Ling 425/709

THE PERIOD OF FIRST WORD COMBINATIONS


General Language Developments


A. Rapid increase in production vocabulary (Smith 1926)

 

Age

No. of subjects

Mean no. of words

 

1;6

14

22

 

1;9

14

118

 

2;0

25

272


B. A gradual onset in the number of multiword utterances (Table 7.1; 4 children)

 

Age

Mean no. of multiword utterances

 

 

1;5

1

 

 

1;6

3

 

 

1;7

15

 

 

1;8

33

 

 

1;9

57

 

 

1;10

131

‘syntactic spurt’?

 

1;11

272

 

 

2;0

575

 

 

2;1

1,029+

 


Two periods:

   1. Early Stage 1. MLU 1.0-1.5; 25-100 recognizable syntactic types

            Children produce idiosyncratic grammars; ends with syntactic spurt

   2. Late Stage 1. MLU 1.5-2.0; > 100-250 syntactic types

            Children establish fundamental aspects of the grammatical system



C. Major Studies–early 70s

   Bloom 1970 Language Development–Eric, Gia, Kathryn

               1973 One Word at a Time–Allison

   Brown 1973–Adam, Eve, Sarah

   Bowerman 1973–Kendall

   Braine 1963–Andrew, Stephen, Gregory

               1976–David, Jonathan


   It is difficult to find children in Early Stage 1:

 

 

MLU

Age

No. of Syntactic Types

 

Eric II

1.19

1;8.15

37

 

Gia II

1.34

1;8.15

226


      Multiword utterance data from Allison at 4 periods

 

11

4

19

94


   We have very few language samples from children in Early Stage I



D. Transition to Multiword Utterances–successive single word utterances

   1. Bloom (74) a. chained–refer to different activities, e.g.,

            ‘cow’ (reaching under a chair; = ‘here’s a cow’; 1;4)

            ‘chair’ (putting cow on chair; = ‘I put the cow on the chair’)

            ‘mommy’ (= ‘help me’)

      b. holistic–refer to the same activity, e.g.,

            ‘neck’ (while wearing her coat and pointing to her neck; 1;8)

            ‘up’

      Holistic sequences only appear toward the end of the single word utterance period


   2. Acoustic studies (Fónagy 1972; Branigan 1979) (Table 7.3)

Stage 1: Each word has the same intonational contour and a primary stress. It is only their closeness in time which suggests any relation.

Stage 2: There is still a pause between the words, and each has a primary stress. The terminal falling pitch of the first word, however, is not as great as that for the second one.

Stage 3: The stress on the first word is weaker than that of the second one, and the pause between them is reduced (apparently to less than 500 msec.).

Stage 4: There is no longer a pause between the two words. A succession of two words is still indicated because of: (i) the force of the accents; (ii) frequently a glottal stop occurring between the two words; and (iii) the terminal falling pitch of the first word.



   3. Are successive single word utterances precursors to grammar?

a. Rich Interpretation–yes! The child’s successive single word utterances share common grammatical principles with her later multiword utterances.

      Scollon (1976) vertical construction–holistic sequences of single word utterances

                              horizontal construction–multiword utterances

      Found same transition from two-word utterances to three-word utterances.

 

b. Lean Interpretation–no! Children rely on conceptual mapping or pragmatics rather than syntax to produce successive single word utterances.


      c. Ingram (1979b) the period from 16-18 months reflect grammatical features

            i. the period occurs a few weeks before the first multiword utterances

            ii. the child produces holistic sequences of single-word utterances

            iii. the period coincides with other linguistic abilities, i.e., the onset of representation


      d. arguments against rich interpretation

            i. children do not have a production restriction

                  children also produce meaningless phonetically consistent forms during this period

Dore, Franklin, Miller & Ramer (1976)–no semantic content; reflect child’s awareness of elements occurring before nouns and verbs

                        e.g., Allison’s /wid6/ (but see Ingram 1979b)

 

ii. successive single-word utterances do not share the same word order restrictions with later multiword utterances.


      e. Howe (1976) must be careful not to impose adult meanings on children’s first sentences


      f. Bloom (1970) discusses evidence to support interpretations of children’s sentences

            i. the non-linguistic context–what is happening when the child speaks?

            ii. the preceding adult utterances–responses to questions, commands, etc.

            iii. the child’s subsequent utterances–find evidence from build ups and completions



E. General Characteristics

 

1. Children still produce mostly single-word utterances during the period of first word combinations, e.g., Eric (1;10, MLU 1.42)

            produced 1,043 utterances in seven hour sample; only 165 were multiword utterances

            only 108 were unique syntactic types


Table 7.4 Andrew’s pivot grammar (Braine 1963a)


