Täis- ja osasihitise omandamise ning markeerituse seosest
On the Relation of Markedness to Total and Partial Object Acquisition

Summary/Abstract: The usage of total versus partial object in the oral and written Estonian of native Russian learners of Estonian as a second language is analysed, considering the syntactic markedness of Estonian object cases. Of the three Estonian object cases (partitive, genitive and nominative) the partitive is regarded as unmarked syntactically, unlike the genitive and nominative cases, which are marked in that respect. Analysis of empirical material (taken from free – oral and written – usage of L2 speakers, as well as from test responses) shows that most frequently the native Russian learners of Estonian have problems with idiomatic usage of the syntactically marked object, i.e. the one in the genitive or nominative case. Notably, the correlation between the aspect of the Russian verb and the case of the Estonian object, described in comparative grammars, according to which in most cases the respective equivalents of the Russian perfective and imperfective aspects are the Estonian total and partitive objects, is not particularly relevant in the object usage of native Russian learners of Estonian, while their frequent use of a partitive object in contexts requiring a total one could well be accounted for by the syntactical unmarkedness of the partitive form.

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