MLU and MLRs

Question 1

what is a catenative

Answer 1

shortening of verb + to into one word (ie, gonna)

Question 1

what is an auxiliary verb?

Answer 1

verb that supports another verb (he IS eating)

Question 2

steps of calculating a MLR

Answer 2

Step 1 - collect language sample - (ie 100 utterances)
Step 2 - mark words in each utterance
Step 3 - count # words in each utterance
Step 4 - average

Question 3

this type of utterance averaging uses words as its unit of measurement

Answer 3

mean length of response

Question 4

what are the five weird MLR words

Answer 4

1. Contractions of subject and predicate (ie it’s, we’re) = 2 words
2. Contraction of verb and negative (ie don’t) = 1 word
3. Fillers don’t count
4. Expressions that function as a unit (ie oh boy!) = 1 word
5. Repetitions or false starts only count in complete forms (ignore repeats, ie my my mom) UNLESS the word has a different intention/meaning (ie it’s big BIG)

Question 5

4 steps in calculating MLU

Answer 5

1) collect language sample
2) mark morphemes
3) count # morphemes/utterance and total # utterances
4) average

Question 6

What are three types of words/utterances that get eliminated in MLU analysis?

Answer 6

1) unintelligible utterances
2) repeats (unless repeated for emphasis)
3) fillers

Question 7

what are the ten types of utterances whose morphemes get reduced to one in MLU analysis?

Answer 7

Drag Picnic

1) compound words
2) proper names
3) ritualized reduplications (ie night-night)
4) irregular past-tense verbs
5) indefinite pronouns
6) diminutive (ie doggie)
7) catenatives
8) negative contractions (unless use non-contracted version later)
9) gerunds and predicate adjectives
10) affixes (ie around would normally be a-round, but instead is one)

Question 8

What is the difference between MLU and MLU-w/MLR?

Answer 8

Former is morphemes, latter is words

Question 9

how many utterances is the minimum requires for a language sample?

Answer 9

50