Allophones of / t /
Tom Burton tried to steal a butter plate.
1
2 3
4 5
6
7
1 aspirated
2 glottalized
3 palatalized
4 elongated
5 unaspirated
6 flapped
7 unreleased
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
1
Language, etc.
3
Supports head when
prone; no grasp
Smiles when talked to;
gurgles / coos (vowels)
4
Shakes rattle;
supports head
Responds to human
sounds: turns head,
eyes search
5
Sits with props
Vowel-like cooing
interspersed with more
consonantal sounds
Can distinguish
consonants
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
6
Sits; can bear weight;
reaches; grasps but no
thumb opposition
Language, etc.
8
Intonation patterns
distinct; can signal
emphasis and emotion;
reduplication; communicative
intentions
Stands holding on;
grasps with thumb
opposition
Cooing becomes
(reduplicated) babbling
(babababa)
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
10
Crawls; side-steps holding
on; bubble blowing;
pulls self up to stand
Language, etc.
11-12
Variegated babbling
(bi go da bu)
12
Walks with help; seats self;
almost stopped mouthing
things
Sound play: gurgling,
seems to try to imitate;
differentiates between
sounds heard
More reduplication
(mama); signs of
some words and simple
understanding;
commands: Show me...
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
Language, etc.
18
3-50 words; ONE-word
phase; several syllable
babbling; intricate
intonation pattern;
NOT frustrated when
not understood;
understanding
progressing rapidly
Grasp fully developed;
walks; sits on chair so-so;
crawls down stairs
backward; difficulty
building 3 cube towers
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
Language, etc.
24
Runs; sudden turns
not good; stand and
sits easily; walks up
and down stairs
Vocabulary 50+ words;
TWO-word phase;
phrases own creation;
increase in communicative
behavior
30
Jumps; stands on one
foot; good hand and finger
coordination; can build 6
cube tower; tiptoes a few
steps
Fastest increase in
vocabulary; frustrated if
not understood;
two (even three or five)
word utterances;
intelligibility not very good;
seems to understand everything
directed to them
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Age
Motor Development
months
36
Tiptoes 3 yards; runs
smoothly; makes turns well;
jumps 12 inches; can ride
tricycle
Language, etc.
48
Language well
established; deviations from
adult norm tend to be more
in style than in grammar
Jumps over rope; hops on
one foot; catches ball in
arms; walks line
Vocabulary: 100 or so
words; 80% intelligible
even to strangers;
grammar roughly like
adults, though still
makes mistakes
Milestones in Motor and Language
Development—Simplified
Milestones Chart based on: Nick Cipollone, Steven
Hartman Keiser & Shravan Vasishth, editors. 1998.
Language Files, seventh edition. Columbus, Ohio:
Ohio State University Press, pp. 287-289.
Cipollone et al.'s version was based on Eric H.
Lenneberg. 1967. Biological Foundations of
Language. New York: John Wiley & Sons. With
additions from Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology
of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove, California:
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, Chapter 10: Early
Language Acquisition.
Language Acquisition 1
“ ‘[The acquisition of language] is doubtless
the greatest intellectual feat any one of us
is ever required to perform.’ ”
—Leonard Bloomfield, Language (1933)
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 324.
Language Acquisition 2
“ ‘The capacity to learn language is deeply
ingrained in us as a species, just as the
capacity to walk, to grasp objects, to
recognize faces. We don’t find any
serious differences in children growing up
in congested urban slums, in isolated
mountain villages, or in privileged
suburban villas.’ ”
— Dan Slobin, The Human Language Series, 2 (1994)
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 324.
Language Acquisition
Overview 1
1. Children DO NOT learn a language simply by
memorizing the sentences of the language. (The
list of words is finite, but no dictionary can hold all
the sentences, which are infinite in number.)
2. Children DO acquire a system of grammatical rules.
(a) Children learn to construct sentences, most
of which they have never produced before.
(b) Children learn to understand sentences they
have never heard before. They cannot do so by
matching the heard utterance with some stored
sentence.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 324-425.
Language Acquisition
Overview 2
3. Children must therefore construct the “rules” that
permit them to use their language creatively or we
can say they “reinvent” the grammar of their
parents.
4. No one teaches them these rules. Their parents
are no more aware of the phonological,
morphological, syntactic, and semantic rules than
are the children.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 324-425.
Input Problems
in Language Acquisition
 Sentence fragments
 False starts
 Speech errors
 Interruptions
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2003. An Introduction to Language,
7th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, p. 342.
Language Acquisition Theories
 Imitation
 Reinforcement
 Analogy
 Structured Input
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 325-329.
Theories of Child Language
Acquisition: Imitation?
Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we
patted them.
Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
Child: Yes.
Adult: What did you say she did?
Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
Adult: Did you say she held them tightly?
Child: No, she holded them loosely.
[ Courtney Cazden (1972) ]
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 325.
Child language that could not
have been imitated
holded
tooths
goed
childs [plural of child]
a my pencil two foot
what the boy hit?
other one pants
Mommy get it my ladder
cowboy did fighting me
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 325-326.
Theories of Child Language
Acquisition: Reinforcement?
Child: Nobody don’t like me.
Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me.”
Child: Nobody don’t like me.
(dialogue repeated eight times)
Mother: Now, listen carefully, say “Nobody
likes me.”
Child: Oh, nobody don’t likes me.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 326.
Theories of Child Language
Acquisition: Reinforcement?
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other…one…spoon.
Father: Say… “other”.
Child: Other.
Father: Spoon.
Child: Spoon.
Father: Other…spoon.
Child: Other…spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 327.
Theories of Child Language
Acquisition: Analogy?
HEAR:
I painted a red barn.
CREATE: I painted a blue barn.
HEAR:
HEAR:
I painted a barn red.
I saw a red barn.
CREATE: *I saw a barn red.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 327-328.
Theories of Child Language
Acquisition: Structured Input?
Baby talk
Motherese
Caretaker speech
Child-directed speech (CDS)
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 329.
Characteristics
of Caretaker Speech
Prosody, etc.
Higher in pitch
More variable in pitch
More exaggerated in intonational contours
Slower
Smoother pitch contours
More rhythmic
More pauses
Content
More repetitions
More based in the here and now
Carroll, David W. 1994. Psychology of Language, second edition. Pacific Grove,
California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 250.
First Steps in Acquiring a
Language
 Pre-linguistic
 Babbling
 First words
 Segmenting the speech stream
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 333-339.
Sixteen month-old JP’s
Vocabulary
[aw]
not
[s:]
aerosol
spray
[b]/[m] up
[sju:]
shoe
[da]
dog
[haj]
hi
[io]/[sio] Cheerios
[sr]
shirt /
sweater
[sa]
sock
[s:]/[s:]
what’s
that?/hey, look
[aj]/[j]
light
[ma]
mommy
[baw]/[daw] down
[d]
daddy
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman & Nina Hyams. 2011. An Introduction to Language,
9th edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 336.