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Understanding connectives
JOURNAL
OF VERBAL
LEARNING
AND VERBAL
BEHAVIOR
7, 501-509 (1968)
Understanding EVELYN WALKER
Connectives’ KATZ AND SANDOR B. BRENT
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202 In this paper, a differentiation among levels of understanding connectives was made in an attempt to account for discrepancies previously noted between a child’s spontaneous and deliberate expression of relationships. Developmental differences in understanding linguistic connectives, and statements of relationships were studied on three levels: (1) correct usage in spontaneous speech; (2) selection of appropriate usage on a paired-sentence test; and (3) ability to explain the function of the connectives in the sentences on the test. Two age groups, Grade I and Grade VI, were used, with college Ss serving as a control group. The most important differences between the two age groups studied were for Level 3. Although the Grade I Ss were often able to use a connective correctly in their spontaneous speech, and to differentiate a correct from an incorrect usage on the test, they were unable to verbalize the role of the connective in specifying relationships. It was found that the adversative connectives “but” and “although” presented far greater problems of mastery than the causal connective “because.” Developmental trends were noted in preference for linking causal clauses by means of causal as opposed to temporal connectives, and in preference for ordering causal clauses in a way which corresponds to the actual perceptual order of events.
This paper is concerned with the development of the linguistic expression of relationships among events by means of connectives such as “because.” Although such structures have been considered important for abstractlogical thinking (Piaget, 1948; Vygotsky, 1962; Werner and Kaplan, 1963), little is known about the acquisition of these forms by children whose native language is English. While there have been English-language studies of connectives, these have been based on the written language of children at least 9 years old (Heider and Heider, 1940; Hunt, 1965), and it is known from German studies based on spoken language (Huth, 1919; Stern and Stern, 1928; Leopold, 1949), that children begin to acquire connectives at age 3-4 yr. 1 This research was supported by 0. E. 0. Job Corps Research Contract No. 1209. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Mary Guenther, Norma Davis, and Barbara Koslowski for assistance in analyzing these data.
While the most comprehensive attempt to explain acquisition of connectives has been that of Werner and Kaplan (1963), their work relies heavily on German-language studies. To the extent that these studies reflect aquisition tendencies peculiar to the German language, the theory will have limited application. For example, in German, a subordinative conjunction requires an inversion of word order in the subordinate clause, which makes it difficult to learn, regardless of whether it expresses a causal, temporal, or contrastive relation (Minkus and Stern, 1923). This fact may be responsible for the importance which Werner and Kaplan assign to grammatical structure as a determinant of the order of acquisition of connectives. Since, in English, subordinative conjunctions are not marked, as they are in German, it is difficult to see why they should be harder to learn than coordinative conjunctions. One purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which some 501
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of Werner and Kaplan’s views hold for acquisition of connectives by English-speaking children. A second purpose was to explore the extent to which the child understands connectives which he uses spontaneously. Vygotsky (1962) pointed out that although an 8-9-year-old can use “because” correctly in his spontaneous speech, when asked to complete a sentence ending in “because,” the child often substitutes a consequence for the cause. Vygotsky interpreted this discrepancy between the spontaneous and deliberate use of connectives to mean that the child’s concepts are characterized primarily by a lack of conscious awareness of relationships. To explore this view, in the present study a distinction was made among three levels of understanding connectives: Level 1: correct usage in spontaneous speech; Level 2: selection of appropriate usage on a paired-sentence test; and Level 3: ability to explain the function of the connectives in the sentences on the test. It seems reasonable that if the child can follow the rules of usage (Level I), he should be credited with some understanding of connectives, even though he may not have “conscious awareness” in Vygotsky’s sense. Analysis in terms of levels of understanding has the advantage of eliminating the problem of deciding just at what point the child may be said to have “conscious awareness.” METHOD
Subjects Eighty-four Ss were selected from three age groups: 6-7 year-old students in Grade I at Lynch Public School, situated in a working-class district of Detroit (N = 21); 1 I-lZyear-old students in Grade VI at the same school (N= 22); and college sophomores at Wayne State University, Detroit (N = 41).
Protedure The procedure for the Grade I and Grade VI Ss was the same, with each S being individually interviewed, and the interview taperecorded. The procedure for studying levels of understanding was as follows: Level 1: Appropriate Expression of Relationships in Spontaneous Speech. Spontaneous speech samples of
Grade I and Grade VI Ss, were obtained by two methods: (a) free conversation, in which S was encouraged to talk, and (b) a story-telling task, in which S was asked to tell a story to at least two of the Picture Arrangement series of the WISC, presented in their correct orders. Level 2: Selection of Appropriate Expression of Relationships. Each Grade I and Grade VI S was read the pairs of sentences (described below), and asked to choose that member of each pair which seemed better to him. The college Ss served as a control group, to provide a standard of appropriate usage. They were tested as a group. Each college S read a form containing the sentences, and circled the sentence of each pair which seemed better to him. Level 3: Verbalization of Relationships. Immediately after making his choice on the paired-sentence test each Grade I and Grade VI S was asked why the chosen sentence had seemed better.
