Grammatical Acquisition

Question 1

What are the four stages of children’s grammatical developement?

Answer 1

1. Holophrastic
2. Two-word
3. Telegraphic
4. Post-telegraphic

Question 2

According to Chomsky, children are equipped to discover the grammar of their language because they have an _______ grammar. This, to him, means that acquiring language must be about more than just ________ adult speakers.

Answer 2

innate, imitating

Question 3

What is the first stage of negative formation according to Ursula Bellugi?

Answer 3

Children using ‘no’ or ‘not’ at the beginning or end of a sentence.
eg. No wear shoes

Question 4

What is the second stage of negative formation according to Bellugi?

Answer 4

Using ‘no’ or ‘not’ inside the sentence
eg. I no want it

Question 5

What is the final stage of negative formation according to Bellugi?

Answer 5

Attaches the negative to auxiliary verbs and the copula verb ‘be’ securely
eg. No, I don’t want to go to nursery
or
I am not

Question 6

What are the three stages of pronouns according to Bellugi?

Answer 6

1. The child uses their own name (‘Tom play’)
2. The child recognises the I/me pronouns but don’t use it in the correct subject/object position (‘I play toy’, ‘Me do that’)
3. The child uses pronouns according to whether they are in the subject or object position within a sentence (‘I play with the toy’, ‘Give it to me’)

Question 7

What is a free morpheme?

Answer 7

A morpheme that has a meaning in itself

Question 8

What is a bound morpheme?

Answer 8

A morpheme that only makes sense if it does a grammatical job

Question 9

Give an example of a bound morpheme

Answer 9

’s’, ‘ing’

Question 10

What are ‘virtuous errors’?

Answer 10

Virtuous errors are applied to the mistakes children make as they develop grmmatically. The gramamtical mistakes are logical.

Question 11

Give an example of a virtuous error

Answer 11

‘Runned’ instead of ‘ran’ or ‘eated’ instead of ‘ate’