Developmental Differences in the Use of Tense Aspect Modality in Narratives

This study investigates how/whether the emergence and function of Turkish Tense Aspect Modality (TAM) markers that are used in narratives by children from 3 to 9 plus 13-year-olds show differences relative to the age of the narrator both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data were collected, by using Mayer's (1969) wordless picture book "Frog, where are you?," crossectionally from 112 Turkish monolingual children from 3 to 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and 14 adults, as normative group. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that there are significant differences in the preference of TAM markers relative to age. While younger narrators anchor to "-mIs", older ones prefer "-(I)yor" as the dominant TAM marker. The qualitative analysis of the data renders results showing that the clause level function of each TAM marker differs from its text level function in narratives produced by children. (Contains 8 charts.)