1 DOCUMENT RESUME AL 001 322 ED 021 218 48 By- McNeill, David THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE Behavior. Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor. Centerfcr Research on Language and Language Spons Agency- Office of Education(DHEW), Washington, D.C. Bureauof Research Bureau No- BR- 6-1784 Pub Date 1 Feb 68 Con trac t OEC- 3- 6-061784- 0508 Behavior, Progress Report No.VI. Note-226p.; Supplementary Report toStudies in Language and Language EDRS Price MF-S1.00 HC-$9.12 DEVELOPMENT, PHONOLOGY, Descriptors-*CHILD DEVELOPMENT, *CHILD LANGUAGE *LANGUAGE SYNTAX, TRANSFORMATIONS (LANGUAGE), *PSYCHOLINGUISTICS,SEMANTICS SURFACE STRUCTURE *VERBAL DEVELOPMENT This chapter, to be included in"Carmichael's Manual of ChildPsychology," edited by P.A. Mussen, deals with the connectionbetween the acquisitionof language and the growth of intellect, and the connectionbetween both of these andthe process of account for maturation. The authorfeels that various theoriesof development cannot the child's acquisition of grammarin a relativelyshort time, and hediscusses the bulk of the chapter reasons aswell as the lines which theexplanation must follow. The is a survey oflanguage acquisition itself.It is organized underthree major headings, of a grammar: syntax,phonology, and one for eachof the three main components of semantics. A descriptionof the methods typically used instudying the development The emergence of the componentsthemselves is traced each component is given. light of (insofar as it is known), and adiscussion of varioustheoretical issues in the of children the empirical findings ispresented. Wherever possible,mention is made exposed to languages otherthan English, with thechief contrast languagesbeing Russian and Japanese. (Seerelated document ED 017921.) (DO) -05C-.3-6-06/7047-1).5-08 e-r44111)1e.2146/F 'THEUNIVERSITY OFMICHIGAII i3X 6- 17P/ ?1,s1 011 Studies in Language and Intot - .7. Language - ;1...... 40.4,` Behavior vf 14144 , ," /I 4.01' 4.4 a.. 4. 44040apata, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFARE ,4 OFFICE OF EDUCATION FROM THE THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEENREPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED POINTS Of VIEW OR OPINIONS PERSON OR ORGANIZATIONORIGINATING IT. EDUCATION STATED DO NOT NECESSARILYREPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF :011,014`.. POSITION OR POLICY. VI SUPPLEMENT TOPROGRESS REPORT .11 The Developmentof Language DavlidgeNel.u, -arr. 4,4. "4.11.4;1104... a S a*M4.4144, ,146,1111... A... Ite! at. *' ENTER FOR RESEARCHON LANGUAGE,ANDLANGUAGE BEHAVIOR kt la001 322 CITY CENTER BUILDING 220 EAST HURON STREET ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48108 AC 313 - 764-0510 THE DEVELOPMENT OFLANGUAGE* David McNeill The University of Michigan and The Center for CognitiveStudies Harvard University A chapter prepared for P.A. Mussen(Ed.), Carmichael's Manual aLchilc_Usychology. The work was supported by Grant # 5P01 HD 01368-03 from the National Institutefor Child Health and Human Development, and by Contract# OEC-3-6-061784-0508 from the U.S. Offite of Education, both withThe University of Michigarriand bythe Advanced Research Project Agency# SD-187, and by the National ScienceFoundation 111 # GS1153, both with HarvardUniversity. Miss Meredith Fink of TheUniversity of Michigan performed stalwartly in preparingbibliographic information; Mr. J.W. MacDonald of Harvard University washelpful on phonological matters; Mrs. Nobuko B. McNeill was helpful onall other matters; and Mrs. Mavis Atamian provided excellent secretarialservice. The Development of Language David McNeill The University of Michigan Page PLAN OF THE CHAPTER 2 A caveat 3 SYNTAX 3 Nativism and empiricism in developmental psycholinguistics.... 4 The problem of cognition and language 5 Methodology and methodological issues 7 Distributional vs. particular analyses 8 Studies of comprehension 16 The Berkeley Cross-Cultural Project 20 Theories of language acquisition and early speech 21 3 Telegraphic speech 25 Holophrastic speech 26 Holophrastic speech as predication OP 29 Pivot and Open classes 31 Early grammatical rules 34 Contextual generalization 42 Differentiation and generic classification 46 Linguistic capacities, linguistic 'universals, and the problem of abstraction ..... 47 Predication and the basic grammatical relations ...., 52 Intrinsic and extrinsic predication 57 The differentiation of grammatical categories 62 Summary 72 The acquisition of veansformations 75 The emergence of inflections 76 Overgeneralization, simplification, and the question of overt practice 78 Imitation 83 Negation in the acquisition of English 87 The development of questions 101 Imitation 108 Expansions and "prompts." 109 474) A general condition for learning transformations 114 Universal transformational relations 115 PaSe 120 SEMANTICS ,. 