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First Language Acquisition

“

The capacity to learn language is deeply

ingrained in us as a species, just as the capacity

to walk, to grasp objects, to recognize faces.

We don’t find any serious difference in children

growing up in congested urban slums, in

isolated mountain villages, or in privileged

suburban villas”

Dan Slobin,

The Human Language Series 2 (1994)

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First Language Acquisition

Every language is complex.

Before the age of 5, the child knows most of
the intricate system of grammar.

Use the syntactic, phonological, morphological
and semantic rules of the language

Join sentences

Ask questions

Use appropriate pronouns

Negate sentences

Form relative clauses

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First Language Acquisition

Learning to speak and understand a

language is different than learning to read

and write.

“ We are designed to walk.. That we are

taught to walk is impossible. And pretty

much the same is true of language.

Nobody is taught language. In fact you

can’t prevent a child from learning it”

Chomsky 1994

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Issues in first language
acquisition

How do children acquire such a complex system
so quickly and effortlessly?

Does a child decide to consciously pursue certain
skills? (e.g., walking)

Do babies make a conscious decision to start
learning a language?

We correct children’s errors sometimes. Does it
help?

‘

Nobody don

’

t like me

’

Noisy data

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5

Theories of language acquisition

Nature vs. Nurture

Behaviorism (1950s)

Children learn language through imitation,
reinforcement and analogy

He go out.

A my pencil

What the boy hit?

Nobody don’t like me

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Theories of language
acquisition

Innateness hypothesis

Children are equipped with an innate
template for language (Language
Acquisition Device and Universal
Grammar)

Evidence: we end up knowing more about
language than what we hear around us.

The same stages in all cultures and
languages

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7

Basic requirements

Environment and interaction to bring
this capacity into operation- E.g.

Genie

–

cultural transmission

The child must be physically capable
(being able to hear)

Interaction

.

All these requirements are related.

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The acquisition schedule

In spite of different backgrounds, different

locations, and different upbringings, most

children follow the very same milestones in

acquiring language.

The biological schedule is related to the

maturation of the infant’s brain to cope with

the linguistic input

Young children acquire the language by

identifying the regularities in what is heard

and applying those regularities in what they

say

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9

Caretaker Speech (motherese)

A type of simplified speech adopts by

someone who spends time with the child

characterized by:

Frequent use of questions

Simplified lexicon

Phonological reduction

Higher pitch- extra loudness

Stressed intonation

Simple sentences

A lot of repetition

Oh, goody! Now Daddy will push choo choo!

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Caretaker Speech (motherese)

Assign interactive roles to young children

MOTHER: Look!

CHILD: (touches picture)

MOTHER: what are those?

CHILD: (vocalizes a babble string and smiles)

MOTHER: yes, there are rabbits

CHILD: Vocalizes and smiles

MOTHER: (laughs) yes, rabbit

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L1 acquisition

sentence structures of

lexical

words

no

functional

or

grammatical

morphemes

24-30
months

Telegraphic stage

"mini-sentences" with

simple semantic relations

18-20
months

Two-word stage

Single open-class words or
word stems

12-18
months

One-word stage

Grammatical

or

functional

structures emerge

30+
months

Later multiword stage

Repetitive CV patterns

6-10
months

babbling

Vowel-like sounds

3-5
months

cooing

description

Typical

age

Stage

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Cooing

Few weeks: cooing and gurgling, playing with
sounds. Their abilities are constrained by
physiological limitations

They seem to be discovering phonemes at this point.

Producing sequences of vowel-like sounds- high
vowels [i] and [u].

4 months- sounds similar to velar consonants [k] &
[g]

5 months: distinguish between [a] and [i] and the
syllables [ba] and [ga], so their perception skills are
good.

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Babbling

Different vowels and consonants

ba-ba-ba

and

ga-ga-

ga

9-10 months- intonation patterns and combination of

ba-ba-ba-da-da

Nasal sounds also appear ma-ma-ma

10-11- use of vocalization to express emotions

Late stage- complex syllable combination (

ma-da-ga-

ba

)

Even deaf children babble

The most common cross-linguistic sounds and patterns
babbled the most, but later on they babble less
common sounds

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The word stage (holophrastic)

Single terms are uttered for everyday objects
‘milk’, ‘cookie’, ‘cat’

Produce utterance such as ‘Sara bed’ but not

yet capable of producing a phrase.

Differ from adult language

[da]

dog

[sa]

sock

[aj]

light

[daw]

down

Convey a more complex message

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Two-word stage

Vocabulary moves beyond 50 words

By 2 years old, children produce
utterances ‘baby chair’, ‘mommy eat’

Interpretation depends on context

Adults behave as if communication is
taking place.

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Telegraphic stage

By 2 years & a half, they produce
multiple-word speech.

Developing sentence building capacity.
E.g. ‘

this shoe all wet

’, ‘

cat drink milk

’,

‘

daddy go bye-bye

’

Vocabulary continues to grow

Better pronunciation

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The acquisition process

The child does not acquire the language by imitating
adults- trying out constructions and testing them.

CHILD: my teacher

holded

the baby rabbit and we

patted them
MOTHER: did you say your teacher

held

the baby

rabbit?
CHILD: yes. she

holded

the baby rabbit and we

patted them
MOTHER: Did you say she

held

them tightly?

CHILD: no, she

holded

them loosely

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Developing Morphology

By 2-and-a-half years old- use of some

inflectional morphemes to indicate the

grammatical function of nouns and verbs.

The first inflection to appear is –

ing

after it

comes the –

s

for plural.

Overgeneralization: the child applies –s to

words like ‘foots’ ‘mans’ and later ‘feets’

‘mens’

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Developing Morphology

The use of possessive ‘s’ appears ‘mommy’s

bag’

Forms of verb to be appear ‘is’ and ‘are’

The –ed for past tense appears and it is also

overgeneralized as in ‘goed’ or holded’

Finally –s marker for 3

rd

person singular

preset tense appears with full verbs first
then with auxiliaries (does-has)

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Developing syntax

A child was asked to say

the owl who

eats candy runs fast

and she said

the

owl eat candy and he run fast.

The development of two syntactic
structures- three stages

Forming questions

Forming negatives

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Forming questions

1

st

stage:

Insert

where

and

who

to the beginning of an

expression with rising intonation
E.g.

sit chair? Where horse go?

2

nd

stage:

More complex expression
E.g.

why you smiling? You want eat?

3

rd

stage:

Inversion of subject and verb
E.g.

will you help me? What did I do?

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Forming negative

Stage 1:

Putting

not

and

no

at the beginning

e.g.

not teddy bear, no sit here

Stage 2:

Don

’

t

and

can

’

t

appear but still use no and not

before VERBS
e.g.

he no bite you, I don

’

t want it

Stage 3:

didn

’

t

and

won

’

t

appear

e.g.

I didn

’

t caught it, she won

’

t go

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Developing Semantics

During the two-word stage children use their limited
vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated
objects.

Overextension: overextend the meaning of a word on
the basis of similarities of shape, sound, and size.
e.g. use ball to refer to an apple, and egg, a grape
and a ball.

This is followed by a gradual process of narrowing
down.

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Developing Semantics

Antonymous relations are acquired
late

The distinction between more/less,
before/after seem to be later
acquisition.

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Thank you

See you next class

Read chapter 15