Paired-Sentence Test Nine pairs of sentences were constructed to test views of Werner and Kaplan (1963); Piaget (1928, 1948); and Vygotsky (1962). (1) Explicit Versus Implicit Causal Constructions. Werner and Kaplan (1963) consider a significant step in the child’s handling of relationships between events to be the use of causal connectives to express causal relationships which were previously implicit. To determine the preferences of the age groups in the present study, a choice was given between a sentence in which the causal relationship was specified by the connective “because,” (“We did not sit down, because the benches were wet.“) and one in which the relationship was implicit (“We did not sit down, the benches were wet.“) The assumption was that the sentence containing ‘the linguistic connective would be preferred by children who are able to express causal relationships explicitly. (2) Causal versus Temporal Linkages. Werner and Kaplan’s view that the subordinate construction is more difficult to learn than the coordinate construction leads them to consider the expression of relationships by means of “when, ” “because,” and “therefore” to be more advanced than the use of the connective “then.” To determine the relative influence of grammatical features in determining sentence preferences, choices were offered between causal and temporal connectives associated with different grammatical structures (“Because it started to rain, we ran into Ihe house.“, versus “It started to rain, then we ran into the house.“; and “I lost my keys, therefore I couldn’t get into the house.“, versus “I lost my keys, and then I couldn’t get into the house.“), and causal and temporal connectives having the same (“subordinate”) grammatical structure (“Because he turned the switch, the room got
UNDERSTANDING dark.“, versus “When he turned the switch, the room got dark.“) (3) Inversion of Cause-and-Effect Relationship. Piaget noted frequent inversions of cause-and-effect relationships both in the conversation of 7-%year-old children with each other (1948), and when they were asked to complete a sentence ending in “because” (1928). He accounted for these inversions by assuming that 7-8-year-old children do not associate “because” with the relation of cause and effect, but with the “relation of juxtaposition, which can best be rendered by the word ‘and”‘(l948, p. 116). If, as this view implies, “and” and “because” are functionally equivalent to children this age, the Grade I Ss should choose randomly between a sentence in which two causally related clauses are linked by “and” (“The boy fell off his bicycle, and he broke his leg.“), and one in which they are linked by “because” (“The boy fell off his bicycle, because he broke his leg.“) even though the use of “because” results in an inversion of the usual cause-and-effect relation. (4) Antithetic Relationships. Since Werner and Kaplan (1963) view antithetic connectives (e.g., “but”) as expressing “concrete nonsubordinative” relationships between events, they are considered easier to master than causal connectives, which are viewed as expressing “dependency relationships.” Vygotsky (1962), however, has noted that adversative relations appear later than causal relations in the child’s spontaneous thinking, which suggests that adversative connectives are more difficult to learn than causal connectives. To determine the understanding of adversative relationships, correct usages of “but” and “although” (“Jimmie went to school, but he felt sick.“, and “The meal was good, although the pie was bad.“) were paired with incorrect usages (“Jimmie went to school, but he felt fine.“, and “The meal was good, although the pie was good.“) (5) Linguistic order of Clauses and Perceptual Order of Events. Werner and Kaplan (1963) hypothesize that the development of explicit causal constructions is characterized by an early stage during which relationships are perceived as temporal rather than causal, with the linguistic expression of events closely following the order in which the events are experienced. This would seem to imply that linguistic development should be characterized by an increased freedom from such concrete perceptual ties. To determine whether the linguistic preferences of younger children indicate a greater perceptual dependency than those of older children and adults, the order of causal clauses was varied in two contexts in which the causal relationships were not explicitly expressed. In one pair of sentences, there was no connective (“The benches were wet, we did not sit down.“, versus “We did not sit down, the benches were wet.“) and in the other pair of sentences, 17
CONNECTIVES
503
the clauses were linked by the connective “and” (“John studied hard, and he did well in school.“, and “John did well in school, and he studied hard.“) Two forms of the test were made up in order to vary the context of the connectives, and the order in which sentences within pairs were presented. Half of the Ss in each group received one form, and half the other form. The same basic sentences were used on the two forms, but with different connective choices. A particular sentence content was not used more than once on each form. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 shows the percentage of Ss in each group choosing each alternative of the sentence pairs. (1) Explicit Vtxsus Implicit Causal Constructions. From Table 1 it can be seen that
the groups did not differ reliably, x* (2) = 3.41, p < .Ol, in preferring the sentence in which the
clauses were linked by “because” over the implicit formulation. The Grade I Ss resembled the Grade VI Ss, not only in preferring the causal construction on the pairedsentence test, but also in using “because” to express causal relationships in their spontaneous speech. The latter result is consistent with Huth’s (1919) finding that 6-year-old German children use “because” to express causal relationships much more often than children of age 4.5 yr. The fact that there were a few Grade I Ss who omitted causal connectives from their spontaneous speech (e.g., “The boy is playing with matches, he started a fire.“), and preferred the implicit formulation on the paired-sentence test, is consistent with Werner and Kaplan’s (1963) hypothesis that there is an early stage during which, although children may understand causal relationships, they do not express them by means of causal constructions. The results of the present study agree with those of Huth, in placing the upper boundary to this stage at age 6-7 yr. Although the Grade I Ss were essentially comparable to the Grade VI Ss with respect to understanding on Levels 1 and 2, they were quite inferior with respect to Level 3. Thus, while 58% of the Grade VI Ss were able to
504
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AND
explain the function of the connective (e.g., “‘Because’ tells why they didn’t sit down.“), none of the Grade I Ss were. Only 18 % of the Grade I Ss attempted to give explanations of their sentence choices and these explained the relationship (e.g., “If they sit down they get their pants wet.“) rather than the role of the connective. Eighty-two per cent of the Grade I
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with all groups showing a clearcut preference for the sentence containing “when,” x* (2) = .78, p > .Ol. The finding that the Grade I Ss preferred “when” even more than “then” over “because” is not consistent with Werner and Kaplan’s view that “when” is a more “advanced” connective. This result, together with the finding that the college Ss markedly 1
TABLE
PERCENTAGEOF EACH GROUP SELECTINGEACH ALTERNATIVE OF THE SENTENCE PAIRS
Type of comparison Explicit vs. implicit constructions
Alternatives
Grade I
Grade VI
College
90
“because” no connective
10
100 0
100 0
“because” “then”
35 65
62 38
88" 12
“therefore” “and then”
50 50
60 40
87”
“because” “when”
14 86
23
15 85
Inversion of cause and effect relationships
cause “and” effect cause “because” effect
82 18
100
Antithetic relationships
“but”: “but”:
19 81
68 32
98" 2
14
68 32
1W
86
effect-cause
44 56
70 30
47 53
cause “and” effect effect “and” cause
39
61
81 19
98" 2
Causal vs. temporal linkages
correct incorrect
“although”: “although”: Linguistic vs. perceptual order
correct incorrect
cause-effect
17 0
13
loo”
0
0
"xa(2)>9.21,p<.01
Ss, and 42 % of the Grade VI Ss did not try to explain their preference, saying merely that the preferred sentence “sounds better.” (2) Causal Versus Temporal Linkages. Table 1 shows reliable developmental trends among the groups for the preference of “because” over “then,” x*(2) = 17.86,~ -C .Ol, and the preference of “therefore” over “and then,” x* (2) = 10.49, p -C .Ol, but no reliable difference for the “because-when” comparison,
preferred “when” to “because,” suggests that the meaning of connectives plays a far more significant role than their grammatical structure at least as far as English is concerned. In this connection, the present results show a fairly consistent preference for temporal as opposed to causal connectives by the Grade I Ss. The fact that the college Ss behaved differentially with respect to the connectives “then” and “when”,
UNDERSTANDING
while the Grade I Ss did not, suggests that the subtle differences in the meanings of the temporal connectives are still to be acquired after age 6. The present results suggest that although the Grade I Ss tended to prefer and use temporal connectives to a greater extent than causal connectives, they found temporal interpretations of relationships more difficult than causal interpretations. Thus, the Grade I Ss who attempted explanations, gave only causal interpretations of the relationships, regardless of whether the chosen sentence had contained a causal or temporal connective. That temporal interpretations were also difficult for the Grade VI Ss was shown by the fact that their most confused explanations involved temporal connectives (e.g., “The one with ‘then’ tells why you can’t get into the house-because you lost your key first.“), and their most sophisticated reasons explained the role of the causal connective (e.g., “It tells why” or “gives the reason.“) It is interesting that the reasons of the Grade I Ss for their preference of the causal connective spelled out relationships left implicit by the Grade VI Ss (e.g., “When it started to rain we ran into the house, because we didn’t want to get so soaking wet.“) In this connection, the explanations of the Grade I Ss showed the same kind of “obvious” usage of “because” as that noted in the storytelling task.