121 Semantic features , 124 Semantic anomaly 19.9 Why is semanticdevelopment so slow? 130 discovering semanticfeatures A method for 131 Semantic influences onsyntax 136 The association ofsemantics and actioa , . 140 The exchange ofinformation among children v.142 PHONOLOGY 11L2 The relation ofbabbling to speech of Pre-speech and neurologicalmaturation in the first year 146 The differentiationof distinctive features The development of aphonemic system and thelaws of "irreversible solidarity" 153 153 Phonological rules 155 LINGUISTIC APPENDIX 157 Competence and performance ,, 159 Finite-state grammars 163 Recursiveness and linguisticabstraction w.f.,. 165 Phrase-structure rules 169 Transformations and thenotions of deep andsurface structure 183 REFERENCES The Development of Language David McNeill The University of Michigan Like the humors of the mind,the development of a child mayconveniently be divided into four parts. One part is physicalmaturation; another is personality development, including the process of socialization; a third isintellectual development; useful, and a fourth is languagedevelopment. The division is artificial but tolerated because of it, advantagesfor orderly inquiry. However, it should not be allowed to obscure thefact that the four partsintertwine in complex ways to kingdom -- of human make up the process --absolutely unique in the animal growth. It is clear, for example,that socialization depends onthe acquisition sociali- of language. Yet it is equally clearthat language bears the marks of The develop- zation, as the linguisticdifferences among social classes attest. of intellect, as ment of personality both acts onand reacts to the development evidenced by the cases where bothfail as in schizophrenia(Inhelder, 1967). Indeed, although the interaction israrely examined, thenetwork of character- child's istics we call personality could notdevelop at all were it not for a forms the subject capacity to represent his worldin the particular way that differences in cognitive matter of cognitive psychology. Yet there are also style, in the characteristic modesof thought that accompanyparticular types of personality (Kagan,et'. al., 1963). This chapter is concerned with tv.such interactions. One is the connection between the acquisitionof language and the growthof intellect. maturation. The other is the connection betweenboth of these and the process of The parts so intertwined maystrike the reader as anarbitrary selection. However, the selection is a sensible one; and the interaction among them provides considerable insight into the process whereby achild grows to become an adult. But this is the substance of the chapter. PLAN OF THE CHAPTER In order to understand the acquisition oflanguage, it is essential first to understand something of what is acquired. There is, therefore, aLinguistic Appendix. Readers unfamiliar with developments in modern linguistics are urged to begin with it; others may want only to refer to the Appendix as the occasion reqeres. The phenomenon of language poses achallenge for psychologists. A grammar is a system ofknowledge. It is everywhere complex and at many points abstract. Yet very young children acquire grammars and they do so in asurpris- ingly short period of time. For reasons to be discussed in the first section of the chapter, various theories of development cannot account for thisachievement. Explanation must follow other lines. One view is that the acquisition of language rests on certain cognitive capacities (the presence ofwhich are reflected in language as linguistic universals). These capacities may be innate and may mature with time. The bulk of the chapter is a survey of language acquisitionitself. It is organized under three major headings, one for eachof the three main components of a grammar: syntax, phonology, and semantics. A description will be given of the methods typically used in studying thedevelopment of each component; then the emergence of the components themselves will be traced, insofar as this is known; and finally, there will be a discussion of various theoretical issues in the light of the empiricalfindings presented. Where- ever possible, mention will be made ofchildren exposed to languages other than English, with the chief contrast languages being Russianand Japanese. 3 A caveat. There has been no serious attempt to survey the literature on language acquisition in acomprehensive way. The chapter is organized on principles other than inclusion. For one thing, most of the references are recent, since 1954, whenMcCarthy's chapter on language development appeared in the second edition of The manual of child,psychologyi. Her review should be consulted for the earlier work. For another thing, recent developments in linguistics pose crucial issues for psychology, and examination of them takes priority within the limits of space