The acquisition of simple sentences

1. The acquisition of simple sentences

2. One-word utterances / holophrases Daddy. [Adam 1;4] Mommy. [Adam 1;4] Doggy. [Adam 1;5] Goodbye. [Adam 1;5] Allgone. [Adam 1;6]

3. One-word utterances / holophrases Children‘s early one-word utterances are speech acts. There is no distinction between words and sentences at this stage.

4. Sequences of one-word utterances The child and her father are sitting at a table. The father is cutting peaches into pieces. After eating two pieces of peach, the child wants another one. CHILD: Peach. Daddy. (Child picks up the spoon) CHILD: Spoon. (Child gives both peach and spoon to her father) CHILD: Daddy. Peach. Cut.

5. Sequences of one-word utterances The child pretends to cook something on a toy stove. CHILD: Cook. Baby. MOTHER: Is the baby cooking? CHILD: Pot. Meat.

6. Fundamental frequencies nonfinal words

7. Duration of nonfinal words (polysyllabic words)

8. Duration of nonfinal words (polysyllabic words)

9. Sequences of single words There is evidence that sequences of single words are often planned as single units. 1. intonation 2. duration 3. pauses

10. Sentence formulas Agent and action Kendall swim. Kimmy come. Doggie bark. Pillow fall. Agent and patient Daddy cookie. [Daddy is eating a cookie] Kendall spider. [Kendall is looking at a spider] Adam book. [Adam is reading a book] Daddy door. [Daddy is closing the door]

11. Sentence formulas Action and patient Hit ball. Put book. Drink milk. Eat apple. Action and location Play bed. Sit pool. Walk street. Come here.

12. Sentence formulas Entity and location Book table. Sweater chair. Ball floor. Possessor and possessed Kimmy bike. [That is Kimmy’s bike] Daddy shoe. [That is daddy’s shoe] Adam foot. [That is Adam’s foot]

13. Sentence formulas Modifier and object Big train. Red train. Hot milk. Negation and object/action No milk. No water. No play.

14. Sentence formulas Focus and object That doggy. It cat. There ball. This my spoon. Question word and (pro)noun What dat? Who dat? Where doggy?

15. Sentence formulas 1. Children’s early utterances are grounded in the conceptualization of basic situations. 2. The acquisition of meaning precedes the acquisition of structure.

16. Pivot grammar Martin Braine (1963; 1976): Children’s grammar consists of two types of words: (1) pivot words (2) open class words

17. Pivot grammar Pivot words: Spatial particles up, off, back Pronouns/deictics that, it Possessives my, your Certain verbs put, take, see Certain adjectives big, pretty Other relational terms other, more, allgone, bye-bye

18. Pivot grammar

19. Pivot grammar Pivot grammar rules (Braine 1963): S → O Daddy S → P + O That cat. S → O + P Book back. S →O + O Adam book.

20. Constructivist approach Dat Daddy. 2;0 Dat’s Weezer. 2;0 Dat my chair. 2;1 Dat’s him. 2;1 Dat’s a paper too. 2;4 That’s too little for me. 2;9 More car. 1;11 More that. 2;0 More cookie. 2;0 More fish. 2;1 More jump. 2;1 More Peter water. 2;4

21. Constructivist approach No bed. 1;11 No bread. 2;0 No eat. 2;2 No milk. 2;2 No apple juice. 2;5 Block get-it. 2;3 Bottle get-it. 2;3 Mama get-it. 2;4 Towel get-it. 2;4 Dog get-it. 2;4 Books get-it. 2;5

22. Constructivist approach Boot off. 2;0 Light off. 2;1 Hands off. 2;1 Pants off. 2;1 Hat off. 2;3 Spoon back. 2;2 Tiger back. 2;3 Give back. 2;3 Ball back. 2;3 Want ball back. 2;4

23. Constructivist approach Clock on there. 2;2 Up on there. 2;2 Hot in there. 2;2 Milk in there. 2;4 Water in there 2;5 All broke. 2;0 All buttened. 2;3 All clean. 2;4 All done. 2;4

24. Constructivist approach All gone milk. 2;2 All gone shoe. 2;2 All gone juice. 2;2 All gone bear. 2;3

25. Constructivist approach How do we characterize these utterances? • They have meaning. • They have structure. • They do not have the structure of adult grammar. • They are organized around concrete words.

26. Constructivist approach Brooks and Tomasello (1999) 2,0-3;0-year olds meeking = pushing a car-like vehicle up a slope.

27. Constructivist approach Active condition Look, Big Bird is going to meek something. Big Bird is going to meek the car. Who’s going to meek the car? (pointing to Big Bird) That’s right, Big Bird is going to meek the car. Big Bird is going to meek what? (pointing to the car) Yes, Big Bird is meeking the car. Did you see who meeked the car? Exactly! Big Bird meeked the car.

28. Constructivist approach Passive condition Look, the car is going to get meeked. The car is going to get meeked by Big Bird. What’s going to get meeked? (pointing to the car) That’s right, the car is going to get meeked. The car is going to get meeked by who? (pointing to Big Bird) Yes, the car is getting meeked by Big Bird. Did you see what got meeked by Big Bird? Exactly! The car got meeked by Big Bird.

29. Constructivist approach 1. What did the AGENT (e.g. child) do? 2. What happened to the PATIENT (e.g. car)?

30. Constructivist approach

31. Constructivist approach

32. Constructivist approach AG VERB PA PA isVERB-ed by AG beater BEAT x hitter hit x pusher PUSH x x is BEATEN by beater

33. Constructivist approach Lexically-specific constructions help the child to bridge the gap between rote-learning and system building.

34. Similarity

35. Similarity Children are initially more sensitive to ‘object similarity’ than to ‘relational similarity’. (Dedre Gentner 1983)