Türkçede sıfat sıralaması ve gelişim açısından incelenmesi

Abstract

The purpose of this study ~as to explore the nature ofpre-nomina1 adjective order in the Turkish language. It wasdesigned to investigate at what stage of development Turkishchildren cou1d use adjective orderings, and if the adjectiveordering preferences of children were simi1ar to the preferencesof the adults.Survey of literature revea1ed that the order amongadults were well documented but, there was no agreement inthe exp1anations. Therefore a general princip1e that seemedto organize human thought and intelligence, a hierarchialarrangement of going from the general to the particular, wasproposed as an exp1anation for adjective ardering. Further,perception was suggested as a more specific exp1anation ofthis general princip1e. Perception can be observed in two1eve1s. Primary perception with which we can discriminatesize and depth, is global, general, fast, and crude. Secondaryperception gives a detailed and refined percept, byselecting, combininq features and relating these to what isin the memory. Therefore, it was suggested that percepeptioncould have affect on adjective ordering processes. The lessdefinate and the more general adjectives would come first ina multi-a~jective string. And that the more specific, moreconcrete, and more absolute adjectives would be perceivedwith the aid of secondary perception. Primary and secondaryperception is an example of a more general rule of organization,`from the general to the particular`, which exhistsin classifications, in learning, and in all cognitive processes.We therefore proposed that the same principle wouldhold true for adjective ordering preferences of Turkish adultsand children.It must be remembered, however, that children arestill in the process of growth, and their cognitive developmentcould affect their adjective ordening preferences Childrenunder 7 years (the pre operational stage) are unable to thinkin terms of sets and intersecting sets, and are unable tothink of more than one dimension at a time. This seems to bethe reason why they use onlyone adjective and point to onedimension at a time.An experiment was disigned to examine the proposal andthe hypotheses in relation to adjective ordering in childrenand adults. 264 children between the ages 3 and 8 were usedas subjects. There were equal number of boys and girls, andtwo groups from different socio-economic statuses represented.The experiment consisted of three parts. The first part con-tained 12 deseription tasks. Children were given pieturesshowing two dimensions whieh eould be expressed by adjectivesand they were asked to deseribe these pietures.The second part was made of 48 eomprehension items.Groups of four pictures showing two dimensions were displayedsimultaniously. The deseriptions of these pietures were madeby the experimenter in random orde~ and orally. The ehild wasasked to' point to the eorreet pieture.The last part of the experiment consisted of the productiontasks. The child was required to give foreed choiceanswers to differeneiate eaeh pieture from the others givingtwo dimensions and produeing phrases containing two adjectivesin sueeession.The experiment was eonducted by the experimenter andthe children were see n individual1y. For the youngest groupthe experiment was done in two sessions.The results of the ekperiment eonfirmed our hypothesesand seemed to indicate that perception. cognition. and the`from the general to the particular` principle all inf1uenceadjective orderings.The two different SES groups showed signifieant differenees.Children from low SES group started to use twoadjectives later than the high SES group. And in acquiring theorder the development of the two groups showed parallelprogress.Children under 7 had difficu1ty in using two adjectivesand most of them were unab1e to do so.When children used two adjectives their ardering preferenceswere significant1y simi1ar to the adults'.