Term
| What are some advantages and disadvantages of the following methodologies for collecting language acquisition data: DIARY |
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Definition
| The original observational method, used by Sterns (1907), Leopold (1949) and Gregoire (1937). Parent writes down what child says. Problems: subjective (selective, bias toward cute, new, advanced), incomplete (lack of info about speech to child), unverifiable (no objective evidence of original events). |
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Term
| What are some advantages and disadvantages of the following methodologies for collecting language acquisition data: AUDIO RECORDINGS |
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Definition
| 1960's dominant methodology. pros: naturalistic, more complete and objective, data verifiable. problems: different sampling schedules made comparisons across children difficult. no record of gestures, eye gaze, location of objects, full context (researchers took contextual notes). child's pronunciation hard to hear so researchers focused on children with "good pronunciation". observer effects (visitor with tape recorder). |
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Term
| What are some advantages and disadvantages of the following methodologies for collecting language acquisition data: EXPERIMENTATION |
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Definition
| Researcher controls some feature of the environment to observe the effect on the child. Has child perform a controlled/varied task. pro: control over what child does, possible to study a form/structure that occurs rarely. problem: unnatural- results may not be applicable outside the lab. |
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Term
| What properties of language acquisition made Noam Chomsky believe that it must have an innate basis?: |
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Definition
| 1960's "logical problem of language acquisition": it's species-general (our entire species acquires language), it's species-specific (only humans), acquired spontaneously w/o explicit teaching, acquired by young not intellectually advanced children, basics acquired quickly in 3-5 years, speech kids hear is ungrammatical, rules children must acquire are too abstract to be learnable from the speech children hear. |
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Term
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Definition
| peek a boo, routine games |
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Term
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Definition
| setting the stage for later speech- pauses, actually talking |
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Term
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Definition
| being able to give/recognize examples of/evidence for mental representation |
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Term
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Definition
| establishing connection between behavior and response. |
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Term
| According to Ratner and Bruner, what properties of caregiver-child social-exchange games promote language acquisition?: |
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Definition
| understandable, predictable, and gives child opportunity to vocalize. |
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Term
| What are two developmental changes that we can see in the way children participate in social-exchange games?: |
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Definition
| gradually using more and more language, and role reversal with agency- first parent-initiated, then parent takeover. |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| speech act (know the 3 components of a speech act): |
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Definition
| locution- the produced form, illocution- the intent, prelocution- effect on listener- does produced form achieve intent? (LIP) |
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Term
| What are some ways in which the social context of language acquisition enriches our understanding of the “input” to young children? |
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Definition
| reveals child-rearing ideology. (west vs. others) |
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Term
| What are two things that preverbal children learn from their “protoconversations” with their mothers? |
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Definition
| organization of conversation (turn-taking), talk as means of interaction. |
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Term
| According to Clark, what are four conditions for an effective conversation?: |
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Definition
| Joint attention, accounting prior knowledge, appropriate speech act for intended meaning, listening to convo partner. |
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Term
| According to Bates et al., what are the 3 stages in the development of speech acts?: |
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Definition
| prelocutionary: unintentional communication- sounds that have an effect on the adult. illocutionary: intentional convo v/ adult. locutionary: gradual transition to recognizable words. |
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Term
| Describe the role of contingent responding in the emergence of intentionality, i.e. the child’s intention to communicate through language.: |
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Definition
| connecting behavior and response. role: basis for cognitive advancement. |
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Term
| Know and be able to recognize and give examples of the 8 early speech acts found by Dore (handout): What four types of evidence did Dore rely on in determining what speech act infants were performing?: utterance, nonlinguistic behavior, adult response, context. |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| specialized way of speaking in a given context with its own lexicon, sometimes different grammars used just in that context- legalese, doctor speak. professor addressing class, friends addressing one another. |
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Term
| Is CDS a universal? How do we know?: |
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Definition
| no. not every culture has it, diff cultures have diff kinds. |
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Term
| How did Chomsky describe adult speech addressed to young children? (Be able to give at least two characteristics).: |
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Definition
