@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts, Faculty of"@en, "Linguistics, Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Nokony, Alicia Alexander"@en ; dcterms:issued "2010-02-26T01:14:19Z"@en, "1977"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description "This is a report on research into the language development of one child who is acquiring Dakota-Sioux as a first language. Features of his language system show him to be at a period in development corresponding to Brown's (1973) Stage I, Halliday's (1975) Phase II, and Piaget's (1962) sensorimotor substage VI; in other words he is just beginning to produce multi-morphemic utterances, take part in dialogues and actively use symbolic representations in play and verbal interactions. The report focusses on the development of meaning and is based on the assumption that a child's ability to express meanings involves not only semantic knowledge (that is, the ability to describe relations and to refer using formal linguistic devices), but also pragmatic or functional skills (that is, knowledge about how language can be used to perform communication functions, such as regulating the behaviour of others, expressing personal opinions and feelings, etc.). Overriding both these areas, however, is the understanding that language is one part of a larger symbolizing capacity in humans and that language development, therefore, is above all related to this aspect of cognitive development. The analysis of the data collected from this child is structured around his propositional meanings, his functional meanings, some semantic considerations of his lexicon, and phenomena, which I have labelled gestural representations, which appear to offer strong support for the notion of semiological genesis as described by Piaget."@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/21013?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note "MEANING DEVELOPMENT IN ONE CHILD ACQUIRING DAKOTA-SIOUX AS A FIRST LANGUAGE by ALICIA ALEXANDRA NOKONY B.A. (Adv.), University of Saskatchewan, 1972 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS i n THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of L i n g u i s t i c s We accept t h i s thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October, 1977 ( c ) A l i c i a Alexandra Nokony, 1977 In p r e s e n t i n g t h i s t h e s i s in p a r t i a l f u l f i l m e n t o f the r e q u i r e m e n t s f o r an advanced degree at the U n i v e r s i t y o f B r i t i s h Co lumb i a , I a g ree that the L i b r a r y s h a l l make i t f r e e l y a v a i l a b l e f o r r e f e r e n c e and s tudy . I f u r t h e r agree t h a t p e r m i s s i o n f o r e x t e n s i v e c o p y i n g o f t h i s t h e s i s f o r s c h o l a r l y purposes may be g r a n t e d by the Head o f my Department o r by h i s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s . It i s u n d e r s t o o d that c o p y i n g o r p u b l i c a t i o n o f t h i s t h e s i s f o r f i n a n c i a l g a i n s h a l l not be a l l o w e d w i thout my w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . Department o f L i n g u i s t i c s The U n i v e r s i t y o f B r i t i s h Co lumbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 ABSTRACT This is a report on research into the language development of one child who is acquiring Dakota-Sioux as a f i r s t language. Features of his language system show him to be at a period in development correspond-ing to Brown's (1973) Stage I, Halliday's (1975) Phase II, and Piaget's (1962) sensorimotor substage VI; in other words he is just beginning to produce multi-morphemic utterances, take part in dialogues and actively use symbolic representations in play and verbal interactions. The report focusses on the development of meaning and is based on the assump-tion that a child's a b i l i t y to express meanings involves not only semantic knowledge (that i s , the ab i l i t y to describe relations and to refer using formal linguistic devices), but also pragmatic or functional s k i l l s (that i s , knowledge about how language can be used to perform communica-tion functions, such as regulating the behaviour of others, expressing personal opinions and feelings, etc.). Overriding both these areas, however, is the understanding that language is one part of a larger symbolizing capacity in humans and that language development, therefore, is above'all related to this aspect of cognitive development. The analysis of the data collected from this child i s structured around his propositional meanings, his functional meanings, some semantic considera-tions of his lexicon, and phenomena, which I have labelled gestural representations, which appear to offer strong support for the notion of semiological genesis as described by Piaget. i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter ONE THE INTRODUCTION 1 Purpose 1 Statement of the problem 1 Assumptions 2 Background 4 De f i n i t i o n s 10 Limitations of the study 11 TWO THE STUDY 12 Study s e t t i n g and informants 12 Data c o l l e c t i o n ,, t r a n s c r i p t i o n and t r a n s l a t i o n . . . 