Today, Tomorrow, and Overmorrow: The Acquisition of Deictic Temporal Terms in English and German.

ABSTRACT: English and German both have single words for yesterday and tomorrow, but German also includes the words vorgestern ("the day before yesterday") and übermorgen ("the day after tomorrow"). This study investigates how these differences in time-word sets influence children's learning of temporal language. In two tasks, English- and German-speaking children ages 3 to 7 (N = 304) and adult controls (N = 75), marked the locations of temporal terms on a continuous timeline and a discontinuous calendar template. We assessed knowledge of three distinct facets of time-meaning (past/future status, sequential ordering, and temporal remoteness) and precise meanings for temporal terms. Our results show that German-speaking children were more likely to demonstrat

SUBMITTER: Steele K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12594576 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature