Chapter 9 - Preschool Language Development of Form Flashcards
Decentration
Process of moving from 1 dimensional descriptions of entities/events to coordinated, multi-dimensional ones
Mean Length of Utterance
MLU
Measure oof the linguistic complexity of a child’s language
Calculated by dividing the total # of morphemes present in a language sample by the total # of utterances
Eventcast
A type of narrative that explains some current or anticipated event
Often accompany the play of young children
Metalinguistics
Refers to the use of language knowledge to talk about language
Aspect
Dynamics of an Event, usually controlled by the verb relative to the completion, repetition, or continuation of some event
Epenthesis
Process of inserting a vowel sound where none is required
“Balack” instead of “black”
Phrase
Group of words that do not contain a subject or verb
e.g. Before the first test. Leaving behind the dog
Sibilants
Sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow constriction formed by the tongue and hard palate
s, z, sh
Tense
Marking of a verb, such as past or future, that relates the speech in the present to the event time or time when the event will (did) occur
The exact way in which a child will acquire grammar and sentence forms is unknown.
T/F?
True!
There is a great variation in acquisition between and among children
part of this variation may be due to the forms to which a child is exposed
Syntax + Morphology: MLU
- Up to an MLU of about 4, increases in MLU correspond to increases in utterance complexity
- Beyond an MLU of 4, growth in utterance length will slow greatly + individual variation increases. Sentences become more complex thus rendering MLU less reliable as a measure of child’s language development
18mo-5 years; MLU increases by 1 morpheme per year
Syntax + Morphology: Children under 3
Most under 3 will not fully understand subject-verb-object word order. True for both production of this form and the ability to understand the form
The syntactic patterns of a child most often reflect what the child has heard others produce
T/F?
True
Many sentences types used by children under 3 are learned with specific verbs (often those they hear in their environment)
Rules regarding use of different verb forms are thought to be learned one rule at a time?
T/F?
True
Morpheme
Smallest unit of speech that is capable of changing meaning
Free Morphemes
Stand alone + are independent
Cat, Dog, Doll
Bound Morphemes
Cannot stand alone
Includes affixes - prefixes + suffixes
Superlatives - largest, biggest
Begin to appear at MLU of 2.0-2.5
Noun Phrases
A group of words that functions as a single syntactic unit that is less than a sentence in that it does not contain a subject and verb
Seen when children begin to combine words
By age 3, most will produce NP elaboration by using determiners, adjectives, and post-noun modifiers
Noun Phrases- determiners
Quantifiers: All, both, each, every
Possessive: my, your, his, her
Articles: A, An, The
Demonstratives: This, that, these, those
Post-Noun Modifiers
Prepositional Phrase: in the box, on the table
Adverbs: here, there
Adjectival: loved by her friends: next door
Embedded Clauses: Who went with you; that you saw
Verb
Syntactic element that expresses existence - past, present, future
Verb Phrase
A construction that includes the verb and all that follows, including any noun phrases
Phrase: Verb Development
Early on a child will use simple TRANSITIVE (an action verb that requires object) verbs or phrases to describe activities people perform with objects
Main verbs often used: make, open, play, push, put, read, ride, say, take, throw, want
There is a strong association b/w the variety of maternal verb usage + a child’s development of verbs
T/F?
True!
