COMBINING WORDS

DEVELOPMENT OF SYNTAX
AND MORPHOSYNTAX
1. Early multiword utterances
2. Longer utterances
3. Sequence of development
4. Building complexity
5. Comprehension
6. Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children
 VIDEO :
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9__LeMkbJc0
 SYNTAX AND
MORPHOLOGY
• Deals with the rules — The branch of grammar
governing the which studies the
combination of words in structure or forms of
sentences.
words, primarily through
the use of the morpheme
construct (Dictionary of
linguistics, 2008 ) .

• Specifies which word

combinations are
acceptable, or — The study of
grammatical, and which words and their rules of
are not. formation.

• The vast majority of — The morpheme: is the

syntactic rules are smallest grammatical unit
language-specific. and is indivisible without
violating the meaning or
producing meaningless
units.
 (Owens R., 2005)

• Inflectional morphemes include tense markers (such

as -ed), plural markers, and the third-person singular
present-tense verb ending -s as in “she walks.”

• Because morphology operates within the syntactic

constraints of sentences, some linguists consider the
morphological rules to be a subset of the syntactic
rules.
(Owens R., 2005)
 Morphosyntax
• The rules that determine the relation between one linguistic form and
another, defined by morphological and syntactic criteria.

• A term used in linguistics to refer to grammatical categories or properties

for whose definition criteria of morphology and syntax both apply, as in
describing the characteristics of words.
The distinctions under the heading of number in nouns, for example, constitute a
morphosyntactic category:
- on the one hand, number contrasts affect syntax (e.g. singular subject requiring a singular
verb);
- on the other hand, they require morphological definition (e.g. add -s for plural).

à Traditional properties such as singular, perfect, indicative, passive,

accusative, third person are examples of morphosyntax ( Dictionary of
linguistics, 2008 ).

à Inflection and agreement between units possibly distant from each other
in a sentence.
COMBINING WORDS: STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

Tempting to talk about

one-word, two-word
stages etc., but reality is
much more complicated:

Variability between
children

Words embedded
in jargon vs. single
and discrete words

Complexity in terms
of sentence
structure, not just
length

From18 months, children start to combine words in

sentences
THE TRANSITION TO TWO-WORD UTTERANCES

Child will initially

juxtapose two
single word At this point,
utterances e.g. : each word will
Child wakes up have its own
intonation
with eye infection contour.
and points to eye,
says “Ow. Eye.”

Sometimes
called vertical
utterances
Child: ˋOw
ˋEye
 Words become
Many utterances will be
productive when child
learned as ‘wholes’
can ‘mix and match’
Child is not aware that it
can be broken down
into smaller parts (words)
Combine the same
word with different
alternatives
E.g. thank you , way to
go
 Multiword
utterances
express more
MEANING
than the
meaning of
individual words

Relational
meaning
Will be contained
Limited number in a prosodic
of relational ‘envelope’:
meanings can be
expressed in two- Several words
word within one
combinations intonation
contour

Early multiword
Refer to
sentences (2 &
3 words) tend
Affirmative Declarative here and
to be: now
 Relational meaning expressed in children’ two word utterances

Meaning :
Agent + action Daddy sit
Action + object mommy sock
Agent +location toy floor
Possessor +possession my teddy
Entity + attribute crayon big
Demonstrative + entity this telephone

Based on Brown 1973 in Hoff E. , 2005 , “Language development Third edition “

 1- EARLY MULTIWORD UTTERANCES

Simple, short, and lack grammatical morphemes

Between 2 and 3 years old, the child begins to organize words in a
sentence to convey a message.
 Two word utterances: Some examples

Possessives
Nicolas cookie Property indicating pattern
Big balloon
Daddy coffee
Little bird
Andrew shoe Wet diaper
Mummy sock Locatives
Sand eye
Key door
Recurrence, number ,
Disappearance
More ball
All gone airplane
Other
Two shoe Have it egg
Have it milk
Agent/Action Get ball
Boom-boom tower
Mummy sit Boom-boom car
Boy walk
Elliot sleep
 HOW DOES IT EVOLVE ?
• Process of decontextualization :

By a process of progressive decentralization à an opening towards the outside worldà

The baby experiences separation à discovers surrounding objects à becomes aware
of his individuality and of the power he can have over objects or people.

• Abstract language that is removed from the here and now.

• Talk during pretend play.
• Explanatory talk and narrative utterances about past or future events.

