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Grammar and Word Order LIGN171: Child Language Acquisition http://ling.ucsd.edu/courses/lign171 Grammar Includes morphology and syntax Morphology Grammar and word order Analysis of structure at the word level How are morphemes organized and structured into words? Syntax Analysis of structure at the clause and sentence level How are words organized and structured into clauses and sentences? Bound morphemes Bound morphemes “Dog bites man” vs. “Man bites dog” Are attached to words they modify Affixes Suffix: at the end of a word -s in dogs; -ed in walked Questions vs statements Prefix: at the beginning of a word The girl who is on the swing is happy un- in undo; para- in paramilitary Infix: in the middle of a word Is the girl who is on the swing __ happy? -fucking- in abso-fucking-lutely Unbound morphemes Are free standing in a sentence A child needs to learn both word structure Whole words and clause structure dog; go; dogs; the; that I found a dog vs. I found the dog vs. I found the dogs And learn which is what Languages differ Does a language encode a meaningful contrast in Swedish morphology or syntax? indefinite article unbound – en hus “a house” Definite article bound – huset “the house” Infant Speech Production When Syntax Starts… Stage Typical Age Description Novel combinations (where we can be sure that Cooing 2-3 months Interactional but non-linguistic the result is not being treated as a single word) vocalizations appear sporadically as early as 14 months. Marginal Babbling 4-6 months Transition between cooing and babbling At 18 months: Canonical Babbling 7-12 months Repeated syllable strings 11% of parents say that their child is often combining Words 12+ months Babbling and words initially co-exist words Two-word stage 18-24 months “mini-sentences” with simple 46% say that s/he is sometimes combining words. (1.5-2 years) semantic relationship Telegraphic 24-30 months “telegraphic” sentence structures of By 25 months: stage/early multiword (2-2.5 years) lexical (open-class) rather than stage functional morphemes almost all children are sometimes combining words Later multiword stage 30+ months Grammatical or functional structures but about 20% are still not doing it so “often.” (2.5+ years) (e.g., articles, agreement, et cetera) emerge 1 About 18 Months: The 2-word Stage About 24 Months: Telegraphic Stage Usually combinations of individual naming actions that More than two words are often combined, but speech still might just as well have occurred alone. usually lacks most grammatical elements Mommy hat (= “mommy’s hat”) Mommy hat (= “mommy’s hat”) In the early multi-word stage, children who are asked to repeat Hat mommy (=“mommy is putting on a hat”) sentences may simply leave out function words including Shirt wet pronouns. Doggy bark “I can see a cow” repeated as “See cow” (Eve at 25M) Ken water (for ‘Ken is drinking water’) “The doggy will bite” repeated as “Doggy bite” (Adam at 28M) Hit doggy “Where does Daddy go?” repeated as “Daddy go?” (Daniel at 23M) Some combinations with certain pronouns or prepositions Spontaneous utterances also lack most grammatical elements begin to occur as well (e.g., my turn, in there, etc.) Kathryn no like celery (Kathryn at 22M) The more purely grammatical morphemes ( e.g., -s, is, a, Baby doll ride truck (Allison at 22M) the) are typically absent. Pig say oink (Claire at 25M) Want lady get chocolate (Daniel at 23M) Syntax – It’s not All or Nothing Children know the correct forms About the age of 2, children first begin to use grammatical before they reliably use them elements Tom Bever finite auxiliaries (is, was) Tom: Where’s Mommy? verbal tense and agreement affixes (-ed, -s) Child: Mommy goed to the store. nominative pronouns (I, she) Tom: Mommy goed to the store? complementizers (that, where) determiners (the, a) Child: NO! (annoyed) Daddy, I say it that way, not you. Dan Slobin Telegraphic patterns alternate with adult or adult-like forms, Child: You readed some of it too…she readed all the rest. sometimes in adjacent utterances: Dan: She read the whole thing to you, huh? She’s gone. Her gone school. (Domenico at 24M) Child: Nu-uh, you read some. He’s kicking a ball. Her climbing up the ladder there. (Jem at 24M) Dan: Oh, that’s right, yeah. I readed the beginning of it. I teasing Mummy. I’m teasing Mummy. (Holly at 24M) I having this. I’m having 'nana. (Olivia at 27M) Child: Readed? (annoyed surprise) Read! I’m having this little one. Me’ll have that. (Betty at 30M) Dan: Oh yeah, read. Mummy haven’t finished yet, has she? (Olivia at 36M) Child: Will you stop that, Papa? Two strategies Case marking: morphological cue Der Hund hat den Mann gebissen Syntax (“the dog bit the man”) Der Mann