Studied by 1 person
are symbols: stand for something without being part of it.
are arbitrary: the sounds /dog/ mean "dog" but there is nothing dog-like about the sounds
have reference: stand for their referents, not just accompany them
longitudinal, observational study of 4 English-learning infants
recorded all language production
examined whether first 10 words were context-bound or not
results: children's first 10 words included both context-bound and referential words
role of input: the "context" of the context-bound words was the mother's most frequent usage
acquired around 18 months
of first 50 words, 45% are nouns and only 3% are verbs
meanings linked to verbs are harder to learn because
nouns typically refer to objects, which are easy to perceive and are stable in the environment
verbs typically refer to actions that are transient and relational
the meanings of nouns can be learned by mapping sounds onto the nonlinguistic context
the meanings of verbs often require a syntactic frame that identifies the nature of the relationship involved
8- to 16-month-olds learning English, Cantonese, or Mandarin
parents completed a checklist of words their child could produce
results: object nouns and action words were more similar in frequency in Cantonese and Mandarin than in English
role of parental input and syntax in acquisition of nouns among English learners
experimental study with 2-year-olds
children named three pictures (priming) and then a target object
one picture was perceptually similar to the target object
results: priming led to higher rates of overextension of the primed word
some children may show spurts, but these are highly individualistic and may depend on specific experiences
word spurt may not happen at the same time for every child
tested 6-9-month-old infants
parents wore a visor and headphones and repeated sentences that they heard (ex. "Can you find the banana?")
results: even the youngest children (ages 6-7 months) looked longer at the labeled picture, indicating word comprehension
mothers who spend more time teaching labels for objects tend to have more referential children
first-born children of college-educated parents are more likely to be referential
children may simply differ in style
hear more speech from adults
hear more variation in words and kinds of sentences
hear more decontextualized language (talk about the past and future, pretend play, and definitions)
hear words in more elaborative contexts
hear speech that is responsive to their own behavior (especially for infants under 18 months)
are first-born
are of high SES household
speech stream contained 3-syllable "words" that were only distinguished by their transitional probabilities
8-month-olds discriminated words versus part-words after 2 minutes of listening
in English, stress is usually on the first syllable
infants can use stress as a cue to word boundaries as early as 9 months
7 weeks of training (novel objects with the same shape, but different texture and color, were labeled with the same novel word)
control: no training
results: shape-bias training increased learning of object names but not other words
whole-object assumption must be overridden when a child learns names for parts or properties
mutual-exclusivity assumption must be overridden for synonyms and reference to objects at different taxonomic levels
taxonomic assumption must be overridden for proper names
content words, mostly nouns, verbs and adjectives
open in the sense that we add to this class of words all the time
typical of two-word utterances
fixed set of function words, including
auxiliaries (can, do, will)
prepositions (in, below, of)
determiners (the, those, an)
complementizers (that, which, who)
because they are not necessary to convey meaning; they reserve their limited processing space for critical elements
they leave out elements that are phonetically less prominent
they may not understand the functions of closed-class words
smallest unit that has meaning in a language
combinatorial
free ("truck" in trucks) or bound ("s" in trucks)
derivational (flawLESS, drinkABLE) or inflectional (walkED, walkING)
takes children many months to reliably use even very common inflectional morphemes
different morphemes are acquired at different times but in a very similar order among children
children acquiring rich systems of morphological inflections acquire grammatical morphemes as early/sometimes earlier than they acquire word order
following factors help children acquire morphemes earlier
highly frequent use
highly regular systems with few exceptions
higher perceptual salience (ex. stressed syllables)
yes/no questions: first questions are marked only by intonation
WH-questions: who, what when, where
later, children begin to produce auxiliaries and subject-auxiliary inversion
the capacity for learning language is innate, including guidance about the abstract structure of all languages
learning a language is like learning to walk
children construct their grammatical knowledge from their experiences with language
early grammatical knowledge may not be abstract children may be conservative in their early language production, not going beyond what they hear
children acquire words and constructions which they combine in limited ways
learning is driven by children's communicative skills and ability to find patterns
connectionist nets make associations among elements in the input
what we see as "rules" emerge from the interaction of the input and the net
diary study, age 16-24 months
child used limited sentence frames for most verbs
new utterances were most closely related to previous sentences with that specific verb, not that verb category
each specific verb has its own set of rules
there is no general rule that applies to all verbs
children commonly produce overregularizations and overgeneralizations
at first, children produce irregular forms correctly
then, they overregularize
later, they return to correct usage
2-year-olds children viewed videos on two screens
infants were familiarized with the stimuli using familiar verbs
results: children were significantly above chance, consistent with abstract knowledge of verb argument structure
21-month-olds were above chance at looking at the correct video when "bunny" and "duck" were changed to "girl" and "boy"
suggests that by 21 months, infants' knowledge of verb argument structure is abstract, not limited to specific verbs that they have learned
children produce rule-based forms they have never heard before
children comprehend new verbs based on their syntactic frames
many researchers believe that children and adults sometimes use memorized forms and sometimes use abstract rules
regular pasts can be represented with rules (add -ed)
irregular forms must be memorized (go --> went, eat --> ate)
infants' perception becomes tuned to their native language from age 6-12 months
by 12 months, bilingual infants get better at distinguishing the phonemic contrasts in both languages
If children have a fused language, they should apply mutual exclusivity, and learn one label for each concept.
If children have differentiated languages, they can suspend mutual exclusivity to learn two labels for the same concept.
Result: Between 30-50% of bilingual children's vocabularies consist of translation equivalents.
evidence suggests that bilingual children create separate syntactic systems
bilingual children, like bilingual adults, do mix words from both languages into the same sentences
simultaneous bilingual infants and monolingual infants
observed at age 1 year 10 months, 2 years 1 month, and 2 years 6 months
at each age, parents reported for each language separately their child's vocabulary and syntax
results: bilingual learners lagged the monolingual learners in vocabulary in each language, and bilingual children were less likely than monolinguals to produce two-word utterances in each languag
societal factors
heritage language culture
household composition
amount of exposure to English
number of different sources of English
amount of English that comes from native speakers
Note 
Flashcard (32)