• This decontextualization process of language is based on 2 cognitive elements:

à Memory
à Object Permanence

• Why is it challenging for kids :

- The meaning of decontextualized language is conveyed primarily through the
linguistic cues and not through the context.
- It requires a more abstract level of analysis by the child than does comprehending
contextualized talk that is focused on the here or now, such as object labels.
- Decontextualized language utterances are often longer than contextualized
utterances and tend to include more low-frequency or rare vocabulary words, and
more complex syntax, such as use of elaborated noun phrases, adverbs, connectives,
and mental state verbs.
 SCAFFOLDING

Example:
• C: (points) dog .
Adult elicits • A: It’s a dog yes.
sequence What is it doing?
through use of • C: Sleep.
questions. This • A: The dog’s
sleeping. Where?
forms model for • C: Basket.
sentence. • A: The dog’s
sleeping in his
basket.
 WHAT THE CHILD LEAVES OUT

• Information in sentence is either given (obvious from context) or

new
• Child has limited resources at this point so will focus on the
new and leave out what is given

• Agent-verb sequences
• Agent usually considered given and left out

• Verb locative sequences

• Locative is the new information
 2- LONGER UTTERANCES

Increase in complexity at several different levels:

• Word
• Phrase
• Clause
 MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE (MLU)

- An index of expressive language development used

beyond the stage of single words, when a child uses two
or more words together in an utterance.

- MLU can be calculated for either words or morphemes.

(The average number of morphemes per utterance).

- Used as a benchmark to assess individual differences and

developmental changes in grammatical development in
children in the early stages of language acquisition.
Calculating MLU

— MLU words
◦ Add up total number of words in sample and
divide by number of utterances
— MLU morphemes
◦ Add up total number of morphemes in sample
and divide by number of utterances.

Measuring Grammatical Development: MLU

• Early researchers noted

• Variation in rate of language development
• Age could not reliably predict stage of acquisition
• Length can be used as a measure in the early stages
 MLU-BASED STAGES (MILLER &
CHAPMAN, 1981)
Stage 1
MLU 1.01-1.99
Stage 2
Beginning of MLU 2.00-2.49
Stage 3
word
combinations Beginning to MLU 2.50-2.99
Stage 4
add in
16-31 months grammatical Beginning to
MLU 3.00
Post MLU 3
morphemes use negative onwards
and question Measure has
21-35 months forms Complex less value as it
sentences does not
24-41 months emerging
represent
28-45 months sentence
complexity
 ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES

Some are not

content words, Determiners Brown classifies
but may stand prepositions as
grammatical
English has a alone.
morphemes
number of bound
grammatical e.g. a, the
morphemes e.g. on, in
•Pronouns such as
he, she, it
•Most uses of the
e.g. playing; runs; verb to be (e.g. it
cars is raining; she is
happy)
•Some uses of the
verb to have (e.g.
he has run 5 miles
today)
DEVELOPMENT OF
GRAMMATICAL
MORPHEMES
Grammatical
morphemes
develop over time
Gradual and in a
development recognisable
sequence ( Brown,
1973)

Inflections used on
Apparent some content
‘optionality’ of words but not
some grammatical others
morphemes at early
stages •i.e. not on more recently
learned words
PLURALS: WHICH WILL
THE CHILD USE FIRST?
‘Two
cats’

‘Two
buses’
 COGNITIVE/LINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY OF
GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES
• Cognitive complexity will depend on how difficult the concept to
be expressed is
• cf. plurality vs. tense

• Linguistic complexity reflects difficulty of rules to be learned

• Both linguistic and cognitive complexity influence acquisition.

Cognitive Linguistic
Plural Simple: more than 1 Simple: add {pl}
Tense (present vs. past) More complex: Regular More complex:
activity (he walks every For present tense
day) vs. completed (regular), add {s} ONLY on
action in the past (he 3rd person singular (walks).
walked). For past tense (regular),
add {ed} across the
Needs to be understood board.
along with aspect: on-
going activity in the
present (he is walking) vs.
in the past (he was
walking), or completed
action (he has walked).
 BUILDING SENTENCES: PHRASE AND CLAUSE
STRUCTURE
• Man(S) kick(V) ball(O). Subject-Verb-Object
• (The man)(S) kick(V) ball(O).
• (The man)(S) (is kicking)(V) ball(O).
• (The man)(S) (is kicking)(V) (a ball) (O).
• (The happy man)(S) (would like to kick)(V) (a big blue ball)(O).
3- Sequence of development
18-30 MONTHS

the
emergence of
longer multi-
the productive word
use of two- utterances (24
word to 30 months
combinations
(beginning
single-word around 18 to
utterances 24 months)
(around 12 to
18 months)
Holophrase
 BROWN’S STAGES
Stage I

