2-6 - Early Morphological Acquisition Flashcards
1
Q
Language includes ______ and ______.
A
Morphology
Syntax
2
Q
What is Morphology?
A
How meanings combine into words
3
Q
What is Syntax?
A
How words combine into phrases
4
Q
What was the name of Dr. Ingram’s paper that studied the child who reduplicated words to show plurals?
A
“Morphology Before Syntax”
5
Q
What is Reduplication?
A
Repetition of syllables
6
Q
What is Haplology?
A
Opposite of reduplication
We say “Saturday night” but not “Saturday day” Instead we say “Saturday” or “Saturday during the day”
7
Q
What does Esoteric mean?
A
Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest
8
Q
What does Obfuscate mean?
A
Confuse
9
Q
What are the two Kinds of Words
A
Lexical Class
Functional Class/Grammatical Morphemes
10
Q
What are Lexical Class words?
A
Those that carry the major meanings of sentences
Noun, verb, adjective, adverb
11
Q
What are Functional Class Words (Grammatical Morphemes)?
A
Those that modulate the meanings of lexical class words
12
Q
What are Bound Morphemes?
A
Functional categories affixed to lexical categories
13
Q
What sort of bound morphemes might be found on a noun?
A
Plural {-s} (e.g. two cat/s)
Possessive {-s} (e.g. cat/’s paw)
14
Q
Some people consider the English Possessive Morpheme to be ______, meaning that it looks like a bound morpheme but is not as attached.
A
Clitic
15
Q
What are some examples of bound morphemes that might be found on verbs?
A
Progressive {-ing} (e.g. walk/ing)
Regular present {-s} (e.g. walk/s)
Past tense {-ed} (e.g. walk/ed)
16
Q
What bound morphemes are the easiest for kids to learn?
A
Noun categories
Progressive (In the verb category)
17
Q
What are Free Morphemes? What are some examples?
A
Separate words
Prepositions (e.g. ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’)
Articles (‘the’, ‘a’)
Pronouns (‘he’ ‘him’ ‘she’ her’ etc.)
18
Q
Children begin to acquire functional categories around the time they begin to _______.
A
Make word combinations
19
Q
Do children acquire morphemes slowly over several years?
A
Yes
20
Q
What some factors that influence how a child learns morphemes?
(5)
A
Semantic Complexity
Syntactic Complexity
Perceptual Salience
Frequency of Occurance
Allomorphy
21
Q
What is Semantic Complexity?
A
Some morphemes are more complex/harder to comprehend
22
Q
Which is more semantically complex: {-ing} or {-ed}?
A
{-ed}
23
Q
What is Syntactic Complexity?
A
Some morphemes are harder to form
24
Q
Which is more Syntactic Complex: present tense {-s} or past tense {-ed}?
A
Present tense {-s}
25
What is Perceptual Salience?
That some morphemes are harder to hear - especially in continuous speech (for both the child and the assessor)
Usually this is a difference between morphemes that are full syllables vs. those that are just a single phoneme
26
Which morpheme is harder to perceive: present {-s} or progressive {-ing}?
Present {-s}
27
Who is Larry Leonard?
Perceptual salience researcher
Believes that when there is a Specific Langauge Impairment (SLI), there is usually a problem with nonsalient morphemes
28
How does frequency of occurrence affect morpheme development?
Kids are going to have an easier time learning a morpheme they hear more frequently
29
Which verb tense is heard more frequently: {-s} or {-ing}?
{-ing}
30
Which preposition is heard more frequently: ‘in’ vs. ‘between’?
"in"
31
Do Chinese children learn all question forms equally? Did parents use one kind of question form more than another?
The order of frequency of parents' questions was pretty equal between the three question types
The kids used two frequently but not the third. It was the most complex and was acquired later even though it was heard with equal frequency to the other two questions
32
Does input equal acquisition?
