Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:50:15.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Environmental correlates of child copula verb growth*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Brian Richards  and
Peter Robinson
Brian Richards*
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Peter Robinson
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
*
Address for correspondence: Department of Arts and Humanities in Education, University of Reading, Bulmershe Court, Earley, Readine, RG6 1HY, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A recurring result from studies which relate the frequency of input variables to rate of language development, is the link between auxiliary verb growth and yes—no questions addressed to children. Explanations for this relationship usually concentrate on the advantages of hearing stressed and non-contracted auxiliary forms in sentence-initial position over hearing unstressed, contracted forms in medial position in declaratives. If such accounts are correct, then it can be predicted that yes—no questions which place forms of COPULA be in initial position will also increase the rate of growth of children's COPULA verb development. This prediction was tested using a sample of 33 children, carefully matched for stage of language development at 1;9 and 2;0 years; rate of copula verb growth was then measured over the succeeding nine months. Analyses include an examination of the contribution of sub-categories of yes—no question, tag questions, and utterances containing sentence-final copulas to the growth of contracted and full copulas. Results confirm that the frequency of inverted copulas in yes—no questions predicts children's copula development. Nevertheless, caution is urged before interpreting the relationship in terms of a direct causal model.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 343 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This article is based on research carried out as part of the project ‘Environmental predictors of auxiliary and copula verb growth in young children’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), reference number: RC00232471. We would like to thank the following: Lynette Dunn and Mair Richards for their assistance with the coding and analysis of the data; Sally Barnes for some helpful discussions on the statistical analysis; Mina Drever, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Mair Richards and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions. Selected preliminary results from this study were presented at the Child Language Seminar, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990.

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, S., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D. & Wells, G. (1983). Characteristies of adult speech which predict children's language development. Journal of Child Language 10, 65–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, L. (1988). Modal usage by preschool children. Journal of Applied Experimental Psychology 9, 253–61.Google Scholar
Bohannon, J. N. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1984). Do children say as they're told? A new perspective on motherese. In Feagans, L., Garvey, C. & Golinkoff, R. (eds), The origins and growth of communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. London: Allen & Unwin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Fraser, C. (1963). The acquisition of syntax. In Cofer, C. N. & Musgrave, B. S. (eds), Verbal behavior and learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Fletcher, P. (1985). A child's learning of English. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Furrow, D., Nelson, K. & Benedict, H. (1979). Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships. Journal of Child Language 6, 423–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gleitman, L. R., Newport, E. L. & Gleitman, H. (1984). The current status of the motherese hypothesis. Journal of Child Language 11, 43–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hegde, M. N. (1980). An experimental-clinical analysis of grammatical and behavioral distinctions between verbal auxiliary and copula. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 23, 864–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hegde, M. L., Noll, M. T. & Pecora, R. (1979). A study of some factors affecting generalization of language training. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 44, 301–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1985). Some contributions of mothers' speech to their children's syntactic growth. Journal of Child Language 12, 367–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1986). Function and structure in maternal speech: their relation to the child's development of syntax. Developmental Psychology 22, 155–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1990). Maternal speech and the child's development of syntax: a further look. Journal of Child Language 17, 85–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. & Shatz, M. (1982). Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language. Psychological Bulletin 92, 3–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughes, D. L. & Carpenter, R. L. (1989). Short-term syntax learning and generalization effects. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 5, 202–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kearns, K. P. & Salmon, S. J. (1984). An experimental analysis of auxiliary and copula verb generalization in aphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 49, 152–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyon, M. (1985). The verbal interaction of mothers and their pre-school hearing-impaired children: a preliminary investigation. Journal of the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf 5, 119–29.Google Scholar
McDonald, L. & Pien, D. (1982). Mother conversational behaviour as a function of interactional intent. Journal of Child Language 9, 337–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malan, K. (1983). Maternal speech style and language development. An investigation of yes/no question forms and verbal auxiliary growth in a mother-child pair. Unpublished M.A. project report, University of Reading.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M. (1982). Construction of grammatical categories. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
McCartney, K. (1984). Effect of quality of day care environment on children's language development. Developmental Psychology 20, 244–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K. E., Denninger, M. M., Bonvillian, J. D., Kaplan, B. J. & Baker, N. D. (1984). Maternal input adjustments and non-adjustments as related to children's linguistic advances and to language acquisition theories. In Pellegrini, A. D. & Yawkey, T. D. (eds), The development of oral and written languages: readings in developmental and applied linguistics. New York: Ablex.Google Scholar
Newport, E. L., Gleitman, H. & Gleitman, L. R. (1977). Mother I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternai speech style. In Snow, C. & Ferguson, C. (eds.), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Olsen-Fulero, L. (1982). Style and stability in mother conversational behaviour: a study of individual differences. Journal of Child Language 9, 543–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palmer, F. R. (1983). Semantic explanations for the syntax of English modals. In Heny, F. & Richards, B. (eds), Linguistic categories: auxiliaries and related puzzles. Vol. 2. The scope, order, and distribution of English auxiliary verbs. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Richards, B. J. (1986). Yes/no questions in input and their relationship with rate of auxiliary verb development in young children. In Crawley, R. A., Stevenson, R. J. & Tallerman, M. (eds), Proceedings of the Child Language Seminar. Durham: University of Durham.Google Scholar
Richards, B. J. (1987). Individual differences and the development of the auxiliary verb System in young children. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bristol.Google Scholar
Richards, B. J. (1990). Language development and individual differences: a study of auxiliary verb learning. Cambridge: C.U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, B. J. (1991). Investigating relationships between maternal input and rate of children's language development: a reanalysis of Yoder. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 34, 347–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scarborough, H. & Wyckoff, J. (1986). Mother I'd still rather do it myself: some further non-effects of ‘motherese’. Journal of Child Language 13, 431–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M., Hoff-Ginsberg, E. & Maclver, D. (1989). Induction and the acquisition of English auxiliaries: the effects of differentially enriched input. Journal of Child Language 16, 141–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language 4, 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkins, R. V. & Pemberton, E. F. (1987). Clinical applications of recasting: review and theory. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 3, 311–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weistuch, L. & Brown, B. B. (1987). Motherese as therapy: a programme and ils dissemination. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 3, 57–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, C. G. (1975). Coding manual for the description of child speech in its conversational context. University of Bristol School of Education. Revised edition.Google Scholar
Wells, C. G. (1985). Language development in the pre-school years. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Yoder, P. (1989). maternal question use predicts later language development in specific-language-disordered children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 54, 347–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yoder, P. & Kaiser, A. (1989). Alternative explanations for the relationship between maternal verbal interaction style and child language development. Journal of Child Language 16, 141–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed