Ling 415/709

Grammatical Morphemes

1. Define what is meant by a ‘grammatical’ morpheme and discuss four defining features which could potentially affect their acquisition.

2. Describe the ‘wug’ procedure used in Berko (1958).

3. Give Cazden’s (1968) four possible ways to score the use of a grammatical morpheme.

4. Describe the difference between an absolute and relative measure of overgeneralization.

5. What is the difference between the bringed type of overgeneralization and the use of no for not type of overgeneralization?

6. What is the theoretical significance of the two types of overgeneralizations in (5).

7. What explanation does Ingram give for Cazden’s four stages of acquisition for English inflections?

8. What were Brown’s (1973) general findings about the acquisition of grammatical morphemes?

9. What evidence indicates that input frequency only has a minor effect on the acquisition of grammatical morphemes?

10. What factors did Brown conclude were the most important in explaining the children’s acquisition order of grammatical morphemes?

11. How does the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in K’iche’ compare to that in English?

12. What factors best explain the acquisition orders of grammatical morphemes in English and K’iche’? Why?

13. Describe Pinker’s three hypotheses on the acquisition of grammatical morphemes.

14. What are the shortcomings of the Exhaustive Hypothesization account?

15. What are the shortcomings of the Hypothesis Sampling account?

16. What are the advantages of the Paradigm Construction account?

17. What are the shortcomings of Paradigm Construction?

18. What is the main difference between the Single and Dual Mechanism accounts?

19. How do Behrens’ (2002) findings on German plurals contradict the Dual Mechanism account?

20. Describe the Prosodic Constraint account of morpheme acquisition.

21. Explain the K’iche’ evidence in support of the Prosodic Constraint account.

22. What is the Root Infinitive Hypothesis?

23. Explain the French negation evidence in support of the Root Infinitive Hypothesis.

24. Why does the Danish inflectional paradigm create a problem for the Root Infinitive Hypothesis?

25. What are some other problems for the Root Infinitive Hypothesis?

26. Describe Rizzi’s 1993/4 Truncation Hypothesis.

27. Explain the different predictions the Root Infinitive Hypothesis and the Truncation Hypothesis make about the acquisition of Wh-questions.

28. Why does verb omission create a problem for the Truncation Hypothesis?