Language Acquisition Lecture 2: Later Speech Stages and Complex Rule Formation

Overview of Later Speech Stages: Rule Formation

• The production of longer simple utterances provides the necessary foundation for children to produce more complex linguistic structures.

• Complex structures typically acquired within the first $5$ years include:     - Negatives.     - Questions.     - Passives (development continues later).     - Relative Clauses.     - Other Complex structures involving multiple verbs.

Functional Acquisition of Negation

• The acquisition of linguistic negation is a long developmental trajectory.

• Early Production ($12$ months): Children begin producing negation using the single word "no."

• Primary Functions of Negation (Early Phase):     - Nonexistence: Commenting on the disappearance or absence of objects.     - Rejection: Refusing a suggestion or a specific object.     - Denial: Rejecting a specific assertion made by someone else.

• Children understand these functions and express them via single words or gestures well before they can utilize appropriate word order and sentence structure (Bloom, $1991$).

Stages of Negative Development in English

• Negation is among the earliest sentence structure rules children acquire.

Non-Linguistic and Supplemental Marking

• Children may mark negation non-linguistically by shaking their heads while uttering affirmative statements.

• Other methods include physical gestures, tantrums, crying, ignoring the speaker, or walking away (Hoff, $2005$).

Stage I: Negation + Utterance (NEG + U)

• Negation is expressed by the word "no," used alone or as the first word in a sequence.

• Utterances often echo a preceding adult utterance while rejecting it.

• Examples:     - "No."     - "No cookie."     - "No comb hair."     - "No money."     - "No the sun shining."     - "No singing."

Stage II: Pre-Verbal Negation

• Utterances become longer, and the subject of the sentence may be included.

• The negative word appears immediately before the verb.

• Words like "don't" and "can't" appear in sentences expressing rejection or prohibition, though they are likely used as unanalyzed chunks.

• Examples:     - "Daddy no comb hair."     - "Don't touch that."     - "I don't want it."     - "That no 'O' that blue."     - "He no bite you."

Stage III: Complex Negative Insertion

• The negative element is inserted into more complex sentences.

• Children add forms such as "can't" and "don't" and begin following the English pattern of attaching negation to a modal or auxiliary verb.

• Limitation: They do not yet vary these forms for different persons (subjects) or tenses.

• This is considered the "pre-perfect" stage of negation.

• Examples:     - "I can't catch you."     - "I don't sit in coffee corner."     - "Paul can't have one."     - "I not crying."

Stage IV: Auxiliary Attachment and Subject-Verb Agreement

• Children attach the negative element to the correct form of auxiliary verbs (e.g., "do" and "be").

• Examples:     - "You didn't have supper."     - "She doesn't want it."     - Double Negatives: Even as systems become complex, children may struggle with specific features, leading to double negatives: "I don't have no more candies."

Rules and Exceptions in Negation

• Cognitive Ease vs. Difficulty: Children work out general rules with ease but struggle with exceptions and restrictions.

• Verbs of Mental State and Desire: Verbs like "think," "believe," and "want" are exceptions to general rules.     - Example: "I think he won't come on time" vs. "I don't think he will come on time."

• Adult Influence: Many early initial-position negations can be traced to denying a previous adult utterance or the perceived existence of objects (Bloom, $1970$).

Development of Question Formation

Yes-No Questions

• Initial Strategy: Questions are typically marked by rising intonation applied to single words or declarative sentences (e.g., "Cookie?", "Mommy book?").

• Syntactic Maturity: To form adult-like Yes-No questions, the copula "be," a modal, or an auxiliary (AUX) must be fronted to the beginning of the sentence.

• Tense Shifting: Tense shifts from the main verb to the auxiliary (e.g., "John is tall" becomes "Is John tall?").

Wh-Questions (Constituent Questions)

• The acquisition of Wh-words follows the child's cognitive growth.

• Order of Acquisition:     1. What: Often learned first as part of a chunk (e.g., "What's that?", "What are these?").     2. Where & Who.     3. Why.     4. How & When.