CONNECTIVES
505
had noted a high incidence of inversions. In the spontaneous speech of the Grade VI Ss, there were causal constructions which were faulty, not because the cause-and-effect clauses were reversed, but because the causal clause was used as a basis for inferring the effect, rather supplying the reason for it (e.g., “It was cold that day, because I was marching in the girl-scout parade.“) If this elliptical sentence is preceded by the words “I know that,” it becomes perfectly acceptable. It might be noted that many of Piaget’s cases of clause inversion (e.g., “The man fell off his bicycle because he was ill afterwards.” 1928; p. 225) may be interpreted as elliptical expressions of inferential reasoning. The fact that elliptical sentences occurred in the speech of the Grade VI Ss, but not in that of the Grade I Ss, suggests that an elliptical style may be developmentally linked, as Piaget (1948) believed. However, Piaget regarded elliptical constructions as egocentric, and therefore an elementary mode of expression. The present results suggest that at least some types of elliptical expression may be more characteristic of mature speech. That this may also be true of written language is suggested by a study (Heider and Heider, 1940) in which deaf children produced fewer elliptical forms than a linguistically more competent group of hearing children. The discrepancy which gave rise to (3) Inversion of Cause-and-Eflect RelationVygotsky’s emphasis on the extent to which ship. Table 1 shows that there was no reliable language is unconscious, was not obtained in difference among the groups x2 (2) = 6.63, the present study, since the Grade I Ss seemed p > .Ol, with both Grade I and VI Ss preferring to understand on both Levels 1 and 2 that the more appropriate formulation. The fact using “because” to conjoin inverted clauses is that the Grade I Ss rejected the sentence in inappropriate. They did, however, show little which the cause-and-effect relation was understanding on Level 3. Thus, only 22% reversed suggests that these Ss had a less attempted an explanation, and these failed not ambiguous conception of the meaning of only to explain the role of the connective, but “because” than the 7-&year-old Ss of Piaget also to account for the sentence selection (1928; 1948). This interpretation is supported (e.g., [I like the one with “and”] “Because if by the fact that there were no inversions of you would say he fell off the bike and broke his cause-and-effect clauses in the spontaneous arm that doesn’t make sense.“) On the other speech of the Grade I Ss, nor in their explan- hand, 82% of the Grade VI Ss were able to ations-a context in which Piaget (1928) specify the way in which “because” was
506
KATZ
AND
inappropriate (e.g.; “Because if he had already broken his leg, he wouldn’t be riding his bicycle. In the other sentence, he fell off the bike and then broke his leg.“) The fact that “and” was interpreted as “and then” in all of these explanations suggests that the sentence with “and” was preferred because it expressed a temporal order of events which could be harmonized with experience in a way in which the casual order could not. Ervin and Miller (1963, p. 125) have expressed the view that “difficult semantic patterns such as ‘why’ and ‘because”’ are not acquired until after age 6. The present results suggest that this is true if one is referring to understanding on Level 3-ability to explain the usage of “because,” or the abili +o use it in sophisticated ways. On the other hand, the Grade I children showed sufficient mastery of the term to select an appropriate over an inappropriate usage on. the paired-sentence test, and to use it in “obvious” ways in their spontaneous speech. The fact that they were able to use it correctly confirms the Heiders’ finding that structurally it is a relatively simple form to master, rather than Werner and Kaplan’s view that it is grammatically difficult to learn. “Because” was used spontaneously by as many Grade I as Grade VI Ss (62% and 64 %, respectively). The spontaneous verbal outputs of the Grade I and Grade VI Ss were essentially the same (mean number of words = 323, and 299, respectively). The absence of a developmental trend in the frequency of “because” was also noted in the written language of children age 8-14 (Heider and Heider, 1940) and children in Grades IV, VI, and XII (Hunt, 1965). These results, together with the Heiders’ finding that deaf Ss used “because” more often than linguistically more sophisticated hearing Ss, suggest that the frequent usage of “because” cannot be considered to reflect higher levels of abstractlogical thinking. Piaget (1948) differentiated three types of causal relation: motivational, physical and logical, and considered only the
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logical type to be associated with abstract thought. In the present study, Piaget’s classification did not distinguish between uses of “because” by the two groups, since both groups predominantly used the “because” of motivation. The Heiders (1940)noted that although the deaf Ss usedcausalclausesrelativelymore often than the hearing Ss,there was a qualitative differencein the usage. The deaf Ss often usedthe causalclauseto justify what had already been said, or to state what was already obvious, whereasthe hearing Ss used it more often to carry on the action of the story. In the present study, causal constructions which occurred in the storytelling task were subjected to a similar analysis. Causal constructions were considered to be unsophisticated if they specified obvious relationships; i.e., those in which the relationship between events was so regular that the cause was implied in the et&t (e.g., “The dog wanted the chicken because he was hungry.“, and “The fire engine had to come fast because the whole house would be on fire.“). Causal constructions were considered to be sophisticated iftheir use was not obvious,or revealed an integration of story elements. For example, “The dog’s following ‘cause he sees all the meat.” was considered a sophisticated usage, whereas “The dog followed the man because he had some bones and the dog wanted the bones.” was considered an obvious usage. Similarly, “The boy is crying because he burned down his apartment building.” was considered more sophisticated than “The boy is crying because his house was burning.“, since the former sentence incorporated an earlier event-the boy playing with matches. Although only 60 % of the causal constructions of the Grade VI Ss could be classified as sophisticated, none of those of the Grade I Ss could be. This analysis confirms the Heiders’ finding that the way in which “because” is used may provide a more interesting developmental measure than a measure based on frequency.
