syntax and morphology
What do adults know about syntax and morphology?
They know word building, sentence building, three consonant limit, and CVC pattern. Adults can build clauses and add morphemes to change meaning and understand word order, phrase structure rules, tenses, and transformations.
What are semantic relations?
agent (doer), action (verb), object (noun), location (place), possessor (my, mine, etc), possession (follow possessor), entity (nonanimated object,EX: toy, crayon), attribute (description/adjective), demonstrative (this, that, they)
What are two types of language competence and their definitions?
Linguistic: the ability to produce and understand well formed, meaningful sentences
Communicative: the ability to use sentences appropriately in social interactions
What can you tell me about phonology?
Phonological skills are fine-tunes (use of complex syllables, multisyllable words, and consolidation of phonological representations), they have the ability to think about language, phonological awareness skills are closely linked to reading ability (decoding), development continuum
What factors need to be taken into consideration when analyzing the language of children who speak multiple dialects/language?
There is no universal form of AAE (differ by location), not all AA speak AAE, not all speakers of AAE are AA. Speakers differ in dialect density of their speech and differ in their extent in which they code switch.
How do children develop sentences?
What are Brown's 14 early developing morphemes?
1. present progressive -ing, 2. in, 3. on, 4. regular plural -s, 5. irregular past (come>came), 6. possessive 's, 7. uncontractible copula ('who's mean'> 'he is'), 8. articles (a,an,the), 9. regular past -ed, 10. reg 3rd person -s (bunny sings), 11. irreg 3rd person singular present tense (does, has), 12. uncontractible auxiliary ('who's coming'> he is), 13. contractible copula (doggie is nice> doggie's nice), 14. contractible auxiliary (doggie is eating > doggie's eating)
What is the first purpose of communication?
using language for different purposes/expressing intent
- depending how you say a sentence expresses intent ( can you open window vs it is stuffy here)
The three stages of development related are:
0-10 mths perlocutionary stage =Pre linguistic, crying, no intention
10-12 mths illocutionary stage =Development joint of attention, eye gaze, gestures
12+ mths locutionary stage =communicate with intent, start of language use
What can you tell me about lexicon?
vocab increases more rapidly than during the preschool years (1st ~10000, 3rd ~20000, 5th ~40000), learn more specific, rare, longer, and more formal words and how to apply word formation processes while becoming more efficient at learning words from context. they use nonliteral language such as metaphor/simile, irony, sarcasm, and idioms. up to 5 y/o children interpret fig lang literally, 6-7 y/o children beginning to understand fig lang, and by 10 y/o children can typically understand nonliteral lang
What is the takeaway from our discussion about dialect?
The main takeaway is we cannot analyze speakers with different dialects the same way we analyze those with MAE. Difference does not mean disorder. Dialects are not specific to race or ethnicity.
How does a child develop morphologically?
As they add grammatical complexity, their MLU increases. Question development is completed by age 4. They develop questions and negation in stages. Passive forms appear around age 3;6 (Be forms more common than Get forms).
What are the four basic sentence types?
What is the second purpose of communication?
Changing language to fit the situation
- uses register (style of lang associated w particular setting), researchers found children as young as 4 use CDS for babies
- boys tend to be more assertive, interrupt more, simpler imperatives, used directives/threats during conflict while girls are more likely to negotiate during conflict
What can you tell me about morphosyntax?
morpheme: inflectional morphemes in place before the child enters kindergarten and use of derivational morphemes in word building increase through the school years. syntax: understand of complex sentences develop further (passive constructions)
What is the main takeaway from school-age?
K-3 learn how to read, 4th grade and older read in order to learn
What is the best measure of syntactic development and why?
Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a great measure. It is because as a sentence gets longer, length is not created by adding new items at random. There is a predictable progression in children as they increase their MLU. The stages provide a framework to understand and predict the path that normal expressive language development usually takes, morphology and syntax.
How do children learn to understand complex sentences?
complex sentences appear after child regularly produces 4-word utterances (~2 y/o) and most type of complex sentences are used by age 4
examples: object complement (want you draw that for me), coordinate sentences (you will be the prince and i will be the princess), subordinate clause w main clause & dependent (they go yo sleep when it's bedtime), object relative clause (i see a lot of stuff that needs come off)
What is the third purpose of communication?
Learning how to have conversations
private speech, solitary monologues, pre-sleep soliloquies, language play, piaget (children talk to themselves), vygotsky (private speech predicts task performance), emphasize on turn taking, early response strategy is respond with an action, children know how to participate before understanding convo, by age 2 they understand convo has turns and depends on speaker said
What can you tell me about pragmatics?
children are more skilled at maintaining topics and more responsive to conversational partner. they continue to develop gender-type conversational style, develop skills monitoring others' comprehension and repairing communication that breaks down. children learn to monologue: first adults provide scaffolding (asking follow up ?s), as children develop they require less scaffolding but narratives are general still, later children tell stories w better narrative (coherence- structured in meaningful way, cohesion- link sentence together, and story grammar- stories have settings and episodes). maintakeaway: info sharing, understand and explain stories
What is telegraphic and why is it important?
Telegraphic words are short, simplified phrases that expresses relational meaning/semantic relations and contain content words more frequently. They are more successful because parents don't act as if anything in missing from their sentences (EX: get truck mommy= okay i will get your truck)
What are the five stages of syntax development?
1. one word, 2. vertical constrictions and/or word + jargon combo, 3. two words (limited relational meanings), 4. early sentences (initially two word combos w relational meaning, primarily imperative and affirmative declarative statements, telegraphic), 5. beyond telegraphic speech (morphemes, negation, ?s, passive voice, complex sentences)
response strategies, sentence comprehension strategies (word order S-V-O), world knowledge, and understanding relational meanings in word combos
What is the development of politeness in requests?
24-30 mo "please", 36-42 "can you..? would you..?", 48-60 mo uses hints that don't mention the intent of request such as "those smell good"
- during telegraphic stage, child request directly via imperative "more juice" or indirectly by identifying a problem "carol hungry"
-older children use more varied constructions, including modal "would you push this" and terms such as "please"
What can you tell me about literacy?
reading is part of lang (reading=decoding, writing=encoding), experiences that support school success, emergency literacy skills, and oral lang development promote reading skills. lang skills underlying reading: phonological awareness (predicts later reading ability), vocab and grammar (predict reading success, vocab more strongly), and pragmatics (ability to understand registers and lang use)
How can we explain grammatical development in children?
Syntax and morphology are very complex, and children can develop this knowledge in a systematic way. Children acquire morpho-syntactic competence gradually over time. The nature of input, general cognitive abilities, conceptual abilities, and innate abilities all contribute to their ability.