Syntax and grammar

What is syntax?

-5 major syntactical groups -rules that govern the ordering of words in a language -rules must transcend their realization in words (recognize that the rule isn't dependent on the actual words)

Counting MLU

-Daddy coming= 3 morphemes -Hi, car= 2 morphemes -Daddy car comed= 4 morphemes -Two car outside= 3 morphemes -It getting dark= 4 morphemes -Allgone outside= 2 morphemes -Bye-bye outside= 2 morphemes -# of morphemes= 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 2, 2 =20/7=2.86 MLU -MLU increases linearly over time

Theoretical perspectives on grammar acquisition

-Generativist/nativist -Constructionist

Deep structure

-John loves Mary -deep meaning of the sentence -simple, base message -important to make sure the deep structure comes across and the meaning is clear

Shallow structure

-Mary is loved by John -more complicated, fancy but deep down still means the same thing

Linguistic generativity

-adult users can both produce and understand sentences they have never produced or encountered before (novel) -"colorless green ideas sleep furiously"- semantically correct, makes no sense -"furiously sleep ideas green colorless"- not semantically correct -transitional statistics for the above sentences is 0, therefore syntax does not depend on the actual meaning of words and if they commonly occur together -toddlers manage to get syntax correct early on

Common rules in syntax:

-agent of action + action + recipient of action (too restrictive sometimes) -noun + verb + noun (more flexible, not found in all languages)

Closed class words

-auxiliaries like: the, is, in, of, can, will -serve grammatical function but not relevant to content -few kids use this class early on, learn to fill in sentences later

Inflectional morphemes

-features that don't change meaning and cannot stand on their own as a word -/s/ as a plural, /s/ as third person -ex. Cat vs cats, I talk vs She talks

Derivational morphemes

-features that may change meaning but can't stand on their own as a word -/ish/, /er/ -ex. Child vs childish

Unbounded morphemes

-free -features that change meaning and can stand alone as a word -/and/, /or/, /it/ -all words!!!!!!!

Constructionist approach

-grammatical structure is not given, it is built up from experience -learn your syntax -"cut and paste" strategy for early syntax (not rule governed); depends on what they have heard -infants can learn an a, a, b rule (have the capacity to learn syntax)

Generativist/nativist approach

-humans are endowed with universal grammar -Chomsky, Pinker -syntactic rules are not learned (they are innate) -too complicated to learn it, so it must be innate! -children map native words to syntactic categories and then generalize these across contexts (semantic bootstrapping) -syntax is linked to DNA

Measuring morphological growth

-mean length utterance (MLU) in morphemes -take utterances and count the number of morphemes per utterances -# of morphemes/# of sentences

Open class words

-nouns, verbs, adjectives -carry all content/meaning

Syntactic rules operate over

-open class words and closed class words

Descriptive vs prescriptive

-rules can be descriptive (what users produce) and/or prescriptive (what is formal in the language system) -even with little knowledge toddlers still obey these rules

Morphology

-sentences are actually not just rule governed combos of words -sentences also contain morphemes: inflectional, derivational, unbounded -english has a relatively lean morphological structure -count morphemes as a marker of linguistic complexity

Vertical constructions

-single utterance that conveys whole sentence forms (largely through intonation patterns) -say something but it means so much more (via body lang, gesture) -kid saying "no" while crossing their arms and shaking their head really means "you have to be kidding me"

Two word combinations

-two clear words that express a small set of semantic relations (reflect cog development) -Agent + action (Daddy sit) -Agent + object (Mommy's car) -Possessor + possession (My milk)

Emerging grammatical form

-vertical constructions -word + jargon constructions -two word combinations -often telegraphic---> nouns, verbs, adjectives -typically missing are grammatical morphemes and closed class words -early on kids get syntax correct and they add to richness of production through morphemes and closed class words

Word + jargon constructions

-words strung together with sounds

Syntax and grammar

logical sequencing of the units of the language