(4) Antithetic Relationships. Table 1 shows a clear developmental trend in the understanding of adversative relationships on Level 2, “but”: x2 (2) = 40.55, p < .Ol ; “although”: ~2 (2) = 48.86,~ < .Ol, with most Grade I Ss endorsing the incorrect statements, and most college Ss the correct ones. The explanations of the Grade I and Grade VI Ss who chose the incorrect sentences indicated that the major obstacles to grasping the adversative relationships stated in these
UNDERSTANDING
sentences were the inability to conceive of exceptions to a general rule (e.g., “You’re supposed to feel well when you go to school, if you don’t, then you stay home.“); and the inability to accept content which ran counter to individual taste (e.g., “I liked ‘The meal was good, but the pie was good, ‘cause I like pie.“’ or “I don’t like people to get sick.“) The extent to which the Grade I Ss focused on words which had a strong affective connotation to the relative exclusion of form words, was indicated by their freely subsituting connectives in their own versions of the sentences (e.g., “Jimmie went to school, because he felt well.” and “The meal was good and the pie was good too.“) The explanations of one of the Grade I Ss, and 63 % of the Grade VI Ss who chose the correct sentence, indicated that they were aware of the antithetic nature of the relationships (e.g., “If he was sick with a cold he didn’t want to miss, ‘cause he could have been doing something special that day.“) However, the fact that only one Grade VI S tried to specify the function of the adversative connective (e.g., “You should say ‘Jimmie went to school-he felt fine,’ instead of ‘but.’ When you say ‘but,’ it’s like something could be wrong or something.“) indicates that neither group can be considered to understand the adversative connectives on Level 3. The connective “but” was used spontaneously by more Grade VI than Grade I Ss, which is consistent with the developmental trend noted in connection with the sentence choices. Although “but” was used more often in a contrastive sense, it was also used to introduce exceptions to general relationships, and in all cases, it was used appropriately to relate disjunctive clauses. The connective, “although” did not occur in the spontaneous speech of either group. The fact that 66 % of the Grade I, and 50 % of the Grade VI Ss who used “but” spontaneously endorsed the incorrect sentence indicates that both groups had a better grasp of “but” on Level 1 than Level 2. This result is analogous to the discrepancy in usage of
CONNECTIVES
507
“because” noted by Vygotsky (1962). The finding that some Grade VI Ss showed understanding of “but” on Levels 1 and 2, but not Level 3, points up another discrepancy: that between the ability to differentiate a correct from an incorrect usage, and the ability to explain the correct usage. Vygotsky’s view that causal relations appear before adversative relations in the child’s spontaneous thinking is supported by the present finding that while “because” was used by as many Grade I as Grade VI Ss, “but” was used by considerably fewer; and “although” was used spontaneously by neither group. Werner and Kaplan (1963) have stated that the causal connectives are harder to learn than the adversatives. However, the following results would seem to contradict this view: (a) on all three levels the Grade VI Ss showed greater understanding of “because” than “but” and “although”; (b) on Levels 1 and 2, the Grade I Ss showed greater mastery of “because” than “but” and “although.” The present results, therefore, offer no support for the position that the grammatical form of the connective affects acquisition of connectives by English-speaking children. (5) Linguistic Order of Clauses and Perceptual Order of Events. Table 1 shows a
reliable difference among the groups in preference for order of clauses linked by “and,” x* (2) = 36.80, p < .Ol, but no reliable difference when the connective was absent, x2(2) = 1.43,~ > .Ol. Since the Grade I Ss had already reached the stage of using explicit causal constructions, Werner and Kaplan’s hypothesis is not strictly applicable. However, the implication that linguistic development should be characterized by an increased freedom from concrete perceptual ties is counterindicated by both the finding that in the presence of the connective the developmental trend was toward increased correspondence of linguistic and perceptual order: and the finding that in the absence of the connective, the Grade VI Ss showed a greater
508
KATZ
AND
preference for the perceptual order than the Grade I Ss. To follow the perceptual order seems to require more linguistic control than most of the Grade I Ss had. For example, one Grade I S selected the effect-cause order of clauses, because the other order was “backwards,” indicating that, although he realized that order was relevant, he was unable deliberately to select the lingustic order which corresponded to the perceptual order. Yet the Grade I Ss had no difficulty following the perceptual order in their spontaneous speech, both when they were telling stories to pictures, and describing their own experiences. The ability to follow the perceptual order when not focusing on language, but not in the test situation, would seem to be another indication of understanding on Level 1 but not Level 2. While the Grade I and Grade VI Ss were relatively uninfluenced in their sentence choices by the presence or absence of the connective, the college Ss shifted from a clearcut endorsement of the perceptual order in the presence of “and,” to no preferred order in its absence. This shift may be a result of interpreting “and” as “and then.” A strong tendency for such an interpretation by the Grade VI Ss was noted both in their explanations for choosing the cause-and-effect order, and in connection with their rejection of the cause-and-effect inversion in comparison 2. The only difference the presence of the connective made to the Grade VI Ss was to increase the proportion of temporal to causal interpretations of the relationship (connective absent: 0% temporal, 50% causal; connective present: 43 % temporal, 24 % causal). It might be noted that the Grade VI Ss were able to express the causal and temporal relationships much more clearly than the Grade I Ss, which is another indication of their superiority in terms of understanding on Level 3. The fact that the present results consistently showed that the three levels represented a progression without inversion suggests that this kind of differentiation among levels
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can provide a reasonably subtle developmental index of linguistic control. It is interesting that clauses which followed the perceptual order were interpreted by the Grade VI Ss as stating a causal relationship, even though there was no connective present specifying such a relationship. That the causal interpretation was dependent upon the order of clauses can be seen from the fact that many Grade VI Ss viewed as meaningless the sentence (comparison 1) in which the clauses were also implicitly linked, but in the counterperceptual order. This finding suggests that at this age children not only believe that the causal relationship between events is coded by the linguistic order of clauses; they also believe that where there is a causal relationship among events it must be stated in this order. The present results indicate that from ages 6-7 to 11-12 there is a marked increase both in (a) the ability clearly to verbalize causal and temporal relationships, and the manner in which they are related by connectives, and (b) the preference for linguistic order of clauses to mirror the temporal order of events. Between ages 12 and 19, however, there is a decline in the preference for linguistic order of clauses to follow the causal-perceptual order of events, unless the clauses are linked by a connective which seems to dictate such an order. REFERENCES ERVIN,
S. M.,
AND MILLER,
W. R. Language develop-
ment. In Stevenson,H. W., and Kagan, J. Child Psychol. Nat. Sot. Study of Educ. Yearbook, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1963. Pp. 108143. HEIDER, F. K., AND HEIDER, G. M. A comparison of sentence structure of deaf and hearing children. Psychol. Monogr., 1940,52,42-103. HUNT, K. W. Grammatical structures written at three grade levels. Champaign, 111.: Nat. Council Teach. Engl., 1965. HUTH, A. Die Nebensatze in der Kindersprache. Z. Padag. Psycho/., 1919, 20, 163-183. LEOPOLD, W. F. Speech development of a bilingual child. Evanston: Northwestern University Press., 1949, Vol. IV.
UNDERSTANDING
M~~~~~,W.,~~~S~~~,W.DieBindewortErganzung. 19th Beih. angew. Psychol., 2nd Ed., 1923, 37-13. PIAGET, J. Judgment and reasoning in the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928. PIAGET, J. Language and thought in the child. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948. STERN, W., AND STERN, C., Die Kindersprache. Leipzig: Barth, 1928.
509
CONNECTIVES
VYGOTSKY,
L. S. Thought
MIT Press, 1962. WERNER, H., AND KAPLAN, York: Wiley, 1963.
(Received March 27,1967)
and language.