Morphological
Age MLUrange Examples
Structure

50-60 word
vocabulary; basic
phrases/sentences
12-26 months 1.0-2.0 See table below
that show
communicative
intent

Semantic Relations Examples Communicative Intent

Nomination That car That is a car.
Recurrence More juice There is more juice.

Negation - denial No wee wee I did not do a wee wee.

Negation - rejection No more I don't want more.

Action + Agent Daddy kiss Daddy is kissing.
Action + Object Push truck Pushing the truck.

Agent + Object Man hat The man (wears) a hat.

Entity + Locative Dolly bed The dolly is on the bed.

Possessor + Possession (object) Kim car Kim's car.

Entity + Attributive Water hot The water is hot.

Demonstrative + Entity This train THIS train (not THAT train).

 Stage II

Morphological
Age MLU Examples
Structure
§ present
progressive (-
ing verbs) jumping off
§ In in cup
27-30 months 2.0-2.5
§ On put on
§ -s my toys
plural (regular
plurals)
 Stage III

Morphological
Age MLU Examples
Structure
§ irregular past
tense
§ 's possessive me fell down
31-34 months 2.5-3.0 § uncontractible mommy's shirt
copula (main he was happy
verb; full form
of 'to be')
 Stage IV

Morphological
Age MLU Examples
Structure
§ Article
§ regular past
tense (-ed § in the bucket
35-40 months 3.0-3.75 verbs) § I laughed
§ 3rd person § he swims fast
regular,
§ present tense
 Stage V

Morphological
Age MLU Examples
Structure
§ 3rd person
irregular
Kitty does tricks
§ uncontractible
auxiliary(helpi
ng verb; full
Are they
form of 'to be')
swimming ?
§ contractible
Dad is laughing
copula (main
41-46+ months 3.75-4.5
verb;
shortened
it's hot outside
form of 'to be')
§ contractible
auxiliary (helpi
we're coming
ng verb;
over
shortened
form of 'to be')
 3- BUILDING COMPLEXITY

Structures with simple

sentences
Questions
Negatives
Passives Complex sentences
 QUESTIONS (INTERROGATIVES)
• Wh-questions
• What, which, where, when, why, how
• e.g. ‘what is that?’; ‘where are you going?’; ‘when is the lecture?’

Forming questions
• Intonation
• Subject-auxiliary inversion or subject-copula inversion
• To form grammatical questions, child needs to be able to use both
correct verb forms and correct word order
• Wh-questions require the above + insert the appropriate wh-word
usually at the front.

Order of acquisition
• Early questions made using intonation only
• Child starts to invert subject and aux/cop
• With wh-questions, the child may use wh-word but fail to invert subject
and aux/cop:
• E.g. what this is?; where the boy is playing?
 NEGATIVES

Clark suggests children start out with two types:

• Exclamatory negations
• Rejects the contents of preceding utterance,
typically marked by no + repeat of preceding
utterance
• E.g. no Mummy do it (=I don’t want Mummy to do
it).
• Earliest form to be used

• Predicate negations
• Negative element is internal to the sentence and
negates some aspect of it
• E.g. that not a rabbit’s house, I don’t want that.
• Takes longer to sort out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN8rL0
TsmSE
 PASSIVES
• Used to change the focus of the sentence
• By moving an object into subject position

• Involves change in word order + optional agent

• Choosing this focus for the sentence can appear as early

as 2 years
• E.g. juice spilled, dinner eaten

• Full mastery with correct auxiliary + verb forms and

introduction of agent with by will take much longer
 EXAMPLE: COMPLEX
SENTENCES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8aprCNnecU
 COMPLEX SENTENCES

• Utterances that combine two or more clauses within a

sentence
• i.e. contain two or more verbs with accompanying
arguments or multiple propositions
• Clauses will be linked by:
• Coordination
àBoth clauses are syntactically independent
àLink is typically made through one of the following
coordinators: And, But, Or.

