Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 27, No.

1, 1998

Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian

Mark Leikin1,2
Accepted June 24, 1997

This study investigated the ability of children between ages 3;0 and 7;2 to understand
and to produce locative prepositions in functionally autonomous form in Russian. Eighty-
eight children 'were required to manipulate two objects in nonverbal and verbal situa-
tions. Six types of locative relationships ("in," "on," "under," "above," "infront of,"
and ' 'behind'') were studied in constructions such as ' 'the sphere is in the cube.'' Results
showed that the children found difficulties in the functional use of prepositions. These
findings suggest that the acquisition of locative prepositions in childhood is not complete
at the time of their appearance in speech. This is a complex process which is not com-
pleted until approximately age 7. The acquisition of the prepositional system is equivalent
to the acquisition of the prepositions' semantic system.

In this article we investigate acquisition by Russian-speaking children of

locative meanings of prepositions. In Russian, prepositions are included in
semiarbitrary pairings of preposition with case. Prepositions and case in-
flections partly duplicate each other. However, a case mostly performs gen-
eral syntactic functions, whereas prepositions possess not only an "abstract"
grammatical meaning but also a lexical meaning, especially as they express
spatial relations (Jakobson, 1971; van Schooneveld, 1978; Vinogradov,
1986).3
1 University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel.
2 Address all correspondence to Mark Leikin, School of Education, University of Haifa,
Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel.
3 Usually case is classified as belonging to morphology. Here, however, the semantics of
the case system related to demands of syntax (Jakobson, 1971) and syntactic application
of the case in terms of Kurylowicz (1964) are implied. Accordingly, if the language
consists of both a case system and prepositions, the first one usually performs more
"abstract" ("grammatical") functions and the last one performs more "concrete"
("locutive") functions (Jakobson, 1971; Lyons, 1972; van Schooneveld, 1978; Vino-
gradov, 1986).

91

0090-6905/98/0100-0091$15.00/0 © 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation

92 Leikin

Prepositions appear in children's speech later than all major types of

content words. First and most frequently they express locative relations. This
occurs at ages 2;2 to 3;5 (years; months), when the prepositions appear in
a sequence that varies only minimally in different languages: in, on, behind,
under, above, in front of, and to (Berman, 1985; Dromi, 1978; Gvozdev,
1961; Johnston, 1988; Johnston & Slobin, 1979; Slobin, 1973). Until the
age of 2;0 prepositions are virtually absent. Beginning at age 1; 11, however,
the Russian preposition na (on) first appears, but it is found only in high-
frequency expressions that are functionally similar to adverbs, for example,
na kolenyakh (on the lap) and na ulicu (outside). As a rule in the period
1;10 to 2;4 the prepositions are omitted in obligatory contexts including, in
Russian, constructions with governed oblique cases (e.g., . . . stole . . . [on
the table]) (Brown, 1973; Gvozdev, 1961; Slobin, 1973; Sokhin, 1955;
Ufimceva, 1979). In this regard, Dromi (1978) suggested that the technique
of determining obligatory contexts can be taken as a predictive measurement
for the acquisition of new forms. Note that case inflections begin to emerge
before the prepositions (Gvozdev, 1961; Ufimceva, 1979). At this stage, case
is used by children to express locative notions as well. However, this appears
in a very abstract and indeterminate form. Accordingly, it was proposed
(Gvozdev, 1961; Ufimceva, 1979) that, in Russian, morphological means for
expression of grammatical meanings are primary and at this stage case mark-
ings are acquired (including their syntactic function).
The next stage that can be delineated is the appearance of "stopgaps"
or "pseudoprepositions." Usually these are vowel sounds (e.g., a), or some-
times real prepositions (e.g., v, [in]) (Berman, 1985; Leikin, 1989). Such
stopgaps are used instead of all other prepositions as a universal syntactic
element. They perform only a general syntactic function without any distinct
semantic representation. This may be an external manifestation of bringing
children's speech into accord with the formal standard of adult speech pat-
terns. This stage is only observed in the speech production of some children,
and therefore may be suggested tentatively (Leikin, 1989).
Finally, there is the stage when full prepositions and the verb-particles
conforming with them appear in children's speech production.4 At this stage
it may be asked whether this manifestation represents the culmination of the
preposition acquisition process or not. There are certain reasons to believe
it does not. The acquisition order indicates that it is determined by the level

4 In Russian the prepositional system is really a system of prepositions and verbal pre-
fixes, for example, the preposition v(in) and the locative verbal prefix v- (e.g., v-lez [he
got in]). (Vinogradov, 1986). Both items appear in children's speech at the same time
(Gvozdev, 1961).
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 93

of cognitive complexity of locative terms (Johnston & Slobin, 1979). In

general, this corresponds with the well-known psycholinguistic hypothesis
following Piaget's (1963) and Vygotsky's (1982) theories that cognitive de-
velopment precedes language development (Berk, 1991; Brown, 1973; Slo-
bin, 1973). The cognition-first hypothesis has been borne out for the specific
case of locative acquisition (E. V. Clark, 1973, 1980; Cox & Isard, 1990;
Halpern, Corrigan, & Aviezer, 1983; Johnston, 1988; Sokhin, 1955; Weist,
1991), that is, the ability to distinguish spatial relations, is acquired by chil-
dren between the ages of 1 and 3, before they acquire the corresponding
language expressions (e.g., prepositions). Moreover, in Russian, locative ad-
verbs appear in children's language before prepositions (Gvozdev, 1961;
Leikin, 1989). This especially reflects the context-boundedness of children's
language. It also suggests that children first acquire more physically concrete
meanings and then more abstract ones. Locative adverbs to some extent
duplicates spatial prepositions (e.g., the preposition v, [in] and the adverb
vnutri, [in/within]). But, in contrast to prepositions, adverbs have greater
figurativeness (deictic features), as well as high specificity and simplicity in
the designation of spatial relations. This suggests that a child first acquires
these relations cognitively, and only later does the linguistic expression of
these relations appear in his/her speech. Note, however, that the early usage
is based on early concepts, which change and develop (Berk, 1991; E. V.
Clark, 1975; Vygotsky, 1982). Also, the influence of cognitive development
on language development seems to be reversed (Bowerman, 1989; Vygot-
sky, 1982). Hence there is probably one more stage, namely, the acquisition
of a concept in the full adult sense. Consequently, one more notion arises
now, that of "functional usage" in language units, meaning those function-
ally autonomous uses of prepositions when the preposition immediately ex-
ecutes its semantic function (e.g., an expression of spatial relation) in any
context. That is, the specific meaning of certain prepositions is compre-
hended not only in a particular context, but in all situations (H. Clark, 1973;
Johnston, 1988; Wilcox & Palermo, 1982), for example, myach pod stolom
(the ball is under the table) and shar pod kubom (the sphere is under the
cube). Seemingly, only acquisition of full prepositional meaning makes it
possible to use the preposition in such form. Moreover, functional use of
prepositions at this stage of language development may also reveal important
information about the system of locative meanings, that is, about the nature
of the semantic field of locative prepositions.
The structures of spatial expressions across languages have been de-
scribed as a certain system of semantically distinctive features or mentally
represented primitives (Jackendoff, 1983, 1987; Kibrik, 1970; Shishkina,
1979; Talmy, 1983; van Schoneveld, 1978). In this paper a model of the
94 Leikin

Russian locative prepositional system is used (Leikin, 1989).5 Here the sys-
tem of locative terms is represented as a hierarchical system of semantically
distinctive features (SDF), and the means for generating the system. It is
supposed that the meanings of prepositions have an internal structure built
up from semantically distinctive features. The model includes a finite stock
of SDF and the means for generation. The system is seen to be in the process
of expanding. Thus this model is a sort of tree structure.
The basic type of SDF is distinguished by four object-centered features:
(1) "co-existence" of two objects in time and space (e.g., in the terms of
prepositions, s [with]); (2) "functionality," i.e., the functional asymmetry
between objects of relation so that one is the located object (hereafter called
the figure) and the other is the reference object (hereafter called the land-
mark) (e.g., pri [attached to]); (3) "location" (event-function Stay and,
partly, state-function Be in Jackendoff' s [1983] model) specifying location
of the figure with additional meaning of stasis over a period of time; and
(4) "path" (event-function Go and, partly, state-function Orient in Jacken-
doff's model) specifying motion along a path such as "trajectory of mo-
tion."
The second type of SDF appears in the hierarchical structure after in-
corporation into the system of two new measures: the viewer's position and
the properties of the reference object such as its own intrinsic coordinate
axes. These are such specific spatial features as "vertical orientation," "hor-
izontal orientation," "surface contact," "front," "back," "container."
The meaning of the preposition may be described by a single feature
as in the case of the preposition 5 (with) (the feature "co-existence" +) or
as just one of realization of a SDF. For example, the meaning of the prep-
osition v (in) ("enclosure" +: "inclusion of figure in the volume of land-
mark") is one of the realizations of SDF "location" ("location" +). Note
that a realization of any feature (function in Jackendoff' s [1983, 1987] terms)
appears here as a certain initial meaning that may not necessarily be des-
ignated by a concrete preposition in a given language. Finally, a meaning
may be described by a combination of features and their realizations. For
example, the meaning of the preposition ot (from/away from) is described
by the combination of realizations of several SDFs: "inclusion of figure in

5 Some properties of this model, are similar to the theoretical views of van Schooneveld
(1978), particularly, the principle of hyponymy and the assumption that a limited num-
ber of semantic features constitutes a hierarchy of inclusion relationships, etc. These
similarities can most probably be traced back to Jakobson's (1971) theory. However, it
is not possible here to present a comprehensive comparison between these two different
models, or among other models such as Jackendorff' s theory of conceptual semantics
(Jackendorff, 1983, 1987) or Talmy's description of place expressions (Talmy, 1983).
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 95

the neighborhood of a landmark" ("location" +, "source" +) and "mo-

tion ex loco" ("path" +, "target" -).
The model shows the system of locative meanings in the process of
expanding. There are two means of deriving this effect. The first is the
determination of the feature-operator in the field of generic meaning (one
of the realizations of a SDF). In this case the features "functionality," "lo-
cation," and "path" may play the role of such an operator. For example,
an initial feature for this system is "co-existence" and next in the hierarchy
is "functionality." The determination of the feature-operator "functional-
ity" in the field of the nearest generic meaning (realization of the SDF "co-
existence") leads to the formation of the new meaning, "definition of
object-1 (figure) by way of object-2 (landmark)" (SDF "functionality" +).
The second means of derivation is a negation of known specific meaning
(marked meaning) within the limits of the nearest generic meaning. For
example, the meaning u (by/at) appears as a result of a negation of the
meaning v (in) within the limits of the meaning "definition of figure by way
of landmark." The result of this negation ("noninclusion of the figure in
the volume of the landmark"—the new marked specific meaning) is refor-
mulated with the addition of a marked specific meaning to the nearest ge-
neric meaning as "inclusion of the figure in the neighborhood of the
landmark" (the preposition u [by/at]). As a result of these derivational pro-
cesses, it is possible to pattern the system of a locative meaning6 (Fig. 1)
(Leikin, 1989). This pattern, presented in terms of lexical units (i.e., prep-
ositions), represents the suggested hierarchy of meanings and trends of der-
ivation of the system.
The aim of this work was to study children's ability to use locative
prepositions in new unusual contexts, that is, to achieve what we shall term
"functional usage" of the prepositions. It may be suggested that the acqui-
sition of a system of locative SDFs conforms to a new level of abstraction
and generalization of locative relations. Namely, it is a necessary stage in
the acquisition of prepositions' full adult meaning. The experiment, which
called for "functional usage" of prepositions, seemed apt to demonstrate
this process in development and to reveal properties of the system's for-
mation.

6 This pattern was constructed on the basis of analysis of literary texts, examples from
the living spoken language of adults (Kibrik, 1970; Shichkina, 1979), and, partly, ex-
amples of prepositional paraphasias of adult aphasics (Leikin, 1989).
96 Leikin

Fig. 1. Part of the Russian system of locative meanings.

METHOD

Subjects
Eighty-eight subjects participated in the present study (male n = 46
and female n = 42). All were native Russian-speaking children, selected
from five age groups: (1) 17 children aged 3;0 to 3;9; (2) 15 children aged
4;0 to 4;11; (3) 17 children aged 5;0 to 5;11; (4) 10 children aged 6;0 to 6;
6; and (5) 19 children aged 6;7 to 7;2.

Procedure
Several tasks were administered to subjects, whereby each child had to
manipulate two objects in nonverbal and verbal situations. The objects were
a wooden sphere (diameter: 5 cm) and a plastic opaque cube (10 cm3) that
was open on one side. Six types of locative relationships (and six Russian
prepositions) were examined: in, on, under, above, in front of, behind. The
materials used in the verbal tasks included three types of prepositional con-
structions: (i) shar na kube (the sphere is on the cube)', (ii) shar nakhoditsja
na kube (the sphere is located on the cube); (iii) na kube shar (on the cube
there is the sphere). This aimed at the studying of possible influence of
syntactic context on comprehension of prepositions. Each of the three con-
structions was used for each of the six prepositions. In the experiment, the
words sphere and cube denoting the figure and the landmark of relation
were deliberately used instead of the more familiar ball and box. This aimed
at augmentation of the preposition's role in comprehension of the phrase's
meanings.
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 97

A brief description of the tasks follows.

Task I. A nonverbal imitation task was designed to facilitate observation
of the children's ability to decode and encode locative relationships in non-
verbal behavior. The task required establishing spatial relationships between
the sphere and the cube in real space according to three demonstrated types
of pattern: (1) a pattern of spatial relation established by the examiner, (2)
a picture illustrating in three-dimensional projection the relationships be-
tween the sphere and the cube, and (3) a picture illustrating these relation-
ships with different pairs of objects (18 pictures such as "the bird is in the
cage").
Before carrying out the task the cube was located opposite the subject,
approximately 25 to 30 cm from him or her, on the table so that the cube's
open side faced the subject. Similarly, the sphere was located opposite the
subject but nearer to him or her on the edge of the table. In Task I (as well
as in Task III), initially the examiner established spatial relationships be-
tween these objects, i.e., placed the sphere into the cube, in front of the
cube, etc. In the case of the relationship "the sphere is above the cube",
the examiner held the sphere above the cube. In Tasks I and III, the subjects
had to operate similarly.
In Task I, examiner showed a pattern to the child, and asked him/her
to place the object according to the pattern. There was a random list of items
in which each item appeared three times. This task, like the next (verbal-
repetition task), largely served as a control, but not exclusively. Its purpose
was also to draw the children's attention to spatial relations, and to the
prepositions used for specifying these relations.
Verbal tasks included three experiments designed to enable separate
examination of the children's ability to perform three types of linguistic
operations with locative prepositions.
Task H. This involved repetition of prepositional phrases such as "The
sphere is on the cube." The phrases were read aloud by examiner and the
subject was asked to repeat them.
Task 111. This involved comprehension of prepositional phrases in re-
ceptive speech. These phrases were read aloud by examiner and the subject
was required to place the objects in the appropriate relationships. In the case
of the preposition nad (above), the sphere had to be kept in child's hand.
The examples of such performance were demonstrated in previous tasks.
Task IV. This involved the naming of demonstrated patterns of spatial
relationships between the sphere and the cube. Each pattern of relationship
was demonstrated by the examiner and the children were asked to state
where the sphere was placed ("Gde shar?" ["Where is the sphere?"]).
In all the tasks, the order of presentation was random across all stimuli.
Each item appeared three times.
98 Leikin

Scoring
During the examination, the children were not told if their responses
were correct or not. There was no stimulation intended to elicit a certain
kind of response. The last response in the course of 1 min was accepted as
final. In nonverbal tasks and in the comprehension task, only the establish-
ment of suitable spatial relationships between given objects was accepted as
correct. In the verbal imitation task, the correct response was the repetition
of the presented construction without alterations causing semantic changes.
Finally, in the naming task any suitable verbal description of the presented
spatial relation was deemed correct. During the experiment, the examiner
made use of a registering form to record each child's performances and the
accompanying activity and explanations by the child. In each task, the de-
gree of appropriate performance was determined by calculating the per-
centage of correct responses. For example, if in the 3;0 to 3;9 age group the
prepositional constructions were comprehended correctly in 175 out of 306
presentations, the percentage of appropriate performances would be 57 (175
divided by 306, multiplied by 100). The statistical treatment of data was
carried out by the F method (angular transformation of Fisher) (Runyon &
Haber, 1991).

RESULTS

All the children performed the nonverbal tasks without error or diffi-
culty. They correctly placed the sphere and the cube in locative relationships
according to the given pattern. Thus, the children could comprehend and
express such relationships (including "under" and "above") in their non-
verbal behavior (i.e., in this case, by means of the sphere and the cube.)
These results were fully expected since, according to E. V. Clark (1973,
1980), Halpern et al. (1983), Johnston (1988), and Cox and Izard (1990),
nonverbal cognitive skills concerned with spatial relations are acquired in
earlier stages of child development. The same results were obtained in the
verbal repetition task. The children had no problem repeating the given
construction. Several alterations of a constructional nature occurred, but all
these were within the framework of permissible variations in Russian. The
prepositions and case inflections were repeated correctly. These results were
expected, like those in the previous tasks. It was important, however, to test
the children's ability to express studied types of phrases through verbal
imitation.
Table I summarizes the children's performance in the comprehension
and naming tasks. Errors are seen to occur in all age groups. As might be
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 99

