The Development of Base Syntax in Normal and Linguistically Deviant Children

1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald M. Morehead ◽  
David Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
Acquisition Time ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
Construction Type ◽  
General Aspects

Language samples of 15 young normal children actively engaged in learning base syntax were compared with samples of 15 linguistically deviant children of a comparable linguistic level. Mean number of morphemes per utterance was used to determine linguistic level. The two groups were matched according to five linguistic levels previously established and grammars were written for the language sample of each child. Five aspects of syntactic development were chosen as the basis of comparison between the two groups: phrase structure rules, transformations, construction (or sentence) types, inflectional morphology, and minor lexical categories. While few significant differences were found for the more general aspects of syntax, such as phrase structure rules, frequently occurring transformations, inflectional morphology, and the development of minor lexical categories, significant differences were found for the less general aspects of syntax. For example, significant differences were found between the two groups for infrequently occurring transformations and the number of major syntactic categories per construction type. In addition, the deviant group also showed a marked delay in the onset and acquisition time for learning base syntax. These results are discussed according to transformational and cognitive developmental theory.

A Typed Feature-based Grammar of Danish

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-62
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Underwood
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Feature Structure ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Predicate Argument Structure

This paper presents an overview of the first broad coverage grammatical description of Danish in a Typed Feature Structure (TFS) based unification formalism inspired by HPSG. These linguistic specifications encompass phenomena within inflectional morphology, phrase structure and predicate argument structure, and have been developed with a view to implementation. The emphasis on implementability and re-usability of the specifications has led to the adoption of a rather leaner formal framework than that underlying HPSG. However, the paper shows that the adoption of such a framework does not lead to a loss of expressibility, but in fact enables certain phenomena, such as the interface between morphology and syntax and local discontinuities, to be treated in a simple and elegant fashion.

Stoic syntax and semantics

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 281-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urs Egli
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Definite Clause Grammar ◽  
Explicit Statement ◽  
Structural Ambiguity

Summary The Stoic theory of loquia (lekta) contained a fairly explicit statement of formation rules. It is argued that one type of rule was called syntaxis (combination or phrase structure rule) by Chrysippus (e.g., “a subject in the nominative case and a complete predicate form a statement”). Two other types of rule were assignments of words to lexical categories (“Dion is a Noun Phrase”) and subsumption rules (“Every elementary statement is a statement”), often formulated in the form of subdivisions of concepts. A fourth type of rule seems to have been the class of transformations (enklisis, e.g., “A statement transformed by the preterite transformation is a statement”). Every syntactic rule was accompanied by a semantic interpretation according to a version of the compositionality principle familiar in modern times since Frege and elaborated by Montague and his followers. Though the concrete example of a syntax was a fairly elaborate version of some sort of Montague type or definite clause grammar, there was no effort to introduce a theory of grammar in the style of Chomsky. But the texts show awareness of the problem of the infinity of structure generated and of the concept of structural ambiguity. The Stoic system has been transformed into the formulation of the Word and Paradigm Grammar of the technical grammarians – “transformation” (enklisis) was the historical antecedent of paragôgê, declinatio, “inflection”, etc. Some formulations have survived into modern times, e.g., the notion of government, for which Stoic type formulations like “a deficient predicate can be combined with a subject in the accusative case to form a complete predicate” are a historical antecedent.

Developmental Sentence Scoring: A Clinical Procedure for Estimating Syntactic Development in Children’s Spontaneous Speech

1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Lee ◽  
Susan M. Canter
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Clinical Procedure ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
The Status ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Developmental Scale ◽  
The Mean

Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) is a clinical procedure for estimating the status and progress of children enrolled for language training in a clinic. It is based upon a developmental scale of syntax acquisition. By analyzing a child’s spontaneous, tape-recorded speech sample, a clinician can estimate to what extent the child has generalized the grammatical rules sufficiently to use them in verbal performance. With such a guide the clinician can plan lessons which present these structures in a presumably developmental sequence, thereby introducing grammatical complexity in systematically graded steps. The DSS procedure gives weighted scores to a developmental order of pronouns, verbs, negatives, conjunctions, yes-no questions, and wh-questions. The mean score per sentence estimates the child’s ability to formulate sentences with a high grammatical “load.” The DSS procedure was carried out on 80 boys and 80 girls, ages 3 years, 0 months, to 6 years, 11 months, equally distributed within six-month age groups, all coming from middle-income, standard dialect homes, and all scoring between 85 and 115 on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Percentiles of DSS scores for these 160 normal children provide guidelines for estimating the status and rate of progress of children treated in a clinic.