14 Overview of Dakota-Sioux 15 The sound system 16 Morphology 17 Syntax 19 Description of the data 20 Tra n s c r i p t i o n conventions 22 THREE PR0P0SITI0NAL MEANING 26 Introduction 26 'Lean' i n t e r p r e t a t i o n 26 'Rich' i n t e r p r e t a t i o n 29 Brown's study 30 Mean length of utterance 32 The 'pivot' look 35 A. /ka/ . v 37 B. \"hey\" 40 C. /ye/ or /ya/ 40 D. /eya/ 41 Word order i n the two-morpheme utterances 42 The semantic r e l a t i o n s . . . 43 Howe's a l t e r n a t i v e to ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' 49 Summary 51 FOUR FUNCTIONAL MEANING 54 Introduction 54 Language use 54 Halliday's phases 57 Functional components of the adult language 58 Functions of Phases I and II 59 Location of Gabriel i n Halliday's model 61 Phase I functions i n Gabriel's speech 61 E f f e c t of interviewing on Gabriel's speech 63 i v DIALOGUE 64 Assigning and accepting r o l e s 64 Speech routines 66 About dialogue 67 I n i t i a t i o n s 69 A. A d u l t - i n i t i a t e d exchanges 69 B. C h i l d - i n i t i a t e d exchanges 70 Dialogue p a r t i c i p a t i o n 73 Adult modelling 77 Other discourse a b i l i t i e s 78 Summary 81 FIVE LEXICAL MEANING IN SEMANTIC AND SEMIOLOGICAL TERMS . . . 83 Introduction 83 SOME SEMANTIC CONSIDERATIONS OF GABRIEL'S LEXICON . . . 84 E s t a b l i s h i n g the lexicon 84 L e x i c a l categories 87 Expressive and r e f e r e n t i a l language s t y l e s 89 Cognition and semantic range 90 Development of word meanings: categorization . . . . 91 A. / c i c x / 92 B. /baya/ 93 C. /bapi/, /koka/, /kukuSi/, / 2A2AHI/ , /raumu/ . . . 94 D. \"Andy\", /net/, /mama/ 95 E. / l a l a / , /wewe/ 96 SYMBOL TO SIGN 97 Index, symbol and l i n g u i s t i c sign 97 Evidence for representation 100 A. Adultomorphisms 100 B. Deferred imitations 101 C. Immediate i m i t a t i o n of new models 102 D. Ludic imitations 103 Representations i n dialogue 105 A. E l i c i t e d i m i t a t i v e responses 105 B. Gestural imitations i n spontaneous speech . . . 107 C. Two more c o g n i t i v e l y complex uses of gestural morphemes I l l D. Onomatopoeic imitations 113 CONCLUDING REMARKS 116 V SIX CONCLUDING REMARKS 118 Semiology, pragmatics and semantics 118 Semiological development 119 Pragmatic or fun c t i o n a l development 121 Semantic development 122 F i n a l comment 125 BIBLIOGRAPHY 126 APPENDIX I 131 APPENDIX II 145 v i LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Phonemes of Dakota-Sioux (Santee d i a l e c t ) 16 2.2 Age, MLU, upper bound (UB), number of utterances, time i n hours, l o c a t i o n , and p a r t i c i p a n t s i n 16 sessions with Gabriel . 21 2.3 Examples of Gabriel's phonological system 23 2.4 T r a n s c r i p t i o n conventions 25 3.1 Brown's operations of reference and prevalent semantic r e l a t i o n s f or Stage I 31 3.2 Brown's studies ordered developmentally according to M.L.U., including Gabriel 33 3.3 Proportions of two-morpheme types represented by four presumptive pivots i n Gabriel's corpus 33 3.4 Percentages of a l l utterance tokens represented by utterances with 'ka' 34 3.5 Percentages appropriate word order i n two-morpheme utterances i n the representative sessions 34 3.6 Sessional r e s u l t s from Gabriel for semantic r e l a t i o n s expressed i n multi-morphemic utterances 45 3.7 Percentages prevalent r e l a t i o n s f or Gabriel compared with r e s u l t s from Brown's study 46 3.8 Howe's categories applied to Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances 52 5.1 Gabriel's lexicon 85 v i i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to the following people for their assistance and support during the preparation of this report: Dr. David Ingram, my thesis adviser, for giving me excellent instruction in the area of child language, and for his guidance, encourage-ment and patience during research preparation, data collection, analysis and writing of the manuscript, Dr. Dale Kinkade, thesis committee member, for his c r i t i c a l reading of the manuscript and his advice regarding analysis of the adult speech data, Dr. Mary C. Marino, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Saskatchewan, for her time in helping me set up the research situation, and for invaluable advice concerning f