Chapter Six- The Development of Grammar (Morphology and Syntax)

Question 1

What is Syntax

Answer 1

system of rules for building phrases out of words,

- word order

Question 2

What is Morphology

Answer 2

system of rules for combining the smallest units of language into words

Question 3

What is the productivity/generativity of language?

Answer 3

• we can produce or generate sentences that we have never heard before, and others understand them
• we have the capacity to produce and understand and infinite number of novel sentences

Question 4

what are open-class words

Answer 4

lexical categories

• content words, nouns, verbs, adjectives
• these words carry most of the meaning in a sentence
• we can add words to this category
• childrens first words are usually open class

Question 5

what is telegraphic speech

Answer 5

speaking using only open-classed words

2-3 years old

Question 6

What are clossed-class words

Answer 6

function words

• fixed set of words in each set
• serve grammatical functions
  eg. pronouns, determiners

Question 7

what are free morphemes

Answer 7

these stand alone

• basic vocabulary items
• open and closed words

Question 8

What are Bound morphemes

Answer 8

These are meaningful pieces of words but they must be bound to a larger item to make sense
eg. plural, past tense

Question 9

What are descriptive rules for morphemes

Answer 9

implicit rules, speakers do not consciously follow the rules

- if these rules are violated, people will worry you have something wrong with you

Question 10

what are prescriptive rules for morphemes

Answer 10

• learned In classes or by parents
• they are markers of etiquette and education
• people usually wont notice violations

Question 11

Understanding word order

Answer 11

12 months- children know what the word order of their language sounds like
15 months- know that combining words influences meaning
18 months- know meaning in basic words orders and something about grammatical morphemes
30 months- know meanings of more complicated structures

Question 12

Mean length of utterance (MLU)

Answer 12

• measures growth in global morphosyntactic ability in preschool years
• calculation: # of morphemes divided by # of utterances
• browns stages of development

Question 13

Jargon

Answer 13

sequences of variegated babbling that have the intonation contour of sentences

Question 14

Holophrases

Answer 14

a single word to represent a whole idea or phrase

eg. water = can I have some water