Table I. Mean Number of Correct Comprehensions of Prepositional Constructions and

Naming of Spatial Relations in Five Age Groups
Age groups Comprehension Naming
(1) 3;0 to 3;9 (n = 17) 57 39
(2) 4;0 to 4;9 (n = 15) 67 56
(3) 5;0 to 5;11 (n = 17) 78 50
(4) 6;0 to 6;6 (n = 20) 91 73
(5) 6;7 to 7;2 (n = 19) 96 86
Note: All values are pretransformed percentages.

expected, there was a steady improvement in performance with age increase.

Analysis of variance with four factors (age, task, types of construction in
Comprehension task, and prepositions) was carried out on the number of
correct responses. Between-groups analysis of variance revealed a significant
difference (p < .05). It was true even for the 6;0 to 6;6 and 6;7 to 7;2 age
groups (F = 2.74, p < .05), whose results in the comprehension task (by
percentage) were somewhat similar. The only exception was in the naming
task for the 4;0 to 4;9 and 5;0 to 5;11 age groups, whose results were not
significantly different (F = 1.44, p < .05). The effect of task was also
significant in all age groups in favor of the comprehension task (F, = 4.48,
F2 = 2.46, F3 = 3.35, F4 = 6.48, F5 = 4.76, p < .05, for the five age
groups, respectively). In turn, the variance in the results did not correlate
with the types of constructions in which the prepositions occurred, but did
correlate with specific prepositions. The most difficult one was nad (above)
(without meaning "contact")7 while v, (in), na (on), and za (behind) were
easiest. This pattern was most distinct in the oldest age groups and con-
formed largely with the acquisition order (Johnston, 1988). All these dis-
tinctions were significant too, except for the pairs of prepositions on <-»
behind, under <-> in front of in the comprehension task, and under <-» behind
in the Naming task (the greatest difference: F — 1.35, p < .05).
In the comprehension task, two error patterns were noted. The first was
presented by nonresponses (5% of all errors). In these cases, a child did not
even try to perform a task. The second involved receptive substitutions, that
is, miscomprehension of prepositional meaning (95% of all errors). In such
cases, children placed the objects in inappropriate relationships, e.g., "in
front of"' instead of ''behind.''

7 In Russian the distinction by the feature (meaning) "contact" among the studied prep-
ositions is realized only in the pair of the prepositions na (on) (with contact) and nad
(above) (without contact).
100 Leikin

Most of the receptive substitutions (with 96% confidence) were substi-

tutions among the six locative meanings being tested (e.g., "under" instead
of "on"). But there were also a few cases of use of other meanings ("to
the left/right," e.g., "to the right" instead of "above"). Altogether 33 pat-
terns of receptive substitutions appeared in the comprehension task, some
of which were more frequent than others. It is possible to transform these
findings into graphs by an algorithm (Zadeh, 1976; Lisokhin, Lukyanenko,
& Piotyrovski, 1982), as follows. We will consider the relation A/B (e.g.,
the substitution "above —> on") as belonging to the binary relation if (a)
there is also a pair B/A (e.g., the substitution "on —» above"), and the
frequency of appearance of element A divided by the number of all consid-
ered cases > 0.3; or if (b) there is no pair B/A, but this frequency > 0.6.
By this transformation we obtain the graph shown in Fig. 2, in which the
significant trends of substitutions are marked by arrows. In other words, the
arrow shows the direction of the substitutions from the substitute to the
preposition that has been replaced (the "weak" member of the opposition).
These results may reflect not only the semantic and cognitive complexity of
prepositions but also the presence of a certain semantic relationships be-
tween them.
In addition, a special pattern of children's language behavior (special
strategy) was evident in carrying out the tasks. The children tried out dif-
ferent locative relationships; that is, they sought the appropriate relationship
for a given prepositional phrase (22 cases). For example, on hearing the
phrase shar nad kubom (the sphere is above the cube), the children expressed
a few relations such as "the sphere is behind the cube," "the sphere is to
the right of the cube," and "the sphere is in front of the cube." Only in
seven cases did this strategy lead to the correct result. Such responses were
performed quickly and resembled slips of the tongue.

