Connectives in written narratives by German-speaking children in fourth grade and adults

Abstract Connectives are a central means for creating a coherent discourse. The relationships between specific connectives, coherence relations and syntactic relations are complex for children to acquire. In this paper, we systematically compare the use of clause-initial connectives in written narratives by German-speaking children in fourth grade (10-year-olds, N = 32) and adults ( N = 52). The overall use of connectives, the types of syntactic relations and coherence relations expressed and the connective types used as well as the relationships between syntactic relations, coherence relations and connective types are analysed. The results show that the groups expressed coherence relations with connectives equally often. Additive relations were the most frequent in both groups, but the children expressed temporal relations more often than the adults, who showed a larger diversity in the types of coherence relations. There was no difference in the overall use of subordination and coordination, but the adults expressed temporal relations more frequently with subordination. The children used adverbs to a greater extent than the adults. The connective da ‘then’ played an important role in the children’s expression of temporal relations, whereas the adults used a wider variety of different connectives to express different types of temporal relations. The results suggest that children in the fourth grade have not yet fully acquired an adultlike use of connectives in written narratives.