scholarly journals The emergence of an abstract grammatical category in children’s early speech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Philip Levy ◽  
Stephan Meylan ◽  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Brandon Roy

How do children begin to use language to say things they have never heard before? The origins of linguistic productivity have been a subject of heated debate: While generativist accounts posit that children’s early language reflects the presence of syntactic abstractions, constructivist approaches instead emphasize gradual generalization over frequently-heard forms. Here we develop a Bayesian statistical model that measures the degree of abstraction implicit in children’s early use of the determiners “a” and “the.” Our work reveals that many previously-used corpora are too small to adjudicate between these theoretical positions. Several datasets, including the Speechome Corpus—a new ultra-dense dataset for one child—show evidence of low initial levels of productivity and higher levels later in development, however. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that children lack rich grammatical knowledge at the outset of language learning, but rapidly begin to generalize on the basis of structural regularities in their input.

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan C. Meylan ◽  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Brandon C. Roy ◽  
Roger Levy

How do children begin to use language to say things they have never heard before? The origins of linguistic productivity have been a subject of heated debate: Whereas generativist accounts posit that children’s early language reflects the presence of syntactic abstractions, constructivist approaches instead emphasize gradual generalization derived from frequently heard forms. In the present research, we developed a Bayesian statistical model that measures the degree of abstraction implicit in children’s early use of the determiners “a” and “the.” Our work revealed that many previously used corpora are too small to allow researchers to judge between these theoretical positions. However, several data sets, including the Speechome corpus—a new ultra-dense data set for one child—showed evidence of low initial levels of productivity and higher levels later in development. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that children lack rich grammatical knowledge at the outset of language learning but rapidly begin to generalize on the basis of structural regularities in their input.


ASHA Leader ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-32
Author(s):  
Heidi Hanks

Leave your flashcards at home and try these five apps for early language learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2319-2324
Author(s):  
Rina Muka ◽  
Irida Hoti

The language acquired from the childhood is the language spoken in the family and in the place of living. This language is different from one pupil to another, because of their social, economical conditions. By starting the school the pupil faces first the ABC book and then in the second grade Albanian language learning through the Albanian language textbook. By learning Albanian language step by step focused on Reading, Writing, Speaking and Grammar the pupil is able to start learning the second language on the next years of schooling. So, the second language learning in Albanian schools is related to the first language learning (mother tongue), since the early years in primary school. In our schools, the second language (English, Italian) starts in the third grade of the elementary class. On the third grade isn’t taught grammar but the pupil is directed toward the correct usage of the language. The textbooks are structured in developing the pupil’s critical thinking. The textbooks are fully illustrated and with attractive and educative lessons adequate to the age of the pupils. This comparative study will reflect some important aspects of language learning in Albanian schools (focused on Albanian language - first language and English language - second language), grade 3-6. Our point of view in this paper will show not only the diversity of the themes, the lines and the sub-lines but also the level of language knowledge acquired at each level of education. First, the study will focus on some important issues in comparing Albanian and English language texts as well as those which make them different: chronology and topics retaken from one level of education to another, so by conception of linear and chronological order will be shown comparatively two learned languages (mother tongue and second language). By knowing and learning well mother tongue will be easier for the pupil the foreign language learning. The foreign language (as a learning curriculum) aims to provide students with the skills of using foreign language written and spoken to enable the literature to recognize the achievements of advanced world science and technology that are in the interest of developing our technique. Secondly, the study will be based on the extent of grammatical knowledge, their integration with 'Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing' as well as the inclusion of language games and their role in language learning. The first and second language learning in Albanian schools (grade III-VI) is based on similar principles for the linearity and chronology of grammatical knowledge integrated with listening, reading, writing and speaking. The different structure of both books help the pupils integrate and use correctly both languages. In the end of the sixth grade, the pupils have good knowledge of mother tongue and the second language and are able to write and speak well both languages.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 682-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Graham ◽  
Louise Courtney ◽  
Alan Tonkyn ◽  
Theodoros Marinis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Bohn ◽  
Michael C. Frank

Language is a fundamentally social endeavor. Pragmatics is the study of how speakers and listeners use social reasoning to go beyond the literal meanings of words to interpret language in context. In this review, we take a pragmatic perspective on language development and argue for developmental continuity between early non-verbal communication, language learning, and linguistic pragmatics. We link phenomena from these different literatures by relating them to a computational framework (the rational speech act framework), which conceptualizes communication as fundamentally inferential and grounded in social cognition. The model specifies how different information sources (linguistic utterances, social cues, common ground) are combined when making pragmatic inferences. We present evidence in favor of this inferential view and review how pragmatic reasoning supports children’s learning, comprehension, and use of language.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Mika Braginsky ◽  
Daniel Yurovsky ◽  
Virginia A. Marchman

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document