| ungrammatical, degenerate. |
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Term
| What are the actual properties (phonetic/phonological, semantic, discourse) of Child-Directed Speech? For each property, be able to specify how it helps the child in the tasks of language acquisition.: |
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Definition
| depends on each culture. phonetic/phonological- higher pitches, lengthening, reduplication. semantic- simple words, with usually only one basic meaning. discourse: ?? speech itself. simplified, easy to understand. pitch could be |
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Term
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Definition
| achieve attention of child, endearment, social marking- this is your place in society. |
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Term
| What 3 theoretical positions have researchers taken with respect to the role of CDS in language acquisition?: |
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Definition
| necessary, irrelevant, facilitative. -either needed, no one thinks its completely necessary bc there are cultures that dont have it. irrelevant- if irrelevant, people wouldn't do it. facilitative- is it useful. |
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Term
| Is CDS universal? What features of CDS are the most likely to be universal?: |
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Definition
| no. universal- pitch- variations of pitch??? |
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Term
| What are two differences between the speech addressed to very young children by caregivers of high SES vs. low SES in the United States?: |
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Definition
| SES- socio-economic status. the amount of speech, and content of speech. amount of speech:high SES tend to have more speech, more words. content- low SES have more imperatives. |
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Term
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Definition
| how to identify units of the word, where word boundaries are within words and amongst. (my-ami) |
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Term
| lack of invariance problem |
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Definition
| sound changes based on context. (allophones, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
| permitted sounds/sequences of sounds. |
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Term
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Definition
| how they perceive vowels spoken by different people (vowel differences by accent) |
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Term
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Definition
| innate perception of sound categories, like when p becomes b. |
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Term
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Definition
| pavlov test type of thing. when interested in a sound, higher rate of sucking- shows they can differentiate between p and b, for example. |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| when does speech perception begin? |
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Definition
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Term
| What sounds can the child hear in utero? |
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Definition
| low frequency sounds, prosodic elements (pitch). What sounds can the child recognize shortly after birth?: mom's voice, specific stories told in utero. |
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Term
| On the basis of the findings of HAS research, can we conclude that humans have evolved unique species-specific perceptual abilities designed for language? Why or why not?: |
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Definition
| can conclude they evolved the ability, but is not species-specific bc other animals can do it too- some other rodent too. |
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Term
| What effect does experience perceiving a particular language have on infants’ perception over time?: |
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Definition
| at first, are able to perceive elements of any language, but over time, after hearing only 1-2 languages, ability starts limiting to only those langs. Describe the conditioned head-turn study on the Native American language called “Thomson”; what were the findings on the effects of experience on perception over time?: at first, kids would head turn to any sound- another pavlov type thing. over time, would only head turn to the Thomson language sounds ??? |
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Term
| How does each of the following help infants to segment the speech stream: |
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Definition
| 1) the ability to detect recurring sequences in the speech stream, (can form patterns of grammar) 2) the properties of Child-Directed Speech, ( highlights the boundaries by speaking slower, more fluently) 3) familiar words, (???) 4) stress on words? (???) |
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Term
| What are the stages of babbling and the main developments at each stage? : |
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Definition
| reflexive (gurgling, crying coughing). 2. cooing (signs of affect). 3. vocal play (playing around with different sounds, different longer segments, patterns) 4. canonical babble (baba, etc. ) 5. non-reduplicated babble (same but not repetitive- ladida, etc. ) |
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Term
| In what order do reduplicated and non-reduplicated babbling emerge? Why? : |
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Definition
| Canonical babble comes first, bc pronouncing the same reduplicated pattern is easier to do than differentiating them. |
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Term
| According to Oller, what are 3 sources of developmental change during the babbling period?: |
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Definition
| physiological (still growing), nervous system (maturation of brain), experience (learning patterns, sounds, what can/cannot do). |
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Term
| What is the evidence against Jakobson's view that there is no relationship between babbling and phonological development?: |
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Definition
| reliance on universals and consistent findings- did not specify HOW kids recognize contrasts. |
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Term
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Definition
