Cognitive Linguistic Development Weeks 8-16

Individual Differences

Variations in language learners

• Early words

Referential —------------------- expressive

• Referential - Using language primarily to label and name objects and people in the environment

• Expressive - more focused on pragmatics, Using language primarily for social interaction, expressing feelings, personal needs, and routines.

Individual Differences

Variations in language learners

• Language use

Code oriented —------------------- Message oriented

• Code oriented - tend to label and repeat/practice the production of the language - focus on how well they are saying the code of language

• Message oriented - interested in how they can use language to manipulate social situation

Individual Differences

Variations in language learners

• Speech

Analytic —------------------------ Holistic

• Analytic - carefully produce single words

• Holistic - speech productions tend to be more variable

Individual Differences

Variations in language learners

• Early “sentences”

Nominal combos —----------------------- Pronominal combos

• Nominal combos - “daddy go, doggy bark” - specific label for a thing

• Pronominal combos - combinations that use pronouns (this, that, those, and personal pronouns) or less specific labels

Individual Differences

Variations in language learners

• rate?

Early talkers —----------------------------- Late talkers

• Rate - timing of vocabulary spurt

• Early talkers - vocabulary spurt happens before a year and a half

• Late talkers - vocabulary spurt happens 24-30 months

other considerations for individual variance

→ Interactive style 

•  Assertive / passive

• Initiator / responder

→ Amount of talking

• Self-talk / audience

→ Interests

***Position on one does not equal position on another

Contributing Factors to language variance:

1. Within child differences

• Perseverance, curiosity, sociability, independence, cognitive style

2. Environment

• bidirectional

3. Gender 

• boys and girls learn language differently because you learn what you experience

4. Nature of language 

• languages like korean and japanese are structured differently, they use verbs at end - we tend to learn what we hear first and last - english tends to use nouns in the beginning and end of sentences

late talkers

**note for implications for assessment

• Usually defined as children who have an expressive vocabulary at 20 months of age have 50 or few words

• About half spontaneously resolve

Implications for assessment

• Individual differences and diversity are present in every person, disability or not

SYNTAXUALIZATION & GRAMMATICAL MORPHOLOGY:

Early language development is about lexical and relational semantics

• Form follows function

• Universal similarities in meanings

• Assumes language is organized by content

• Meaning is the key to discovering form

Utterance development:

• Length and complexity

• 1 word → SSWU → 2&3 word phrases (“combos/fragments”)

Syntaxualization

• period where young children's language begins to be organized by grammar (syntax) rather than meaning

• In utterances from children that indicate that they are adhering to conventional syntax to organize their output

Evidence of syntaxualization (the process of syntactic development)

1. pronoun case → Nominative vs accusative

2. subject -verb agreement “I walk” vs “he walks”

3. Passive: “I read the book” vs “the book was read by me”

Nominative	Accusative
I	me
they	them
he	him
she	her

Analyzing Syntactic Development

in this order:

1. lexicon

2. grammatical morphemes

3. sentence pattern

1. Lexicon

• Locatives

• Modals

• Negatives

2. Grammatical morphemes

• Free and bound morphemes → “box” - “boxes” (= boxness + plurality)

• Free can stand on its own (every root word)

• Bound are units of meaning that have to be attached to another morpheme to express its meaning

3. Sentence pattern (structure/complexity)

Morphological development

Characteristics of grammatical morphemes

Characteristics of grammatical morphemes

• Syntactic functions

• Low perceptual salience

• Low phonetic substance

• Sentence internal

• Meanings are often already expressed by word order

• High frequency 

obligatory contexts

• specific situation or linguistic framework where a fluent speaker is required to use a particular rule, form, or grammatical feature for the output to make sense or be grammatically correct

• sets stage for how we count errors

Morphological development

Order of mastery: based on the words of Rodger Brown!!!

• Used 90% of the time (obligatory contexts) 

• Keep in mind: time from first appearance to mastery and variety of learning curves

Morphological development

Developmental points of interest

• Considerable time lapse between first appearance and eventual mastery

• Variety of learning curves between morphemes

• Frequent over-regularization - adding the form to an already marker irregular form - “feets” - “we camed home” → THIS  IS EVIDENCE OF RULE GOVERNED-NESS!!!

• Look for productivity

• Inflections appear first in the most familiar (oldest) semantic contexts

• Some grammatical morphemes actually emerge at the same time

Morphological development

• MLU: Mean Length of Utterance

• Basic steps?

• Calculated in words or morphemes (usually morphemes)

• Indicated length of utterance

• For young children it will also capture complexity of utterances

• Must use convention

MLU Basic Steps:

1. Segment utterances

2. Mark mazes

3. include/exclude utterances

4. Count free and bound morphemes in each utterance

5. Total morphemes/total utterances = MLU

• Compare to robert brown stages

• Predict age 

• Determine (in)consistencies for stages

Roger Browon Grammatical Morpheme order:

ing progressive

In, on

-s plural

Irregular past tense

Possessive -s

Uncontracted copula

Articles: a, the

Past tense: -ed

3rd person -s

3rd person irregular (has, done)

Uncontracted BE auxiliary

Contractible copula

Contractible auxiliary

Grammatical Morpheme	Notes	Examples
ing progressive	Earliest with durative & non completive verbs	Me playing Mommy eating
In, on		In box On table
-s plural		Cats Bears
Irregular past tense	Early aspect meaning for completives, nondurative actions and events	I found Truck broke Baby fell
Possessive -s		Mommy’s hat Grandpa’s car
Uncontracted copula		I am hot. Mommy is mad?
Articles: a, the		A big, brown cow. The dog.
Past tense: -ed		Skipped Walked Talked
3rd person -s		Baby sits He sings
3rd person irregular (has, done)		1st person: I have a cup 2nd person: you have a cup She has a cup
Uncontracted BE auxiliary	“Helping verb”	He is helping me. I am stirring.
Contractible copula		I’m hot You’re nice It’s good We’re happy They’re sad Everyone’s home
Contractible auxiliary	“Helping verb”	He’s helping me I’m stirring

Morphological development

Developmental points of interest

• Considerable time lapse between first appearance and eventual mastery, Look for productivity

• Variety of learning curves between morphemes

• Frequent over-regularization - adding the form to an already marker irregular form - “feets” - “we camed home” → THIS  IS EVIDENCE OF RULE GOVERNED-NESS!!!

• Inflections appear first in the most familiar (oldest) semantic contexts

• Some grammatical morphemes actually emerge at the same time

Sentence Structure:

• At the most basic level, a sentence is comprised of a subject and a predicate (aka “clause” usually a noun phrase and a verb phrase)

Dogs eat → (NP, VP)

My dogs eat → (NP, VP)

My brown dogs eat rotten bones → (NP, VP)

Clausal Structure:

Clause = subject + predicate

Subject:

• Usually a noun phrase or a pronoun

• The subject is the "who" or "what" that the sentence is about, or the entity performing the action.

Predicate: (comment about the subject)

• A verb phrase (can contain noun phrase)

• the "telling" part that states what the subject is, what the subject is doing, or what is happening to the subject.

My two big, brown young dogs from my grandmother are slowly eating rotten old bones near the trash can behind the fast food restaurant

Green = subject, Red = predicate

Elements of a noun phrase:

• Initiator 

• Determinor

• Adjectives

• Noun

• (post) determiners

Elements of a verb phrase:

• Modal auxiliary - a helping verb that expresses the speaker's attitude toward an action or event, such as possibility, ability, permission, necessity, or obligation. - can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would

• Perfective auxiliary - helping verb that is used with a main verb to indicate that an action has been completed or is viewed as completed. - Has, Have, Had

• Verb: to be

• Negative - expresses denial, refusal (not, no, never, don’t, can’t, won’t, didn't)

• Passive - “thrown, chased, eaten, washed”

• Verb

• Prepositional phrase, noun phrase, noun complement, adverbial phrase

Two types of clauses:

1. “Independent” clause

• “Main”

• Can stand alone

• Expresses the primary idea of the sentence

• “My dog eats rotten bones”, “the cat sleeps on the rug.”, “The candy bar was delicious”, “the parrot squawked”, “the pirate danced a jig.”

2. “Dependent” clause

• “Subordinate”

• Cannot stand alone unless it is modified 

• Expresses the secondary idea of the sentence

• “My dog eats rotten bones because he is hungry.” , “The cat slept on the rug while the rain poured.”

Simple sentence:

Complete sentence

one, independent clause

“one subject and one predicate”

Fragments:

NP or VP (aka phrases)

Ellipsis/Elliptical utterances:

directives?

• Ellipsis/Elliptical utterances: previously stated (or contextually understood) information is not repeated, the part that is omitted has already been established

• Examples (these are not fragments!!):

     E: Tell me who stole your bike

    C: Steven

     C: I want to go to the store

     C: No, I want to go to the park

Directives (commands) → (set up situations for ellipsis to be made)

• Stated directly to the person

• The subject (you) is redundant info

• “Give me that crayon!”

Analyzing simple sentences:

• ID the subject (topic)

• ID the predicate

- Find the main verb: “I want pancakes

- ID any auxiliary verbs: “I may want pancakes”

- ID verb complex: “I may not want to eat pancakes”

- ID VP:  “I may not want to eat pancakes”

• Analyze the NPs

- May be subject and/or part of the VP

- elaborated?

Copulas “be”

• present/past

• singular/plural

• “I am big. I was cold. He is hungry. They are hungry”

• different from auxiliaries!!

Auxiliaries “to be”

• present/past

• singular/plural

• I am eating. I was eating. You are eating. They are eating. They were eating.”

different from copulas!!

Infinitives

• Not main verb, another verb that is not inflected “to eat” in “I want to eat pancakes”

• “I am to play here. He said to eat it on the table”

Finite verbs

• In english we mark tense and number with inflections on verbs:

• “Today I walk. Yesterday I walked.”

• “He sleeps. One cat sleeps. We sleep. Three cats sleep.”

Non-finite verb adjectivals:

• “Ed” or “ing”

• “The tired cats slept all morning. Creamed corn is my favorite vegetable. My hiking boots are old.”

• they are different form gerunds because they are adjectives

Gerunds

• “Ing”

• “Hiking is my favorite sport. We will go canoeing this summer. She is going shopping this afternoon.”

• different from non-finite verb adjectivals because they are nouns

3 ways “ing” works (functions)

1. main verb: progressive → “He is bowling well tonight.”

2. noun: gerund → “He loves bowling.”

3. verbal adjectival → “His bowling shirt is ugly”

Structural Development

• Children's utterances grow in…

• Length (number of words)

• Complexity → NP (elaborated), VP(elaborated), Sentence pattern (simple, complex, expanded

1. Expanded Sentences

• Expanded simple sentences:

• More than one clause 

• But not yer complex sentence structure

• Compound (coordinated) and conjoined

Compound sentence (“coordination”)

• Contains 2 or more clauses within its structural framework (aka coordination)

• Simplest way to combine 2 clauses “propositions” into a longer sentence (and, so, but, or)

My dog eats rotten bones and my hamster runs on its wheel

My dog eats rotten bones and it runs in the park

Sally wanted to go but her mom objected

Discourse:

T-units (c-units)

When 2 coordinate clauses share a subject…

• Independent clause and all associated dependent clauses

• “And…” “and then…” “but…”  → discourse cohesion

• Discourse cohesion - result in single independent clauses with repetitive coordinating conjunctions maxed if subjects of the clauses are different or stated

• But sometimes the subjects are the same

When 2 coordinate clauses share a subject:

• The subject may be deleted: “my dog eats rotten bones and my dog runs in the park

• When a coordinating conjunction links two independent clauses in which the subject is shared (and NOT restated), it is 1 T unit.

Conjoined sentence

1. One subject with multiple predicates (VP): “she loves shopping but hates scrubbing toilets

2. Repetitions of the subject can be elliptical omitted

3. Segmentation in language samples

“They got in their truck and they started down the mountain”

Complex Sentences

• Contained at least one independent clause and at least one dependent clause within its structural framework

• Children start making complex sentences at 2 ½ to 3 years old

• subordination, complementation, relativization,

Subordination - [ADV] - adverbial clause

1. One clause is subordinate to (or dependent on) the main clause. Joining an independent clause with a dependent clause

2. Requires a subordinating conjunction: because, if, when, until, as soon as, while SO, whether, although, since, etc.

• Conditionality: unless, even though, although, etc.

As long as we are sitting here, we might as well eat

We should buy some bananas, if we need to run to the store.

Supposing that the weather holds, a picnic would be fine

• Cause or reason: because, since, for, etc.

• Time: before, after, since, until, while, etc.

• Comparison: like, as if, as though, etc.

• Place: where, wherever, etc.

• Purpose: in order to, so as to, etc,

4. Helpful hint for “SO”

• “So” can be used to coordinate or subordinate → figure out the logic behind the sentence

• My dog eats rotten bones so dont smell his breath.

• My dog eats rotten bones so (that) his teeth would be sharp.

Complementation [NOM] - nominal clause

• One proposition is used to fill an empty part of another

• Main clause often has a verb of: Cognition or communication

• Complete a thought or express an attitude, belief or feeling. (sometimes called “complements”)

• Easy to identify:

• Introduced by pronounce: that, how, where, whether, whoever, what

I know “(something -clause)”

He wanted “(something -clause)”

She thought, “(something -clause)”

He said, “(something -clause)”

Relativization [REL] - Relative clause

types?

One proposition is attached to another preposition in order to modify or qualify it (adds more information, more precision) 

2 types:

1.  objective relative clause → “ I heard the bird that was in the tree”

2. Subjective relative clause → “the boy who was hungry ate dinner

Subjective relative clause: a clause that modifies the subject of the sentence

• A dog that was hiding under the house ate rotten bones → the dog ate rotten bones

• The cookies (that) mom baked were the best in the whole world → the cookies were the best in the whole world (the main clause)

Objective relative clause: a clause that modifies the object of the sentence

• My dog ate rotten bones (that) he found in the trash

Language sample coding: [REL] - “Relative clause”

• Give more information about either the subject or the object of the main clause

• Often introduced with relative pronouns: that, who, whose. In which, whom, etc.

