3.02 English: Child Language Development - Grammar

Question 1

Suggested that a child goes through three stages on the way to using pronouns accurately:

1. They’ll use a name rather than a pronoun (EG: ‘Rachel go now’ instead of ‘I go now’)
2. Child will start to recognise a difference between subject and object pronouns but won’t be able to apply this correctly
3. The child will correctly apply subject and object pronouns

Answer 1

Bellugi: Pronoun acquisition (1971)

Question 2

Suggest that pronoun development during a child’s second year will depend on the extent to
which:
• The child has a sense of identity
• The child can recognise the notion of self - particularly within the context of imaginative play

Suggests cognitive development and an emergence of a sense of self impacts a child’s grammatical accuracy - supports Piaget

Answer 2

Lewis and Ramsay (2004)

Question 3

Suggested that a child goes through three stages on the way to using negatives accurately:

1. Initially the negative will be placed at the beginning of the sentence (EG: No walk now)
2. Then it will move within the sentence (EG: I no walking today)
3. It will finally be grammatically correct and be potentially attached to any auxiliary verb or the copular verb ‘be’ correctly (EG: I don’t want to walk today)

Answer 3

Bellugi: Negative acquisition (1966)

Question 4

The smallest grammatical unit

Answer 4

Morpheme

Question 5

A morpheme that doesn’t make sense on its own, but relies on other elements of the word to make sense

EG: Walking contains one - ‘ing’

Answer 5

Bound morpheme

Question 6

A morpheme that makes sense on its own

EG: Football contains two - ‘foot’ and ‘ball’

Answer 6

Free morpheme

Question 7

Bound morphemes that:
• Make a grammatical difference to a word (EG: Tense, gradation, number)
• Do not make a difference to it’s core meaning

Answer 7

Inflections

Question 8

Outlined five stages of language development that focused on the child’s grammatical development in terms of morphology and syntax

Answer 8

Roger Brown (1973)

Question 9

Mean length of utterance: 1.75

Correct word order

Answer 9

Roger Brown (1973) - Stage: 15-30 months

Question 10

Mean length of utterance: 2.25

-ing present progressive
-s plurals

Answer 10

Roger Brown (1973) - Stage: 28-36 months

Question 11

Mean length of utterance: 2.75

-‘s possessives
adjectives, adverbs and articles (‘a’ and ‘the’)

Answer 11

Roger Brown (1973) - Stage: 36-42 months

Question 12

Mean length of utterance: 3.5

-ed past

Answer 12

Roger Brown (1973) - Stage: 40-46 months

Question 13

Mean length of utterance: 4.0

Compound sentences

Answer 13

Roger Brown (1973) - Stage: 42-53 months

Question 14

He said “It is only a matter of time before the correct usage reappears with a more solid grasp of the rules”

Curve starts high (33 months), then dips (36 months), then curves back high (42 months): U

1. Shows that at the start, the child is only getting it right because they imitate it from others
2. Then, they apply innate grammar rules to the words, but get them wrong
3. Finally, when they interact with others, they pick up the correct form

Answer 14

Brown’s regression curve

Question 15

(Typical times of development were later added by Harris in 1990)

Features:
• Inflection -ing (EG: Playing) - 19-28 months

• Plural -s (EG: Trains) - 24-53 months

• Possessive -s (EG: Billy’s book) - 26-40 months

• Definite and indefinite articles (EG: The/a) - 28-46 months

• Past tense -ed (EG: Walked) - 26-48 months

• Third person singular inflection (EG: She walks) - 24-46 months

• Contraction of the verb ‘be’ alongside an adjective, preposition or noun phrase (EG: He’s happy) - 29-49 months

Answer 15

Roger Brown: Inflectional morphology (1973)