| sound changes based on certain context (surrounding letters/sounds) |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| According to Jakobson, what does the child’s first syllable consist of? What principle was Jakobson’s theory based on? Describe the development of phonological contrasts according to Jakobson. What evidence is there against Jakobson’s theory? (Reminder: Joan Velten/Jonathan Braine handout). |
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Definition
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Term
| What unit do children attempt to produce at the beginning of phonological acquisition: words or phonemes? Words. 2 camps: one says phonemes that then turn into words. other side says words, then differentiates phonemes within them. |
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Definition
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Term
| What evidence is there that children are selective in the words that they attempt to produce?: |
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Definition
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Term
| 3 components of communicative schema (carter) |
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Definition
| 1. gesture. 2. sound. 3. goal. |
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Term
| sensorimotor morpheme (Carter): |
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Definition
| not recognizable adult words. "sensorimotor" is the term piaget used for the child's intelligence at the stage before mental representation. it is an intelligence of perception (sensory) and action (motor). using nnn for wanting something- know what they want, have mental idea of it, but not recognizable word. adult word comes from it. |
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Term
| According to Piaget, what are three symbolic competencies showing that a child has the ability to form a mental representation of reality? |
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Definition
| 1. deferred imitation (child watches neighbor boy have a temper tantrum, the next day she imitates his actions of stamping his feet.) 2. symbolic play (child pretends that a sofa pillow with fringe is her blanket and pretends to sleep (squeezes eyes shut, sucks thumb, laughs). 3. referential use of words (use label to refer to object). |
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Term
| Having the ability to form mental representations is a cognitive prerequisite for what linguistic achievement? |
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Definition
| (Answer: referential use of words.).: Acquisition of word meaning involves creating a mental representation of the word's referent- if the child already has a mental representation of the referent, all they have to do is "map" it to the word. |
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Term
| According to Carter, what are the 3 components of a communicative schema? |
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Definition
| 1. a gesture (reaching for an object). 2. a sound (that is not an adult word). 3. a goal (get adult help in obtaining object). |
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Term
| What are some examples of early communicative schemas? |
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Definition
| 1. request object (reach to object, make m-initial sound. goal-get receiver's help in obtaining object.)2. attention to object (point, held out. goal- draw receiver's attention to object). 3. attention to self ( |
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Term
| According to Carter, where do the early sensorimotor morphemes come from? Is a sensorimotor morpheme an imitation of a specific adult word? |
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Definition
| Sensorimotor morphemes, along w/ the accompanying gestures, have pragmatic functions. Like speech acts, they perform interactive functions, like having an adult get an object, or getting adult attention. They have natural origins- m arises from labial muscles in sucking, pleasure sounds same as primates, etc. |
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Term
| Does using a sensorimotor morpheme involve the referential use of language? |
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Definition
| Sensorimotor morphemes have no referential meaning if before the emergence of mental (symbolic) representation. So, they have no real semantic content or "representational" meaning. Each sound just evolved into various words with different meanings, including referential words. |
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Term
| What happens to sensorimotor morphemes in the course of development? |
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Definition
| Each sound evolves into various words with different meanings, including referential words. Adult word must be phonetically similar to the original sensorimotor morphemes, then vowels/consonants differntiate mid-year when child begins to imitate the ultimate adult words. |
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Term
| What types (with respect to content) of words are among children's first 50 vocabulary items? : |
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Definition
| 50% of kids from 1 to 1.6 had the following words: people, food/drink, body parts, clothing, animals, vehicles, toys, household objects, routines, activities. |
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Term
| Noun vs. verb spurt: Which adult syntactic category is the most common in the vocabularies of children acquiring English?: |
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Definition
| Gentner 1982: 'noun bias'- object words are easier to conceptualize than words for actions/states. |
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Term
| How does Gentner explain this prevalence of nouns? What other reasons could there be for the high frequency of nouns? : |
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Definition
| objects 'cohere in space and time', are perceptually bound, all parts move together. actions are encoded differently in different languages- verbs refer to relations taht are more dispersed across space and time. But: Clark: can't really say whether kids prefer n over v- may reflect adult frequency. |
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Term
| Why do Korean children have a higher frequency of verbs than American children, including a verb spurt before a noun spurt for many children? : |
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Definition