i e l d work, particularly with reference to the transcription and translation problems of Dakota, Ms. Wilma Wasicuna, my research assistant^, for her understanding of the research situation, and for her care and patience during collection of the data, Gabriel Sutherland, Esther B e l l , Raymond Brown, study subjects, and their families, for their participation,.cooperation and generosity during the time I spent with them in the f i e l d , Mr. Frank Eastman, Chief, Oak Lake Band, Pipestone, Manitoba, for his permission for the study to take place, the Administrators, Oo-za-we-kwun Centre, Wheatlands, Manitoba, for letting me use their f a c i l i t i e s during part of the data taping, Ms. Anni Davison, Dr. Bernard Mohan and Mr. Simon Richards, for their thoughtful criticism and advice. I am further grateful to the Canada Council for funding of the research phase of this study, from July to December, 1974, and to the B.C. Government Careers '75 Program for financial support during part the time I spent on analysis of the data. CHAPTER ONE THE INTRODUCTION Purpose The purpose of t h i s report i s to characterize the meaning develop-ment of one c h i l d , G a b r i e l , who i s i n the early stages of acquiring Dakota-Sioux (Santee) as h i s f i r s t language. His development i s exam-ined from three d i f f e r e n t t h e o r e t i c a l approaches. The f i r s t approach i s aimed at describing the emergence of syntax as p r o p o s i t i o n a l s t r u c -tures expressing semantic r e l a t i o n s . The second focuses on f u n c t i o n a l -pragmatic development, language use rather than language content. The t h i r d approach i s concerned with semiological development—the gradual genesis of l i n g u i s t i c signs, a cognitive achievement which i s related to the c h i l d ' s general symbolizing capacity. Statement of the problem Most studies i n the f i e l d of developmental p s y c h o l i n g u i s t i c s have been conducted with c h i l d r e n acquiring English or other Indo-European languages. The c o l l e c t i o n of data from a subject acquiring an American Indian language, Dakota-Sioux (Santee), posed the t y p i c a l d i f f i c u l t i e s involved i n researching exotic languages. During the time spent i n the f i e l d I required the assistance.of a b i l i n g u a l mother-substitute, who interacted with the subject and helped i n the t r a n s c r i p t i o n and t r a n s l a t i o n of the tapes. Every e f f o r t was made to keep the taping 1 2 sessions consistent and as similar to the child's daily routine as could be managed. To f a c i l i t a t e comparison of the study with other cross-linguistic studies, I followed suggestions made by Slobin et a l (1967) in A Field Manual for cross-cultural study of the acquisition of commun- icative competence with respect to the collection procedures and the most common measures to be made on the data. This research was undertaken at a time when many new studies were appearing dealing with semantic acquisition and demonstrating the limits of more standard forms of analysis (i.e., s t r i c t l y syntactic analysis). In an effort to account for various significant features of Gabriel's speech, such as the 'gestural morphemes', which f a l l outside the range of more traditional analyses, I took a broader analytical approach, organizing the data according to the following three models: 1. Roger Brown's (1973) examination of sentence-meaning in terms of a posited set of prevalent semantic relations, 2. M. A. K. Halliday's (1975) functional model of language acquisition, and 3. Jean Piaget's (1962) description of the emergence of the symbolizing capacity in the child. Assumptions This study has been based on a number of assumptions which largely deal with the nature of language and the change in orientation of recent child language studies. 1. Language consists of utterances which perform communicative functions (such as requesting, denying, etc.) and f a c i l i t a t e thought, express underlying semantic relations (perhaps a universal set of these), and which use a set of formal linguistic devices (syntactic, lexical and 3 phonological) (Slobin, 1973, 179). The acquisition of language, therefore, involves the development of s k i l l s at a l l these levels, not just that of formal linguistic devices. 2. Language is a symbolic system; that i s , the relationship between the formal expressive devices (phonemes, words and word orders) and the semantic notions underlying them is arbitrary, unmotivated and non-direct. At the same time i t is conventional, in that a l l speakers of a language collectively \"agree\" to make the same signifier-signified connections. This aspect of language is not immediately apparent to the child, as can be seen from the onomat-opoeic and idiosyncratic words which typically appear in the early lexicon. 