Fig. 2. Directions of substitutions in understanding prepositional constructions (most

frequent types of substitutions). Note: A continuous line shows the most frequent oc-
currence; a dotted line shows less frequency of occurrence (but still valid).
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 101

In the naming task the children demonstrated different patterns of lan-

guage behavior. They produced incomplete phrases in which they did not
express the words sphere and cube (or both), for example, v kube (in the
cube) (5;2), shar pered (the sphere in front of) (5;8); zdes, pered (here,
before) (4;1). The words sphere and cube were frequently used by dimin-
utive suffixes (kubik, sharik) or sometimes replaced by the words ball, box,
etc. This reflected the children's tendency to say first where the sphere was
placed, that is, the pragmatic end-result of the locative massage took prec-
edence over the lexical items. However, in most cases they specified spatial
relation and landmark. Different language means for expression of relations
were shown:
(i) Pronominal adverbs—deictic terms (e.g., tarn, [there], 3;5; zdes [here],
3;2)
(ii) Different words and grammatical forms with the meaning of the re-
lationship and its implications (e.g., doma [at home], 3;6, in Russian,
without the preposition; spriatalsia, [he hid], 4;2)
(iii) Prepositional constructions which are very frequent in children's
speech (e.g., v kabine [in the cabin], 4;0; pod kryshaj [under the roof]
4;3).
(iv) Locative adverbs (e.g., vnutri [in/within])
(v) Locative prepositions (e.g., na [on])
The children's errors in this task were of the following types (Table
II):
(i) Nonresponse. In these cases, the children thought for a long time and
afterwards they would frequently reply that they did not know "how
they had to say it."
(ii) Prepositional substitutions. In these cases one preposition replaced an-
other, for example, the sphere is above the cube instead of on (5;4),
and the sphere is under the cube instead of in front of (5;8).
(iii) Adverbial substitutions. In these cases a preposition was replaced by
an adverb. For example, the sphere is below instead of in front of(4;7)
and the sphere is suspended on top instead of above (5;2).
(iv) Substitutions of a preposition by demonstrative pronominal adverbs,
for example, there replacing under (3;2).
(v) Substitution of a preposition by word combinations or phrases (de-
scription). For example, the sphere is suspended replaced above (3;8).
In sum, only those responses in which spatial relation was not expressed
or was expressed incorrectly were considered as errors.
Table II shows that on the whole adverbial substitutions (most of which
cannot be considered as errors) occurred more frequently than prepositional
102 Leikin

Table II. Frequency and Type of Errors in Naming of Locative Relationships

Types of substitution
Group Nonresponse Prepositional Adverbial Pronominal Description

(1) 3;0 to 3;9 6.4 23.9 54.8 3.2 11.7

(2) 4;0 to 4;9 7.5 25.8 60.9 — 5.8
(3) 5;0 to 5;11 1.3 19.0 77.1 — 2.6
(4) 6;0 to 6;6 3.1 13.3 79.5 — 4.1
(5) 6;7 to 7;2 — 17.1 72.3 — 10.6

Note: All values are pretransformed percentages

substitutions. This difference was very significant (F = 16.66, p < .05).

However, although the children were not instructed to use prepositions only,
they used them (correctly or not) in 70% of all cases. In addition, note that
up to 40% of adverbial substitutions in the younger groups (3;0 to 5;0) and
approximately 15% of such substitutions in older groups (5;0 to 7;2) were
semantic (e.g., vnutri [within] instead of na [on]).
Furthermore, the children showed two special patterns (strategies) in
naming spatial relations. The first was the search for an adequate expression
for a given relationship. In the course of such a search several prepositions
and/or adverbs appeared (28 cases or 1.8% of all verbal responses). For
example, in their attempts to express the relationship "above" children gave
responses such as "the sphere is on ... in ... under, above the cube" (6;
5) and instead of in they used on, under the box (3;2). The second strategy
was attempts to "intensify" the semantic content of the expressions with
the help of an additional lexical and/or syntactic term. For example, shar
vnizu, kub naverkhu [the sphere is under, the cube is above] (6;8) and shar
visit nad kubom [the sphere is suspended above the cube] (3;1).
Substitutions were the main error type, but they were varied in their
nature. There were semantic substitutions (e.g., in -» on) and nonsemantic
substitutions in which the meaning of a given relationship was approxi-
mately correct (e.g., below -» under)* In the children's verbal responses,
27 different word-substitutes (prepositions and adverbs) and 79 types of
semantic substitutions were noted. Some of these errors occurred more fre-
quently, and in addition various meanings had different "strengths" from
the viewpoint of the substitution patterns (Fig. 3).
Figures 2 and 3 show that the structure of substitutions also varied
depending on the tasks. For example, there were substitutions which were