Gender as an inflectional category

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW SPENCER
Keyword(s):  
Female Patient ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Lexical Entry ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Explicit Analysis ◽  
Mixed Categories ◽  
Peculiar Nature

Russian adjectives, especially participles, can be used as nouns denoting people, e.g. bol′noj/bol′naja ‘(male/female) patient’ from bol′noj ‘sick’, učaščijsja/učaščajasja ‘(boy/girl) pupil’, participle from the verb učit′sja ‘to learn, study’. These are unusual in that they formally reflect the sex of their referent by means of inflectional morphology. Moreover, many surnames inflect like adjectives and they, too, inflect for gender: Mr. Puškin, Čexov, Tolstoj, Dostoevskij but Ms. Puškina, Čexova, Tolstaja, Dostoevskaja. Lexemes such as ‘patient, pupil’ are genuine nouns and not just adjectives modifying null nouns. The latter type do exist and have different properties from converted nouns. Converted nouns and adjectival surnames thus form systematic gender pairs which are forms of a single lexeme. However, gender is not conventionally regarded as an inflection category of the kind which induces word forms of lexemes in this way, rather it is an inherent ‘classificatory’ property of nouns. The paper discusses the peculiar nature of this type of inflectional marking and provides an explicit analysis of the construction. On the semantic side, nouns such as bol′noj, učaščijsja have a similar representation to that of a phrase person who is sick/studies and we effectively have an instance of the poorly researched phenomenon of de-phrasal word formation. On the morphosyntactic side, the lexical entry of the deadjectival noun or surname shares crucial properties with 3rd person pronouns. The analysis raises questions about the nature of lexical categories (especially ‘mixed categories’) and the structure of lexical entries generally.

Development of Phrase Structure Rules Involved in Tag Questions Elicited from Children

1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 498-512
Author(s):  
Carl O. McGrath ◽  
LuVern H. Kunze
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Question Formation ◽  
Tag Questions ◽  
Auxiliary Verb ◽  
Language Acquistion

This study demonstrated another way of measuring increasing precision in generating linguistic structure by children who are beyond the age for primary language acquistion. Tag questions were elicited from normal children ranging in age from five to 11 years. Their errors in generating tag questions established that there is a definite hierarchy of difficulty involved in the acquisition of the four linguistic operations which can account for tag question formation. These operations, from most to least difficult, are (1) addition or deletion of negation, (2) auxiliary verb selection, (3) pronoun selection, and (4) inversion of the pronoun and the auxiliary verb. This hierarchy remains constant from five through 11 years of age. Evidence is presented that younger children tend to abstract alternate phrase structure rules which are less complex (relative to the number of operations required) than the rules which can account for spontaneously generated tag questions.

Inflectional morphology in a family with inherited specific language impairment

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL T. ULLMAN ◽  
MYRNA GOPNIK
Keyword(s):  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Procedural Memory ◽  
Memory System ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Word Forms