No
33
Dr. Ingram believes in ______. That a child needs to acquire and integrate the simplier things before something complex can be acquired.
Readiness
34
What is Allomorphy?
Variants of a single morpheme
| e.g. ‘plural’ {-s}: cats /s/ dog /z/ bush /ez/
35
Do children need to acquire all the allomorphs before a morpheme can be fully acquired?
Yes
36
What are the two ways of measuring morpheme development?
MLU in morphemes:
Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence
37
Is MLU in morphemes commonly used to study morpheme development?
Yes
38
You never know if a child's morphological MLU is due to an increase in ______ or just because they are ______.
Morphemes
Using more words
39
What is the Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence?
What percentage of the time are the correct morphemes being used when they are required
40
Is the Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence commonly used?
Yes
41
What Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence does a child have to have before we consider their morpheme development complete?
Brown said 90% but without a real reason
Dr. Ingram likes 51% meaning that you are getting it right more than you are getting it wrong
42
How many morphemes did Brown analyze for Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence?
14 grammatical morphemes
Could only analyze 14 with this particular system
43
Is the Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence good for all morphemes? Why or why not?
No.
To figure out what the mistake is, you have to be able to read the child's mind.
(Articles - “I want cookie” - "the" or "a"?)
(Auxiliaries - “mommy go tomorrow” -"can", "may", nothing?)
44
Besides knowing the child's intentions, what are two other weakness of Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence?
Low reliability: studies don’t often agree
Doesn’t consider allomorphs
45
Besides morphological MLU and Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence, what is another way to measure morphological development? Why?
Count actual occurrences
Kids with 5 is most likely doing better than a kids with only 2
Kids use grammatical morphemes at a higher rate as they have acquired/are acquiring them thus use of morphemes increases over time
Simplest measure & most reliable
46
What did Brown look at in his 1973 morphological development study?
14 Grammatical Morphemes
Obligatory Occurrences
47
During Brown's Stage I, what morphemes are being mastered?
‘on’
plurals
48
During Brown's Stage II, what morphemes are being mastered?
‘-ing’
‘in’
past irregular (broke, saw)
49
During Brown's Stage IV, what morphemes are being mastered?
possessive
50
According to Brown, when are the majority of morphemes acquired?
After stage 5
51
What is developed first, the irregular past tenses or regular past tenses?
Irregular
52
What happens to irregular past tenses as regular past tenses are being developed? When does this stop happening?
Correct irregulars drop off and are treated according to the regular rule (broked)
Irregulars are corrected after the regular rule is mastered (broke)
53
Who did Cazden study in her 1968 morphological study?
Adam, Eve, Sarah
54
What did Cazden focus her 1968 morphological study on?
5 inflections
55
What three measures did Cazden use in her 1968 morphological study on?
Correct use
Inappropriate Use (e.g. ‘one dogs’)
Overgeneralizations/Overregularization (e.g. ‘two foots’)
56
In Cazden's Phase A, what was happening to plurals?
Nothing across all measures
57
In Cazden's Phase B, what was happening to plurals?
They were being used correctly some of the time.
There were no incorrect or overgeneralized usages
58
In Cazden's Phase C, what was happening to plurals?
They were being used correctly the majority of the time
There were more incorrect usages than overgeneralizations
59
In Cazden's Phase D, what was happening to plurals?
They are used correctly almost all the time
There are equal amounts of incorrect and overgeneralized usages. The number of both of these has increased dramatically
60
Why does Dr. Ingram think that there needs to be a Stage E to Cazden's phases?
So that there is a stage for complete mastery
61
In Cazden's phases, there are no errors below _____ but lots above ______.
50%
62
In Cazden's study we learned that Inappropriate Use precedes ______.
Overgeneralization
63
In Cazden's study we learned that Inappropriate Use is a ______.
Lexical (or retrieval) error
64
In Cazden's study, we learned that Overgeneralization only occurs when there is ________.
A high rate of success
65
What does Dr. Ingram think about Marcus et al.'s 1992 morphological experiment?
That it's wrong
66
What ages did Marcus et al.'s 1992 morphological experiment focus on? Why does Dr. Ingram take issue with this?
2-5 yrs.
We know that errors tend to increase after 5 until skill is finally mastered
67
Outside of age, what else might account for the descrepency between Dr. Ingram's and Marcus et al.'s findings? Why?
Studies that use speech tests tend to get high levels of error rates
Those using spontaneous speech tend to have lower rates
Why? The child probably avoids what they have trouble with in everyday speech but the tests force them to use these forms.
68
What was Marcus et al's sample size? What did they claim the rate of overgeneralization to be?
83
2.5-5%
69
Who and what did Berko study in 1958? What did she use?
5 & 6 year olds
A range of English morphemes
Nonsense words (Famous “wug” study)
70
What did Berko learn in her 1958 morphological study?
Accurate use of allomorphs takes a long time to develop
Two (or more) morphemes may sound the same phonologically, but their use will not be developed at the same exact time. (I.e. plural, possessive, & 3rd person show different scores)
71
What are the two kinds of words ?
Lexical Class
Functional Class/Grammatical Morphemes
72
What are Lexical Class Words?
Those that carry the major meanings of sentences
| Noun, verb, adjective, adverb
73
What are Functional Class/Grammatical Words?
Those that modulate the meanings of lexical class words
74
What are the two types of morphemes?
Bound
Free
75
What are bound morphemes?
Functional categories affixed to lexical categories
76
What sorts of bound morphemes are found on nouns?
Plural {-s} (e.g. two cat/s)
Possessive {-s} (e.g. cat/’s paw)
77
What do some people considered the English possessive morpheme to be?
Clitic
It looks like a bound morpheme but is not as attached
78
What sorts of bound morphemes are found on Verbs
Progressive {-ing} (e.g. walk/ing)
Regular present {-s} (e.g. walk/s)
Past tense {-ed} (e.g. walk/ed)
79
Which of the bound morpheme categories are easiest to learn?
Noun categories
Progressive
80
What is the Free Category of morphemes?
Separate words
81
What sorts of words fall under the free category of morphemes?
Prepositions
Articles
Pronouns
82
Children begin to acquire functional categories around the time they begin to _______. They are acquired _______.
Make word combinations
Over several years
83
What is Semantic Complexity?
Which is more complex to comprehend?
84
Which is more Semantically Complex: {-ing} vs. {-ed}?
{-ed} more complex
85
What is Syntactic Complexity?
Which is more complex to form?
86
Which is more Syntactically Complex: present tense {-s} vs. past tense {-ed}:
(‘I walk’ ‘he walk/s’ -VS- ‘I walk/ed’ ‘he walk/ed’)
Present more complex
87
What is Perceptual Salience?
Some bound morphemes are harder to hear than others - especially in continuous speech
(For both the child and the assessor)
88
Which is easier to perceived: present {-s} vs. progressive {-ing}?
{-ing}
89
Who is Larry Leonard?
Researches perceptual salience
Has theory that, in Specific Langauge Impairment (SLI), there is often a problem with nonsalient morphemes
90
Which verb ending is more frequent: {-s} vs {-ing}?
-ing is more frequent
91
Which preposition is more frequent: ‘in’ vs. ‘between’?
"in" is more frequent
92
There are 3 types of questions in Chinese. All are used fairly equally by parents. Do kids use all three equally as well? Why or why not?
No. Kids used two frequently but not the third.
The form not used was the most complex and was acquired later
93
Does input equal acquisition?
No. Dr. Ingram believes in readiness. That a child needs to acquire and integrate the simplier things before something complex can be acquired.
94
What is Allomorphy?
Variants of a single morpheme
95
Where do we commonly see allomorphy in Englsh?
In plurals {-s}
(cats /s/ dog /z/ bush /ez/)
({-ing} has no variants)
96
How do allomorphs affect morphologic acquisition?
It slows down mastery as children need to acquire all the variants
A child might pick up one allomorph but not the others. Can take up to 4-5 years to master /-s/
97
How can you measure morphological development?
MLU in morphemes:
Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence
Count actual occurrences
98
What is the downfall to measuring morphological development by MLU?
Can increase due to added words
You never know if a child's MLU is due to an increase in morpheme use or because the child is using more words
99
What is the Percentage of Obligatory Occurrence?
How often is a morpheme used when it is required?
| e.g., Plural {-s}: ‘I got two toy/s’, ‘see those boy’, ‘my cup/s’
100
What percentage of obligatory occurrence denotes mastery?
90% indicates acquisition (Brown) but there doesn't seem to be a reason for the 90%
Dr. Ingram likes a simple 51% meaning that you are getting it right more than you are getting it wrong
101
Did Brown look at all morphemes when calculating percentage of obligatory occurrence?
No. He only analyzed 14 grammatical morphemes as they were the only ones that could be analyzed in this way
102
What are some downfalls to using percentage of obligatory occurence?
Not good for all morphemes,
(Articles: “I want cookie” "A" or "the"?)
(Auxiliaries: “Mommy go tomorrow”. "Can",
"may", nothing?)
Requires reading child’s mind to an extent
(Is there error in the number or the plural: “two
cookie”)
Low reliability: studies don’t often agree (Doesn’t consider allomorphs)
103
What is the point of counting actual occurrences of morpheme use?
Simplest measure
Most reliable
Kids with 5 is most likely doing better than a kids with only 2
Kids use grammatical morphemes at a higher rate as they have acquired/are acquiring them. (Use of morphemes increases over time )
104
What are Dr. Ingram's interpretations of Brown's 1973 study on grammatical morphemes?
There are four stages of morpheme acquisition
105
What morphemes are being learned during Brown Stage I?
‘on’
Plurals
106
What morphemes are being learned during Brown Stage II?
{-ing}
‘in’
Past irregulars (e.g., "broke", "saw", etc.)
107
What morphemes are being learned during Brown Stage IV?
Possessives
108
What morphemes are being learned after Brown Stage 5?
Everything else
The majority
109
What were Brown’s Conclusions on his 1973 morphological study?
Very few grammatical morphemes are being acquired during the first 4 stages
Irregular past is mastered before the regular past
There is a high rate of correct irregulars at the beginning (broke), then this drops off as rules are being learned (broked), then the use of irregulars is mastered (broke)
Plurals and {–ing} are the first inflections acquired
110
Who did Cazden study in 1968?
Adam, Eve, Sarah
5 inflections
111
What did Cazden measure in her 1968 study?
Correct use of morphemes
Inappropriate use of morphemes (e.g. ‘one dogs’)
Overgeneralizations of morphemes (e.g. ‘two foots’)
112
What percentage of morphemes was used correctly during Cazden's Period A? How many were incorrect? Overgeneralized?
0
0
0
113
What percentage of morphemes was used correctly during Cazden's Period B? How many were incorrect? Overgeneralized?
13-36%
0
0
114
What percentage of morphemes was used correctly during Cazden's Period C? How many were incorrect? Overgeneralized?
68-86%
39
10
115
What percentage of morphemes was used correctly during Cazden's Period D? How many were incorrect? Overgeneralized?
94-98%
83
70
116
Why does Dr. Ingram believe that there should be a Period E on Cazden's list?
To show when the skill is fully mastered
117
In Cazden's periods, what happens before and after the 50% mark
There are no errors below 50% but lots of errors above 50%
118
How can we interpret Cazden's stages?
Inappropriate Use precedes overgeneralization
Inappropriate Use is due to lexical error/retrieval error
Overgeneralization only occurs when there is a high rate of success
