Questions Stage
Negative sentences
Yes/no questions
One-word stage
Negation expressedby single negative word: no allgone
Questioning indicated by intonation and/or context
Wh-questions
Early multiword stage
Negative word occurs at beginning of expression; does not occur between other words: No eat No sit down Allgone milk No hot No mommy go
Auxiliaries have not developed; no inversion of word order; only intonation is used; That mine? Seebaby? Drink baba?
Very limited; where and what are predominant forms, used at beginnings of expressions: Where doggie? Where Daddy go? What that?
Later multiword stage
Negative occurs inside expression, between subject and predicate; negative auxiliaries can’t and don’t appear: There no milk He not big Mommy no play I can’t do that I don’ know him
Continued use of intonation no inversion of word order; auxiliaries do not yet occur in positive sentences; You can’t fix it? She no play? Seedoggie? Dolly go boom?
Additional wh-words develop to include why; no inversion of word order: Why mommy go? What dolly do? Why Kitty sleep?
Wider range of negative auxiliaries appears; auxiliaries begin to appear in positive as well as negative sentences: I didn't do it He doesn't like it I'm not a baby I won't read the book Mommy can't find dolly
Auxiliaries begin to appear in positive sentences; inversion of auxiliaries appears: Can you get it? Will you help me? Did you see him?
Additional wh-words develop to include how; still no inversion of word order: What she did? Why doggy run? What he can do? How she can do that?
Development of negative sentencesand questions in child language (Adapted from Fossand Hakes 1978 and Clark and Clark 19977- Cited in Akmajian et. al, 2005: 488-489)
4. Plurality
Noun Phrase
Quantifier + Noun
two cup all cars
5.Actor-Action
a. Subject + Predicate
Noun + Verb
Bambi go Mummy push (Kathryn) airplane by
b. Subject + Predicate
Noun + Noun
Mommy (wash) jacket Lois (play) baby record
c. Predicate
Verb + Noun
pick glove pull hat helping Mommy
6. Location a. object location
Subject + Prepositional Phrase
Noun + Prep P
sweater chair lady home baby room
b. action toward location
Verb + Prepositional Phrase
Verb + Prep P
sat wall walk street
7. Requests and Imperatives
a.Verb +Object b.Quantifier +Object
more + Noun ‘nother
want milk gimme ball more nut ’nother
8. Negation a . nonexistance
Neg+Sentence
Noun Neg+ Verb Adjective
Allgone milk no hot nomore light anymore help
b. rejection
Neg+Sentence
Verb Neg+ Noun
No dirty soap no meat no go outside
c. denial
Neg+Sentence
Noun Neg+ Verb Adjective
No morning (it was afternoon) no Daddy hungry no truck
9. Questions a. requests and imperatives
Yes/ NoQuestion
Some word order as sentencesand imperatives; signaled only by rising intonation
b. Information request
Wh-Question
Fixed forms with wh-
What dat? What (NP) do? Where (NP) go?
Commontypesof utterancesfound in the early multiword stage(FromFossandHakes,1978- Cited in Akmajian et. al, 2005: 486-487)
Lightbown and Spada(1999) offer a sequence of first language acquisition of grammatical features: - present progressive: Mommy running -plural ‘s’: two books - irregular past forms: baby went - possessive ‘s: daddy’s hat - copula: daddy is nice - articles ‘the’ and ‘a’ -regular past ed: she talked - third person singular simple present –s: he runs - auxiliary ‘be:’ he is coming