Semantics, Morphology and Syntax - Final Exam Study Guide | COMD 4380, Study notes of Speech-Language Pathology

Download Semantics, Morphology and Syntax - Final Exam Study Guide | COMD 4380 and more Study notes Speech-Language Pathology in PDF only on Docsity! STUDY GUIDE COMD 4380 Exam 2 Semantics, Morphology & Syntax Understand the emergence of first words and how the semantic system develops from infancy. Early Words • Children begin with words that are intellectually and socially meaningful in their immediate lives (examples: mommy, daddy, doggie, blanket) • Word-use – Signals that a child has a new tool what will enable them to learn about and better participate in their society – Is a tangible indication of the make-up and workings of a child’s mind • Phonological Composition: the words that are easiest to say will more than likely be in their early vocabulary • Nouns account for 40% of a child’s first 50-words – Children use only 8-10 favorite words (core group) when at the 50-word-level • Mappings – Both overextensions and underextensions are common in 1-2y/o children’s speech, accounting for 1/3 of their production vocabulary • Overextension: word-use in a context or manner that is inconsistent with, but in some way related to, the adult meaning of the word (“daddy” for all men) • Underextension: word-use for only a limited subset of the contexts allowed by the adult concept (“duck” for birds that swim) • Invented Words – Derived words: complex-word made from a base-morpheme and various affixes – Compound words: word composed of 2+ free-morphemes – Clark found that Chidlren’s lexical innovations (invented words) follow 3 fairly regular principles: 1. Simplicity: use of a conventional word in an unconventional way, with an obvious role 2. Semantic transparency: the meaning of the invented word is more easily remembered than the conventional one (“plant man” for gardener 3. Productivity: use adult forms as the basis of new words (cooker; bicycler) Children’s First Word-like Productions & First Words • Babbling: inconsistent productions, NOT symbolic nor iconic – bada bada lala • Protowords: consistent productions that seem to have some sort of symbolic reference. – Production has phonological structure like a word, but does not necessarily relate to an adult word. • /da/ for all animals • /da/ for lots of objects • /dada/ to comment • Real words: consistent production, symbolic reference, understood by child and adult. – baby, – nuk – blankie – whoofwhoof – bobbie • Real words with child phonology rules: have all of the characteristics of a real word but because of one or more child phonology rule, the word sounds different than the adult word. – /nana/ for banana Rescorla’s data Words Acquired % of Words Overextended 1-25 45 26-50 35 51-75 20 • Why don’t we have data on percent of underextensions? • We see that overextension is used A LOT during the early stages of development. Why is that? Limited vocabulary. – They see the connection between all those items. Why is it that we see overextension used A LOT during the early stages of development? (see pp. 118-19) • Limited vocabulary – Children’s differential treatment of objects indicates on a fundamental level how they are categorizing the objects. – By labeling the objects for children according to the children’s own categories, parents are probably showing how words are used. • That is, objects differ in minor ways but are of the same category share names Mothers and Naming Practices • Basic-level categories: most general level at which objects are similar because of their forms, functions, component parts, or motions; the similarities within categories are emphasized! – Example: Because leopards are more similar to cats, rather than other objects, they are labeled “cats” • Ostension: Parents provide particular help with rare words by explaining them explicitly or embedding them in a context that calls on the child’s prior knowledge or real-world experience. – Inclusion: mentioning both basic-level terms and the superordinate term • Example: A car and a bus and a train. All of them are kinds of vehicles. Nelson’s (1979) data • Most 16mo’s comprehend between 100-200 different words, but produce fewer than 50. • First 50 words Produced – Nominals Comp Prod • specific 17% 11% • general 39% 50% – Actions 36% 19% • (as you can see—more easily understood by children— but adding –ing, -ed, etc. will not be produced) – Modifiers 3% 