8 In these meanings the feature "contact" is not realized, being superseded by the feature
"proximity."
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 103

Fig. 3. Directions of substitutions in naming spatial relationships (most frequent types

of substitutions).

most frequent in both tasks (e.g., in —» under, on —> over) or only in one
task (e.g., behind —> in front of in the comprehension task, and behind —>
on in the naming task). Also, an asymmetrical pattern of substitutions was
observed (e.g., behind —» under in the Comprehension task, and under —»
behind in the naming task).
Analysis of the substitutions (in the comprehension and the naming
tasks) did not disclose any connection between the nature of errors on the
one hand, and the frequency, prosodic and articular complexity, or phonetic
similarity of the prepositions on the other. Rather the results (see Figs. 2
and 3) reflected the semantic complexity of the prepositions. Analyzing the
substitutions from the viewpoint of the proposed pattern of locative mean-
ings, it was found that the nature of the substitutions to some extent corre-
lated with SDFs and their structure within the system (see Fig. 1). Thus, the
children's substitutions may now be expressed in terms of the model of
prepositional semantic system:
1. Substitutions by common feature (the neutralization of one or more fea-
tures): (i) on —> above, above —> on, higher —» above, beyond —» on.
The common feature is the "vertical orientation" (from above) in the
presence of neutralization of the opposition by the feature "contact." (ii)
at —> in front of, about —> in front of, beside —> in front of, etc.; about
-> above, about —> behind, etc.; away from —> in front of, toward —» in
front of, etc. The common feature is "inclusion of 0-1 in the neighbor-
hood of 0-2" with neutralization of the features "orientation" and "way
of orientation," that is, the substitution of specific meaning by a more
common generic meaning. (iii) to left —» under, to right —> above, etc.
The common feature is an "orientation" with neutralization of the feature
"way of orientation."
2. Substitutions by contrast of meaning: outside -» in, on —> in, in —» under,
in —> above, etc. In these substitutions the main opposition is by the
104 Leikin

feature "inclosure." If this meaning is disclaimed, a new generic mean-

ing "inclusion in the neighborhood" acquires different concrete reali-
zations: under —» over, over —» under, in front of —> behind, behind —>
in front of, etc. In these cases there is a change of the position inside the
meaning "vertical orientation" or "horizontal orientation."
3. Substitutions by nature of orientation: above —> in front of, above —»
behind, in front of —> on, under —> behind, behind —» above, etc.
4. Reformulation of relationships: through —> in front of, the sphere above,
the cube below —> above, etc.
5. Introduction of the supplementary orientator: on the height —> above, on
the top —> over, etc.

DISCUSSION

According to data in the literature of the "cognitive first" view of

locative acquisition, mastery of the nonverbal cognitive tasks precedes de-
velopment of the corresponding locative terms (H. Clark, 1973; Cox & Isard,
1990; Halpern et al., 1988; Johnston, 1988). By age 3 such cognitive skills
have already been acquired (Halpern et al., 1983; Johnston, 1988; Sokhin,
1955). Our findings also demonstrate children's ability to recognize and to
construct locative relations in nonverbal imitation.
There were no difficulties in pronunciation of prepositional phrases by
children in the Repetition tasks, nor were there any occurrences of mutual
replacement of names or roles of objects in relationships (in the Verbal
tasks). Apart from anything else, this was clearly shown by the children's
behavior in demonstrative gestures and real manipulation of objects. In ad-
dition, in other investigations (Leikin, 1989) children were offered more
familiar words with which to operate, such as "ball" and "house." This
change did not influence the results appreciably. All children detached fea-
tures of relationships such as "co-existence" and "functionality." In this
case, the cube was defined as the landmark and the sphere was defined as
the figure of the relation. Moreover, the training effect of the experiment
made it possible to focus the children's attention on the prepositions. The
children used prepositions (correctly or not) to express locative relationships
in 70% of all cases. The prepositions were selected by the children and they
searched for prepositions. Frequently they picked out the preposition ac-
cording to stress, used it without governed words (i.e., like adverbs), or
placed it at the beginning of a phrase (i.e., in the position of high focus). In
receptive speech, the children did not ignore prepositions, although they
sometimes misunderstood their meanings. Thus, they showed linguistic care
for the prepositions.
Acquisition of Locative Prepositions in Russian 105

