Early child utterances Sentence formulas Sentence formulas Childrens

Early child utterances

Sentence formulas

Sentence formulas Children’s early utterance are sentence formulas that describe a limited number of (semantically defined) situation types. (Brown 1973; Schlesinger 1974)

Sentence formulas Kendall swim. Kimmy come. Doggie bark. Pillow fall. agent - action

Sentence formulas 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] agent - patient

Sentence formulas Hit ball. Put book. Drink milk. Eat apple. action - patient

Sentence formulas Play bed. Sit pool. Walk street. Come here. action - location

Sentence formulas Book table. Sweater chair. Ball floor. entity - location

Sentence formulas Kimmy bike. Daddy shoe. Adam foot. possessor - possessed

Sentence formulas Big train. Red train. Hot milk. modifier – object

Sentence formulas No milk. No water. No play. negation – object/action

Sentence formulas That doggy. It cat. There ball. This my spoon. pronoun – object

Sentence formulas What dat? Who dat? WH – pronoun

Sentence formulas Children’s early utterances are organized on semantic grounds. Grammatical relations and syntactic structure emerge only later. (Schlesinger 1974)

The pivot look

Item-based constructions More car. More that. More cookie. More fish. More jump. More Peter water. 1; 11 2; 0 2; 1 2; 4

Item-based constructions Block get-it. Bottle get-it. Spoon get-it. Towel get-it. Dog get-it. Books get-it. 2; 3 2; 4 2; 5

Item-based constructions Spoon back. Tiger back. Give back. Ball back. Want ball back. 2; 2 2; 3 2; 4

Item-based constructions More __. __ get-it. __ back. Children’s early multi-word utterances are lexically specific. [Tomasello 2000]

Item-based constructions No bed. No bread. No eat. No milk. No apple juice. 1; 11 2; 0 2; 2 2; 5

Item-based constructions Clock on there. Up on there. Hot in there. Milk in there. Water in there 2; 2 2; 4 2; 5

Item-based constructions All broke. All buttened. All clean. All done. All gone milk. All gone shoe. All gone juice. All gone bear. 2; 0 2; 3 2; 4 2; 2 2; 3

Item-based constructions Dat Daddy. Dat’s Weezer. Dat my chair. Dat’s him. Dat’s a paper too. That’s too little for me. 2; 0 2; 1 2; 4 2; 9

Item-based constructions Boot off. Light off. Hands off. Pants off. Hat off. 2; 0 2; 1 2; 3

Generative grammar

The generative view Adam book = Adam is reading a book. S VP NP VP N AUX Adam (is) NP V read(ing) DET (a) N book.

Pivot grammar

Pivot grammar Martin Braine (1963): Children’s early utterances are composed of words from two word classes: 1. pivot words 2. open class words

Pivot grammar Pivot words: • • • Spatial particles Pronouns/deictics Possessives Certain verbs Certain adjectives Relational expressions up, off, back that, it my, your put, take, see big, pretty other, more, allgone

Pivot grammar Four sentence types: 1. 2. 3. 4. O P+O O+P O+O Daddy That cat. Book back. Adam book.

Pivot grammar P+O See boy See sock Pretty boat Pretty fan My Mommy My milk Allgone shoe Allgone egg More taxi More melon

Pivot grammar P+O O+P See boy See sock Pretty boat Pretty fan My Mommy My milk Allgone shoe Allgone egg More taxi More melon Shoe off Shirt off Daddy do Mommy do Blanket away Daddy away.

Pivot grammar P+O O+P O+O See boy See sock Pretty boat Pretty fan My Mommy My milk Allgone shoe Allgone egg More taxi More melon Shoe off Shirt off Daddy do Mommy do Blanket away Daddy away. Mommy sleep Milk cup Baby sit.

Pivot grammar rules: 1. 2. 3. 4. S PO S OP S OO S O

The construction-based approach

Construction Grammar consists of form-function pairings, i. e. constructions. A construction is a complex linguistic sign that combines a specific form with a particular meaning.

Linguistic sign r{b. It

Passive Construction (1) The meal was cooked by John. (2) Mary was hit by the car. (3) The ball was kicked by Peter. (4) The book was written by John. NP be V-ed PA verb by NP AG

Caused-motion Construction (1) She dragged the child into the car. (2) He wiped the mud off his shoes. (3) She forced the ball into the jar. (4) He pushed the book down the chute. NP V NP PP <X causes Y to move somewhere> (5) She sneezed the napkin of the table.

Resultative Construction (1) Peter meeked the bleek dizzy. NP V NP ADJ <X changes Y such Y becomes Z>

Transitive Grammar (1) Peter hit Mary. (2) Peter kicked the horse. (3) Peter pressed the button. (4) Peter pushed the elephant. NP V NP <X affected Y>

Item-based constructions Item-specific constructions help to bridge the gap between rote learning and grammatical development.

Item-based constructions First words Mommy Doggy Allgone goodbye Item-specific constructions More __. __ allgone. __ back. Schematic constructions NP V NP PP X moves Y somewhere

Item-based constructions Item-specific constructions help to bridge the gap between word learning (=route learning) and grammatical development (=system building). They involve both object similarity and structural similarity.

Similarity

Similarity Children are initially more sensitive to ‘object similarity’ than to ‘relational similarity’. (Dedre Gentner 1983) Word learning involves object similarity (=recognition of the same phonetic substance). Grammatical development involves relational similarity (=recognition of relationship between words and categories).

Children are conservative learners

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Look, Jack is meeking the wagon. 2; 0 -3; 0 year olds

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Look, the wagon is getting meeked. 2; 0 -3; 0 year olds

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Look Jack is meeking the ball.

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Look the ball is meekd (by Jack).

Item-based constructions 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? (experimenter points to the car) That’s right, the car is going to get meeked. The car is going to get meeked by who? (eperimenter points to Big Bird) Yes, the car is getting meeked by Big Bird. (while performing action) Did you see what got meeked by Big Bird? (experimenter points to the car) Exactly! The car got meeked by Big Bird.

Item-based constructions 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? (experimenter points to Big Bird) That’s right, Big Bird is going to meek the car. Big Bird is going to meek what? (experimenter points to the car) Yes, Big Bird is meeking the car. (while performing action) Did you see who meeked the car? (experimenter points to Big Bird) Exactly! Big Bird meeked the car.

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 What is Jack doing?

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 What, happens to the wagon? 2; 0 -3; 0 year olds

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Passive training Passive response What happened to the PATIENT? 85 Active response 5

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Passive training Passive response Active response What happened to the PATIENT? 85 5 What is the AGENT doing? 45 15

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Passive training Active training Passive response Active response What happened to the PATIENT? 85 5 What is the AGENT doing? 45 15 0 Active response 100

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Passive training Active training Passive response Active response What happened to the PATIENT? 85 5 12 88 What is the AGENT doing? 45 15 0 100

Brooks and Tomasello 1999 Passive training Active training Passive response Active response What happened to the PATIENT? 85 5 12 88 What is the AGENT doing? 45 15 0 100

Network of constructions NP V NP NP V (by NP) Agent VERBtrans Patient is VERb-ed (by agent) Xer BEAT y Xer DRAG y Xer MEEK y x is beaten by y