Morphology Flashcards
When do children start to produce multi word utterances
18 months
What do early word utterences normally include
Key words that cary content and meaning
Eg want cookie
Open class words nouns, verbs adjectives
What do early word utterances typically lack
Closed class function words eg determiners and prepositions
Morpheme
Smallest meaningful constituent of words that can be identified eg kind instead of kindness
What is a free morpheme
Those that can stand alone eg book
What is a bound morpheme
Those which cannot stand alone eg s
What are bound morphemes called
Affixes
What is an affrix attached to the left of the morpheme called
Prefix
What is the affrix attached to the right of the morpheme called
Suffix
What are the two kinds of bound morphemes
Derivational and inflectional
What are derivational morphemes made from
Prefixes and suffixes
What are inflectional morphemes made up from
Suffixes
What are the two things a derivational morpheme can do
Change the meaning or change the word class
Explain how derivational morphemes can change the meaning of a word
Un in unlock but lock and unlock are still both verbs
Explain how derivational morphemes can change the word class
Bright is an adjective but brightness is a noun
What are the other 6 words of creating new words
Compounding
Conversion
Blending
Back formation
Clipping
Abbreviations and acronyms
What is compounding
Putting two words together eg teapot and weekend
Conversion
Sign can be a noun or a verb depending on the context
Blending
Blending two words eg motor and hotel make motel
Back formation
Opposite or affixatin eg assess+ment
Clipping
Shortening a word without changing meaning (telephone becomes phone)
Abbreviations and acronyms
EU and NHS
What are inflectional morphemes
Modify a word so that it reflects grammatical information
What are the three things inflectional morphemes change
Tense jumpe- ed
Number dog-s
Degree fast-er
Morph
Speech level
The physical realisation of a morpheme
Allomorphe
How a morpheme manifests in a different phonological environment
3 surface manifestations of English regular plural
Dog /z/ cat/s/ hors /ez/
What did the wug test by burko 1985 do
Exemplifies how children dont add prefixes or suffixes
What are the 8 English inflectional affrixes
-noun plural
-noun possessive
-verb present tense
-verb past tense
-verb past participle
-verb present participle
-adjective comparative
-adjective superlative
Inflectional morphology on nouns: number
-noun plural -s
-musician and musicians contrast in number
-some plural nouns refer to an individual thing eg trousers
-collective nouns eg police automatically mean more than one
Nominative
Subject
Genitive
Possessive
Accusative
Direct object
Inflectional morphology on adjectives
-adjective comparative: suffix ‘er”
-adjective superlative: suffix ‘est’
Inflectional morphology on verbs: tense
-tense is a morphosyntactic way of referring to the time when some action or event took place in the relation to the moment of speaking
-tense is marked inflectionally on verbs
-she laughs now -s present tense
-she laughed -ed is past tense
Past tense regular verbs
-ed cooked
Examples of irregular verbs for past tense
Hold- held
Cut-cut
Speak-spoke
What does aspect mean
Information covering the durations or completion of an event relative to a point of reference
Refers to how an event or action is to be viewed with respect to time, rather than to its actual time
Continuos aspect
Marked by present participle -ing
Perfective aspect
Past participle -en
Inflectional morphology on verbs: mood
Indicative
Associated with factual assertions
It simply states a fact of some sort, or describes what happens
(Chloe closed the windows)
Inflectional morphology on verbs: mood
Imperitive
Command
Non inflectional morphology involved in imperitive
(Close the window)
Agreement
-a syntactic relation in which the reflection form or a word or phrase is determined by the properties of another word or phrase
What age will most children start to use morphological markers (-s and -ed)
Between 24 months and 30 months
How is syntactic development measured
Mean length of utterances
-MLU is based on the average length of a child’s sentences
-the length is determined by morphemes rather than words
What is the MLU calculation procedure
-transcribe conversation
-divide conversation into utterances
-divide the utterances into morphemes
-count the number of morphemes in the first 100 utterances then divide total by 100
What is the criterion for acquisition in terms of measuring syntactic development
90% usage in obligatory contexts
What are the early acquired grammatical morphemes
Present progressive tense: playing
Prepositions: in and on
Plural: -s
Late required grammatical morphemes
-contractible copula: I’m happy, you’re special