• Subordination
àOne clause (subordinate) is dependent on (or embedded
within) a main clause.
àClauses linked with subordinators such as: when, if,
although, because, so, that…
àRelative clauses: The man who is sitting at the table is
eating
 ORDER OF ACQUISITION
• First attempts at complex sentences à just putting two clauses together

• Early use of and:

• Often just to string sentences together to give semblance of coherence

Relative clauses
• Use from ~2 years
• First produced at end of utterance
• so attached to object noun phrase
• e.g. he’s hitting the ball that is blue.

Causal constructions
• From 2:06, children will link events by representing one as the cause and
another as the effect (outcome).

• Early use of because may sometimes be inappropriate:

• E.g. it’s raining ‘cos we need our umbrellas.

VIDEO : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8aprCNnecU
 4 -STRATEGIES FOR COMPREHENSION OF
SENTENCES

• Child must be able to

• identify words
• grasp significance of word order
• identify meaning associated with grammatical morphemes

• As with single words, the context will be all-important.

Early stages :
• Parents often claim that their small children ‘understand
everything’.
• A lot of what adults say to children is heavily supported by
context and gesture, so this will appear to be true!
 DEVELOPMENT OF COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

• Earliest strategy:
• ‘do what you usually do’ (in the particular context/situation)

• Understanding meaning of some key words is combined with non-

linguistic knowledge about the sorts of things adults ask them to do
• E.g. go into the kitchen and get your plate may only require understanding
of kitchen and plate .
 OTHER STRATEGIES (BUCKLEY, 2003)

Supplying
Probable Probable
Missing
Event Location
Information
If asked to place an
Do something object somewhere,
which complies will again use
with expectations knowledge about Children learn that
about events where things usually
questions require
go answers, so will
supply one even if
they have not
E.g. the baby feeds E.g. put the spoon understood the
the mummy will be under the cup may question
interpreted as ‘the be interpreted as
mummy feeds the ‘put the spoon in
baby’ the cup’
Understanding passives
Full comprehension comes late (6-7) for some types

Up to then children will go with probable event strategy

Those involving action words easier than non-action words

e.g. describing emotional (like, love) or psychological (know,
remember) states
- cognitive demands of sentences involving these verbs

Find: “The mother is fed by the baby”

 THE THIRD YEAR
Comprehension:
• Understands several words out of context
• Follows simple instructions
• Points to images, objects…
• Understands questions starting with “where”?
• Understands : before / after ; inside / outside, on / in.
• Knows the basic colors and some parts of the body.
Production :
• Two-word utterances .
• Beginning of the use of negation .
• 3 words utterances around 30 months.
• Starts using grammatical morphemes.
The fourth year
Comprehension
• Recognizes the parts of his body
• Better understanding of abstract nouns .
• Concepts like hot and cold, hard / soft, a lot / a little
• Understands the questions with why ?who? what?
• Understands more complex space terms such as next to,
in front of, behind .
• Follows the chronology of a short story.
Production
• Use personal pronouns.
• His sentences can be made up of 6 words or more.
• He manages to tell a small story already lived.
 5- SYNTACTIC ACQUISITION IN BILINGUAL
CHILDREN
• No qualitative difference between bilingual and monolingual acquisition, but
there may be differences in timing:
- Slower rhythm (Schwartz 2004).
- Variable performances : some areas may be inherently more complex in one
rather than the other (for example gender agreement).
- Morphological errors and syntactic simplifications before 4- 5 years (Konhert et al.
2008) .

• Influence of one language on the other:

- The child borrows a syntactic structure from a language to integrate it with the
other (Genesee et al. 2009).
- The transfer can be done in both directions: dominant language towards the
least mastered language or vice versa, especially when the typologies of
languages are very close (Kopke, 2004).

• Exposure: bilinguals potentially have half the exposure in each language that
monolinguals get – so will take longer to develop ‘critical mass’.
• Differences eventually become neutralised, given enough exposure.
 BILINGUAL LEBANESE CHILDREN : DEVELOPMENT
OF SYNTAX

- Few studies

In Lebanese:
Repetition task :
Between 3 years and a half and 5 years and a half
- Simple structures are more successful than complex structures .
- Grammatical errors are more common than lexical errors, and
are more pronounced in complex structures.
- The categories of the most common errors concern:
complementizers( jalli) , determination, object clitic, word order,
the interrogative word Ɂajja ‘which’, and the verbal inflection (
verb tense , verb agreement) .