Language Acquisition and Morphology

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts from the lecture on language acquisition, morphology, syntax, and conversation principles.

Content morphemes

Open-class morphemes that carry meaning, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Functional morphemes

Provide grammatical structure and linking, including prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, articles, and determiners.

Free morphemes

Morphemes that can stand alone as words.

Bound morphemes

Morphemes that must attach to another morpheme.

Inflectional morphemes

Modify a word's tense, number, and aspect without changing the word category.

Derivational morphemes

Create a new word by changing the meaning or category.

Allomorphs

Variations of a morpheme that appear in different forms but have the same meaning.

Plural -s

An inflectional morpheme that indicates more than one, pronounced as /s/, /z/, or /Iz/.

Past tense -ed

An inflectional morpheme that indicates the past tense, pronounced as /t/, /d/, or /Id/.

Browns morphemes

Stages of morpheme acquisition in children based on age and examples.

Stage 1 morphemes

Present progressive (-ing), such as 'The dog is running,' acquired at 18-24 months.

Stage 2 morphemes

Include plural (-s) and possessive (-'s), such as 'I have two cats' and 'That is Mommy’s hat,' acquired at 24-30 months.

Uncontractible copula

The use of 'be' without a contraction, such as 'She was happy.'

Stage 3 morphemes

Involves articles (a, the) and regular past tense (-ed), typically acquired at 31-34 months.

Stage 4 morphemes

Involves the regular third-person singular (-s) and irregular past tense, acquired at 35-40 months.

Stage 5 morphemes

Involves uncontractible and contractible auxiliaries, acquired at 41+ months.

Factors affecting morpheme acquisition

Frequency in input, regular pattern predictability, perceptual factors, and cognitive factors.

Mean Length of Utterance (MLU)

A measure of language development based on the average number of morphemes per utterance.

Calculating % accuracy in obligatory context

Formula to determine accuracy of morpheme usage in context.

c-Units

Segments of speech that express meaningful units.

Flexible morphological use

The ability to create or modify words through changes in morphemes.

Wug Test

A test for mastery of morphological rules by asking children to apply them to novel words.

Overregularization

Applying regular grammatical patterns to irregular words, like 'goed' instead of 'went'.

U-shaped development

A pattern of language acquisition where initial correct use is followed by overregularization, then a return to correct use.

Declarative sentences

Basic statement sentences that evolve in complexity with the speaker's development.

Negation stages

Stages in which a child learns to negate statements, progressing from external to internal negation.

Interrogative stages

Stages in which children learn to ask questions, beginning with rising intonation.

Noun phrase (NP)

A phrase that can contain determiners, adjectives, and nouns.

Verb phrase (VP)

A phrase that can include auxiliary verbs and main verbs.

Simple sentences

Sentences containing only one independent clause.

Compound sentences

Sentences with two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction.

Complex sentences

Sentences with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Stage 1 syntax

Characterized by single word utterances and telegraphic speech.

Stage 2 syntax

Characterized by two-word combinations, forming basic subject-verb or noun-adjective structures.

Stage 3 syntax

Characterized by simple sentences following subject-verb-object structure (SVO).

Stage 4 syntax

Involves complex sentences with embedded clauses, beginning at 36-42 months.

Stage 5 syntax

Involves coordinating conjunctions to connect ideas.

Stage 6 syntax

Uses subordinating clauses to show relationships between ideas.

Stage 7 syntax

Mastery of full complex sentences that incorporate both dependent and independent clauses.

Egocentric speech

Child's speech that does not consider the listener.

Turn-taking

The ability to respond to conversational cues.

Advanced topic maintenance

Sustaining conversations with appropriate responses.

Heaps narratives

Unrelated statements made by children to express ideas.

Sequences narratives

Themed stories by children without clear order.

Primitive narratives

Basic cause-and-effect stories created by children.

True narratives

Clear beginning, middle, and end structures in stories created by children.

Gricean maxims

Principles of conversational cooperation: Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.

Quantity (Gricean maxim)

Provide the right amount of information in conversation.

Quality (Gricean maxim)

Be truthful in communication.

Relation (Gricean maxim)

Stay relevant in conversation.

Manner (Gricean maxim)

Be clear and avoid ambiguity in communication.