Lecture Four

Grammatical Development 1

Recap of grammatical terms …

• Syntax

• Subject

• Object

• Complement

• Adverbial

• Possessive

• Inflections

• Auxiliary verbs

• Determiners

Syntactic development…

• This lecture on grammatical development is primarily concerned with syntax.

• Syntactic development = development of a child’s ability to create grammatical constructions by arranging words in an appropriate order.

One-word stage …

• 12-18 months: child speaks in single word utterances.

• ‘milk’• ‘mummy’• Groups of words may

be used as a single unit.

• ‘allgone’

One-word stage …

• In many situations, the words simply serve a naming function.

• Holophrases: single words or phrases that convey more complex messages.

Holophrases …

• ‘juice’

• ‘I want some juice’

• ‘I’ve spilt some juice’

• Context, gesture and intonation: enable parent/carer to understand what child means.

Understanding …

• Although the child’s utterances are limited, their understanding of syntax is (predictably) more advanced.

• Evidence: children at the one-word stage can respond to two-word instructions: ‘kiss mummy’.

Two-word stage …

• 18 months: two-word utterances begin to appear.

• Usually: grammatically correct sequence.

Two-word stage …

• Common constructions:

• S+V ‘Daddy sleep’

• V+C ‘Draw birdie’• S+O ‘Suzy juice’• S+C ‘Daddy busy’

Two-word stage …

• When repeating an adult, children at this stage commonly omit elements, but retain the correct order:

• Look, Ben’s playing in the garden.

• Play garden.

Two-word stage …

• Utterances focus on key words.

• Grammatical function words: commonly omitted (as they carry less information).

Meanings of two-word utterances …

• Range of complex meanings can be expressed.

• Possession: ‘Mummy car’

• Action: ‘Paul eat’

• Location: ‘Teddy bed’

Bloom (1973) …

•‘Mummy sock’

Ambiguity …

• The scope for ambiguity at this stage arises because of the omission of inflectional affixes.

• Commonly possessive and plural ‘s’ and past tense ‘ed’ are absent.

Telegraphic stage …

• Age 2: three & four-word utterances begin to be produced.

• Some will be grammatically complete…

Telegraphic stage …

• S+V+O• ‘Lucy likes tea’

• S+V+C• ‘Teddy is tired’• S+V+A

• ‘Mummy sleeps upstairs’

Telegraphic stage …

• Other utterances will have grammatical elements missing:

• ‘Daddy home now’• ‘Where Josh going?’

Telegraphic stage …

• Hence the name ‘telegraphic’.

• Like a telegram, they include key words, but omit elements such as:

• Determiners• Auxiliary verbs• Prepositions

Telegraphic stage …

• Wider range of structures will be used:

• Questions (interrogatives)

• Commands (imperatives)

• Simple statements

Rapid progress …

• 3 years: items such as determiners begin to be used regularly.

• More than one clause appears

• Coordinating conjunctions

• Inflectional affixes (see next lecture)

• 5 years: many of most basic grammatical rules have been learned, though some (e.g. the passive) have yet to be mastered.

Vocabulary test …

• HOLOPHRASE

• TELEGRAPHIC

• COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

• INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

• PASSIVE