Grammatical Development 2

Grammatical Development 2

1. Will consider acquisition of grammatical rules in more depth

   • Consider inflections, Qs, negatives

2. Acquisition of inflections

   • Predictable patterns
     • Revealed by research in acquisition of inflections
   • Grammatical function words

3. Brown 1973

   • Study - 20 - 30 month olds exhibited sequence
     • 1. Ing
     • 2. Plural - s
     • 3. Possessive - s
     • 4. 'the', 'a'
     • 5. Past tense - 'ed'
     • 6. Third person singular verb ending - s
     • 7. Auxiliary 'be'

4. Cruttenden 1979

   • 1. Memorize words individually.. No regard for rules
   • 2. Awareness of gen princ govting inflections
   • 3. OVER - GENERALIZATION
   • 4. Correct inflections used, including irregular forms

5. Understanding of grammatical rules

   • Researchers
     • How do children produce grammatically accurate constructions so early in their development?
   • Rules??
   • Imitation??

6. Berko 1958

   • 'Wug'
   • 'This is a Wug'
   • 'Now there is another one, there are 2 of them'
   • Complete the sentence = 'There are two...'
   • 4 Yrs = 'Wugs'
   • Grammatical rule for plural 's' clearly being applied

7. Overgeneralisation

   • 2 1/2 - 5 yrs
     • Grammatical errors - show awareness of rules
   • They 'overgen / overregularize', trying to make lang more consistent than it is
     • Sheeps
     • Wented
     • Mouses

8. Be careful

   • Although children apply grammatical rules this way, they are NOT conscious they have acquired them & wouldn't be able to explain
     • = NO METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS

9. Qs

   • Asking Qs involves complex constructions
   • Research
     • Suggests 3 stages involved in acquiring this skill
       • 1. Two - word stage
         • Qs rely on rising intonation only
       • 2. Second yr
         • Q words acquired, first 'what' & 'where'. then 'why', 'who' & 'how'
           • = 'Where daddy gone?'
       • 3. Third yr
         • Begin to use auxiliary verbs & inversion
   • Therefore
     • 'Joe is here' becomes 'Is Joe here?'
   • However
     • Qs involving - wh words not always correctly inverted 'Why Joe isn't here?' - virtuous error

10. Negation

    • NO
    • Also appears that the accurate expression of neg (stereotypically characterised by 'terrible 2s') occurs in 3 stages
      • 1. Single dependence on words 'no' & 'not' used independently or in front of expressions - 'no want' & 'no go bed'
      • 2. Third yr
        • 'Don't' & 'can't' appear.
          • Begin to appear after S & before V - 'I don't want it' & 'Sammy can't play'
      • 3. More neg forms acquired 'didn't' & 'isn't'.
        • Neg constructions not gen more accurate