New
B. Symbolformation.
Haven: New
OF VERBAL
LEARNING
AND VERBAL
BEHAVIOR
7, 501-509 (1968)
Understanding EVELYN WALKER
Connectives’ KATZ AND SANDOR B. BRENT
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202 In this paper, a differentiation among levels of understanding connectives was made in an attempt to account for discrepancies previously noted between a child’s spontaneous and deliberate expression of relationships. Developmental differences in understanding linguistic connectives, and statements of relationships were studied on three levels: (1) correct usage in spontaneous speech; (2) selection of appropriate usage on a paired-sentence test; and (3) ability to explain the function of the connectives in the sentences on the test. Two age groups, Grade I and Grade VI, were used, with college Ss serving as a control group. The most important differences between the two age groups studied were for Level 3. Although the Grade I Ss were often able to use a connective correctly in their spontaneous speech, and to differentiate a correct from an incorrect usage on the test, they were unable to verbalize the role of the connective in specifying relationships. It was found that the adversative connectives “but” and “although” presented far greater problems of mastery than the causal connective “because.” Developmental trends were noted in preference for linking causal clauses by means of causal as opposed to temporal connectives, and in preference for ordering causal clauses in a way which corresponds to the actual perceptual order of events.
This paper is concerned with the development of the linguistic expression of relationships among events by means of connectives such as “because.” Although such structures have been considered important for abstractlogical thinking (Piaget, 1948; Vygotsky, 1962; Werner and Kaplan, 1963), little is known about the acquisition of these forms by children whose native language is English. While there have been English-language studies of connectives, these have been based on the written language of children at least 9 years old (Heider and Heider, 1940; Hunt, 1965), and it is known from German studies based on spoken language (Huth, 1919; Stern and Stern, 1928; Leopold, 1949), that children begin to acquire connectives at age 3-4 yr. 1 This research was supported by 0. E. 0. Job Corps Research Contract No. 1209. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Mary Guenther, Norma Davis, and Barbara Koslowski for assistance in analyzing these data.
While the most comprehensive attempt to explain acquisition of connectives has been that of Werner and Kaplan (1963), their work relies heavily on German-language studies. To the extent that these studies reflect aquisition tendencies peculiar to the German language, the theory will have limited application. For example, in German, a subordinative conjunction requires an inversion of word order in the subordinate clause, which makes it difficult to learn, regardless of whether it expresses a causal, temporal, or contrastive relation (Minkus and Stern, 1923). This fact may be responsible for the importance which Werner and Kaplan assign to grammatical structure as a determinant of the order of acquisition of connectives. Since, in English, subordinative conjunctions are not marked, as they are in German, it is difficult to see why they should be harder to learn than coordinative conjunctions. One purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which some 501
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of Werner and Kaplan’s views hold for acquisition of connectives by English-speaking children. A second purpose was to explore the extent to which the child understands connectives which he uses spontaneously. Vygotsky (1962) pointed out that although an 8-9-year-old can use “because” correctly in his spontaneous speech, when asked to complete a sentence ending in “because,” the child often substitutes a consequence for the cause. Vygotsky interpreted this discrepancy between the spontaneous and deliberate use of connectives to mean that the child’s concepts are characterized primarily by a lack of conscious awareness of relationships. To explore this view, in the present study a distinction was made among three levels of understanding connectives: Level 1: correct usage in spontaneous speech; Level 2: selection of appropriate usage on a paired-sentence test; and Level 3: ability to explain the function of the connectives in the sentences on the test. It seems reasonable that if the child can follow the rules of usage (Level I), he should be credited with some understanding of connectives, even though he may not have “conscious awareness” in Vygotsky’s sense. Analysis in terms of levels of understanding has the advantage of eliminating the problem of deciding just at what point the child may be said to have “conscious awareness.” METHOD
Subjects Eighty-four Ss were selected from three age groups: 6-7 year-old students in Grade I at Lynch Public School, situated in a working-class district of Detroit (N = 21); 1 I-lZyear-old students in Grade VI at the same school (N= 22); and college sophomores at Wayne State University, Detroit (N = 41).
Protedure The procedure for the Grade I and Grade VI Ss was the same, with each S being individually interviewed, and the interview taperecorded. The procedure for studying levels of understanding was as follows: Level 1: Appropriate Expression of Relationships in Spontaneous Speech. Spontaneous speech samples of
Grade I and Grade VI Ss, were obtained by two methods: (a) free conversation, in which S was encouraged to talk, and (b) a story-telling task, in which S was asked to tell a story to at least two of the Picture Arrangement series of the WISC, presented in their correct orders. Level 2: Selection of Appropriate Expression of Relationships. Each Grade I and Grade VI S was read the pairs of sentences (described below), and asked to choose that member of each pair which seemed better to him. The college Ss served as a control group, to provide a standard of appropriate usage. They were tested as a group. Each college S read a form containing the sentences, and circled the sentence of each pair which seemed better to him. Level 3: Verbalization of Relationships. Immediately after making his choice on the paired-sentence test each Grade I and Grade VI S was asked why the chosen sentence had seemed better.