| Soonja Choi: Korean kids have a 'verb spurt' bc of linguistic factors- Korean is an SOV language- final position is phonetically salient. korean allows ellipsis (non-mention) of the nouns (arguments) that go with a verb. Also bc of culture-specific practices- korean moms use more action words in play with toys- both korean and american moms label objects when book-reading, but US moms label more frequently in active play. |
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Term
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Definition
| word picks out entire object |
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Term
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Definition
| word is a type of object (point to poodle, kid thinks every dog is a poodle) |
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Term
| mutual exclusivity assumption |
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Definition
| one word per referent (can't be a text and a book) |
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Term
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Definition
| not superordinate or subordinate. this can only be a chair, not furniture or a kitchen chair. just a chair. |
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Term
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Definition
| use of a word for a wider range of referents than the adult word covers |
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Term
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Definition
| use of word for a narrower range of referents than the adult term covers (use car for moving cars only) |
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Term
| semantic feature hypothesis |
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Definition
| the meanings of children's early words are based on a few general semantic features (like dog = animal, 4 legged) |
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Term
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Definition
| best exemplar of a category- sparrow being best example of a bird, rather than a penguin |
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Term
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Definition
| anything that shares a feature with a prototype. |
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Term
| Why do nativists think that children need biases to help them learn the meanings of words? Use Quine’s gavagai example to explain.: |
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Definition
| the hypothesis-space is too large- the kid wouldn't be able to figure out word meanings w/o constraints to narrow down the possibilities. Quine's example: child hears mother say gavagai while pointing at a rabbit- gavagai could mean the rabbit, its ears, fur, color, size, etc- too many possibilities. Claim: kids have built-in biases that guide them- ultimately, they will have to over-ride those hypotheses that don't fit how people use words. |
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Term
| What are some a priori constraints/biases that researchers have proposed to account for lexical acquisition?: |
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Definition
| 1. whole-object assumption: words pick out whole objects, not parts. 2. taxonomic assumption: words pick out categories of objects of the same kind, rather than clusters of associated objects. (chair doesn't also mean table, though closely associated). 3. mutual exclusivity assumption: kids don't allow more than one word to pick out the same referent (will reject new label for object with a known label- birds vs. parrots). 4. basic-level assumption (words pick out basic-level rather than superordinate or subordinate categories (chair rather than 'furniture' or 'kitchen chair'). 5. equal-detail assumption: kids will assume that words heard at about the same time will refer to objects at the same hierarchical level (dog and cat- cat doesn't mean animals, or siamese cats). |
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Term
| What evidence does Clark use to challenge the validity of these constraints? : |
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Definition
| Adults use words at different hierarchical levels (superordinate, basic, subordinate) depending on context. Kids do assume unfamiliar words can refer to objects that belong to different taxonomic categories. Kids do allow different words to refer to the same entity. |
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Term
| What alternative explanations does Clark propose to account for the findings that have been claimed to support the whole-object assumption, the taxonomic assumption, and the mutual exclusivity assumption? |
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Definition
| Notes that many of the constraints seem to be perceptual/conceptual in origin. whole-object assumption could arise from the perception that objects cohere in space and time- their parts/properties move when the object moves. constraints could also have social origins reflecting the way adults use words in interaction with the child- whole-object assumption and taxonomic assumption reflect adult labeling practices and ways of using words in interaction (like labeling an object and talking about it to clarify word). |
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Term
| According to Clark, how do children figure out what a new word means?: |
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Definition
| 1. non-verbal cues: joint attention (gaze- what speaker is looking at). Gestures. 2. Conceptual knowledge: kid maps new words to previously stored concepts. 3. social knowledge about what inferences to make about possible word meanings (mom points at something, produces word. what is word likely to mean, given past experience?). 4. linguistic information provided by caregivers- caregivers talk about what words mean. |
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Term
| Even if caregivers do not directly correct children’s errors, how do children get “indirect negative evidence” from their caregivers about their misuse of words, according to Clark?: |
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Definition
| Example: kid says 'fix it' about orange. mom says 'you want me to peel it?' kid says: yes. peel it. -is a syntactic alternation between 'fix it' and 'peel it'- a form of "indirect negative evidence". the kid is indirectly being told he used the wrong word. |
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Term
| What are some types of linguistic information about word meanings that caregivers provide to children during ordinary conversation?: |
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Definition
| 1. Inclusion: X is a kind of Y. 2. Set membership: X is a Y. 3. Comparison: X looks like/is similar to Y. 4. Property identification: X has Y, X is made of Y. 5. Part identification: X is part of Y. 6. Listing: This is an X, this is a Y. 7. Function: X is used for Y. |
