Hearing relative clauses boosts relative clause usage (and referential clarity) in young Turkish learners

On account of both their functional and their morphosyntactic characteristics, relative clauses are
often viewed as indicators of complexity in child language. Morphosyntactic properties of Turkish
make use of particularly arduous relative clauses in spontaneous early discourse. A matching sticker
selection task was used to determine whether Turkish-learning 3- and 4-year-olds can be trained to use
subject relative clauses and uniquely identifying constructions. Upon their selection of the accurate
sticker, the children were exposed to relative clause constructions (relative clause condition), sentences
with demonstrative pronouns (demonstrative noun phrase condition), or a general approval (positive
feedback condition). The number of relative clauses increased from pretest to posttest only in the
relative clause condition; the rate of using adequately discriminating forms increased in all the three
conditions, albeit with a steeper increase in the relative clause condition. The results are discussed in
the framework of both structural and pragmatic priming.