• Cognitive Disconnect: Children may ask "why," "when," or "how" questions without fully understanding the answers (e.g., a child asking "Can we go now?" after being told to wait $5$ minutes and counting to $5$).

Sequential Stages of Question Acquisition

Stage $1$

• Single words or two-to-three word sentences with rising intonation (e.g., "Ball go?", "Sit chair?").

• Correct questions exist only as "chunks" (e.g., "Where's Daddy?").

Stage $2$

• Children use declarative word order with rising intonation (e.g., "You like this?", "Why you smiling?").

• Chunk-learned forms continue to be used alongside created forms.

Stage $3$

• Fronting: The child notices the structure of questions is different and puts a question element at the start of the sentence.

• Examples: "Can I go?", "Are you happy?". These may be correct for the "wrong reason" from an adult grammatical perspective.

Stage $4$

• Subject-Auxiliary Inversion: Questions are formed by inverting the subject and auxiliary.

• There is more variety in the types of auxiliaries used (e.g., "Are you going to play with me?").

• Children begin to add "do" to questions where no auxiliary exists in the declarative version (e.g., "Do dogs like ice cream?").

Stage $5$

• Both Wh- and Yes/No questions are formed correctly (e.g., "Are these your boots?", "Why did you do that?").

• Remaining Difficulties: Negative questions (e.g., "Why the teddy bear can't go outside?") and tag questions remain difficult.

• Tag Questions: Mastered by age $4$. Initial versions lack negation on the tag (e.g., "He'll catch cold, will he?"), later progressing to "We had fun, didn't we?".

Stage $6$

• Correct formation of all question types, including negative and complex embedded questions.

• Note on Progression: Development is not always linear. Stress or new language elements can cause children to fall back on older, simpler patterns.

Mastery of Passive Structures

• Passives are used much later in development due to their relative infrequency in adult speech directed at children.

• Comprehension: Begins around $3$ to $4$ years of age.

• Production: Full mastery, including agent-final passives using "by" (e.g., "The door was opened by the man") and instrumental passives using "with," may not occur until age $13$.

• Active vs. Passive Mechanics:     - Agent and Object NP (Noun Phrases) are reversed.     - "By" is inserted before the agent NP.     - AUX "be" is inserted and assigned the same tense as the original verb.

• Semantic Factors:     - Semantically Irreversible Passives: Easier for children to understand (e.g., "The candy was eaten by the girl" because candy cannot eat girls).     - Actional vs. Non-actional: Passives with action verbs (e.g., "The cat was chased by the dog") are understood earlier than those with stative verbs (e.g., "The story was understood by the girl").

Structures with Two or More Verbs

• Complex structures involving multiple verbs may not be fully complete until age $11$.

• Early Phases: Clauses with "want" attached to the end (e.g., "I wanna go home").

• Intermediate Phases: Wh-words within utterances (e.g., "The man who lives here is gone").

• Later Phases: Wh-clauses with abstract adverbials (e.g., "Can I do it when we get home?").

• Adverbs like "when," "where," and "how" typically emerge before the nouns they replace.

Minimal Distance Principle (MDP)

• Investigated by Carol Chomsky ($1969$).

• Definition: A general principle in English for interpreting object complement sentences.

• Principle in Action:     - "John wanted to leave": John is the one leaving.     - "John wanted Bill to leave": Bill is the one leaving.     - The Exception (Promise): "John promised Bill to leave." Under MDP, a child might think Bill is leaving because Bill is the closest noun to the verb. However, the correct interpretation is that John is leaving.

• Developmental Timeline: Children apply MDP universally and misinterpret exceptions until late childhood ($10$ to $11$ years old). Gaining control over verbs that violate MDP (like "promise") is a very late acquisition.

Questions & Discussion

• Quiz Question: What is a child's first strategy to form Yes-No questions?     - Answer: Intonational (using rising intonation on a word or sentence).

• Second Language Acquisition: Research shows older children acquiring a second language follow the same order of Wh-word acquisition as younger children because the order is tied to cognitive development and the shift from concrete to abstract concepts.