10% – Personal-Social 5% 10% Percentage of total vocabularies 60 50 40 30 20 Lo 10 20 30 40 50 | General nominals Specific nominals Action words Modifiers Others (personal, social, and function words) Common Semantic Relations 1. Attribution Big boat 2. Agent + object Mommy book 3. Agent + action Daddy work (Daddy is working) 4. Action + object Read book 5. Action + indirect object Kiss mommy 6. Action + locative Go outside 7. Cessation All done 8. Denial Not Tired 9. Nomination This book 10. Nonexistence No shoe 11. Notice Hi mommy 12. Recurrence More juice 13. Rejection No juice The Nature of Syntactic Rules  comes from the Theory of Universal Grammar (UG), as proposed by Chomsky, which provides a set of principles that vary across languages as Parameters. – The Hypothesis is that within each child there is a complete set of parameters (or principles), and when a child begins learning his native language, there is a switch (or toggle) that tells how each parameter should act. – Principles are parametric (i.e., involve binary choice switches or toggles). • Null subject parameter (pro-drop): Does the language allow subjects to be optional? – English = no; Italian, Spanish, and Korean = yes » sta pioendo (is raining; Italian) » e piove (is raining; Italian) » esta lloviendo (is raining; Spanish) » It is raining (expletive pronoun required; English) • Accusative parameter: How does the language assign case within a sentence. (English = accusative; Kiche = non-accusative) – English (case is assigned to subject of sentence regardless of themes in sentence) » she kicked him (she is the agent; volitional performer that causes a change in the patient) » she sang (she is the experiencer/performer; no true cause on benefactive) » he was killed (he is the patient; recipient of the causative action) – Kiche (case is assigned based on themes in sentence; theme must be an agent) » she kicked him (she is the agent) » her sang » him was killed • One prominent revision of UG is the Government and Binding Theory (GB), which provides a set of restrictions (grammar) that govern ALL possible forms of human language – Government: abstract, syntactic relation • Concerns to the assignment, function, action of the word in the sentence – Ex: action=verb; descriptors=adjectives – Binding: referential expression • Pronoun will bind with its referent – The set of restrictions (grammar) must be compatible with: • the grammars of all the world’s languages (the goal of universality) • the fact that children worldwide acquire the grammar of their language within a few short years, usually with little or no explicit training or correction (the goal of learnability). – 2 Levels (d-structure & s-structure) are combined by transformational rules: rules that specify how one sentence can be transformed to create a closely related sentence (move alpha, move anything anywhere) 1.D-structure (deep structure): captures the underlying relationships between subject and object in a sentence (the basic unit of grammar) – Phrase structure rules: dictate how to construct phrases and sentences out of words (Ex: How to combine a noun and a noun phrase; How to combine a verb and a verb phrase) • Lexical categories: NPs & VPs • Functional categories: – INFL (inflectional) » Holds the auxiliary verb (do, will, may, could, etc.) » Carries information about tense – COMP (complementizer) » Introduces each statement » Used to embed a clause (inflP) inside another clause [Such as when a clause is the direct object of a verb, as in the two VPs “hope that the Red Sox are winning the game” and “doubt whether the train will be on time”] » That, what, if, whether – Lexicon: specifies a number of important features (morphophonological, syntactic) for each lexical item in a sentence(Ex: John [agent] gave the book [patient] to mary [rec] at school [location]) • Lexical Structures (Argument structure of verbs): verb argument structure properties (e.g., eat, dine, devour) • Thematic roles of nouns: agent, action, patient, instrument 2.S-structure (surface structure): captures the surface linear arrangements of words in a sentence – Phonetic form: actual sound structure of the sentence – Logical form: captures the meaning of sentences • If the surface structure (or words) changes in location, then the d-structure (or meaning) will also change! Tree Diagrams Corresponding to Different Phrases NP Det N VP V NP InflP NP Infl VP CompP Comp InflP VP V CompP & an Example of