hat den Hund gebissen (“the man bit the dog”) Who did what to whom? Word order: syntactic cue Configurational vs non-configurational languages 2 Non-configurational Languages Configurational Languages Warlpiri SVO (English) The man bit the dog Free word order SOV (Hindi) The man the dog bit VSO (Biblical Hebrew) Null anaphora Bit the man the dog VOS (Malagasy) Bit the dog the man OVS (Hixkaryana) The dog bit the man Discontinuous syntactic OSV (Urubu) expressions The dog the man bit Do infants detect word order Preferential Looking Technique differences? Head-turn preference procedure Listen to an auditory stimulus Habituate to: “cats-would-jump-benches” See images of two Test with: “cats-jump-wood-benches” events: one matches, 2 month old infants showed differential one doesn’t response – detected difference! Does the infant look longer at the image that But do they recognize a difference in matches? meaning? If yes, the infant understood the sentence Preferential Looking Technique More complex syntax At age 2 (24-27 months) Big Bird’s tickling cookie monster. Find Big Bird tickling Tested verbs toddlers are unlikely to know Cookie Monster. to know Transitive verb: Image 1: Big Bird is tickling Big Bird is flexing Cookie Monster Cookie Monster Intransitive verb: Big Bird is flexing with Cookie Monster Image 2: Cookie Monster is Image 1: tickling Big Bird Big Bird pushes Cookie Monster up and down, making him flex Image 2: Infants knew the names of Big Bird and Cookie Monster flexing the characters up and down next to each other Toddlers looked longer at Actions and characters matching image identical – word order is cue to roles of each character Recognition of grammar > to roles of each character 17 month old infants looked longer production of grammar at matching image! 3 Acquiring word order Evidence? Parameter setting Basic word order learned very rapidly for “flipping a switch” production and comprehension Head initial language: VO (English) When full sentences are produced, Head final language: OV (Hindi) constituents are ordered accurately Relatively little data needed to determine which option is found in target language Supports parameter setting models Set of options provided by UG Pattern induction But – evidence comes from tests using Learn patterns based on specific examples “data-driven” learning familiar verbs! Evidence for verb specific Alternative interpretation comprehension of word order? Understanding of word order is not truly Toddlers can enact a transitive sentence with a general verb tickle but not hug Modeled on basis of individual verbs, gradually expands as more verbs are Verb specific formulas predict good performance on tests of production and comprehension with learned familiar verbs Parameter setting models also make this prediction Give (“She gave me a toy”) prediction SVIO (general) Good performance with familiar verbs does not [donor]-[give]-[recipient]-[gift] (specific) distinguish these two accounts Unfamiliar verbs… Akhtar and Tomasello, 1997 What do children do when told: If children use and comprehend word What do children do when told: Make Big Bird dack Cookie Monster (agent verb patient) order correctly with novel verbs, then they may have a general understanding of Children taught novel verbs order, rather than a specific one Without linguistic cues: order, rather than a specific one “This is called dacking” With linguistic cues: “Big Bird’s tamming Cookie Monster” Inspired by wug test (Berko, 1958) “Make Big Bird dack Cookie Monster” Children younger than 3 With no linguistic cues: chance performance How do children do with novel verbs? With linguistic cues: accurate performance Suggests verb-specific word order knowledge 4 Parameters vs Patterns Methods Present English speaking children with novel Participants verbs in non-English orders 12 children aged 2;1 – 3;1 There are no languages in which some verbs follow 12 children aged 3;2 – 3;11 one word order and other verbs follow another (also 12 children aged 4;0 – 4;9 consistent with parameter account) Equal numbers of boys and girls All participants taught 3 novel verbs Parameter setting – One verb in sentence-medial position (SVO) Very young children will use a single word order with Elmo dacking the car all transitive verbs One verb in sentence-final position (SOV) Pattern induction – Elmo the car gapping Very young children may acquire order on a verb-by- One verb in sentence-initial position (VSO) verb basis Tamming Elmo the car Novel Verbs Predictions Gapping – After training with puppets/toys, children given opportunity to perform the action A puppet springs a toy off a platform Asked “What’s going to happen now?” or “What connected
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