Taken together, the results show that difficulties in the comprehension

of prepositional constructions and in the naming of spatial relationships di-
rectly relate to prepositions as a language class. But, as we know, children's
speech is characterized by an almost complete possession of syntax, includ-
ing prepositions, by the age of 3;4 to 4;0 (Gvozdev, 1961; Johnston, 1988).
The differences between children's spontaneous speech and their verbal re-
actions in this experiment may be explained by the fact that the experiment
demanded a "functional" usage of the prepositions, i.e., the usage of the
prepositions in their full "adult" meaning. Thus, our study shows that such
usage of the preposition is not acquired by children until at least age of 7.
Indications of the reason for this, we believe, may be found in the verbal
behavior of the children and their errors in the experiment.
The usage of pronominal and locative adverbs is more typical in
younger children. Locative adverbs appear in children's speech before case-
forms and reflect such features of children's verbal behavior as relations
with a given situation and motivation. In Russian, adverbs are more illus-
trative and substantive than prepositions and their functional usage is ac-
quired before that of prepositions. The children showed the synonymy of
the prepositions and adverbs, indicating that the acquisition of prepositional
means to express locative relationships is based not only on the adaptation
of case (Ufimceva, 1979), but also on the acquisition of the adverbs. In the
tests, however, the children made errors in the comprehension of preposi-
tional meanings and in naming relationships when they used inappropriate
adverbs instead of prepositions. These findings indicate insufficient forma-
tion of the system of locative meanings. By contrast, the developmental
decline in semantic substitutions and other errors shows the development
and formation of this system, that is, the acquisition of prepositional mean-
ings and operations for the search and selection of meanings from a semantic
paradigm.
Analysis of the children's semantic substitutions provided evidence for
many of the proposed features of the system (e.g., "motion ex loco," "con-
tact"), and their properties. At the same time the features were revealed by
the children in accordance with their level of cognitive and language de-
velopment. This has some significant consequences. On the one hand, these
features have different "strengths." For example, the features "inclosure,"
"common orientation," "vertical orientation," and "proximity," were
more significant than others. On the other hand, the children also revealed
some semantic features which are not typical of Russian, although they may
be relevant in other languages. For example, many children revealed the
feature "proximity" within the meanings "in front of," "under" and
"above." That is, two separate meanings within the meaning "in front of
were observed: "pered okolo" ("in front of, by/at") and "pered vozle"
106 Leikin

("in front of, by/near"). Such opposition by the feature "proximity" has
explicit expression, for example, in certain Caucasian languages (Kibrik,
1970). Hence, these findings indicate that spatial properties of relations seem
to dominate in the system of locatives forming with children. The features
revealed by children correlate to a large extent with spatial relations existing
in the extralinguistic reality (Dromi, 1978; Jackendoff, 1987; Landau &
Stecker, 1990). This becomes especially evident through comparison of these
results with the data of a similar experiment with adult aphasics (Leikin,
1996). Aphasic substitutions revealed not only spatial features but also lin-
guistic relations existing between locative meanings in the language.
Thus, the following picture of acquisition and further development of
locatives may be expected. Prepositions appear in children's language pri-
marily in response to the demand of the adult language's syntactic form. At
this stage (at age 3) prepositions perform mostly syntactic functions like
case inflections. Prepositions, however, also possess a certain semantic load,
being recognized mostly in familiar contexts. These initial locative meanings
conform to the level of the child's cognitive development. They are concrete
and have deictic features. In this respect, the prepositions are similar to
locative adverbs and may be used in an adverbial function. At the same
time, adverbs are preferred by the children at this stage. Further development
of prepositional meanings is affected by the development of cognitive skills,
and these in turn exert an inverse influence on the cognitive development
of locatives. This process is characterized by the formation of a locative
SDF system. Evidently the SDF system in children's language reflects the
properties of a child's cognition. The development of this system makes
possible the acquisition of a concept of locatives having full adult meaning.
One of the most important indications of the acquisition of a prepositional
system is the "functional" usage of prepositions. Again, the system is af-
fected by adult language and comes to reflect not only relationships of ex-
tralinguistic reality but primarily the relationships which are expressed in
the language.

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