Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T06:31:42.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Successive single-word utterances and use of conversational input: a pre-syntactic route to multiword utterances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2009

ELLEN HERR-ISRAEL  and
LORRAINE McCUNE
ELLEN HERR-ISRAEL*
Affiliation:
NYS Institute for Basic Research – Psychology, New York
LORRAINE McCUNE
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
*
Address for correspondence: NYS Institute for Basic Research – Psychology, 1050 Forest Hill Road, Staten Island, New York 10314, United States. e-mail: aeisrael@comcast.net
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the period between sole use of single words and majority use of multiword utterances, children draw from their existing productive capability and conversational input to facilitate the eventual outcome of majority use of multiword utterances. During this period, children use word combinations that are not yet mature multiword utterances, termed ‘successive single-word utterances’ (SSWUs). The language development of five children, observed in play with their mothers, was studied longitudinally across the transitional period (age 1 ; 3 to 2 ; 0). Results demonstrate a common developmental trajectory from single words to SSWUs, formed with the support of conversation, to more independent SSWUs, and finally to majority use of multiword utterances. The children varied in the extent to which they produced SSWUs and whether they first produced across-turn versus within-turn SSWUs. Possible reasons for variability and why SSWU production may be important to the development of multiword utterances are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 166 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Amsterdam, B. (1971). Mirror self-image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology 5(4), 297–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayley, N. (1969). Bayley Scales of Infant Development. New York: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Branigan, G. (1978). Some reasons why successive single word utterances are not. Journal of Child Language 6, 411–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, P., Reilly, J., Leaper, C. & Baker, N. (1985). The structural and functional status of single-word utterances and their relationship to early multi-word speech. In Barrett, M. (ed.), Children's single word speech. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Ltd.Google Scholar
Herr-Israel, E. (2006). Single words to combinations: Longitudinal analysis reveals constructive processes integrating lexical and pragmatic development within a conversational context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Herr-Israel, E. & McCune, L. (2008). Dynamic event words, motion events and the transition to verb meaning. In Gagarina, N. & Gulzow, I. (eds), The acquisition of verbs and their grammar: The effects of particular languages, 125–49, The Hague: Springer.Google Scholar
Leopold, W. (1949). Speech development of a bilingual child, Vol. 3. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
McCune, L. (1995). A normative study of representational play at the transition to language. Developmental Psychology 31, 198–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCune, L. (2008). How children learn to learn words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCune, L. & Vihman, M. M. (2001). Early phonetic and lexical development: A productivity approach. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44(3), 670–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ninio, A. (2006). Language and the learning curve: A new theory of syntactic development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scollon, R. (1976). Conversations with a one-year old, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smiley, P. & Huttenlocher, J. (1995). Conceptual development and the child's early words for events, objects and persons. In Tomasello, M. and Merriman, W. E. (eds), Beyond names for things: Young children's acquisition of verbs, 21–62. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics, Vol. I: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Veneziano, E. (1999). Early lexical, morphological and syntactic development in French: Some complex relations. The International Journal of Bilingualism 3, 183–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veneziano, E. (2004). The emergence of expressive options in early child language: A constructivist account. In Ravid, D. D. & Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, H. (eds), Perspectives on language and language development: Essays in honour of Ruth A. Berman, 203–218. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic Publications.Google Scholar
Vihman, M. M. & McCune, L. (1994). When is a word a word? Journal of Child Language 21, 517–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werner, H. & Kaplan, B. (1963/1984). Symbol formation. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar