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Grammatical Constructions

CPD for Primary: Children's Language Development (by Tom Hollins), topic 1.1.6

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:

1-6

1-6

  1. Present progressive (-ing) – I am walking.
  2. Prepositions – by, on, at...
  3. Simple plural (-s, -es) – he walks.
  4. Possessive (- ‘s) – Trudi’s boat.
  5. Uncontracted copula – Stuart is acting.
  6. Articles – the box, a dog.
7-12

7-12

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

Katamba

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

Test yourself on Grammatical Constructions

  • Order of Acquisition of Grammatical Constructions: Brown (1-6)

  • Order of Acquisition of Grammatical Constructions: Brown (7-12)

  • Which researcher proposed the order that grammatical constructions are learned in?

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