mostly the works of the students at the age of 13-14.

When giving answers, the respondents typically chose a noun in the genitive case, the maximum number of replies in this form was given by students of fifteen-years old. Adjectives were typically chosen by the children as young as four-five years old. A certain tendency can be traced among both sexes: As they grow older, the number of nouns used in their speech increases, while the number of adjectives used falls down. The choice of an adjective at the age of four reached the value of 42.86%, at the age of 15 it comprised 18.75%, however, on average, it was a ten percent mark. Despite the unpopularity of the possessive adjective, this part of speech is of particular interest because of its structure.

Let us look at word-formation types, which were used to create occasional adjectives in more detail.

It is well known that “a word-formation type is a scheme (formula) of the derivative words structure, characterized by three common elements: 1) part of speech of the productive bases, 2) semantic relation between the derivatives and productive bases, and 3) formal relations between the derivatives and productive bases” [4, P. 182], i.e. common formant.

In all cases, animate nouns (the pictures contained images of a dog, bear, teacher, goose, builder, elephant, chicken, fisherman, cat) were used as a motivational basis, a semantic link between the derivative and the productive word can be defined as “belonging, connection with an object is mentioned in the root of a word,” in all different types of word-formation only formants will differ.

Usual adjectives with suffix -ий- and its variations were used in 30.87% of all cases of the adjectives use: собачий, щенячий, медвежий, птичий, слоновий, рыбачий, кошачий (dog’s, puppy’s, bear’s, bird’s, elephant’s, fish's, cat’s.)

The speech of students of mid-level was marked by such adjectives (in brackets we indicated how many times each word was used): собачачий (1), медведий (1), медвежачий (2), гусячий (1), гусий (3), слоний (4), слонячий (3) (dog’s, bear’s, goose’s, elephant’s.)

The responses of younger primary school students contained similar words: уткий (2), слонячий (1), слоничий (1), слоний (3), курячий (1) (duck’s, elephants, hen’s.)

Preschoolers created the following nonce words: слоникий (1), слоний (15), слонячий (5), курочий (2), курий (1), петуший (2), петухий (1), петушачий (1), петухчий (1) (elephant’s, hen’s, peacock’s.)

Examples show that suffix -ий- is widely used in speech as well as its elongated version -ачий-: words like медвежачий, слонячий, петушачий (bear’s, elephant’s, peacock’s) were created by analogy with such literary words as собачий, рыбачий, щенячий and кошачий (dog’s, fish’s, cat’s), but the first and the second words are marked by the historical alternation [к//ч], while the third and the fourth are characterized by truncated final (-ок/-к) and elongated affix.

Literary adjectives with suffix -ин- and its variations were used in 52.24% of all word usages: собачин, гусиный, утиный, дядин, тетин, мамин, папин, куриный, курицын, петушиный, дедин, дедушкин, кошкин (dog’s, goose’s, uncle’s, aunt’s, mother’s, father’s, hen’s, peacock’s, grandmother’s, cat’s.)

In the course of the study such adjectives as собакин (150), собачкин (95), мишкин (72), курочкин (102), кошечкин (24) (dog’s, mouse’s, hen’s, cat’s) were used by the representatives of different age and gender groups.

In addition to the above listed words, the speech of middle-level students contained such adjectives as: медвежаткин (1), девочкин (1), уткин (11), гусин (1), утин (1), птичкин (1), гусинин (1), утинин (1), слониный (2), курицын (2) (bear’s, girl’s, duck’s, goose’s, bird’s, elephant’s, hen’s.)

Primary school students formed the words: медведин (9), медвежин (1), учителин (1), уткин (28), гусин (3), слонин (5), слониный (2), кискин (1) (bear’s, teacher’s, duck’s, goose’s, elephant’s, cat’s.)

Preschoolers created the following nonce words: собачкиный (1), слонин (35), слониный (9), слонькин (1), слоненкин (1), дедушкиная (1), дедыная (1), дедана (7), рыбина (1), курочкиное (2), куричино (4), куричиное (1), куричкино (2), курицыное (3), курыно (1), петушино (1), петухино (3), петухиное (1), петушкино (1), кокоино (1), цыпино (1), яичкино (1), дядиная (1), дяденькиная (2), человекина (2), работникина (1), мальчикина (6), мальчикиная (1), мастерина (1) (dog’s, elephant’s, grandfather’s, fish’s, hen’s, peacock’s, chick’s, egg’s, uncle’s, man’s, builder’s, boy’s, craftman’s.)

The collected material which contains a great number of formed adjectives allows us to say that suffix -ин- is productive (even the words characteristic to child's speech only – ко-ко (chick-chick) was transformed into кокоино). Secondly, we can make a conclusion about the unpopularity of short adjectives in child's speech, which is especially evident in the following examples of the words formed by preschoolers: Literary word дядина (uncle’s) gets the ending -я, which makes it look similar to the full form of adjectives – дядиная.

Adjectives with suffix -ов- and its variants were quite rare (4.18% word usages) in the respondents' answers: Teenagers provided only one word with such suffix: слоновый (13) (elephant’s), primary school students: слоновый (3) (elephant’s), дедова (2) (grandfather’s), дошкольники: слоновый (5) (elephant’s), дедова (7) (grandfather’s), слониковый (1) (elephant’s), петуховое (1) (elephant’s), строителева (2) (builder’s), дяденькова (2) (uncle’s), работчикова (1 child, meaning a builder, called him работчик). The materials of the experiment indicate that this suffix is unproductive even in the speech of kindergarten pupils.

Suffix -ск- is productive in the modern Russian language, adjectives with this affix indicate its relatedness to something, but the same words can denote individual belonging in certain situations, in particular when a person is meant. The material of the research confirms this: Words учительская (teacher’s room), строительская (builder’s), человеческая (people’s), хозяйская (household’s), дедовская (grandfather’s) are derived from the names of people in these professions or their social status. The number of these words in the study comprises an 8.47% word usage which indicates their relativity. Question whose? would be more appropriate when it comes to these adjectives – these words mean a certain characteristic of the object rather than belonging: Teacher's pointer does not belong to the teacher, it refers to the teaching profession.

The remaining 4.24% responses in the form of adjectives comprise a separate group as they do not answer a question, these are such words as: Чужой, общий, синий, государственный, школьный (stranger’s, common, blue, state, shool.)

The study showed that diversity of nonce words is motivated rather by morphological processes than by the peculiarities of the suffix and motivational base. These morphological processes can be either fixed (for example, elongated morph in such words as собачачий, петушачий, петухчий, слонячий, слоничий, гусячий, медвежачий, гусинин, утинин – dog’s, peacock’s, elephant’s, goose’s, bear’s, duck’s) or non-fixed (e.g., there is no historical alternation in words медведий, медведин, петухий – bear’s, peacock’s) depending on each particular case.

In general, the results of the experiment are the following: In a situation of possessive choice, a noun in the genitive case either with a preposition or without it was used in 71.65% of cases, an adjective – in 21.58%, the remaining responses comprised 6.77%. The tendency to replace an adjective with a noun has started in mid XIX century [3], its reasons are not fully studied, maybe, this is the case of the development of analytism in the Russian language [1]. In addition, the experiment has shown the productivity of one suffixes and unproductive nature of the others in possessive adjectives, which indicates a certain problem: With age, having studied the Russian language at school, children learn rules, including the word-formation ones, (as mastering proper speech is one of the main educational tasks), but it leads to the reduction of the number of adjectives in their oral communication, which means that their speech loses one of its important qualities – its expressiveness. Specific work with texts, however, can partially solve this problem, as texts contain serious linguo-didactic materials [11, P. 158].