The production of regular and irregular past tense forms was investigated among the members of an English-speaking family with a hereditary disorder of language. Unlike the control subjects, the family members affected by the disorder failed to generate overregularizations (e.g., digged) or novel regular forms (plammed, crived), whereas they did produce novel irregularizations (crive–crove). They showed word frequency effects for regular past tense forms (looked) and had trouble producing regulars and irregulars (looked, dug). This pattern cannot be easily explained by deficits of articulation or of perceptual processing, by previous simulations of impairments to a single-mechanism system, or by the extended optional infinitive hypothesis. We argue that the pattern is consistent with a three-level explanation. First, we posit a grammatical deficit of rules or morphological paradigms. This may be caused by a dysfunction of a frontal/basal-ganglia “procedural memory” system previously implicated in the implicit learning and use of motor and cognitive skills. Second, in contexts requiring inflection in the normal adult grammar, the affected subjects appear to retrieve word forms as a function of their accessibility and conceptual appropriateness (“conceptual selection”). Their acquisition and use of these word forms may rely on a “declarative memory” system previously implicated in the explicit learning and use of facts and events. Third, a compensatory strategy may be at work. Some family members may have explicitly learned a strategy of adding suffix-like endings to forms retrieved by conceptual selection. The morphological errors of young normal children appear to be similar to those of the affected family members, who may have been left stranded with conceptual selection by a specific developmental arrest. The same underlying deficit may also explain the impaired subjects' difficulties with derivational morphology.

scholarly journals Towards an analysis of the adverbial use of German interrogative was(ˋwhat')

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Holler
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Information ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
The Other ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Construction Type ◽  
The One

The paper discusses the so-called adverbial use of the wh-pronoun was (ˋwhat'), which establishes a non-standard interrogative construction type in German. It argues that the adverbial use of was (ˋwhat') is based on the lexical properties of a categorically deficient pronoun was (ˋwhat'), which bears a causal meaning. In addition, adverbial was (ˋwhat') differs from canonical argument was (ˋwhat') as it is analyzed as a functor which is generated in clause-initial position. By means of empirical facts mainly provided by d'Avis (2001) it is shown that was (ˋwhat') behaves ambivalently regarding the wh-property: On the one hand, was (ˋwhat') can introduce an interrogative clause, but on the other hand it cannot license wh-phrases in situ. While formally analyzing the data against the background of existing accounts on wh-interrogatives couched in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, an analysis is developed that separates two pieces of information to keep track of the wh-information percolating in an interrogative clause. Whereas the WH-value models wh-fronting and pied-piping phenomena, the QUE value links syntactic and semantic information and thus keeps track of wh-phrases in-situ.

Case and Tense in the ‘fossilized’ steady state

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Lardiere
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Direct Relation ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Structure Development ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Robust Evidence

This article reviews recent SLA studies which have methodologically assumed a direct relation between the acquisition of inflectional morphology and the development of functional phrase structure in the syntax. Results from naturalistic production data collected over eight years apart are reported, establishing the ‘fossilization’ of English L2 tense morphology for an adult native Chinese speaker at a consistently very low rate of suppliance (approximately 34%) in obligatory contexts. Nevertheless, in addition to robust evidence for CP in the grammar, the data also show perfect distribution of pronominal case (100%) in all contexts, suggesting the presence of a TP bearing a fully specified [± finite] feature. Viewed in light of the steady state (in other words, where grammatical development has ‘ended up’), these results indicate that the courses of syntactic and morphological development are independent and that the mapping between them is much less direct than previously supposed. I conclude that it is this mapping itself, in the morphology or PF component, which may be imperfectly acquired, and from which a lack of functional categories or extended phrase structure development may not be inferred.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Zygmunt Frajzyngier ◽  
Marielle Butters
Keyword(s):  
Finite Number ◽  
Functional Domains ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Linear Orders ◽  
Serial Verb Constructions ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Serial Verb

The introduction states the main question of the book and sets the theoretical basis of the study; namely that every language codes a unique semantic structure in its grammatical system. This semantic structure consists of functional domains and subdomains, and each subdomain consists of a finite number of functions. The functional domains, subdomains, and functions can change over time. Even if languages have identical functional domains, the internal composition of these domains may vary. Every language contains a finite number of coding means such as lexical categories and derivational morphology, linear orders, phonological means, inflectional morphology, deployment of lexical items to code grammatical functions, including serial verb constructions, adpositions, and free grammatical morphemes. The role of the formal means is to allow for the realization of the functions from the semantic structure of the language and to assure the principle functional transparency.

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