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Term
| According to Clark, what are two pragmatic principles that children use in figuring out word meaning? How do these two principles interact?: |
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Definition
| 1. Conventionality: for certain meanings, speakers assume that there is a conventional form that should be used in the language community. speakers give priority to established words for many meanings. 2. contrast: speakers assume that any difference in form signals a difference in meaning- not necessarily a difference in reference. the difference could be in social meaning- like formality. -> conventionality and contrast interact: if a speaker doesn't use the conventional form- for example, coins a new word- listeners assume they're trying to express something that the conventional form doesn't. |
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Term
| What is the semantic feature hyothesis?: |
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Definition
| The meanings of children's early words are based on a few general semantic features (dog = animal, 4 legged). |
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Term
| How did Clark use this hypothesis to account for children’s overextensions?: |
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Definition
| Since they are using too few features, kids are likely to overextend the words in their vocabulary. |
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Term
| Know some examples of overextensions based on perceptual features, such as shape, etc. : |
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Definition
| 1. Taste: cake- candy, cherries, sugar, grapes. 2. Texture: scizzors-all metal objects, dog-fur pieces w or w/o heads. 3. Shape: moon-round shapes, letter o. watch-clocks, bath scale dial. 4. movement: animals- things that move. train-engine, moving train, journey. 5. sound: noise of train- music, wheels, balls. bell- clock, telephone, doorbell. |
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Term
| Do children usually overextend in both comprehension and production? What did Thompson and Chapman discover about this?: |
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Definition
| T&C showed kids picture of adult referent and their own overextended referent- who is daddy? Conclusion: kids rarely overextended words in comprehension. they must have mentally represented the correct adult referent. |
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Term
| As children learn new words, what happens to their overextensions?: |
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Definition
| As new words are added, kid stops using overextentions. Lexical development beyond overextensions involves adding semantic features, and narrowing down the extension of words. kids rely on deictic terms (this, that) and general-purpose (do) at first, then move onto more specific lexical nouns for referring to objects/verbs for referring to actions. |
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Term
| What are some problems with the semantic feature hypothesis?: |
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Definition
| 1. some words can't be easily analyzed in terms of a set of semantic features, like love. 2. not all members of a category are equal (robins are "better" birds(more bird-like) than ostriches)- which one's the prototype. 3. boundaries of categories can be unclear- (is the pope a bachelor?) 4. different overextensions can be based on different features of the original referent (there may be no one feature shared by all the overextensions). |
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Term
| In prototype theory, how are semantic categories organized?: |
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Definition
| Categories were analyzed in terms of prototypes (a prototype is the 'best exemplar' of a category). (texture sound, taste,shape, movement) |
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Term
| Briefly describe how the notion of ‘family resemblance’ handles overextensions: |
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Definition
category members were analyzed in terms of their degrees of 'family resemblance' to the prototype (=original referent). category members have more/less resemblance to (aka more/fewer semantic features of) the prototype.
the thing has something to do with the overextention/prototype. daddy & jacket- it's his jacket- that's the resemblence. is associated with him. prototype is dad, family resemblance- fact that it's his jacket. |
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Term
| Be able to recognize and give examples of overextensions based on family resemblance (shared features) with the prototype (original referent). |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| the grammar attributes to the speaker knowledge the speaker doesn't actually have. so, advanced knowledge has been postulated prematurely. |
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Term
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Definition
| grammar fails to capture what the speaker knows- analyst overlooks generalizations the child has made. |
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Term
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Definition
| pivot- go, give, want, eat. x- mostly nouns (?) |
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Term
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Definition
| Goldberg 1995. A pairing of form and function such that some aspect of the form or some aspect of the function is not strictly predictable from the component parts- includes both form(syntax) and meaning (semantics). (word order is important?) |
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Term
| Briefly describe the 2 types of linguistic knowledge that children have at the one-word stage: |
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Definition
| 1. Pragmatic structure (kids tend to produce the word that is the most informative in the context, that conveys new information. Leave other aspects of the scene unexpressed that convey given, presupposed information that can be taken for granted in context. 2. Semantic Structure: Greenfield & Smith 1976 proposed that the single word that children produce at the one-word stage expresses one part of a semantic relation (like Agent-Action). The other element is left as part of the non-verbal context; the listener must infer it from context. |
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Term
