Preschool development of language form

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Preschool development of language form

• Owens book, chpt. 10

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Stages of Syntax Morph. Dev.

• Measured by MLU
• Generally, as MLU increases so does sentence
  complexity (thru 4.0 MLU)
• Considered a moderate predictor of language
  complexity
• See Browns stages, table 10.2 p. 294
• Review rules for computing MLU, p. 293

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Browns StagesTable 10.9 p. 312-313

• Stages are determined by using MLU
• Each stage has a typical age range
• Once we know a childs Browns stage we can
  decide
• Is there a syntax delay?
• Is child using appropriate grammar for their
  stage?
• dont memorize the development within each
  stage, but understand what this is used for

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Browns 14 grammatical morphemes

• See p. 296
• Im assuming these parts of speech are familiar
  to you however we will discuss copulas and
  auxiliaries more in depth
• Emphasize the learning of rules not memorizing
  the grammatical morphemes

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Browns 14 Grammatical Morphemes

• Phonetically minimal
• Lightly stressed
• Finite number
• Multiple phonological forms
• Development is very gradual

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Browns 14 grammatical morphemes Order of
development

• Learning of the morphemes is not related to the
  frequency the child hears them
• Learning is based on the complexity of the
  meaning or the complexity of the grammar
• For example plurality is a relatively simple
  concept plural markers (e.g., s) are learned
  early whereas is is a frequently used morpheme
  but children learn to use is much later because
  it is a relatively syntactically complex
  construction

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Browns 14 grammatical morphemes Order of
development

• Later developing morphemes such as auxiliary
  constructions require the child to link verb
  forms, use the appropriate tense and use the
  appropriate subject
• We are walking vs.
• He is walking.
• Yesterday they walked
• Yesterday I walked.

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Contractible or Uncontractible Copula

• Copulas are coded uncontractible in those
  situations when it is not appropriate to produce
  the contracted form such as
• Answering a question I am not Im
• Past tense she was tall
• First or last word of a sentence Is he going?
• (similar rules apply to auxiliary verbs)

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Other morphemes

• In the area of auxiliary verbs we will also be
  discussing modal verbs (e.g., can/could
  may/might etc).

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Other Aspects of Learning Morphemes

• How to pronounce words that have bound morphemes
  attachedprofane-profanity electric-electricity
  cups beds
• Morphemes that represent more abstract concepts
  are acquired later for example using words such
  as might or may in sentences means the child
  understands predicting

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Sentences Parts of a sentence

• Noun-phrase adding various types of modifiers to
  the noun big ball
• This elaboration occurs for nouns functioning
  as the subject object
• Subject elaboration The little boy ran home.
• Object elaboration He ate a red apple.

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Sentences Parts of a sentence

• Verb phrase development
• Know active vs. passive voice
• The boy ate the apple.
• The apple was eaten by the boy.
• We will emphasize identifying auxiliary and
  copular verb types
• Past tense, present tense, future tense

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Sentence development

• This section emphasizes the development of
  grammatically correct sentence types
• For example, young children demonstrate the
  pragmatic function of asking for things, use
  questioning intonation, etc.BUT grammatically
  correct question forms take some time to develop.
• Agent Action Object construction is the
  building block for many sentences (subject verb
  object)

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Sentence types Declaratives

• Begins with agentactionobject
• Mommy eat bread
• Stage III child adds auxiliary forms
• So mommy eat bread would become
• Stage V Mommy gave the bread to me (inclusion
  of indirect object).

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Developing the ability to ask grammatically
correct questions

• 3 types yes/no, wh-, tag questions
• Again remember, even at single word stage,
  children pragmatically can ask questions.
• We will now be examining their syntactic growth
  to ask grammatically correct questions.
• Variations across question types exist

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Developing wh-questions

• One word stage cookie?
• Late Stage 1 What that? Where go? Where
  going?
• Late Stage2/3 What mommy eat? Johnny go
  school?
• Late 3/early 4 What is mommy eating? Where is
  Johnny

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Developing wh-questions

• The development of questions is dependent upon
  inversion.
• Consider the declarative form
• mommy is eating.
• To ask a wh-question, the child must begin with
  the appropriate wh-word, (what), invert the
  auxiliary is before mommy
• What is mommy eating?

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Yes-no questions

• The same inversion exists for yes/no questions.
• I can paint becomes Can I paint?
• I can run fast becomes Can I run fast?

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Tag questions

• Begin with a declarative youre going
• Tag on the question portion.
• Youre going, right?
• Youre going, arent you?
• Youre not tired, are you?
• What is the rule for the last two?

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Negative Sentences

• Child must learn to use the 5 adult forms
• 1. Not nt attached to verbs
• 2. Negative words nobody
• 3. No before nouns
• 4. Negative adverbs never
• 5. Various negative prefixes un, dis, non

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Development of expressing negation in sentences

• Shaking head side to side
• No-found in first 50 words for most
• No plus a word no bed, (often referred to as no
  up front.
• No plus a sentence element no Annie go ni-nite.
• Negation embedded within Daddy not going
  Later will say Daddy isnt going.

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Development of negative sentences

• Great deal of individual variation
• Child may confuse no, dont, not, cant
• Remember the basic order of development
• 1) expressing no or not as single words
• 2) producing no or not at the beginning of the
  utterance (no up front)
• 3)embedding the negative form between the noun
  verb
• 4) embedding the negative using copular or
  auxiliary forms appropriately

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Early Syntax summary

• Syntax takes a long time to develop
• Much of the development of particular structures
  is dependent on the development of other
  structures, for example producing a well formed
  question is dependent upon use of auxiliaries and
  copulas, etc.

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Embedding Conjoining

• Phrase a group of related words that doesnt
  include a subject a predicate
• There are different types of phrases but for now
  just remember doesnt include a subject and a
  predicate Put the oranges in the basket
• Clause a group of related words that contains a
  subject predicate
• Ken, the boy that I like, called me.

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Compound Complex sentences

• Consist of two or more clauses joined with a
  conjunction
• Sometimes the two clauses are joined as equals
  I went to class and I took a quiz.
• Sometimes one of the clauses cannot function
  independently There is the boy that broke his
  arm that broke his arm is a clause that cannot
  stand alone and is defined as a dependent
  clause. In that sentence, There is the boy
  would be the independent clause.

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Development of complexity

• We will not be getting into the kind of detail as
  presented in the text, but you should know how to
  identify phrases, clauses and conjunctions.