Class Exercises

MLU and Morphology

• ed (past)• ex (out of, from)• mis (negative, wrong)• out (extra , beyond)• over (too much)• post(behind)• al (pertaining)• en (used to form verbs from

adjectives)• ism (doctrine, state)• ist (one who does something)• ity (used for abstract nouns)• lv (used to form adverbs)• ing (at present)• ‘s (possession)

• bi (twice)• semi (half)• super (superior)• trans (across)• tri (three)• un (not)• under • de (reversal)• pre (before)• pro (in favor of)• re (again)• able (ability)• ize (action, policy)• less (without)• ly( used to form adverb)• s (plural)

• ness (quality)• er, or (used as agentive

ending)• ous ( full)• y (inclined to)• ance ( action, state)• est (superlative)• ful (full, tending)• ible (likelihood)• ish (belonging to) • s (third person marker)

Prefixes Suffixes

Inflectional

Derivational

Calculating MLU Do’s and don’ts

• Exclude from your count

• ImitationsImitations• Elliptical answersElliptical answers• Partial utterancesPartial utterances• Unintelligible utterancesUnintelligible utterances• Rote passagesRote passages• False starts and False starts and

Reformulations within Reformulations within utterancesutterances

• NoisesNoises• Discourse markersDiscourse markers• Identical utterancesIdentical utterances• Counting or other sequences Counting or other sequences

of enumerationof enumeration• Single words or phrasesSingle words or phrases

Lund and Dunchan (1993)

Count as one morpheme

• Uninflected lexical morphemesUninflected lexical morphemes• ContractionsContractions• ConcatenativesConcatenatives• Inseparable linguistic unitsInseparable linguistic units• Irregular past tenseIrregular past tense• Plurals which do not occur in Plurals which do not occur in

singular form singular form • Gerunds and participles that Gerunds and participles that

are not part of the verb phraseare not part of the verb phrase• Inflectional formsInflectional forms

• Contractions Contractions

• You need at least 50 You need at least 50 utterances to calculate MLUutterances to calculate MLU

• 100 is recommended100 is recommended

Calculating MLU

• After you have counted all the morphemes, you are ready to calculate the MLU. The traditional method of calculating MLU is dividing the number of morphemes by the number of utterances. For example:

150 morphemes / 50 utterances = 3.0 MLU

Sample 1

1) Calculate MLU

2) which of Brown’s developmental stages has the child reached?

3) identify the morphemes used by the child

4) identify the semantic functions used by the child

• *CHI: why dis got holes?• %act: looking at holes in Ursula's pad• *URS: so you can put it in a notebook # if

you like.• *CHI: 0.• %act: falls from bike• *URS: what happened?• *CHI: I fall # broke my head.• *URS: you didn't.• *CHI: tell me story.• *CHI: tell me story.• *URS: shall we look at these first?• %act: gives Adam bag of toys• *CHI: let's open it.• *CHI: what is it?• *URS: it's a watch.• *CHI: dat's a watch.• *CHI: fourteen clock.• *URS: what is it?• *CHI: fourteen o'clock.• *CHI: stop it.• *URS: what?• *CHI: stop it.• *CHI: turn back on.• *CHI: has wings.• *URS: where?

• *CHI: turn it.• *CHI: stop it.• *CHI: it's fourteen clock.• *CHI: enough clock.• *CHI: in go clock.• %act: putting watch away• *CHI: a tape recorder.• *CHI: where is a box?• %act: <aft> taking watch out again• *CHI: it's fourteen clock.• *CHI: it not fourteen clock # it nineteen #

six # how d(o) you know?• *CHI: it's not six # it number two.• *CHI: how d(o) you know it going eat

supper?• %exp: presumably the watch• *CHI: how (a)bout eat supper?• *CHI: it's fourteen o'clock.• *CHI: well # well.• *CHI: it's fourteen cl(ock) # clock.• *CHI: achoo@o.• *CHI: le(t) me stop it.• *CHI: le(t) me turn on.• *CHI: xxx put in.• *CHI: put in.• %act: puts watch back in box• *CHI: it's go to sleep.

StageStage Age ( years)Age ( years) MLUMLU

I 1-2:2 1:0-2:0I 1-2:2 1:0-2:0

II II 2:3-2:6 2:3-2:6 2:0-2:5 2:0-2:5

IIIIII 2:7-2:10 2:5-3:0 2:7-2:10 2:5-3:0

IVIV 2:11-3:4 2:11-3:4 3:0-3.75 3:0-3.75

VV 3:5-3:10 3:75-4:5 3:5-3:10 3:75-4:5

Semantic Roles

Two-word utterances• Possessives

– daddy coffee– Andrew shoe

• Property-indicators– big balloon– little shell– all wet ball– all wet pants– dirty face– old cookie

• Recurrence / number / disappearance– more glass– two plane– all gone bee– window bye-bye

• Locatives– ball daddy (TO)– stick car (IN)

• Actor/Action– mommy sit– daddy work– Andrew sleep

• Others– eat dessert– bounce ball

Semantic Relations in 1-word stage

• POSSESSION “Daddy” (=slippers)• IMPERATIVE “open” = open the jar

“blow” = blow my nose• NEGATIVE “no” = negate actions• LOCATION “down” = getting

down from high chair• RECURRENCE “more”• DISAPPEARANCE “allgone”