Grammatical Development - Lecture 5

Question 1

Describe the acquisition of inflections

Answer 1

1. Predictable patterns: revealed by research in the acquisition of inflections.
2. Grammatical function words: also seem to be acquired in a predictable order.

Question 2

Describe Brown (1973)

Answer 2

1. Study: 20 – 36 month olds exhibited the sequence shown below:
   - ing
   - plural –s
   - possessive –s
   - ‘the’, ‘a’
   - past tense –ed
   - third person singular verb ending –s
   - auxiliary ‘be’

Question 3

Describe Cruttenden (1979) (4)

Answer 3

1. Memorize words individually. No regard for rules.
2. Awareness of general principles governing inflections.
3. OVERGENERALISATION
4. Correct inflections are used, including irregular forms.

Question 4

Describe Berko (1958) (3)

Answer 4

1. ‘Wug’
2. ‘This is a Wug’
3. ‘Now there is another one; there are two of them’
4. 3-4 years old: ‘wugs’
5. Grammatical rule for plural ‘s’ was clearly being applied.

Question 5

Describe over generalisation (2)

Answer 5

1. 2 ½ - 5 years: grammatical errors show an awareness of rules.
2. They ‘overgeneralise/overregularise’, trying to make the language more consistent than it is:
   - sheeps
   - wented
   - mouses

Question 6

Do young children have metalinguistic awareness?

Answer 6

No

Question 7

Describe questions

Answer 7

1. Asking questions involves complex constructions.
2. Research: suggests they are three stages involved in acquiring this skill …
3. Two-word stage: questions rely on rising intonation only.
4. Second year: question words acquired: first ‘what’ and ‘where’, then ‘why’, ‘who’ and ‘how’= ‘Where daddy gone?’
5. Third year: begin to use auxiliary verbs and inversion…
6. Therefore: ‘Joe is here’ becomes ‘Is Joe here?’
7. However: questions involving –wh words are not always correctly inverted: ‘Why Joe isn’t here?’

Question 8

Describe negation

Answer 8

1. It also appears that the accurate expression of negative (stereotypically characterised by the ‘terrible twos’) occurs in three stages …
2. Single dependence on the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ used independently or in front of expressions: ‘no want’ and ‘no go bed’.
3. Third year: ‘don’t’ and ‘can’t’ appear. Begin to appear after the subject and before the verb of the sentence:
   ‘I don’t want it’ and ‘Sammy can’t play’
4. More negative forms are acquired: ‘didn’t’ and ‘isn’t’. Negative constructions are not generally more accurate.