How They Combine to Form One Complex Sentence InflP NP Infl VP Det the N coach [present tense] V wonders CompP Comp whether InflP NP Infl will VP Det the N team V win NP Det the N game The Lexicon • Provides Lexical Items: specific “words” inserted at the end of the phrase structure trees • Contains information for each item about its syntactic category (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) – Argument structure: critical in organizing appropriate phrase structures • Consider the following set of verbs: run, see, put • The lexicon would include different information for each verb because they all appear in different sentence structures, or argument structure. – Thus, the verb “run” requires only a subject » Example: John runs. – “see” requires both a subject and an object » As an object, “see” can take either a simple noun phrase or a complete sentence » Example: John sees Mary (writing her book). – “put” requires a subject, object, and a specific location » Example: John put the book on the shelf. Syntax vs. Morphology • Morphology: change the meaning of words by adding or modifying morphemes. • Syntax: combining words to create sentences • Linguistic Complexity – Semantic: number of meanings encoded in the morpheme • Plural morpheme encodes only number • Past-tense (regular or irregular) earlierness • Auxiliarynumber, earlierness, and temporary duration – Syntactic: number of rules required for the morpheme • Morphemes acquired early involve only lexical categories • Morphemes acquired later involve functional categories Two Types of Morphemes • Free Morphemes are those morphemes that can stand alone and carry meaning. – ex) shoe • Bound Morphemes must be combined with free morphemes to be meaningful. – Bound Morphemes are often referred to as grammatical markers that cannot function independently. – ex) shoes; final s is bound morpheme • Linguistic Complexity – Semantic: number of meanings encoded in the morpheme • Plural morpheme encodes only number • Past-tense (regular or irregular) earlierness • Auxiliarynumber, earlierness, and temporary duration – Syntactic: number of rules required for the morpheme • Morphemes acquired early involve only lexical categories • Morphemes acquired later involve functional categories Brown’s 14 Grammatical Morphemes • Brown( 1973) isolated 14 obligatory morphemes that appeared early in the sample of the children he studied. • Termed these as “OBLIGATORY” meaning that they are required to mark inflection in English language. – Phonetically minimal – Light vocal emphasis – Small class /few in number – Phonological form can vary – They develop gradually and there is much individual variation Brown’s 14 Morphemes Morpheme Example Prepositions In In the house On On the table Present Progressive /ing I am walking to the store Articles a/an/the An apple, the office Plural s /s Two cats Third Person Regular /3s He walks Possessives /z Ivan’s truck Past Tense Regular /ed I jumped Third Person Irregular [3irr] He does like it Past Tense Irregular [ptirr] He drank his juice Contractible Copula [concop] She’s happy/she is happy Uncontractible Copula [unconcop] Is she happy/they were happy Contractible Auxiliary [conaux] She’s walking/she is walking Uncontractible Auxiliary [unconaux] Is she walking/they were walking Stage MLU Appx. Age Morpheme Use Brown Stage V+ 4.0+ 43-50 mos. After Stage V, all morphemes are thought to be mastered * Means that the morpheme is emerging - Understand developmental sequences of syntactic development. Children’s Order of Acquisition of Syntactic Structure 1. Negation 2. Questions 3. Passives 4. Conjoined & Embedded 5. Anaphoric reference related to pronoun use 2. Negation is expressed inside of sentence but auxiliary is missing. – Brown’s stage III. – Examples: • “I no like it.” • “I no want book.” Brown Stage III 2.5-3.0 31-34 mos. • Wh-questions (why, how, when), BUT with inconsistent question inversion (“you are happy?” or “you happy?”) • Negative is moved inside sentence and placed next to verb, BUT no productive use (“x not verb” or “x not noun”) • Early infinitives (gotta + verb, wanna + verb, hafta + verb) 3. Negation is expressed inside of sentence with auxiliary. – Not fully mastered until Brown’s stage V or an MLU of 4.50+. – Examples: • “I don’t want to go.” • “I can’t do it.” • “I’m not mad.” Brown Stage V 3.5-4.0 39-42 mos. • Negation with lots of different auxiliaries (can’t, don’t, won’t, wouldn’t) • Grammatical structure of negation matches adult forms • “Lucy’s not mad” 2. Questions Definition: An act of asking; Also referred to as an interrogative expression. • 2 kinds of Questions: 1. Yes/No questions (THESE ARE THE EARLIEST TYPES OF QUESTIONS OBSERVED!) • 2 Stages of Yes/No Questions: 1. Rising intonation 2. inversion 2. Wh- Questions • 3 Stages of Wh- Questions: 1. Missing auxiliary 2. Auxiliary included 3. Auxiliary inverted • Later Developing Questions – Negation within questions – Long Distance Questions 3 Stages of Wh- Questions: 1. Missing auxiliary. Brown’s Stage II & III – what, where, who – “where that?” – “what that?” Brown Stage II 2.0-2.5 27-30 mos. • Simple syntactic structure (2+ words) • “where x” or “what x” or “who x” • “no x” or “Lucy not mad” or “not noun” Brown Stage III 2.5-3.0 31-34 mos. • Wh-questions (why, how, when), BUT with inconsistent question inversion (“you are happy?” or “you happy?”) • Negative is moved inside sentence and placed next to verb, BUT no productive use (“x not ver” or “x not noun”) • Early infinitives (gotta + verb, wanna + verb, hafta + verb) 2. Auxiliary included but not inverted. Brown’s stage III-IV – what, where, who – “what she is playing?” – “where she is playing?” Brown Stage III 2.5-3.0 31-34 mos. • Wh-questions (why, how, when), BUT with inconsistent question inversion (“you are happy?” or “you happy?”) • Negative is moved inside sentence and placed next to verb, BUT no productive use (“x not ver” or “x not noun”) • Early infinitives (gotta + verb, wanna + verb, hafta + verb) Brown Stage IV 3.0-3.5 35-38 mos. • Conjoined sentences • Diverse set of Wh-questions and Wh- embedding, inversion of questions common • If, so, but, because, when, and object modifying clauses • Full infinitives (“I want to go”) 3. Auxiliary inversion. Brown’s Stage IV+ – what, where, who – “what is she playing?” – “where is she playing?” Brown Stage V 3.5-4.0 39-42 mos. • Negation with lots of different auxiliaries (can’t, don’t, won’t, wouldn’t) • Grammatical structure of negation matches adult forms • “Lucy’s not mad” Brown Stage V+ 4.0+ 42+ mos. • Sentences with both conjoined and embedded clauses • Both subject and object modifying clauses 3. Passives Definition: A construction used to highlight the object of the sentence or recipient of the action. – Example: “The gifts were stolen by the Grinch!” • 2 types of Passives: – full passives “John was kissed by the girl.” – truncated “The window was broken.” • Truncated are also called adjectival passives because they describe a state or condition of the subject in the sentence. – An agent is not specified in truncated passives. – Truncated passives occur much more frequently in English than full passives. – Example: » “The arm was broken” » “The broken arm” • Horgan’s Study • Children produce passives before they are able to accurately complete comprehension tasks. – Production 3-4 years – Comprehension 4-5 years Horgan (1987) studied children aged 2-13 years • Truncated passives emerge earlier than full passives. – Horgan argued that they developed as separate structures and are unrelated in young children. – Truncated passives: Brown Stage IV – Full passives: Brown Stage V Brown Stage V 3.5-4.0 39-42 mos. • Negation with lots of different auxiliaries (can’t, don’t, won’t, wouldn’t) • Grammatical structure of negation matches adult forms • “Lucy’s not mad” Brown Stage V+ 4.0+ 42+ mos. • Sentences with both conjoined and embedded clauses • Both subject and object modifying clauses • Bever (1970) documented that irreversible passives are easier for English-speaking children to understand than reversible passives. • Why? Because in English, children use word order so their errors involve interpreting the sentences as active. • Real world knowledge, though, helps children avoid the incorrect interpretation because this interpretation doesn’t make sense in the real world. Reversible passives Irreversible passives The boy was kissed by the girl. The dog was patted by the girl. The girl was kissed by the boy. *The girl was patted by the dog. 4. Conjoined & Embedded • Best context for studying complex syntax is narratives. – Ask children to tell you a story. – Coordination & Embedding are hard to analyze in spontaneous conversation because they are infrequent. • We know when these structures start to come in, but we do not have good normative data so it is hard to use complex syntax to make a diagnosis. • The use of ‘and’ is the most common conjunction children produce. • Clauses with that, who, and which are late developing. • 3 Stages of Conjoined 1. additive meaning • “You carry this and I’ll carry that.” 2. temporal meaning • “Jerry’s going home and going to bed.” 3. causal meaning • “Beth is smiling because she passed the test.” Stage MLU Appx. Age Use of Syntactic Structure Brown Stage IV 3.0-3.5 35-38 mos. • Conjoined sentences • Diverse set of Wh-questions and Wh- embedding, inversion of questions common • If, so, but, because, when, and object modifying clauses • Full infinitives (“I want to go”) Brown Stage V 3.5-4.0 39-42 mos. • Negation with lots of different auxiliaries (can’t, don’t, won’t, wouldn’t) • Grammatical structure of negation matches adult forms • “Lucy’s not mad” Brown Stage V+ 4.0+ 42+ mos. • Sentences with both conjoined and embedded clauses • Both subject and object modifying clauses - Understand how grammatical markers function cohesively across sentence boundaries.  ‑ Be able to analyze the semantic roles of children's first words and word combinations. Acquisition of Specific Word Types • Locatives – months words 24 in/on 36 under 40 next to 48 behind, in front, above/below, at the bottom 60 before/after 60+ in a week, left/right • Relational Terms – Big/little – Large/small – Tall/short, long/short – High/low – Thick/thin – Wide/narrow – Deep/shallow • Wh Question Forms – What/where – Who – How/why • Kinship Terms – mother, father, sister, brother – son, daughter, grandfather, grandmother, parent – uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece – 4 Stages in Children’s Kinship Definitions: 1. Concrete, no attributes (iconic) 3-5 years – I have a brother; matthew is my brother 2. Concrete with some attributes 5-6 years – A dad goes to work, makes money 3. Relational but not reciprocal 6 ½ years – I have a mommy but not mommy has a son 4. Relational and reciprocal 7-10 years – A niece is like when my mom has a sister, and then I’d be her niece • Deictic Terms (deixis) – Contrasting relational terms to indicate which one of many is being referred from the perspective and proximity of the speaker. – Meaning involves shifting reference perspective. • this/that, I/you, me/you, we/they, here/there – Development of Deictic Comprehension: • 3 years: comprehend speaker perspective • 4 years: comprehend speaker and listener perspective 1. Early school year definitions are: – concrete (descriptions of the referent’s appearance or function) – Personal – Incidental – Example: asked to define the word “cat,” a 5yo might offer, “My cat had kittens under my bed.” 2. Elementary year definitions: functional and personal definitions are replaced by abstract types of responses: – Synonyms – Explanations – Specifications of categorical relationships Metalinguistics: Word-Concept Awareness 1. Young children often consider the name of an object another of its intrinsic attributes 2. Words are separable from their referents – Later, children learn that words themselves are not inherent attributes of objects 3. Engage in flexible uses of words – Moving beyond literal word use and adopting a metaphoric stance stage stage stage 3. Engage in flexible uses of words • Once children understand that a word and its referent are separable, they can begin to reflect on the properties of words and objects separately – Example: Children between the ages of 4.5-10 were asked to tell the investigator their favorite words AND favorite things. • Youngest: failed to differentiate between the two questions, naming favorite things in response to both questions – For example: one child’s favorite word was “toys,” because “it’s fun to play with” • Elementary: articulated the reason why a particular word was their favorite – For example: the word “ear” because “it sounds neat” • Older: differentiated between the two questions and articulated metalinguistic aspects of words – For example: children reporting favorite objects or activities (e.g., swimming) for favorite things and giving words with interesting sound or spelling patterns (e.g., “petrified” or “Mississippi) for favorite words. Metalinguistics: Word-Meaning Awareness: Meta-semantics of Words • Many humorous uses of language, such as puns and riddles, depend on the speaker’s ability to separate different facets of language, such as phonetic form and meaning. 1. Metaphor: generally serves to clarify meaning – Initially, it offers children an additional strategy for clarifying communication, both in production AND in comprehension – Later, it’s used to grasp new concepts in relatively unfamiliar areas of knowledge – Example: frog in my throat 2. Irony: used to evaluate/criticize – “that’s really great” “big deal” – Irony is most commonly used to express Sarcasm: the intent to criticize or insult • “nice catch” after a clumsy spill 3. Simile: hair is like spaghetti 4. Homophones: Multiple meanings of words that sound the same – Meat/meet, right/right/write, C/see Stage I: MLU 1.0-2.0 • primarily single word utterances. • Child beginning to combine two words that are meaningfully related to each other (Mommy eat). – Two word utterances- children typically express 8 semantic relations with two word utterances. Semantic Relation Example Agent + action Mommy come Action + object Drive car Agent + object Mommy sock Action + location Sit chair Entity + location Cup table Posessor + possession My teddy Entity + attribute Box shiny Demonstrative + entity Dat money/that money • Possession: who owns them – Possessor + possession: my teddy; mommy dress • Agent-object: who is doing things to them – Agent + object: mommy sock; baby book • Agent-location: actions performed by people • Action-object: performed on objects – Action + object: Drive car; eat grape • Action-location: oriented toward certain locations – action + location: go park; sit chair – Objects, people, and actions and their interrelationships thus preoccupy the toddler universally • Telegraphic Speech – content words • Sentences composed mostly of nouns, verbs, and adjectives • Nouns are the most frequent open-class words Brown’s 14 Morphemes Morpheme Example Prepositions In In the house On On the table Present Progressive /ing I am walking to the store Articles a/an/the An apple, the office Plural s /s Two cats Third Person Regular /3s He walks Possessives /z Ivan’s truck Past Tense Regular /ed I jumped Third Person Irregular [3irr] He does like it Past Tense Irregular [ptirr] He drank his juice Contractible Copula [concop] She’s happy/she is happy Uncontractible Copula [unconcop] Is she happy/they were happy Contractible Auxiliary [conaux] She’s walking/she is walking Uncontractible Auxiliary [unconaux] Is she walking/they were walking Developmental Chart of Morphemes Stage MLU Appx. Age Morpheme Use Brown Stage I 1.0-2.0 19-26 mos. Brown Stage II 2.0-2.5 27-30 mos. • /ing • /s • In • *on • */z Brown Stage III 2.5-3.0 31-34 mos. • /ing • /s • In • On • /z Stage MLU Appx. Age Morpheme Use Brown Stage IV 3.0-3.5 35-38 • /ing • /s • In • On • /z • *ed • *[ptirr] • */3s • *articles • *[concop] Brown Stage V 3.5-4.0 39-42 • /ing • /s • In • On • /z • /ed • [ptirr] • /3s • [concop] • Articles • *[unconcop] • *[conaux] • *unconaux] • *[3irr] Simple Syntactic Structure Example: Contrastive Negation: -no + complete utterance • “No, I like ice cream.” Not Conjoined, Nor Embedded: -2 Nouns Within a Noun Phrase -2 Verbs Within a Verb Phrase • N: “Dan and Jeff are boys.” o Dan and Jeff  They; and is not conjoined • V: “I want to walk and run.” Subject, Verb, Object: • “I like dogs.” • “I am happy.” • “The doll is big.” Examples of Simple Syntax: Try it yourself: • No, she mad. – Stage 2 – Simple, contrastive negation • I like juice. – Stage 2 – simple - Be able to identify different types complex sentences. Complex Syntactic Structure: Example: Conjoined and Embedded: • “I think (that) I know the answer, but I might be wrong.” o “I think” can stand alone; o (that) was input into the sentence as a test for embeddedment o Because “that” fits in there, then we know that “I know the answer” is the embedded clause! o “but” is a coordinating conjunction; so we know that “I might be wrong” is the conjoined portion! Try it yourself: • Where johny? – Stage 2 – question • I was a princess for halloween but Austin was winniethepooh. – Stage 4 – conjoined • I don’t like crawfish but my mawmaw does and johny don’t either. – Stage 4 & 5 – Negative, conjoined • My aunt wreck her car that’s black and now it is all messed up. – Stage 4 & 5 – Conjoined and embedded • “that’s black” is the embedded portion • My aunt, she like cars because she drives far far far to work. – Stage 4 – Embedded • Lucy’s not mad. – Stage 5 or 3+ – negation • Where do you want to go for Thanksgiving? – Stage 4 – Question, embedded • Where you want to go for Thanksgiving? – Stage 3 – Question, embedded • How’d it get broke? – Stage 4+ – question