• This code can be used for both subjective and objective relative clauses

• May look like [NOM] but add precision to object or subject of MC instead of completing an idea that was opened

THEORY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE

Tasks

1. False-belief task

• Child does not understand that someone may know what they know

2. Appearance-reality task

• One object that looks like something else

• Sponges that looks like rocks, etc.

3.  Unexpected results task

THEORY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE

Developmental Sequence

1. First order

• Contents of another's mind (4 years)

2. Second order

• Beliefs re-beliefs or intentions (6-8 years)

THEORY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE

mental state terms and types?

Mental state terms - words that describe states of being/cognitive processes/awareness

1. Desire terms

• Want, wish, etc. → come in early

2. Belief terms

• Think, know, etc.

THEORY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE:

 Importance of joint attention

• Shows awareness of another’s mind

• Important for maturing language (deception, humor, sarcasm)

THEORY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE

Communication uses

• “Convery info among individuals”

• What we say to whom, when, and why (pragmatics)

• disorders of communication → ASD and SLI

 Derivational Morphemes

• Prefixes and suffixes

• meaningfulness continues to develop through these - allows us to modify words and its meanings

No ages and stages 

Why not?

Increased variance 

• Birth to 40 months

• Afterwards:

→ experiential diversity

→ educational practices

→ SES and cultural expectations

Higher Order Semantics

• about increasing levels of abstraction and reasoning

1. Definitions

2. Synonyms

3. Semantic absurdities → “The skier descended to the top of the mountain”

4. Humor

5. Figurative language (literal and non literal) → idioms, sarcasm

Higher Order Semantics: Definitions

 “Meta skill”

Requirements:

• Superordinate terms 

• Disembedded knowledge 

• Categorization of semantic features

• Understanding of genre

Developmental sequence:

• Young children give definitions that are prompted by the object or activity associated with the word (or the word itself) (“forrest” → 4 or sleep?)  (island → eye? “We went to an island”

• Later: more universal/generic info

• information offered by young children is often more relevant to the object or activity denoted by the word than to the meaning of the word itself. 

• information offered by older children and adults is more likely to be universal and criterial (information offered by children is typically personal and incidental)

• form becomes a more conventional -superordinate and restrictive complement. “An island is a body of land surrounded by water.”

Higher Order Semantics:

Synonyms and antonyms

require:

• recognition of critical semantic features/attributes

• retrieval of a semantically similar or dissimilar lexical item

development of pragmatic abilities is dependent upon

• the development of all other language subsystems***

• Contextually dependent

• Schemes and scripts

Pragmatics

1. Utterance Level

i. Frames (communicative intent)

Types:

• persuade, deceive, test, negotiate, argue, fantasize, play, entertain, etc.

•  Early childhood: play/fantasy, humor, deception, argument

    ii. Direct & indirect speech acts (politeness)

Summary: speakers modify their utterances according to their communicative goals

Pragmatics

2. discourse level

Conversational discourse

• Grice’s Conversational Postulates (rules) → quantity, quality, relation, manner

• Conversational Repairs

• Scripts

• Narrative discourse

Pragmatics

3. Social and cultural conventions

• registers are based on:

• dialects are based on:

• Language is an arbitrary, standardized, conventionalized set of symbols and rules about combining phonemes into morphemes and words into sentences for the purpose of communication

• Linguistic Chauvinism (ethnocentrism)

• Registers → volitional, within speaker differences

registers:

• Early developing abilities

• Develop throughout the school years (and hopefully longer)

• ??what will prerequisite communication abilities will this require? → syntactic abilities, semantic abilities, contextual awareness, practice

Dialects: (across speakers)

• Regional, SES, Racial, Gender

Metalinguistics

• “The use of language knowledge to make decisions about and to discuss processes of language”

• using language to talk about language

• “The child focuses on and reflects on language as a decontextualized object” - AvK

Metalinguistic parts

1. Linguistic intuition (implicit knowledge)

• Implicit

• Acceptability of communications

• Assess: judgements of grammatical acceptability

2. Grammaticality judgment

3.  Developmental trajectory

• Early grammaticality judgments based on content

• Gradual development

• meta-awareness acquired AFTER mastery of the form ability to correct regular and irregular verbs ≈ 6 yrs.

• dependent upon development of other subsystems
  

4. May be essential for semantic organization

5. Meta-linguistic development is inter-related with:

i. Language use

ii. Cognitive development

iii. Reading ability

iv. Academic achievement

v. Stimulation & Play

3 levels of pragmatics

1. utterance

2. discourse

3. social and cultural conventions