Pivot constructions

 

all broke

no bed

more card

other bib

airplane byf

 

all buttoned

no downa

more cereal

other bread

siren by

 

all clean

no fix

more cookie

other milk

 

 

all done

no home

more fish

other pants

mail come

 

all dressed

no mamab

more highe

other part

mama come

 

all dry

no more

more hot

other piece

 

 

all fix

no pee

more juice

other pocket

clock on there

 

all gone

no plug

more read

other shirt

up on there

 

all messy

no water

more sing

other shoe

hot in there

 

all shut

no wetc

more toast

other side

milk in there

 

all through

 

more walk

 

light up there

 

all wet

see baby

 

boot off

fall down there

 

 

see pretty

hi Calico

light off

kitty down there

 

I see

see train

hi mama

pants off

more down there

 

I shut

 

hi papa

shirt off

sit down there

 

I sit

 

 

shoe off

cover down there

 

 

 

 

water off

other cover down there

a = ‘Don’t put me down’

b = ‘I don’t want to go mama’

c = ‘I’m not wet’

d = ‘Drive me around some more’

e = ‘There’s more up there’

f = ‘A plane is flying past’


Other utterances

 

airplane all gone

byebye back

what’s that

look at this

 

Calico all gone

byebye Calico

what’s this

outside more

 

Calico all doneg

byebye car

mail man

pants change

 

salt all shut

byebey papa

mail car

dry pants

 

all done milk

Calico byebye

our car

off bib

 

all done now

papa byebye

our door

down there

 

all gone juice

papa away

 

up on there some more

 

all gone outsideh

 

 

 

 

all gone pacifier

 

 

 

g = Said after the death of Calico the cat

h = Said when the door is shut: ‘The outside is allgone’



F. Syntactic Comprehension–do children know more than they produce?


   1. Shipley, Smith & Gleitman (1969)


      a. Subjects: holophrastic and telegraphic groups of children

      b. Method: mothers gave three types of commands:

 

i. well-formed (VFN)

‘Throw me the ball!’

 

ii. telegraphic (VN)

‘Throw ball!’

 

iii. holophrastic (N)

‘Ball!’


      Children scored on whether they touched or looked at the object, or followed the commands


      c. Results (% touch): (Tables 6.12 & 7.6)

 

Holophrastic

 

Structures

 

Child

MLU

N (%)

VN (%)

VFN (%)

 

Mike

1.06

33

50

16

 

Karen

1.1

80

75

83

 

Linus

1.09

46

16

42

 

Jeremy

1.16

16

33

0

 

Mean

 

52

44

35

 

Telegraphic

 

 

 

 

 

Carl

1.85

33

33

58

 

Dottie

1.75

15

27

36

 

Eric

1.65

25

28

38

 

Fran

1.48

21

54

64

 

Gregory

1.43

37

25

57

 

Helen

1.41

33

38

62

 

Ira

1.4

50

33

54

 

Mean

 

31

34

55

‘... all holophrastic speakers obey more often with single-word commands than with well-formed commands’. ‘all telegraphic speakers obey more often with well-formed commands than with single word commands ... The results for VN are similar but less sharp’ (329).

 

Later claimed study did not directly test syntactic comprehension, but only children’s responses to different types of parent commands.



   2. Sachs & Truswell (1978)

      a. Subjects: 12 children between 1;4 and 2;0 who were only producing single-word utterances

 

b. Method: presented novel Action + Object sentences combining words in the children’s receptive vocabularies, e.g.,

            Smell truck

            Smell dolly

            Kiss truck

            Kiss dolly


            Each child given an average of 16 commands.


      c. Results: 58% of responses were correct, 16% were incorrect, 6% elicited no response

 

10 of 11 children receiving four-way minimal contrasts got at least one set correct. The youngest child (1;4) performed correctly on a two-way contrast (‘Kiss horsey’ vs. ‘Kiss teddy’).

 

d. Conclusion: Children using single-word utterances can understand novel Action + Object commands.


   3. Miller, Chapman, Bronston & Reichle (1980)

      a. Subjects: 12 children aged 10-12 months, 13-15 months, 16-18 months, and 19-21 months


      b. Method: tested the children’s comprehension of eight items (Table 6.13):

Item and example

Passing response

1. Person name, e.g., ‘Where’s Mama?’

Child indicates correct person

2. Object name, e.g., ‘Where’s X?’

Child looks at, gets, shows or gives the object

3. Absent person or object

Child searches for a person or object

4. Action verb, ‘V it; wanna V it’

Child complies with action

5. Possessor-Possession, ‘Where’s Mama’s

Child locates the correct person’s objects twice

shoes?’

