Preschool Development of Language Form

Question 1

MLU and when indicates greater complexity:

Answer 1

Length of utterance in morphemes; up until MLU of 4.0, increases in MLU correspond to increases in utterance complexity

Question 2

When bound morphemes start to appear:

Answer 2

2.5, around two, bound morphemes start to appear

Question 3

Examples of bound morphemes matched with description:

Answer 3

1. Progressive –ing (mastery 19-28 months)
   A. used to indicate activity that is currently or was recently in progress and is of temporary duration-”Mommy eating”
   B. used with helping verb “to be”-”am,” “is,”, “are,” “was,” “were,” the main verb, and “-ing” verb ending
   C. not used with state verbs- ”I am knowing”
2. Regular plural –s (mastery 27-33 months)
   A. singular noun is called uninflected or unmarked
   B. at first, mark plural with “more,” “more puppy”
   C. then uses plural with familiar words
   D. then overgeneralizes-“foots”
   E. finally, regular and irregular forms differentiated
   F. variations
3. if ends in voiced consonant, “z”
4. if ends in unvoiced consonant, “s”
5. if ends in “s, z, sh, zh, ch, and dg”, “iz” or “uhz”-these 6 phonemes are called sibilants
6. Possessive “-’s” or “-s’ ” (mastery 26-40 months)
   A. form mastered by 3, but mastery of phonological variations takes much longer and is similar in use to rules for plurals
7. Regular past “-ed” (mastery 26-48 months)
   A. once child learns past-tense rule, overgeneralized to previously learned irregular past tense words (“comed”)
   B. variations
8. “d” follows voiced consonants
9. “t” follows unvoiced consonants
10. “id” or “uhd” follows words ending in “t” or “d”
11. Regular third person singular –s (mastery 26-46 months)
    A. “-s” on third person singular-”She runs”
    B. may take longer to understand than to use

Question 4

Comparative and superlative:

Answer 4

learn adjectival comparator “-er” and superlative “-est” (“bigger, biggest”); understand superlative at 3 ½ , comparative at 5

Question 5

Phrases:

Answer 5

units of syntax used in construction of longer units, such as sentences-do not contain both subject and verb

Question 6

Parts of noun phrase:

Answer 6

Can consist of:

1. initiator-”only,” “at least,” “even”
2. determiner-”quantifier “all,” article “the”, possessive “my,” demonstrative “this”, numerical term “one”
3. adjective-possessive noun “Mommy’s,” ordinal “first,” adjective “blue,” descriptor “hot dog”(stand)
4. noun-pronoun “I,” noun “boys”
5. post-noun modifier-prepositional phrase “on the car,” adjectival “next door,” adverbs “here,” embedded clause “that you saw”

Question 7

Articles:

Answer 7

Articles “a” and “the”

1. appear before 2, but take time to master
2. “a” is for nonspecific reference, while “the” is for specific reference
3. new information is marked with “a,” while old information is marked by “the”+noun or use of a pronoun
4. article and adjective use develop gradually during preschool and kindergarten
5. by 36 months, 90% of children use “a” and “the” correctly

Question 8

Auxiliaries

Answer 8

Auxiliary or helping verbs “can, do, and will/would” first appear in negative form at 30 months, with MLU of 3.5
I. true auxiliary verbs appear later, including “be, can, do, and will”
II. by 40 months, modal auxiliaries “could, should, must, and might” appear in negatives and interrogatives or questions
1. express moods or attitudes like ability (“can”), permission (“may”), intent (“will”), possibility (“might”), and obligation (“must”)

Question 9

Verb phrases

Answer 9

I. verb is syntactic element that expresses existence (“I am”), action (“she is jumping”), or occurrence (“we thought of you instantly”)
II. verb phrase consists of verb and all that follows, including noun phrase

Question 10

Children speaking from different references:

Answer 10

A. first, event time and speech time are same
B. at 1 ½ to 3, child can speak of events in past and present, but reference is present
C. at 3 to 3 ½, child can speak in limited way from reference of past, present, or future
1. “Sara drove yesterday.”-completed in past but reference is present
2. “We had hoped to go yesterday”-event in past but reference point is before yesterday
D. by 3 ½ to 4, child can describe events in past, present, or future from perspective of all three times
1. “Yesterday, Grandma asked, ‘Would you like to go to the zoo next week?’”-free reference to different points in time

Question 11

Mastery of “to be”

Answer 11

by 46 months has mastered regular and irregular past tense in most contexts and other morphemic inflections, like third person singular “-s” and the copula “to be” as a main verb but mastered as a helping verb at about age 4

Question 12

When types of infinitives develop:

Answer 12

A. start to acquire infinitives between 2 and 3
B. most frequent error is omission of “to” in infinitive (“to eat”)
C. 2 ½ develop semi-infinitives like “gonna and wanna” and start using “to”
D. changes from 2 to 5
1. use something other than “I” as subject-”he wants to eat”
2. negative infinitives appear-”I don’t like to eat that”
3. more verbs
4. other tenses-”I forgot to eat it”
5. more complex infinitives with a noun phrase between two verbs-”I want mommy to do it”
6. “wh-” infinitives-”I forget when to go to school”
7. omit “to” appropriately-”She can help me pick it up”
8. at 3/12, begin to use infinitives with nouns other than subject-”I got this to give to you”

Question 13

Gerunds:

Answer 13

A. parallels that of infinitives and appear after 4
B. appear in object position at end of sentence first
C. most common forms-”see X verbing” and “watch X verb-ing”