Language Acquisition later stages

Morpheme & SyntaxAcquisition

(Steinberg & Sciarini, pp. 10-20)

Acquisition DeterminantsBrown (1973):

semantic & syntactic complexityDulay et al. (1982):

a predetermined order in the child’s

mind Steinberg & Sciarini (2006):(a) observability, meaningfulness,

distinctiveness(b) memory, logical thinking(pp. 11-17, 34-36)

Later Acquisition:Negation Rule Formation

Stages:I. no/not + X (noun, verb)

(e.g., “No money,” “Not a teddy bear”)

II. Negatives appear in the middle.(e.g., “I don’t want it,’ “He no bite you”)

III. ‘am not,’ ‘will not (=won’t),’ ‘don’t,’ and‘didn’t,’ and ‘can’t’ emerge.(e.g.,“Paul can’t have one,” “You didn’t caughtme,” “I not hurt him”)

Role of the environment (in-put)

• The mother’s speech sounds were found to reach the ear of the fe-tus above the background sounds (heartbeat and blood flow)

• Mothers’ reading of a story to their newborns

Comprehension vs production

• Comprehension develops before speech production.

Huttenlocher 1974Sachs and Truswell study

• Thought as the basis of speech comprhen-sion

(pp. 24-27)

Parentese (motherese)

• The sort of speech that children re-ceive when they are young

• Highly grammatical and simplified• Short and simple structures• Simple and short vocabulary• Exaggerated intonation and stress

Baby talk

• A form of parentese but with its own characteristics.

• Involves the use of vocabury and syntax that is overly simplified and reduced.

• Vocabulary: ‘bow-wow,’ ‘choo-choo’

Role of imitation, rule learning, and correction

• Children seem to enjoy imitating the sounds that they hear

• Imitation of the sounds can apply only to speech pro-duction and not to speech comprehension.

• Productivity by rule *sheeps, *mouses,

Conclude: Parents corrections are rare and do not play a role in grammar learning.

(pp. 31-32)