-contractible auxiliary: mummy’s going shopping
Errors of omission
- a common error is to use a bare stem form which has no inflectional ending at all
-this is an error of omission( producing a stem in place of its inflected counter part eg saying dress to refer to 5 dresses
-also common for children to omit auxiliaries in their speech eg what you doing
Errors of commission
-using the incorrect markings eg pronouns case marking errors
-over regulation is the application of a regular inflection to an irregular stem eg mouses or mice’s
-children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words “goed”
Learning irregular forms time 1
-very little use at all- sporadic forms, but not clear there is any recognition of the morpheme -ed or other forms used as having past or plural meaning
-when forms are used they are often correct (went, teeth)
Learning irregular forms 2
-use of the regular suffix -ed for growing numbers of past forms eg jumped, hitted, goed
-use of regular suffix -s for growing numbers of plural forms mouses, foots, feets
Learning irregular forms time 3
-increasingly more adult like use of -ed on regular verbs and -s on regular forms
-gradual sorting of irregular verbs
Dual system explanation
-regular and irregular forms are represented differently
Irregulars> lexicon
Regulars > grammar
Dual system explanation
Errors
-correct regular forms > successful application of “add-ed”
-correct irregular forms > successful retrieval of memorised pest tense forms blocks rule application
-incorrect irregular forms> unsuccessful lexical retrieval or lexical gap fail to block rule application
Two mechanisms of dual system explanation
-rule application for regular forms (add-ed)
-association of base form with memorised irregular form in the mental lexicon (break/broke)
Problems with the dual system
In principle all regular verbs stand the same chance of being overregularised but this is not the case, some verbs are more vulnerable than others to over regulation
The single mechanism model
-an alternative account: one route
-regulars and irregulars represented in a similar way
-past tense forms stored as lexical entries in memory
-if fail to retrieve the pst tense form from memory the correct form can be crested by analogy to other stored verbs that sound familiar (throw/threw)
-gradual learning
-error rates affected by frequency, phonological and semantic factors
Nouns and determiners
-singular countable common nouns need a determiner eg the car, an apple
-plural nouns dont need but can take a determiner eg cars/the cars
Nouns and adjectives
-you can single out a car from multiple other cars by describing its colour
-nouns do not become ungrammatical when we delete adjectives
-in an adjective noun syntactic relation, the noun is the grammatical head
Nouns and prepositions
-the lady with the long hair missed her train
-the first word in the modifying group is ‘with’ = preposition
-the preposition with is an obligatory relation with the noun phrase ‘long hair’
Pronouns
-behave syntactically as nouns
-pronouns form noun phrases
-the boy has a new scooter/ he has a new scooter
-‘he’ is a noun phrase
Prepositions and the words they combine with
-groups of words that are headed by a preposition are called prepositional phrases
-pp is made up of a preposition and a noun phrase
-the lady with the long hair missed her train
Adjectives and the words they combine with
-a fairly quick response
-the adverb fairly premodifies the adjective quick and it is not obligatory
-fairly is an adverb functioning as an optional pre modifier to the head of the syntactic relation ie the adjective quick
Fairly quick
Adjectival phrase
Embedded in the noun phrase
Fits in directly into a noun phrase between the determiner and the noun
Adverbs and the words they combine with
-adverbs can modify: verbs, adjectives and adverbs
-adverbs are optional
-pre and post modify verbs
Constituency
-words are grouped into units Called constituents
-constituent= group of words or a single word that functions together as a unit
-these constituents are grouped into larger constituents and so on until a sentence is formed
-language is organised into constituents- sentences are hierarchisly structured
What are nouns marked for
(Summary)
Number (singular vs plural)
Some pronouns still have case (nominative/accusative)
And nouns can have genitive case (brothers book)
What are verbs marker for (summary)
Tense (present vs plural)
Aspect (she laughs vs she is laughing)
Mood (indicative vs imperative)
Explain the errors made when using the dual system explanation
Correct regular forms> successful application of the “add -ed rule”
Correct irregular forms> successful retrieval of memorised past tense forms blocks rule
Incorrect irregular forms> unsuccessful lexical retrieval or lexical gap fail to block rule application
