viewed as an inductive process only in limited respects

it is full of mental strategies

for analyzying and acquiring language

• master an entire system such as morphological, phonological, syntactice, smeantic and pragmatic patterns and grammar

• some of it is not learned but inherent
• it is the nature vs nurture case- what is prewired in the brain at birth and what is programmed by adult language
• some thing that children are preprogrammed  for language
• language is not imitation
• example: He eated my candy. Oh Hurt meself
• errors are made by placing =ed

• pay attention ot order of wrds in utterances
• pay attention to the order of morphemes in words
• pay particular attention to word endings(inflections)
• Focus on consistent relationships between expression and content
• Look for generalizations

two aspects are important to acquire language for a child:

• the ability to symbolize
• the ability to use tools

• language is arbitrary
• children must hold symbolic realizastion of something
• prerequisite of the language

• language tool made up of symbols and other characterizations that get work done
• use of language is a tool
• language is an effective tool for a child-like helps get food and tell if they are hurt
• symbolic tool

• any child can get a human language
• no biological basis
• German is difficult
• by age 6, most children know enough language for their lifetime
• come to school and know 80 percent of structure and syuntax

Adult Input in language acquisition

• acquisition needs people who speak the language
• cultural words are deliberately taught like to say thank you

• parents speek motherese a lot
• baby talk
• Oooh, what a biig smiile!
• uttered slowly and exagerated
• in English speaking parents
• use higher pitch
• more content words
• hold child's attnetion
• few modifiers, function words, subordinate clauses,

• Child-baby highchair,  adult- baby in in the high chair
• children use baby talk for a bit
• serves some functions: simple language

• starts at about six months
• single identical syllables-dada, mama,
• eventually becomes babbab, ab-ab

•  starting about one year old
• mama, dad, up
• familiar people, toys, pets, food and rink and social interaction
• children are not rehearsing
• same word but differnt intonations
• example"Dada means: here come Daddy! This is for Daddy! That is where Daddy sits. The shoe is Daddy's.

• example: Daddy come, Shoe mine
• happens at 20 months
• across different cultures, many children do it
• shows expression and context
• more content than the one word

• three or four words are not recognized
• progress by the amount of morphemes
• utterances like Mimo hurt me.
• have not figured out syntactic and some adult grammar things

• morphemes and grammatical structures of language in set order with variations
• they get forms at the same time but different order

• present progressive verb
• prepositions in and on
• regular noun plural
• irregular past tense
• possessive noun
• contracticble copula
• articles regular past tense
• regular third person singular present tense verbs
• uncontractible auxiliary
• contractible copula contractible auxiliary

• frequency heard from adult will have the children listen
• relative complexity
• morphemes are syntactically easier

• children overgeneralize past tense verbs-eated, ate doed
• noun plurals-mans, foots , tooths, childs

• 29 month old boy
• before 5, he can do negative sentences
• relative clauses were a problem
• attach to object noun phrases

• children say no first
• end question word to end of statement
• three years of age it happens

How fast do children acquire vocabulary?

• two word at 20 months-50 words
• age five-child's vocabulary- 15 to 20 words a day
• seix-7800 wprds
• 8-17600 basic words

• poo for spoon
• pronunciations
• 2 months, infants react differently to speech sounds
• and recoginize voices
• age 1 has recognizable words
• list of sounds shrings and the inventory gradually grows biggers
• 12-18 months children get about 50 words
• 24 months- m, n, b,d, g, p,t,k,f,s,h,w
• 3 years-j and nj
• four years- m n fricatives,
• later more complex syllable structures and consonant cluster also lies ahead.