Learner Resource 11
Using the prompt questions below, prepare notes on the stage of acquisition you have
been assigned.
Vocabulary
1. What is the tri-level structure of adult language?
2. How many words do children tend to know at various ages and, on average, how many are
learnt per day?
3. Summarise the complexity of word learning given in the 11-point list.
4. Explain overextension, underextension and complexive concepts and discuss how
structural semantics helps to explain them.
5. Summarise Nelson’s findings into the acquisition of the first fifty words.
Grammar Group 1: Introduction and Stage I
1. How does chronological age equate to grammatical complexity of utterances?
2. What is the problem with this as a model of acquisition?
3. What solution did Brown propose and how does it work?
4. What type of utterances are included in Stage I?
5. Which word classes are holophrases most likely to contain?
6. What pattern do children’s holophrastic utterances seem to follow?
Grammar Group 2: Stage II
1. How does prosody signal the beginning of Stage II?
2. Explain how stress and information value are linked in this stage?
3. Which words are rare in this stage?
4. What structures of utterance are possible in Braine’s Pivot Grammar?
5. In what ways is Pivot Grammar seen to be less useful than first thought?
6. Summarise the alternative models suggested by Brown, Slobin and Halliday.
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Child Language Acquisition
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Grammar Group 3: Stage III
1. What marks the move from Stage II to Stage III?
2. How does the passive cause problems for children during this stage?
3. Explain the two explanations offered for how grammar develops into the three-word stage.
4. What did Brown find when studying acquisition of grammatical morphemes?
5. Explain over-regularisation and its stages.
Grammar Group 4: Stage IV
1. What grammatical features mark the move to Stage IV?
2. Which types of complex sentence come second and third?
3. How is this sequence of acquisition explained?
4. Explain what implicit coordination is.
5. What is Stage V?
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Child Language Acquisition
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