Grammatical Constructions

Acquisition of Grammatical Constructions

Inflectional morphemes and other grammatical features (and grammatical words) are acquired in a specific order. Brown’s research proposes that they are learned in this order:

Illustrative background for 1-6 ?? "content

1-6

Present progressive (-ing) – I am walking.
Prepositions – by, on, at...
Simple plural (-s, -es) – he walks.
Possessive (- ‘s) – Trudi’s boat.
Uncontracted copula – Stuart is acting.
Articles – the box, a dog.

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7-12

Regular past tense (-ed) – I walked.
Third person regular verbs (-s) – Dave types.
Third person irregular verbs – Suz teaches.
Auxiliary verb ‘be’ – I am, he was, you are.
Contracted copula – Stuart’s acting.
Contracted auxiliary verb ‘be’ – I’m, you’re.

Katamba

Katamba argues that this order is the same regardless of parental input.

1Children's Language Development

1.1Stages of Development

1.1.1A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

1.1.2Consonant Acquisition

1.1.3Beginning Stages of Language

1.1.4Lexical Development

1.1.5Stages of Development

1.1.6Grammatical Constructions

1.2Theories of Language Development

1.2.1Behaviourism

1.2.2Interactionism

1.2.3Interactionism 2

1.2.4Nativism

1.2.5Chomsky

1.2.6Cognitivism

1.2.7Social Constructionism

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