| According to Greenfield, how do children choose what word to express at the one-word stage? Give some examples of the contexts in which children will express the agent of an action. : |
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Definition
| Children express what is new in a scene/situation by verbalizing it. The word encodes what is more uncertain, and therefore more informative. In agent-action scenario, the child takes the agent for granted and verbalizes the action. Child will express the agent when: 1. the agent is not visible (hears father at door and says 'daddy'). 2. when there is a conflict over the agent (wants to butter the bread and mother is buttering for him- says 'self'). 3. seeking a change of agent (can't cut something, older sister says let me do it, kid says 'mommy') |
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Term
| According to Greenfield and Smith, what semantic relations do children express at the one-word stage? |
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Definition
| =Agent (Mommy walks in, child says "mommy".). Action or state of agent (Child sits down, says "down"). Location (puts crayon in box, says 'box'). animate being's location (points to tank, says 'fishy'). possession (point to father's coat, says 'daddy'). recipient (gives bottle to father, says 'daddy') objects affected by action (throws ball, says 'ball'). action/state of affected object (shuts cabinet door, says 'down') |
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Term
| What criticisms have been made of Greenfield and Smith’s claim that children are expressing semantic relations at the one-word stage?: |
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Definition
| Pro: continuity- helps explain the appearance of two-word utterances encoding the same semantic relations. Con: evidence is somewhat ambiguous- bloom said 1 word stage kids don't yet know semantic relations, that's why they can't produce both elements in the relation, but this seems unlikely since comprehension is ahead of production. It can be difficult to differentiate between specific potential relations, ex. location vs. possession. maybe the child really just has general, undifferentiated associations. |
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Term
| Briefly describe the prosodic transition from producing single-word utterances to producing two-word utterances.: |
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Definition
| 1. kids first produce single words with long pauses between them, separate intonation contours, and equal stress on each word. 2. then produce the first word with an incomplete fall, then pause, then complete fall on second word- equal stress on both words. 3. shorten pause between words and use uneven stress, with heavier stress on the second word than the first. 4. both words are produced under a single intonation contour, no pause between words, and heavier stress on the final word. |
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Term
| Briefly describe the role of gestures in the transition from 1-word to 2-word utterances.: |
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Definition
| some/all transitions include an intermediate stage of gesture+word combinations. Capirci et al 1996=increase in gesture+word combos prior to an increase in word+word combos. Iverson & Goldwin-Meadow=gestures in gesture+word utterances were replaced by words. |
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Term
| What are 3 types of linguistic knowledge that children have at the two-word stage?: |
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Definition
| 1. syntactic knowledge (form class-N, V, etc, Word order, Length limits-2 words at time). 2. Semantic knowledge (constructional meanings). 3. Pragmatic knowledge (what speech acts do 2 word utterances perform?) |
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Term
| What are 3 different analyses, each representing a different level of generality, that linguists have made of an utterance like “Mommy open door”?: |
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Definition
| Syntactic (most general- subject, verb, object). Semantic (Agent, action, patient). Lexical (most specific- Mommy open door). |
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Term
| According to Martin Braine, what two rules do children use to create sentences at the 2-word stage? |
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Definition
| Sentence = P1+X (P1= pivot in initial position). or X+P2 (P2=pivot in final position.) |
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Term
| Be able to describe the properties of “pivots” and “X words”.: |
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Definition
| Pivot words: few in number, fixed position (initial or final), don't co-occur with each other (no P1+P2), don't occur alone. Open words (X)= large "open" class of child's entire vocabulary (except pivots), can occur in initial or final position, can occur with each other (X+X), can occur alone. X is basically a default class defined by a lack of the features that pivots have. |
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Term
| What arguments against pivot grammar have critics made?: Does it accurately capture, under-represent, or over-represent these children's knowledge? |
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Definition
| Clark says- just bc an early pattern has a slot always filled by a Noun, this doesn't mean the kid has the category Noun. There's also no account of meaning (ignores what utterances mean), no account of pragmatics (speech acts/functions of utterances in interaction were ignored). data doesn't always fit the proposed rules, and it's difficult to see how the kid would readily get from the categories "pivot" and "open" to adult form classes. |
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Term
| Researchers such as Lois Bloom and Steven Pinker have proposed that children have adult-like syntactic categories from the beginning. What criticisms have been made of using adult-like generative grammars to represent the speech of two-word stage children?: |
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Definition
| No account of construction-based semantics or pragmatics (yet the meanings and pragmatic functions of 2 word utterances are clear, obvious, and interesting). attributes adult categories to the child (prepositions when kid hasn't produced a single preposition, and a lack of evidence for Subject). Deletion transformation was controversial (attempt to explain why only 2 words show up). conclusion: generative grammars like Blooms over-represent the kid's syntactic knowledge. |
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Term
What semantic relations did Roger Brown propose children are expressing at the two-word stage?
