Distinguishing between obligatory and optional grammatical categories in ‘thinking for speaking’ : the use of the ‘aan het construction’ by six-year-old Flemish children

This paper explores whether the influence of a grammatically encoded category depends on being obligatory or nonobligatory. This paper tests Slobin’s approach to linguistic relativity. According to Slobin (1996; 2003; 2008), the presence of a grammatically encoded category directs the focus of speakers in the ‘thinking for speaking’ process. Slobin adduces evidence for this claim based on experiments with children in which he focused on the expression of the progressive aspect in various languages, e.g. the present and past continuous in English (is/was running), in comparison with languages t... Mehr ...