Paired-Sentence Test Nine pairs of sentences were constructed to test views of Werner and Kaplan (1963); Piaget (1928, 1948); and Vygotsky (1962). (1) Explicit Versus Implicit Causal Constructions. Werner and Kaplan (1963) consider a significant step in the child’s handling of relationships between events to be the use of causal connectives to express causal relationships which were previously implicit. To determine the preferences of the age groups in the present study, a choice was given between a sentence in which the causal relationship was specified by the connective “because,” (“We did not sit down, because the benches were wet.“) and one in which the relationship was implicit (“We did not sit down, the benches were wet.“) The assumption was that the sentence containing ‘the linguistic connective would be preferred by children who are able to express causal relationships explicitly. (2) Causal versus Temporal Linkages. Werner and Kaplan’s view that the subordinate construction is more difficult to learn than the coordinate construction leads them to consider the expression of relationships by means of “when, ” “because,” and “therefore” to be more advanced than the use of the connective “then.” To determine the relative influence of grammatical features in determining sentence preferences, choices were offered between causal and temporal connectives associated with different grammatical structures (“Because it started to rain, we ran into Ihe house.“, versus “It started to rain, then we ran into the house.“; and “I lost my keys, therefore I couldn’t get into the house.“, versus “I lost my keys, and then I couldn’t get into the house.“), and causal and temporal connectives having the same (“subordinate”) grammatical structure (“Because he turned the switch, the room got
UNDERSTANDING dark.“, versus “When he turned the switch, the room got dark.“) (3) Inversion of Cause-and-Effect Relationship. Piaget noted frequent inversions of cause-and-effect relationships both in the conversation of 7-%year-old children with each other (1948), and when they were asked to complete a sentence ending in “because” (1928). He accounted for these inversions by assuming that 7-8-year-old children do not associate “because” with the relation of cause and effect, but with the “relation of juxtaposition, which can best be rendered by the word ‘and”‘(l948, p. 116). If, as this view implies, “and” and “because” are functionally equivalent to children this age, the Grade I Ss should choose randomly between a sentence in which two causally related clauses are linked by “and” (“The boy fell off his bicycle, and he broke his leg.“), and one in which they are linked by “because” (“The boy fell off his bicycle, because he broke his leg.“) even though the use of “because” results in an inversion of the usual cause-and-effect relation. (4) Antithetic Relationships. Since Werner and Kaplan (1963) view antithetic connectives (e.g., “but”) as expressing “concrete nonsubordinative” relationships between events, they are considered easier to master than causal connectives, which are viewed as expressing “dependency relationships.” Vygotsky (1962), however, has noted that adversative relations appear later than causal relations in the child’s spontaneous thinking, which suggests that adversative connectives are more difficult to learn than causal connectives. To determine the understanding of adversative relationships, correct usages of “but” and “although” (“Jimmie went to school, but he felt sick.“, and “The meal was good, although the pie was bad.“) were paired with incorrect usages (“Jimmie went to school, but he felt fine.“, and “The meal was good, although the pie was good.“) (5) Linguistic order of Clauses and Perceptual Order of Events. Werner and Kaplan (1963) hypothesize that the development of explicit causal constructions is characterized by an early stage during which relationships are perceived as temporal rather than causal, with the linguistic expression of events closely following the order in which the events are experienced. This would seem to imply that linguistic development should be characterized by an increased freedom from such concrete perceptual ties. To determine whether the linguistic preferences of younger children indicate a greater perceptual dependency than those of older children and adults, the order of causal clauses was varied in two contexts in which the causal relationships were not explicitly expressed. In one pair of sentences, there was no connective (“The benches were wet, we did not sit down.“, versus “We did not sit down, the benches were wet.“) and in the other pair of sentences, 17
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the clauses were linked by the connective “and” (“John studied hard, and he did well in school.“, and “John did well in school, and he studied hard.“) Two forms of the test were made up in order to vary the context of the connectives, and the order in which sentences within pairs were presented. Half of the Ss in each group received one form, and half the other form. The same basic sentences were used on the two forms, but with different connective choices. A particular sentence content was not used more than once on each form. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 shows the percentage of Ss in each group choosing each alternative of the sentence pairs. (1) Explicit Vtxsus Implicit Causal Constructions. From Table 1 it can be seen that
the groups did not differ reliably, x* (2) = 3.41, p < .Ol, in preferring the sentence in which the
clauses were linked by “because” over the implicit formulation. The Grade I Ss resembled the Grade VI Ss, not only in preferring the causal construction on the pairedsentence test, but also in using “because” to express causal relationships in their spontaneous speech. The latter result is consistent with Huth’s (1919) finding that 6-year-old German children use “because” to express causal relationships much more often than children of age 4.5 yr. The fact that there were a few Grade I Ss who omitted causal connectives from their spontaneous speech (e.g., “The boy is playing with matches, he started a fire.“), and preferred the implicit formulation on the paired-sentence test, is consistent with Werner and Kaplan’s (1963) hypothesis that there is an early stage during which, although children may understand causal relationships, they do not express them by means of causal constructions. The results of the present study agree with those of Huth, in placing the upper boundary to this stage at age 6-7 yr. Although the Grade I Ss were essentially comparable to the Grade VI Ss with respect to understanding on Levels 1 and 2, they were quite inferior with respect to Level 3. Thus, while 58% of the Grade VI Ss were able to
504
KATZ
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explain the function of the connective (e.g., “‘Because’ tells why they didn’t sit down.“), none of the Grade I Ss were. Only 18 % of the Grade I Ss attempted to give explanations of their sentence choices and these explained the relationship (e.g., “If they sit down they get their pants wet.“) rather than the role of the connective. Eighty-two per cent of the Grade I
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with all groups showing a clearcut preference for the sentence containing “when,” x* (2) = .78, p > .Ol. The finding that the Grade I Ss preferred “when” even more than “then” over “because” is not consistent with Werner and Kaplan’s view that “when” is a more “advanced” connective. This result, together with the finding that the college Ss markedly 1
TABLE
PERCENTAGEOF EACH GROUP SELECTINGEACH ALTERNATIVE OF THE SENTENCE PAIRS
Type of comparison Explicit vs. implicit constructions
Alternatives
Grade I
Grade VI
College
90
“because” no connective
10
100 0
100 0
“because” “then”
35 65
62 38
88" 12
“therefore” “and then”
50 50
60 40
87”
“because” “when”
14 86
23
15 85
Inversion of cause and effect relationships
cause “and” effect cause “because” effect
82 18
100
Antithetic relationships
“but”: “but”:
19 81
68 32
98" 2
14
68 32
1W
86
effect-cause
44 56
70 30
47 53
cause “and” effect effect “and” cause
39
61
81 19
98" 2
Causal vs. temporal linkages
correct incorrect
“although”: “although”: Linguistic vs. perceptual order
correct incorrect
cause-effect
17 0
13
loo”
0
0
"xa(2)>9.21,p<.01
Ss, and 42 % of the Grade VI Ss did not try to explain their preference, saying merely that the preferred sentence “sounds better.” (2) Causal Versus Temporal Linkages. Table 1 shows reliable developmental trends among the groups for the preference of “because” over “then,” x*(2) = 17.86,~ -C .Ol, and the preference of “therefore” over “and then,” x* (2) = 10.49, p -C .Ol, but no reliable difference for the “because-when” comparison,
preferred “when” to “because,” suggests that the meaning of connectives plays a far more significant role than their grammatical structure at least as far as English is concerned. In this connection, the present results show a fairly consistent preference for temporal as opposed to causal connectives by the Grade I Ss. The fact that the college Ss behaved differentially with respect to the connectives “then” and “when”,
UNDERSTANDING
while the Grade I Ss did not, suggests that the subtle differences in the meanings of the temporal connectives are still to be acquired after age 6. The present results suggest that although the Grade I Ss tended to prefer and use temporal connectives to a greater extent than causal connectives, they found temporal interpretations of relationships more difficult than causal interpretations. Thus, the Grade I Ss who attempted explanations, gave only causal interpretations of the relationships, regardless of whether the chosen sentence had contained a causal or temporal connective. That temporal interpretations were also difficult for the Grade VI Ss was shown by the fact that their most confused explanations involved temporal connectives (e.g., “The one with ‘then’ tells why you can’t get into the house-because you lost your key first.“), and their most sophisticated reasons explained the role of the causal connective (e.g., “It tells why” or “gives the reason.“) It is interesting that the reasons of the Grade I Ss for their preference of the causal connective spelled out relationships left implicit by the Grade VI Ss (e.g., “When it started to rain we ran into the house, because we didn’t want to get so soaking wet.“) In this connection, the explanations of the Grade I Ss showed the same kind of “obvious” usage of “because” as that noted in the storytelling task.