3. If we are to study language acquisition properly, then we can-not ignore semantics, for i t is essential to know what the child means by what he says, and to know how he understands what he hears. One of the most basic steps the child has to take in acquiring his f i r s t language is to attach meaning to words, and therefore semantics is central to the study of language development. Furthermore, the acquisition of semantic knowledge needs to be better studied in relation to the development of the child's perceptual and cognitive a b i l -i t i e s . Language, after a l l , is what provides the child with a means of encoding and communicating his percepts and thoughts about the world around him (Clark, 1973, 110). 4. Child language models are, among other things, models of performance. The stricter syntax-based studies which predominated during the sixties often included attempts at writing grammars of the data. van der Geest says that this practice f a i l s because . . . i t neglects the fact that in linguistics grammars are written to make linguistic intuitions explicit, rather than to describe the products of linguistic a b i l i t i e s . . . [and there-fore] . . . a mismatch arises between the purpose of grammars in linguistics in i t s narrow sense and the use of child gram-mars in the f i e l d of developmental psycholinguistics, which latter are designed to account for the child's productions (1975, 1). A number of features in the child's communicative system should but cannot be dealt with adequately in a syntax-based model (van der Geest, 1975, 1). In fact, Bates suggests that syntax emerges \"developmentally and logically\" from semantics, just as semantics emerges from pragmatics, making the mastery of the broader commun-icative system an integral part of the acquisition of language structure (Bates, 1976, 420). 5. While cognitive and pragmatic development appear to occur somewhat independently of linguistic development, encompassing and influenc-ing the latter, the child i s f u l l y developed neither intellectually nor in terms of pragmatic s k i l l s when i t f i r s t starts to speak. The child's meaning potential i s different from that of an adult and so adult-referenced analyses may not be very revealing of acquisi-tion processes. Background There has been a major shift in case studies of child language acquisition away from the analysis in isolation of s t r i c t l y linguistic (i.e., phonological, lexical and syntactic) data. A consensus exists among many investigators that early syntactic development i s inextric-ably tied to cognitive and pragmatic development, and that analysis of one area requires the inclusion of the others. Since language i s both pragmatic and expresses meanings, the growth of linguistic knowledge entails the acquisition of a meaning system derived from the child's interaction with his environment. Bowerman (1976) points out that the shift partly reflects a reac-tion to the nativist model of language, which she describes as follows: 5 According to the nativist view, man's capacity for language is a specialized component of his biological makeup and does not arise directly from more general cognitive a b i l i t i e s . The child is seen as coming to the language learning task equipped with much inborn knowledge of language structure; he requires only a cer-tain amount of linguistic input to activate this knowledge [Chomsky, 1965, 1968; Katz, 1966; McNeill, 1966, 1970, 1971] (Bowerman, 1976, 100). The focus of nativist studies has been on the writing of grammars of the child's linguistic output at various points during development, the researcher being constrained by the model to the analysis of syntactic and phonological processes. The definition of language for the purposes of these acquisition studies excludes pre-syntactic, non-adult word data, thus removing a considerable portion of the child's early vocalizations from analysis; i t also avoids any speculations as to semantic interpre-tations or communicative functions. While acknowledging the obvious importance of the child's i n t e l -lectual development and socialization experiences, the nativist view holds them to be merely 'f a c i l i t a t i n g conditions' for the pre-programmed emergence of the individual's specific linguistic competence (see Chomsky, 1975). Maclay (1971) points out that the nativists are thus taking as given the as yet problematic point that linguistic knowledge and acquisition are different from general cognitive knowledge and processes. He says, \"The importance of the independence of linguistic knowledge (for Chomskians) has rested on the presumed impossibility of handling the total knowledge of speakers in any coherent way (Maclay, 1971, 180).\" Chomsky may have taken this position for practical reasons; he says that i t is presently impossible to form a complete theory of human knowledge and that we should restrict ourselves accord-ingly. Indeed, his influence on the course of linguistic research has 6 been so profound that only in recent years have developmental psycho-linguists started to seriously challenge this acquisition paradigm. This has led to, among other things, the acceptance of previously inad-missible data (such as the non-adult words and gestural morphemes included in the present study) and the exploration of the relationship between language and cognition. The f i r s t important effort by linguists to include semantic know-ledge at the deep structure level of a transformational-generative model was made by Katz and Fodor (1963). Generative semanticists such as Chafe (1969), Lakoff (1970), and McCawley (1968) further blurred the distinction between semantic and syntactic knowledge. Maclay notes, however, The fact that any bit of human knowledge may be involved in the judgments of speakers about the interpretation of sentences is not, in i t s e l f , conclusive evidence that such knowledge must be part of a linguistic description (Maclay, 1971, 180). While Maclay's point may be well-taken with regard to adult language, i t has been convincingly argued (see, for example, Sinclair-de-Zwart, 1971; Halliday, 1975; Greenfield and Smith, 1976; Ingram, 1976; Bates, 1976) that the acquisition of a f i r s t language is a special case and that models which are based on integrating cognitive and linguistic developments have offered valuable insights into the acquisition process and are helping to explain many phenomena which occur in child speech. Bloom (1970), in one of the f i r s t published reactions to the 'lean' characterizations of child speech which resulted from the nativ-i s t approach and dominated thelliterature of the sixties, suggested that obligatory elements that were typically missing from the child's earliest multi-morpheme utterances could be retrieved by attending to 7 the context in which an utterance was made. She posited underlying syntactic structures for these incomplete utterances on the basis of semantic interpretation, with a Deletion rule to account for what didn't appear in the surface utterance. This method of analysis, the attributing of deep syntactic knowledge to children before i t is apparent from surface structure in their speech, is called the 'rich interpretation' approach. Brown (1973) reached a similar conclusion to Schlesinger (1971) in describing the onset of syntax as a period during which the child is acquiring a set of basic semantic relations which in turn reflect his sensorimotor intelligence. Underlying the 'rich interpretation' approach is the assumption that the adult interpretation of context is adequate for assessing the child's meaning intentions and thereby establishing the underlying struc-ture of the as yet deformed utterances. Howe (1976) offered two c r i t -icisms of this assumption. First, since most situations present many possible aspects to be commented upon, any one of a number of adult expansions of a two-term child utterance with obligatory elements missing could be acceptable. Second, evidence from studies in cog-nitive development, principally those of Piaget, indicate quite strongly that the child's view of the world is very different from that of the adult. This makes adult interpretation of child speech a more interest-ing comment on the role of adult interpretation in the acquisition of language than on the meaning intentions of the child. The recognition by 'rich interpretatiohists' :of Piaget's work has led to, among other things, a refining of the semantic knowledge once attributed to the child. Sinclair-de-Zwart (1974) pointed out, for example, that one could not posit a 'Negative of non-existence' i f the child making the 8 utterance had not yet attained the concept of object permanence (4). These semantic-based studies focus on the r e f e r e n t i a l aspects of language, what Bates (1976) c a l l s \"meaning as e n t i t y or object.\" A more recent development i n the f i e l d i s the examination of the pragmatic aspect of language, \"meaning as act.