Syntax

What is syntax?

• How words form larger structures such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Types of pronouns

• Subject pronouns - /I/ like bananas

• Object pronouns - She ran to /me/
  
  Object pronouns usually come at the end of an utterance

Mastery of Pronouns (Bellugi)

• Stage 1: use own name

• Stage 2: I + me used interchangably

• Stage 3: Accurate use of subject/object pronouns

Identity in pronouns

• Lewis and Ramsey suggest that pronoun development depends on the extent to which a child has a sense of identity - this suggests that cognitive development has an impact on grammatical accuracy.

Two word stage

• Usually appear around 18 months old

• Usually two words are in a grammatically sound order
  1) subject + verb (Daddy sleep)
  2) verb + object (Suzy Juice)
  3) subject + complement (Daddy is busy)

Meaning of the phrases can vary depending on context.

Bloom gives the example:

• Mummy sock - said

• Child picks up sock - action

• This is mummys sock - possibile meaning

Telegraphic state 

• Where children begin producing three and four word utterances

• Some will be grammatically correct, but others will have essential grammatical lexis missing such as ‘Daddy home now’. 

• They can make sense but miss key grammatical lexis such as;
  - articles ‘a’ and ‘the
  - auxiliary verbs ‘is’ and ‘has’
  - prepositions ‘to’ ‘on’ ‘for’
  - conjunctions ‘but’ and ‘because’

• By 5, children have usually mastered sentencing containing more than one clause.  

Inflectional Variation

• Research indicates that there is a predictable pattern in the acquisition of inflectional affixes

• These are words ending in -ing and -ed

• They are acquired in the following:
  - 1) -ing
  - 2) plural ‘-s’
  - 3) possessive ‘-s’
  - 4) the, a
  - 5) past tense ‘-ed’
  - 6) third person singular verb ending ‘-s’
  - 7) auxiliary verb ‘be’

Cruttendens 3 stage inflection acquisition

• In the first stage, children memorise words on an individual basis

• In the second stage, they show an awareness of the general rules. This is where they overgeneralise the most

• In the third stage, correct inflections are used

THIS IS IN ALIGNMENT WITH GARY MARCUS’ U-SHAPED GRAPH WHICH POSITS CHILDREN AS LINGUISTIC INNOVATORS.

3 stage of asking questions

• Roger Brown in A First Language says that asking questions is developed in three ways:

• 1) relying on intonation in the two-word stage such as ‘daddy home?’ with rising intonation 

• 2) development of wh- words such as ‘what’ and ‘where’ 

• 3) in their third year they gain correct auxiliary placement

Negatives

• Bellugi also says negatives are developed in three stages:

• 1) words ‘no’ and ‘not’ are used in front of other expressions - ‘no want’

• 2) during the third year ‘cant’ and ‘dont’ are used - ‘I dont want it’

• 3) more negative forms are used such as ‘didnt’ and ‘isnt’

Word order and competing theories

• Most English conjugations are SVO - subject, verb, object

• How do children do this?

• Emergentism vs. Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar importance in word orders

• Universal Grammar posits that children are born with knowledge, using the LAD, of different possible word order variations in language, then switch to the one they need for their native language.

Emergentism importance in word orders

• Emergentism posit that children have no prior knowledge of different possible worder order variations in language, only that children acquire knowledge from the linguistic environment over time .

Emergentism evidence in word order

• Michael Tomasello

• Study shows that using novel verbs that two-year olds struggle to apply SVO, but 3 year olds can.

• Suggests that the schema of syntactical word order is not innate, but rather develops gradually through exposure and abstraction of item-based constructions.

Akhtar’s Weird Word Order

• Akhtar’s study in weird word order shows that 3 to 4 year olds could correct syntax from OVS or VSO to SVO.