Acquisition

Overextension

use of a word in a way that is too broad (applied to too many objects) (Using dog to mean dogs, cats, sheep, etc)

Underextension

use of a word in a way that is too narrow (applied to too few objects) (Using milk to mean milk in a bottle but not milk in a carton)

Over-generalization/over-regularization

Morphological patterns over-generalized to “irregular” words in which the regular patterns don’t apply (goed, singed, childs, womans)

Over-generalization related phenomenom

seeing irregular plurals as monomorphemic so children produce forms that are “doubly inflected” (childrens, wented)

Over-generalization supports the…

Active Construction of Grammar theory of language acquisition

Overgeneralization shows that…

no grammar (repeating what they hear) → developing a grammatical system, formulating rules (don’t always apply in correct environment)

Forms of Production behind perception

Phonology, Morphology, Syntax

Production behind perception, Phonology

Child perceives the difference between [s] and [θ], but can’t produce both sounds

Production behind perception, Morphology

understands the meaning of correct morphemes in certain words but will produce the incorrect version (understanding what held means but instead saying holded)

Production behind perception, Syntax

Won’t produce a certain sentence but understand what it means (won’t say Ernie tickles Bert but can pick the correct picture given Ernie tickles Bert vs Bert tickles Ernie)

Stages of Acquisition

Vocal Play, Babbling, One-word/holophrastic, Two word, Telegraphic/early multi-word, Later multiword

Vocal Play Stage (<0.5 yrs)

Not identifiable language sounds: Manipulating pitch, loudness, and vocal tract closure to make friction-like noises (nasal murmurs, raspberries, snorts)

Babbling Stage (0.5 yr)

Repetitive CV patterns, practicing speech-like gestures to get the muscles of the vocal tract in shape for actual speech

Holophrastic Stage, One word/morpheme/unit (1 yr)

Single open-class words or word stems (quack, sweep, car, allgone, up)

Two-word Stage (1.5 yrs)

“mini-sentences” with simple semantic relations, (doggy bark, eat sandwich)

Telegraphic, early multi-word/multi-morpheme Stage (2 yrs)

Telegraphic sentence structures of lexical rather than functional or grammatical morphemes (Lucy no like celery)

Later multiword Stage (2.5 yrs)

Grammatical and functional structures emerge

Phonological Errors

Perseveration, Loss of initial unstressed syllable, Loss of non-initial unstressed syllables

Perseveration

feature of initial consonant spreads through to final consonant (keep → keek, months → mumps)

Loss of initial unstressed syllable

potato → tato, giraffe → raffe

Loss of non-initial unstressed syllables

Butterfly → bufly, Alligator → agayter