First multi-word utterances
Anne Dunlea · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 1989
This chapter explores the content of the children's utterances once they have acquired 100 terms and in particular analyzes the first ways in which early words are combined. The chapter begins at the most rudimentary level of combinatorial language, where sequences of single-word utterances can be viewed as larger structures by virtue of the fact that they refer to different elements of the same event. The discussion proceeds to the examination of bona fide multi-term utterances, where the expression of various semantic roles suggests the emergence of basic propositional structures. Along the way, some of the special characteristics of blind children's language are considered, in particular their use of “stereotypic speech.” Sequential use of single words Previous research Many investigators have observed that children produce sequences of single-word utterances that are related to an event before they begin to construct two-word utterances (Atkinson, 1979; Bloom, 1973; Greenfield and Smith, 1976; Gruber, 1967; Leopold, 1949; Ochs, Schieffelin and Platt, 1979; Scollon, 1976, 1979). Most of these analyses view such sequences as early attempts to build propositions, in the minimal sense of expressing some argument and predicate or of establishing a reference and commenting on it. Bloom (1973) observes that sequential single-word utterances emerge during the second half of the second year. Some of these are simply sequences of “naming behavior” whereas others are instances of single words said in succession which are somehow related.