Morphological Development: MLU and Virtuous Errors Flashcards
What is a morpheme?
Smallest unit of meaning in a word
What are the 2 types of morphemes?
Free Morphemes Bound Morphemes
What are free morphemes? What is an example?
Morphemes that can stand alone such as Clock
What are bound morphemes? With an example?
Morphemes that have to be attached to free morphemes to have meaning. Such as -ly
What are the 2 branches of morphology and what do they relate to?
Inflectional - GrammaticalDerivational - Lexical/Semantic
What is Inflectional morphology about?
How morphemes are used to create different grammatical functions
What is an example of an Inflection?
Making “Potato” in to “Potatoes” makes it in to a plural
What did Brown find with Morphology?
Noted a typical order that children started using inflections and free morphemes
Who did the Wug test?
Jean Berko
What was the wug test?
Kids given a photo of a wug then shown two wugs.
What sentence did the wug test children have to finish?
“There are two”wugs”
What did it mean if the child ended the wug sentence correctly?
They had acquired the use of that morpheme
Why was the wug test important?
Tested if children applied grammatical rules to fake words
What are Virtuous Errors?
Grammar mistakes children make that have logic to them
What are some virtuous error examples?
My foots are cold runned He’s deaded
Why are virtuous errors errors?
Because they are irregular word forms in these cases
What do virtuous errors tell us about Child Morphology Development?
They are picking up grammar rules to try out themselves
What is a limitation to observing virtuous errors?
Children may be learning different varieties of English
What did Brown’s U-shaped graph show?
Children regressed in inflection learning before fully mastering it
What did Brown conclude about the regression in inflection learning?
Early use of correct form was likely due to repetition of adults
What did Brown conclude about the regression in inflection learning?
They are gaining an understanding on how language works
What does MLU stand for?
Mean length of utterance
What is the formula for MLU?
Amount of all Morphemes in all sentences / Amount of sentences
