Developing Grammar

Developing Grammar

1. Mean Length Utterance (MLU)

   • language development
     • counting words
     • counting morphemes
       • Free Morphemes
         • Lexical
         • Grammatical
       • Bound Morphemes
         • Derivational
         • Inflectional
   • What increases knowledge/utterance length?
     • Obligatory Morphemes
     • Negative Forms
     • Auxiliaries
     • Conjoining
   • words+morphemes/morphemes=MLUs

2. BROWN'S STAGES

   • I: 12-26m
     • 1.75 MLU
   • II: 27-30m
     • on
     • s-plurals (regular plurals)
     • present progressive (-ing)
     • in
     • 2.25 MLU
   • III: 31-34m
     • 2.75MLU
     • irregular past tense
     • possessive (-'s)
     • uncontractible copula (e.g. is it, it was)
   • IV: 35-40m
     • 3.5 MLU
     • articles (e.g. a, the)
     • regular past tense
     • third person regular present tense
   • V: 41-46+m
     • 4.0 MLU
     • third person irregular
     • uncontractible auxiliary (e.g. are they, were you)
     • contractible copula (e.g. they're here)
     • contractible auxiliary (e.g. they're coming)

3. ACQUIRING NOUNS

   • 1) 82% general > 18% specific
   • 2) #concrete > # abstract
   • 3 basic level (e.g. dog)
     • superordinate level (e.g. animal)
     • subordinate level (e.g. Chihuahua)
   • # nouns > # verbs > # pronouns > # adjectives

4. PRONOUN DEVELOPMENT

   • 1) Subjective (e.g. I, he)
     • used as subject
   • 2) Objective (e.g. me, him)
     • used as object
   • 3) Possessive (e.g. he's)
   • 4) Reflexive (e.g. myself, himself)
   • Complete vs Incomplete Cohesive Tie
     • gives clear relation/unclear relation in the sentence

5. ACQUISITION OF SYNTAX/SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

   • development starts around 31m
   • subject + verb + object
   • subject + copula + complement
   • child sentences analyzed in terms of SUBJECT + PREDICATE
   • 6 Stages
     • I: 9-28m (one word)
     • II: 8-24m (two words)
     • III: 24-30m (subject, object, complement)
     • V: 36-42m (clause and phrase structure rules)
     • IV: 30-36m (direct and indirect objects)
     • VI: 42m