Later speech stages: Rule formation for negatives and other complex structures

This use of single words as skeletal sentences is referred to as the holophrastic stage. Holophrastic speech is the bridge which transports the child from the primitive land of cries, words, and names across into the brave new world of phrases, clauses, and sentences.

The children progress through different stages of grammatical development is measured largely by the average number of words occurring per utterance. All children begin to create sentences after the holophrastic stage, first with two words, and then with more.

certain words (pivots) tend to be used initially or finally, and other words then can be used to fill in the slot either after or before these so-called pivots.

The order of the words in these two-word utterances follows the normal word order of the expanded version used by adults in longer sentences. This indicates that children are already sensitive to the word order of their mother tongue.

Kim not want + PAST some candy. Negation formation Features of negation The child must learn many things to produce these negations: Where to insert the negative marker. If the verb is ‘be’, then NEG is placed after the Copula ‘be’ form. Thus, ‘Kim is NEG happy’ becomes ‘Kim is not happy’. If the verb is not ‘be’, then ‘not’ is placed before the verb. Thus, Kim not want + PAST some candy.

2. When and where to insert auxiliary ‘do’ 2. When and where to insert auxiliary ‘do’. Insert ‘do’ when the verb is one other than ‘be’. Thus, we get Kim do not want + PAST some candy. ‘Do’ is not inserted if there is a modal (will, can) or auxiliary (be, have) present, as in ‘Kim will not want to go’.

3. When auxiliary ‘do’ is used, then the tense from the verb is shifted to the auxiliary ‘do’. Thus, from ‘Kim do not want + PAST . . .’, we get Kim do + PAST not want some candy.

Kim did not want any candy. 4. In English, Lexical Concordances must be made in the case of the negative, e.g. ‘some’ must change to ‘any’ so as to yield the grammatical Kim did not want any candy.

5. Optionally, AUX + NEG (‘did’ + ‘not’) can be contracted to ‘didn’t’ 5. Optionally, AUX + NEG (‘did’ + ‘not’) can be contracted to ‘didn’t’. This would provide us with Kim didn’t want any candy. Negation is one of the earliest sentence structure rules acquired by children.

Klima and Bellugi (1966) say that negation take place in three periods: ‘No money’; ‘Not a teddy bear’; ‘No play that’; ‘No fall’; ‘No the sun shining’; ‘No singing song’ A negation marker (NEG), in the form of ‘no’ or ‘not’, is placed at the front of an affirmative utterance (U).

Period 2 ‘I don’t want it’; ‘I don’t know his name’; ‘We can’t talk’; ‘You can’t dance’; ‘Book say no’; ‘Touch the snow no’; ‘That no Mommy’; ‘There no squirrels’; ‘He no bite you’; ‘I no want envelope’

The negative marker tends to appear internally within the utterance rather than outside it as in the previous period, and the auxiliaries ‘do’ and ‘can’ appear with the negation marker.

Period 3 ‘Paul can’t have one’; ‘This can’t stick’; ‘I didn’t did it’; ‘You didn’t caught me’; ‘Cause he won’t talk’; ‘Donna won’t let go’; ‘I am not a doctor’; ‘This not ice cream’; ‘Paul not tired’;

In this third period, the Copula ‘be’ (‘am not’) and the modal ‘will’ (‘won’t’) appear with negation. Imperative negatives are formed with ‘do’ rather than the simple negative (‘Don’t touch the fish’ as opposed to ‘Touch the snow no’ in earlier periods).

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