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had noted a high incidence of inversions. In the spontaneous speech of the Grade VI Ss, there were causal constructions which were faulty, not because the cause-and-effect clauses were reversed, but because the causal clause was used as a basis for inferring the effect, rather supplying the reason for it (e.g., “It was cold that day, because I was marching in the girl-scout parade.“) If this elliptical sentence is preceded by the words “I know that,” it becomes perfectly acceptable. It might be noted that many of Piaget’s cases of clause inversion (e.g., “The man fell off his bicycle because he was ill afterwards.” 1928; p. 225) may be interpreted as elliptical expressions of inferential reasoning. The fact that elliptical sentences occurred in the speech of the Grade VI Ss, but not in that of the Grade I Ss, suggests that an elliptical style may be developmentally linked, as Piaget (1948) believed. However, Piaget regarded elliptical constructions as egocentric, and therefore an elementary mode of expression. The present results suggest that at least some types of elliptical expression may be more characteristic of mature speech. That this may also be true of written language is suggested by a study (Heider and Heider, 1940) in which deaf children produced fewer elliptical forms than a linguistically more competent group of hearing children. The discrepancy which gave rise to (3) Inversion of Cause-and-Eflect RelationVygotsky’s emphasis on the extent to which ship. Table 1 shows that there was no reliable language is unconscious, was not obtained in difference among the groups x2 (2) = 6.63, the present study, since the Grade I Ss seemed p > .Ol, with both Grade I and VI Ss preferring to understand on both Levels 1 and 2 that the more appropriate formulation. The fact using “because” to conjoin inverted clauses is that the Grade I Ss rejected the sentence in inappropriate. They did, however, show little which the cause-and-effect relation was understanding on Level 3. Thus, only 22% reversed suggests that these Ss had a less attempted an explanation, and these failed not ambiguous conception of the meaning of only to explain the role of the connective, but “because” than the 7-&year-old Ss of Piaget also to account for the sentence selection (1928; 1948). This interpretation is supported (e.g., [I like the one with “and”] “Because if by the fact that there were no inversions of you would say he fell off the bike and broke his cause-and-effect clauses in the spontaneous arm that doesn’t make sense.“) On the other speech of the Grade I Ss, nor in their explan- hand, 82% of the Grade VI Ss were able to ations-a context in which Piaget (1928) specify the way in which “because” was
506
KATZ
AND
inappropriate (e.g.; “Because if he had already broken his leg, he wouldn’t be riding his bicycle. In the other sentence, he fell off the bike and then broke his leg.“) The fact that “and” was interpreted as “and then” in all of these explanations suggests that the sentence with “and” was preferred because it expressed a temporal order of events which could be harmonized with experience in a way in which the casual order could not. Ervin and Miller (1963, p. 125) have expressed the view that “difficult semantic patterns such as ‘why’ and ‘because”’ are not acquired until after age 6. The present results suggest that this is true if one is referring to understanding on Level 3-ability to explain the usage of “because,” or the abili +o use it in sophisticated ways. On the other hand, the Grade I children showed sufficient mastery of the term to select an appropriate over an inappropriate usage on. the paired-sentence test, and to use it in “obvious” ways in their spontaneous speech. The fact that they were able to use it correctly confirms the Heiders’ finding that structurally it is a relatively simple form to master, rather than Werner and Kaplan’s view that it is grammatically difficult to learn. “Because” was used spontaneously by as many Grade I as Grade VI Ss (62% and 64 %, respectively). The spontaneous verbal outputs of the Grade I and Grade VI Ss were essentially the same (mean number of words = 323, and 299, respectively). The absence of a developmental trend in the frequency of “because” was also noted in the written language of children age 8-14 (Heider and Heider, 1940) and children in Grades IV, VI, and XII (Hunt, 1965). These results, together with the Heiders’ finding that deaf Ss used “because” more often than linguistically more sophisticated hearing Ss, suggest that the frequent usage of “because” cannot be considered to reflect higher levels of abstractlogical thinking. Piaget (1948) differentiated three types of causal relation: motivational, physical and logical, and considered only the
BRENT
logical type to be associated with abstract thought. In the present study, Piaget’s classification did not distinguish between uses of “because” by the two groups, since both groups predominantly used the “because” of motivation. The Heiders (1940)noted that although the deaf Ss usedcausalclausesrelativelymore often than the hearing Ss,there was a qualitative differencein the usage. The deaf Ss often usedthe causalclauseto justify what had already been said, or to state what was already obvious, whereasthe hearing Ss used it more often to carry on the action of the story. In the present study, causal constructions which occurred in the storytelling task were subjected to a similar analysis. Causal constructions were considered to be unsophisticated if they specified obvious relationships; i.e., those in which the relationship between events was so regular that the cause was implied in the et&t (e.g., “The dog wanted the chicken because he was hungry.“, and “The fire engine had to come fast because the whole house would be on fire.“). Causal constructions were considered to be sophisticated iftheir use was not obvious,or revealed an integration of story elements. For example, “The dog’s following ‘cause he sees all the meat.” was considered a sophisticated usage, whereas “The dog followed the man because he had some bones and the dog wanted the bones.” was considered an obvious usage. Similarly, “The boy is crying because he burned down his apartment building.” was considered more sophisticated than “The boy is crying because his house was burning.“, since the former sentence incorporated an earlier event-the boy playing with matches. Although only 60 % of the causal constructions of the Grade VI Ss could be classified as sophisticated, none of those of the Grade I Ss could be. This analysis confirms the Heiders’ finding that the way in which “because” is used may provide a more interesting developmental measure than a measure based on frequency.
