The aim of this study is to investigate the syntax in Finnish literature for young people in order to arrive at fundamental information about the character of the language in literature of this kind. The corpus consists of three Tiina books by Anni Polva. My method is mainly quantitative, but also comparative. The language of the three books is compared, but the results of this comparison are also contrasted with other Finnish and also Swedish quantitative linguistic investigations. The investigation begins at the sentence and clause levels. To some extent is also considered whether syntactic features occur in main clauses or in subordinate clauses, in narrative text or in dialogues. The length of sentences and clauses is investigated. It appears that the length of sentences stated in clauses (2.2 clauses on averige) and the length of clauses in words (5 words on averige) do not differ from those typical of literature for children or adults. On the other hand the length of sentences stated in words (11 words on averige) is somewhat higher than in literature for children and adults. Active and passive clauses, mode, tense and negation in the clauses are investigated. The results show that the frequency of active clauses is high and the frequency of passive clauses is very low. The frequency of negated clauses is also very high. The most frequent mode is the indicative, followed by the conditional. There are few predicates in the imperative, and there are only isolated instances of predicates in the potential. The use of tenses resembles that in literature for children and adults: most predicates are in the past tense, followed by the present, the pluperfect and the perfect. Main clauses and subordinate clauses of different kinds are dealt with in the investigation. The proportion between main clauses and subordinate clauses is about the same as in the spoken language. The coordinating as well as the subordinating conjunctions are investigated both with regard to the actual occurrences of the conjunctions and with regard to their meanings. The most frequent coordi­nating conjunctions are ja 'and* (55.8 %) and multa 'but' (21.4 %). The classification of the conjunctions according to meaning shows that copulative conjunctions are the most frequent ones (50.7 %). Of the subordinating conjunctions että 'that' (35.7 %) and kun 'when, because' (25.0 %) are the most frequent ones. Semantically explicative conjunctions are the most frequent subordinating conjunctions (27.6 %). Syndetic coordination is most frequent in main clauses (78.8 %) as well as in subordinate clauses (98.9 %). Asyndetic coordination is clearly used as a stylistic device. A large number of different constructions are used in the corpus. Some of them are contracted clauses, some are other constructions which resemble them. The frequency of these constructions is unexpectedly high. The most frequent types of contracted clause are the necessive construction (47.9 %), the participle construction (18.3 %) and the temporal construction (15.3 %). Of the other constructions the modal construction (60.4 %) and the agent construction (12.8 %) are the most frequent ones. The structure of the sentences in the Tiina books is varied and sometimes complex. In all there are 167 different combinations of clauses in the corpus. The most frequent type of sentence consists of one main clause (27.8 %). In the combination of clauses we also find clauses with different degrees of subordination. Grade 1 is the most frequent one (87.1 %). However, there are even instances of grade 4. The position of main clauses and subordinate clauses varies a great deal. They may be mixed at will. The corpus contains a large number of clause combinations which occur once only. / digitalisering@umu

Repetitions in child-directed speech (CDS) have been shown to vary over time, and are suggested to affect first language acquisition. Correlations between verbal contents of repetitions in CDS and children’s language development have been suggested. The verbal contents of repetitions in Swedish CDS have not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the verbal contents of repetitions in Swedish CDS during the child’s first 2 years and possible changes in proportions of repetitions during the same time span. Verbal contents of repetitions in parents’ speech in 10 parent-child dyads as the children were 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24 months old were investigated focusing on word classes, sentence types and whole-constituent change. The results were compared to the children’s productive vocabularies at the age of 30 months. Possible occurrences of item-based constructions and frequent frames in the repetitions were also examined. The overall results revealed patterns concerning change in verbal contents in repetitions over time and correlations between verbal contents in repetitions and child language development. Two proposals were made: parents adjust the complexity of their speech to linguistic developmental stages of their children, and linguistic variation in the input increases as the child grows older. / Repetitioner i barnriktat tal (BRT) har visat sig variera över tid, och har föreslagits påverka förstaspåksinlärning. Även ett samband mellan det verbala innehållet i repetitioner i BRT och barns språkutveckling har föreslagits. Det verbala innehållet i repetitioner i svenskt BRT har inte undersökts tidigare. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka det verbala innehållet i repetitioner i svenskt BRT under barnets två första år och möjliga förändringar gällande andelen repetitioner under samma tidsperiod. Det verbala innehållet i repetitioner i föräldrars tal hos tio förälder-barn-dyader då barnen var 3, 6, 9, 12 och 24 månader gamla undersöktes med fokus på ordklasser, satstyper och förändringar gällande konstituenter. Resultaten jämfördes med barnens produktiva ordförråd vid 30 månaders ålder. Även den möjliga förekomsten av typbaserade konstruktioner (item-based constructions) och frekventa ramar (frequent frames) undersöktes. De övergripande resultaten uppvisade mönster gällande förändringar inom det verbala innehållet i repetitioner över tid samt ett samband mellan det verbala innehållet i repetitioner och barns språkutveckling. Två antaganden gjordes: föräldrar justerar komplexiteten i sitt tal efter språkliga utvecklingsfaser hos sina barn, och den språkliga variationen i inputen ökar med barnets ålder. / MINT: Modelling infant language acquisition from parent-child interaction (MAW 2011.007)