 

6. Action-Object, ‘Kiss the shoe’

Child complies with the action

7. Agent (not child)-Action, ‘Horsey eat’

Child selects toy and demonstrates action

8. Agent-Action-Object, ‘Horsey kiss the

Child selects toys and demonstrates action

ball’

 


      c. Results–number of subjects passing comprehension task (Table 6.14):

 

Item

10-12 mos

13-15 mos

16-18 mos

19-21 mos

 

1. Person name

12

12

11

11

 

2. Object name

5

12

12

12

 

3. Action verb

1

4

9

10

 

4. Possessor-Possession

0

1

5

10

 

5. Absent person or object

0

2

4

8

 

6. Action-Object

0

1

5

8

 

7. Agent-Action

0

0

1

7

 

8. Agent-Action-Object

0

0

0

1



   4. Katz, Baker & Macnamara (1974)

      a. Subjects: two experiments with children between 17 and 24 months old


      b. Method: experimenter familiarized children with a pair of dolls in two conditions

            Proper-noun condition: one doll introduced as ‘Zav’, the other doll was ignored

            Common-noun condition: one doll introduced as ‘a zav’, the other doll was ignored


            Tested how children responded to commands to dress, undress, feed Zav/the zav


      c. Results–percentage of times children selected the named doll (Table 7.7)

 

Experiment

Subjects

Age

Common-noun

Proper-noun

 

1

30 girls

22 months

48

75

 

 

25 boys

24 months

47

51

 

2

10 girls

17 months

42

76

 

 

15 girls

22 months

53

72


      d. Conclusion

            i. Girls, but not boys, understood the use of articles with proper and common nouns.

ii. The girls relied on their knowledge of dolls to interpret article use (cognitive explanation) rather than linguistic evidence (distributional explanation). None of the subjects responded correctly when blocks were substituted for dolls.



   5. de Villiers & de Villiers (1973a)


      a. Subjects: seven children in early Stage I (19-24 mos) and 3 in late Stage I (19.5-27 mos)


      b. Method: tested children’s comprehension of active and passive sentences

            Prompt: ‘Make the dog bite the cat’

            Stimuli: semantically reversible sentences, not ‘Make the cow eat the flower’

            Verbs: bite, push, touch, bump, hit, kiss (6 sentences x 4 conditions = 24 total)


      c. Results (Table 7.8):

 

 

early Stage I

late Stage I

 

 

actives

passives

actives

passives

 

% Correct

31

28.6

75.5

28.9

 

% Reversed

21.4

26.2

5.6

30

 

% Child as Agent

33.3

30.9

12.2

28.9

 

% Refusals

14.3

14.3

6.7

12.2


      d. Conclusions:

            i. Early Stage I children do not understand the basic word order of active sentences

ii. The ‘ability to use word order information in reversible active sentences first appears in late Stage I’ (338).

            iii. Late Stage I children are aware of the difference between active and passive sentences.



 

   6. Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff (1996, The Origins of Grammar)

a. Subjects: 48 children, 16 to 19 months of age ( ~68 words produced; 22 children were producing multiword utterances) (The experimenters tested 100 children to obtain data from 48 children. Children were eliminated for showing screen preferences or failing to learn basic names.)


      b. Method: Used the intermodal preferential looking paradigm.

 

                  Tv       light          Tv

                              speaker


                              Child

 

Child observes different scenes on the tv screens, e.g., Big Bird tickling Cookie Monster and Cookie Monster tickling Big Bird. An observer records the child’s gaze and measures looking time ‘fixation’ and speed ‘latency’. Prediction: children will look longer and sooner at the video matching the audio stimulus.

 

Experimenters first trained the children the recognize the characters. They then tested the children’s syntactic abilities with four verbs (“tickle”, “feed”, “wash” and “hug”).


            Audio stimuli:

 

Where is CM tickling BB?

 

Find CM tickling BB!

 

Wow! CM’s feeding BB!


      c. Results: Mean visual fixation times (seconds)

 

 

Hug

Tickle

Feed

Wash

Means

 

Girls

 

 

 

 

 

 

Match

2.59

3.21

2.57

2.79

2.79

 

Nonmatch

1.91

1.99

2.15

2.15

2.05

 

Boys

 

 

 

 

 

 

Match

2.09

3.23

3.88

2.19

2.85

 

Nonmatch

2.78

1.82

1.77

2.43

2.2

 

36 of the 48 children looked at the matching videos significantly longer than at the nonmatching videos.

 

The girls looked at the matching videos longer for all four verbs while the boys only looked at the matching videos longer for the verbs “tickle” and “feed”.

 

The children’s linguistic level (single-word vs. multiword productions) did not predict their performance.

 

d. Conclusion: Some children in Stage I demonstrate an understanding of word order. Their understanding may be affected by the meanings of specific verbs.