(4) Antithetic Relationships. Table 1 shows a clear developmental trend in the understanding of adversative relationships on Level 2, “but”: x2 (2) = 40.55, p < .Ol ; “although”: ~2 (2) = 48.86,~ < .Ol, with most Grade I Ss endorsing the incorrect statements, and most college Ss the correct ones. The explanations of the Grade I and Grade VI Ss who chose the incorrect sentences indicated that the major obstacles to grasping the adversative relationships stated in these
UNDERSTANDING
sentences were the inability to conceive of exceptions to a general rule (e.g., “You’re supposed to feel well when you go to school, if you don’t, then you stay home.“); and the inability to accept content which ran counter to individual taste (e.g., “I liked ‘The meal was good, but the pie was good, ‘cause I like pie.“’ or “I don’t like people to get sick.“) The extent to which the Grade I Ss focused on words which had a strong affective connotation to the relative exclusion of form words, was indicated by their freely subsituting connectives in their own versions of the sentences (e.g., “Jimmie went to school, because he felt well.” and “The meal was good and the pie was good too.“) The explanations of one of the Grade I Ss, and 63 % of the Grade VI Ss who chose the correct sentence, indicated that they were aware of the antithetic nature of the relationships (e.g., “If he was sick with a cold he didn’t want to miss, ‘cause he could have been doing something special that day.“) However, the fact that only one Grade VI S tried to specify the function of the adversative connective (e.g., “You should say ‘Jimmie went to school-he felt fine,’ instead of ‘but.’ When you say ‘but,’ it’s like something could be wrong or something.“) indicates that neither group can be considered to understand the adversative connectives on Level 3. The connective “but” was used spontaneously by more Grade VI than Grade I Ss, which is consistent with the developmental trend noted in connection with the sentence choices. Although “but” was used more often in a contrastive sense, it was also used to introduce exceptions to general relationships, and in all cases, it was used appropriately to relate disjunctive clauses. The connective, “although” did not occur in the spontaneous speech of either group. The fact that 66 % of the Grade I, and 50 % of the Grade VI Ss who used “but” spontaneously endorsed the incorrect sentence indicates that both groups had a better grasp of “but” on Level 1 than Level 2. This result is analogous to the discrepancy in usage of
CONNECTIVES
507
“because” noted by Vygotsky (1962). The finding that some Grade VI Ss showed understanding of “but” on Levels 1 and 2, but not Level 3, points up another discrepancy: that between the ability to differentiate a correct from an incorrect usage, and the ability to explain the correct usage. Vygotsky’s view that causal relations appear before adversative relations in the child’s spontaneous thinking is supported by the present finding that while “because” was used by as many Grade I as Grade VI Ss, “but” was used by considerably fewer; and “although” was used spontaneously by neither group. Werner and Kaplan (1963) have stated that the causal connectives are harder to learn than the adversatives. However, the following results would seem to contradict this view: (a) on all three levels the Grade VI Ss showed greater understanding of “because” than “but” and “although”; (b) on Levels 1 and 2, the Grade I Ss showed greater mastery of “because” than “but” and “although.” The present results, therefore, offer no support for the position that the grammatical form of the connective affects acquisition of connectives by English-speaking children. (5) Linguistic Order of Clauses and Perceptual Order of Events. Table 1 shows a
reliable difference among the groups in preference for order of clauses linked by “and,” x* (2) = 36.80, p < .Ol, but no reliable difference when the connective was absent, x2(2) = 1.43,~ > .Ol. Since the Grade I Ss had already reached the stage of using explicit causal constructions, Werner and Kaplan’s hypothesis is not strictly applicable. However, the implication that linguistic development should be characterized by an increased freedom from concrete perceptual ties is counterindicated by both the finding that in the presence of the connective the developmental trend was toward increased correspondence of linguistic and perceptual order: and the finding that in the absence of the connective, the Grade VI Ss showed a greater
508
KATZ
AND
preference for the perceptual order than the Grade I Ss. To follow the perceptual order seems to require more linguistic control than most of the Grade I Ss had. For example, one Grade I S selected the effect-cause order of clauses, because the other order was “backwards,” indicating that, although he realized that order was relevant, he was unable deliberately to select the lingustic order which corresponded to the perceptual order. Yet the Grade I Ss had no difficulty following the perceptual order in their spontaneous speech, both when they were telling stories to pictures, and describing their own experiences. The ability to follow the perceptual order when not focusing on language, but not in the test situation, would seem to be another indication of understanding on Level 1 but not Level 2. While the Grade I and Grade VI Ss were relatively uninfluenced in their sentence choices by the presence or absence of the connective, the college Ss shifted from a clearcut endorsement of the perceptual order in the presence of “and,” to no preferred order in its absence. This shift may be a result of interpreting “and” as “and then.” A strong tendency for such an interpretation by the Grade VI Ss was noted both in their explanations for choosing the cause-and-effect order, and in connection with their rejection of the cause-and-effect inversion in comparison 2. The only difference the presence of the connective made to the Grade VI Ss was to increase the proportion of temporal to causal interpretations of the relationship (connective absent: 0% temporal, 50% causal; connective present: 43 % temporal, 24 % causal). It might be noted that the Grade VI Ss were able to express the causal and temporal relationships much more clearly than the Grade I Ss, which is another indication of their superiority in terms of understanding on Level 3. The fact that the present results consistently showed that the three levels represented a progression without inversion suggests that this kind of differentiation among levels
BRENT
can provide a reasonably subtle developmental index of linguistic control. It is interesting that clauses which followed the perceptual order were interpreted by the Grade VI Ss as stating a causal relationship, even though there was no connective present specifying such a relationship. That the causal interpretation was dependent upon the order of clauses can be seen from the fact that many Grade VI Ss viewed as meaningless the sentence (comparison 1) in which the clauses were also implicitly linked, but in the counterperceptual order. This finding suggests that at this age children not only believe that the causal relationship between events is coded by the linguistic order of clauses; they also believe that where there is a causal relationship among events it must be stated in this order. The present results indicate that from ages 6-7 to 11-12 there is a marked increase both in (a) the ability clearly to verbalize causal and temporal relationships, and the manner in which they are related by connectives, and (b) the preference for linguistic order of clauses to mirror the temporal order of events. Between ages 12 and 19, however, there is a decline in the preference for linguistic order of clauses to follow the causal-perceptual order of events, unless the clauses are linked by a connective which seems to dictate such an order. REFERENCES ERVIN,
S. M.,
AND MILLER,
W. R. Language develop-
ment. In Stevenson,H. W., and Kagan, J. Child Psychol. Nat. Sot. Study of Educ. Yearbook, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1963. Pp. 108143. HEIDER, F. K., AND HEIDER, G. M. A comparison of sentence structure of deaf and hearing children. Psychol. Monogr., 1940,52,42-103. HUNT, K. W. Grammatical structures written at three grade levels. Champaign, 111.: Nat. Council Teach. Engl., 1965. HUTH, A. Die Nebensatze in der Kindersprache. Z. Padag. Psycho/., 1919, 20, 163-183. LEOPOLD, W. F. Speech development of a bilingual child. Evanston: Northwestern University Press., 1949, Vol. IV.
UNDERSTANDING
M~~~~~,W.,~~~S~~~,W.DieBindewortErganzung. 19th Beih. angew. Psychol., 2nd Ed., 1923, 37-13. PIAGET, J. Judgment and reasoning in the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928. PIAGET, J. Language and thought in the child. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948. STERN, W., AND STERN, C., Die Kindersprache. Leipzig: Barth, 1928.
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VYGOTSKY,
L. S. Thought
MIT Press, 1962. WERNER, H., AND KAPLAN, York: Wiley, 1963.
(Received March 27,1967)
and language.
New
B. Symbolformation.
Haven: New