LATER SYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT
Berko (1958): Used nonsense words to name pictures or actions to find out if children use rules
e.g.: wug (an animal-like object) “This is a wug. This is another one. Now there are two _____”
(wugs)
 this can be used to see whether children use rules to generate possessives, past tense, number
of agreement in verbs
- first children use present progressive, later spartial prepositions, plurals, possessive, articles and past tense it
different forms
Brown (1973): development of irregular verbs  u-shaped (good performance, bad performance, good
performance)
Development of syntactic comprehension:
 more complicated syntactic constructions provide a number of challenges
(e.g. passive)
 development of comprehension skills is a long and gradual process with no clear-cut endpoint
PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
0-6 weeks:
-
babies have sophisticated speech-recognition abilities
can already make subtle phonetic distinctions (sucking habituation paradigm)
prefer mother’s voice of that of others
can distinguish between parental language and non-parental language and
between speech sounds and non-speech sounds
 production: vegetative sounds
>6 weeks:
- capable of categorical perception of voicing, place and manner of articulation
 production: cooing
4-6 months:
 production: vocal play
6-10 months:  production:
BABBLING
 speechlike sounds
 consists of repeated strings of vowels and consonants
 two types: 1. reduplicated babble (e.g. babababa)
2. non-reduplicated (or variegated) babble
(e.g. bamido)
 babbling is universal
 speech perception also plays role in determining
babbling
 function: - provides practise at gaining control over
the articulatory tract (Clark&Clark)
- learning to produce the prosody of their
language rather than particular sounds
(Crystal)
relation between babbling and later speech?
 continuity hypothesis (Mowrer, 1960):
- babbling = direct precursor of language
- child produces all of the sounds found in word’s languages  narrowed down to
set of sounds in relevant language
- PROBLEM: many sounds (e.g. consonant clusters) not produced in babbling
 discontinuity hypothesis (Jacobson, 1968):
- babbling bears no simple relation to later development
- two stages in development of sounds
1) babble – producing wide range of sounds, in no particular order, not
obviously related to later development
2) sudden disappearence of many sounds that were previously in their repertoires
- silent period between babbling and early speech
but:
“protowords” = phonological sequences that are neither clearly babbling nor words
early words might be embedded in variegated babble  points to some continuity
between babbling and early speech
10-18 months:
 production: single word utterances
>18 months:
 production: two-word utterances
>2 years:
 production: telegraphic speech
>2 years, 6 monts:  production: full sentences
output simplification:
- young children simplify words
- producing shorter strings
- omit final consonant, reduce consonant
clusters, omit unstressed syllables,
repeat syllables, substitute easier
sounds for more difficult sounds
SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT
- first words from about 1 year on
- in first year new words added slowly, 18-24 months about 50 words  around this point:
vocabulary explosion
- children differ in earliest words; Nelson: 2 groups  expressive (emphasize people and feelings)
referential children (emphasize objects)
- generally: difference between things that can be moved and things that move  moving things
tend to be named befor movable things
- Greenfield&Smith: early words refer to different roles (e.g. “mama” to particular actions carried
out by mama)
THE EMERGENCE OF WORDS
- semantic development depends on conceptual development  linguistic development must
follow cognitive development
- joint attention with adults is an essential component of learning a language
- first words emerge out of situations where exemplar of category referred to by word is present
in view of adult and child:
ostensive model: “look and name”  pointing at e.g. dog saying the name  child attaches
name to object
but: MAPPING PROBLEM = child does not know which attribute of input is being labled
 obviously developing child uses a number of lexical principles to help to establish meaning
of new words:
 CONSTRAINTS ON LEARNING NAMES FOR THINGS, e.g.:
1. Whole object assumption = cognitive system tends to treat ostensive definitions as lables for
whole objects
2. Taxonomic constraint
= children prefer to use new words to associate things that are
taxonomically related ( knows the word “cat”  e.g. dog
will also be called cat)
3. Mutual exclusivity assumption = each object can only have one lable
4. Novel name-nameless category = children assign words to objects for which they don’t
already have names
ERRORS IN THE EARLY REPRESENTATION OF MEANING
1) Over-extensions (= over generalizations): child uses word in broader way than adult
2) Under- extension: words are used mor specifically than their meaning
LATER DEVELOPMENT OF MEANING
- over-extensions stop at around 2 ½ years
- children start asking “What’s the name of that?”
- vocabulary develops very quickly
- semantic complexity: words with simpler semantic representation acquired first (e.g. big-small vs.
wide-narrow)
- verbs more difficult to acquire than nouns  greater reliance on complex linguistic context