A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERB INFLECTIONS IN CHILD LANGUAGE.
Item
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Title
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A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERB INFLECTIONS IN CHILD LANGUAGE.
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Identifier
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AAI8515625
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identifier
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8515625
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Creator
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FEINTUCH, FRANCES KASTEN.
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Contributor
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Margaret Lahey
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Health Sciences, Speech Pathology
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Abstract
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This cross-sectional investigation explored the relationship between the development of the verb inflections (present progressive, regular and irregular past tense and third person singular) and the semantic organization of the verbs used in children's early sentences. Specifically, the relationship between the verb inflections and (a) the semantic-syntactic relations of the sentence and (b) the semantics of verb aspect were examined.;Spontaneous language samples and elicited responses to a production task were collected from eighteen children. All subjects were first born monolingual English speaking children with normal language development. The MLU range investigated (1.5-4.5) coincided with Brown's (1973) stages (Late Stage I to Late Stage V). The spontaneous language data were analyzed in terms of the semantic-syntactic relations in the children's utterances and in terms of the inherent aspectual meanings of the verbs themselves (after Bloom, Lifter, and Hafitz, 1980).;The major results of this study confirmed Bloom, Lifter and Hafitz's (1980) findings in that (a) at emergence, the verb inflections were used simultaneously but selectively with different populations of verbs, and (b) the verb inflections were influenced by the semantic organization of verbs, that is, their semantic-syntactic structure and aspect. The selectivity of the individual inflections with specific populations of verbs was not as obvious in the more advanced linguistic levels (III-V).;The most apparent proportional increase in verb inflectional use occurred between Stage III and Stage IV. Results generally supported the linguistic principle of Aspect before Tense more so in the spontaneous language context than in the task context. Data suggested that both lexical and rule learning may be involved in the development of verb inflections. In addition, the value of the complementary use of spontaneous language data and elicited production data in the study of verb inflections was demonstrated. Clinical implications as well as implications for future research were proposed.;In conclusion, this investigation has shown that the syntactic structure of the sentence, the semantics of verb aspect and the pragmatic context all affect the use of verb inflections and all are important dimensions in a study of their development.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Speech & Hearing