Be able to recognize, list, and give examples of them.: |
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Definition
| Nomination (that__), recurrence (more__); Agent+Action; Action+affected object(=patient); agent+affected object; action+location;entity+location; possessor+possession; attribute+entity; demonstrative+entity. Development proceeds by concatenating relations- combining two relations, or embedding them. |
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Term
| According to Slobin, why do children acquiring different languages encode the same semantic relations?: |
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Definition
| kids start out the acquisition of grammar with an inherent set of "grammaticizable notions", like agent, action, patient. These notions arise from the child's cognitive development, like their understanding of the prototypical manipulative activity scene in which an agent acts on a patient. |
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Term
| What are some pros and cons of using semantic relations to account for children’s two-word utterances? |
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Definition
| Pro: semantic relations approach has the advantage of trying to understand/explain the meanings, not just the forms, of the child's utterances. it also has the advantage of continuity with prior and following stages of development (prior=same relations in 1 word, later=adult universal set of case roles-can take child into adulthood). Con: How many semantic roles are there? how do we know the child's semantic roles and relations, like the concept of Agent, are the same as the adult's? Conclusion: though more specific than generative grammar, a semantic relations grammar may also over-represent the kid's knowledge. |
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Term
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Definition
| Goldberg 1995. A pairing of form and function such that some aspect of the form or some aspect of the function is not strictly predictable from the component parts- includes both form(syntax) and meaning (semantics). (word order is important?) |
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Term
| What are 4 constructions (in English) that children must acquire? |
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Definition
| Intransitive motion (x moves to y. subject verb oblique. i ran into the room). Transitive (x acts on y. subject verb object. i broke the glass). double object (x causes y to receive z. subject V Obj1 Obj2. mommy gave me a cookie). Caused motion (x causes y to move to z. subject V object oblique. i put the fork on the table). |
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Term
| What is a productive pattern?: |
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Definition
| Those that the child uses as a template for producing a variety of utterances of the same type- not just unanalyzed frozen phrases or imitations. |
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Term
| What sequence of development did Lieven & Pine find in the child’s progression from “frozen” to productive word combinations? |
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Definition
| 1. frozen forms: part or all of the expression has appeared only in that one form in the child's speech. 2. intermediate forms: the constituent elements have appeared separately before, but none have occurred in the same position in 2 previous combinations. 3. constructed forms: contain forms already used independently, combined with some word or phrase that has appeared in at least two earlier word combinations. so: early word combinations are lexically based (word-by-word learning). |
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Term
| Why did they conclude that children use lexically-based patterns to produce two-word utterances?: |
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Definition
| the first 10 positional patterns for each of the 5 kids they studied can account for 77% of their word combinations. - see above answer too. |
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Term
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Definition
| unit of meaning (dog, -s) |
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Term
| recognize first 14 English morphemes: |
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Definition
| -ing, in, on, -s, irrg.past tense went, -'s (possessive), uncontractible copula (was, are), a/the (articles), -ed (past), -s (3rd person singular regular- she runs), 3rd person irregular (has, does), uncontractible auxiliary verb (is, were), contractible copula verb (that's a spaniel), contractible auxiliary verb (they're running fast). |
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Term
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Definition
| ling or non-ling context in which it is ungrammatical to omit a morpheme. ex: in spanish, do not always need pronoun- wouldn't be an obligatory context. in english, this would be obligatory. |
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Term
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Definition
| The use of a regular inflection where an irregular form is required- kids prefer one form for one meaning and will over-use the most productive adult form. jumped, goed. jumped vs. irregular went. |
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Term
| According to Clark, what are two ways that children can identify word classes? |
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Definition
| 1. on the basis of conceptual categories (people and objects encoded as nouns, actions and states as verbs)- this is "semantic bootstrapping"- child assumes word class maps directly to an existing concept, such as 'object'. 2. on basis of distributional properties, like position and inflection (like all the words that end in a particular suffix, or that appear in final position of utterances- like verbs in SOV languages). using both semantic bootstrapping and distributional pattern-finding would be most useful. |
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Term
| How did the “wug test” show whether a child has productive use of (certain) morphemes? |
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Definition
| Shows kid could add the morphemes to the invented words- had learned the rule. |
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Term
| On the “wug test”, children performed better with familiar words, such as glass, than with invented words, such as tass. How has this finding been interpreted? |
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Definition
| They may have memorized the plurals of some familiar words. |
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Term
| Describe the properties of telegraphic speech. What type of word is expressed and what type is missing at this stage?: |
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Definition
| Brown's Adam, Eve, and Sarah 1973. Content words=concrete references to people, objects, actions, qualities- have lexical content. there are many content words, and its easy to add new ones. Function words=don't refer, have grammatical functions rather than lexical content. there are few function words and its hard to add new ones (they, for, he, she). Child starts out with content words, so they sound like a telegram. Assumes there's a "cost" per word- for the child, this cost could be cognitive (doesn't know semantic/syntactic relations), articulatory (can't produce two words in a single prosodic envelop), etc. |
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Term
| Roger Brown believed that English-learning children combine two words before using morphemes because it is cognitively simpler to combine “major meanings” such as Agent + Action rather than to use morphemes. What evidence is there against this claim?: |
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Definition
| The sequence 'word combinations -> morphemes' is not universal. in more highly inflected languages, morphemes are acquired earlier and more rapidly than in English. some children may use a few morphemes productively before producing any word combinations (Japanese kids distinguish between past tense and imperatives early). As long as the form isn't too complicated, and the meaning isn't too conceptually advanced for young children, morphemes can be acquired early. Also, there are individual differences between kids- even those learning the same language. |
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Term
| Roger Brown: What is MLU?: |
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Definition
| Mean Length of Utterance- a measure of children's stage of language development. The mean (average) number of morphemes per utterance. A good predictor of development only within one language. Kids acquiring the same language and with the same MLU are likely to be at the same general level of language development. sometimes MLU is counted in words, ignoring bound morphemes, in an attempt to make MLU a better cross-linguistic measure. |
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Term
| Roger Brown: Why do researchers use MLU as a measure of children’s linguistic development rather than the child’s age? : |
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Definition
| Age is a less reliable indicator of developmental stage than MLU bc there are individual differences between children in how early they begin language acquisition, as well as their rate of acquisition. |
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Term
| Roger Brown: Why is MLU not very useful when comparing children acquiring different languages?: |
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Definition
| There are differences between languages in how many morphemes they have, which affects acquisition and therefore MLU. children acquiring more highly inflected languages have a higher MLU at a younger age. |
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Term
| How did Roger Brown measure “acquisition” of a morpheme?: |
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Definition
| Child produces the morpheme in 90% of obligatory contexts for 3 consecutive recording sessions. (an obligatory context is a context (linguistic or nonlinguistic) in which it is ungrammatical to omit the morpheme. linguistic context = two shoe_ is an obligatory context for the plural -s. non-linguistic context = child holds up 2 shoes and says shoe_.) The child continues to supply the morpheme in 90% of obligatory contexts for 3 consecutive sessions. Children were recorded every 2 weeks. |
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Term
| Researchers such as Roger Brown have found that children tend to acquire the first 14 English morphemes in a fixed sequence. Be able to name three early morphemes in this sequence and three late ones.: |
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Definition
| Early morphemes: in, on, present progressive. Late morphemes: Contractible Auxiliary, Contractible copula, Uncontractible Auxiliary. |
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Term
| Roger Brown: What factors may be responsible for the order in which morphemes are acquired? |
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Definition
| 1. Frequency in adult speech (kids acquire the most productive morphemes- those that attach to the largest number of stem-types- first.). 2. cumulative semantic complexity (morphemes that combine meaning X + meaning Y are more difficult to acquire than a morpheme that encodes only meaning X. so -ed (past) is acquired before copula were (past + number)). 3. formal complexity (bilingual kids can express location in hungarian (with a suffix) before serbo-croation (requires suffix and preposition)). |
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Term
| Roger Brown: Be able to give/recognize examples of the role of perceptual salience, position in word, and conceptual difficulty. : |
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Definition
| all additional factors affecting acquisition order. Perceptual salience = how easy it is to hear the morpheme (morphemes with more phonetic substance are acquired earlier. in/on vs. -s). Position in word= initial or final position is more salient than "sandwich" position (-ing (end of verb phrase) is acquired before "sandwiched" auxiliary like 'he's going'. Conceptual difficulty = like "semantic complexity" but concerns the notion itself, not how many. (correct use requires considering whether referent is identifiable to the hearer- 'i want the record'. 'which record?' 'the record!'.) |
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Term
| Roger Brown: Why are the uncontractible copula and auxiliary acquired before the contractible copula and auxiliary?: |
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Definition
| Because of their position in the word. initial or final position (primacy/recency effect) is more salient than "sandwich" position. uncontractible auxiliary is acquired before contractible- 'are they going' is before 'they're going'. uncontractible copula acquired before contractible- 'is she a teacher' before 'she's a teacher'). |
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Term
| One of the most common morphemes that children overregularize in English is the past tense. What are 4 stages in the development of the past tense? |
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Definition
| 1. sporadic use of irregulars (went), no regular ed. 2. intermittent use of -ed on regular verb stems (jumped). 3. general use of -ed on both regular and irregular verb-stems (jumped, goed). irregular forms (went) may be treated like stems (wented). 4. correct use of regular (jumped) vs. irregular (went). |
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Term
| Know the general properties of the acquisition process given on the last slide: |
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Definition
| the word as the initial domain of morphology, the gradualness of the acquisition process, the undergeneralization of children’s word categories compared to adults. The initial domain of morphology is the word- children add inflections to words (or word-stems). the acquisition process is gradual (kids are conservative- start by adding each inflection only to one word or one semantic type of word- add the plural to words one by one.). kids do not start out with general categories that they apply to all possible (adult) members of a category (like noun) (pine & lieven- kids add that to some nouns, the to others, etc. they work with limited patterns like: a X, in a + X, in the + X). process parallels the acquisition of early constructions. |
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