\" The p o s i t i o n that not a l l mean-ings can be reduced to reference i s part of the basis of several recent studies. H a l l i d a y (1975) points out that giving information (the most c l e a r l y r e f e r e n t i a l use of language) i s r e a l l y only one among other language functions, although i t i s the one which dominates our thinking about language. He says that t h i s function appears r e l a t i v e l y l a t e i n language development, a f t e r e a r l i e r \"developmentally s i g n i f i c a n t \" prag-matic functions, such as the Regulatory ( c o n t r o l l i n g the behaviour of others) and the Instrumental (getting things). It i s n ' t u n t i l the c h i l d i s using the Informative function that the meanings of his u t t e r -ances derive p r i n c i p a l l y from the r e f e r e n t i a l content of the messages; i n e a r l i e r utterances, meanings are \"derived from what i t i s the c h i l d i s making the system do for him\" (Halliday, 1975, 63). Bates says, According to the \"act\" i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , at le a s t part of the c h i l d ' s meaning may be sensorimotor, described \" i n s i d e \" the c h i l d as a set of a c t i o n schemata rather than a set of deep structures i n the t r a d i t i o n a l sense. Hence, most of the semantics of early c h i l d speech i s i n fact pragmatic; to understand i t we must have knowl-edge of the context within which a sentence i s used. Combinator-i a l meanings, or propositions, are not e n t i t i e s that the c h i l d has but performances, i n v o l v i n g procedures for using words i n context (Bates, 1976, 424). E s s e n t i a l l y r e i t e r a t i n g Halliday's p o s i t i o n , she adds that . . . an examination of the f i r s t uses of reference by ch i l d r e n leads to the conclusion that reference i t s e l f grows out of proce-dures for getting things done. There i s a game, or a c t i v i t y of \" r e f e r r i n g \" , which emerges gradually as a d i s t i n c t kind of opera-t i o n among a set of pragmatic procedures f o r doing things to the world (424). Hal l i d a y begins h i s study with the e a r l i e s t f u n c t i o n a l l y and s t r u c t u r a l l y 9 consistent v o c a l i z a t i o n s and gestures of one c h i l d , long before syntax and adult-shaped words. Such an approach considerably extends the data base t y p i c a l of c h i l d language studies. Accompanying the s h i f t i n d i r e c t i o n of c h i l d language studies there has been renewed i n t e r e s t i n the works of Piaget. Some research-ers have been i n v e s t i g a t i n g very l i t e r a l connections between cognitive achievements described by Piaget and s p e c i f i c l i n g u i s t i c a b i l i t i e s . For example, Greenfield, Nel son and Saltzman (1972) studied the c h i l d ' s manipulation of seriated cups i n an attempt to f i n d p a r a l l e l s with gram-mar. These studies remain rather speculative. Piaget himself deals with language as one part of a larger symbolizing capacity which emerges gradually out of the sensorimotor period. The capacity to symbolize i s necessary for conceptual or representational thought. Semiology i s d i f f e r e n t from semantics i n that i t focuses on the r e l a t i o n s h i p between a s i g n i f i e r (a word, gesture, drawing, etc.) and i t s s i g n i f i e d (what the s i g n i f i e r represents or 'means'); the content of the s i g n i f i e d i s not of concern. The possible s i g n i f i e r - s i g n i f i e d r e l a t i o n s h i p s are many, but language requires true s i g n s — r e l a t i o n s h i p s which are a r b i t r a r y and unmotivated, j u s t as the word 'black' i s to the pigment i t r e f e r s to. The issue of semiological genesis has been r e l a t i v e l y unexplored; most wordstudies are semantic, i n v e s t i g a t i n g the c h i l d ' s categorizing strategies i n order to uncover reference patterns (see Clark, 1973; Nelson, 1973; Bowerman, 1976). Morehead and Morehead (1974), however, extracted from Piaget the observations which demonstrate a development from the most p r i m i t i v e sign, the s i g n a l , to l i n g u i s t i c signs during the f i r s t two years of l i f e . The present study documents a case which appears to support the notion of semiological genesis as Piaget describes 10 i t . It is the aim of this study to characterize how one child i s learn-ing to mean by examining his semantic, pragmatic and semiological devel-opment. The discussion is based on the assumption, now gaining much support, that linguistic competence implies more than syntactic knowl-edge and that careful observation and improved experimental procedures w i l l yield data to support the construction of an expanded model. Definitions Meaning—what i s signified, represented or intended by an expres-sion in context. Semantic—having to do with the expression of meanings by formal linguistic devices. Pragmatic—having to do with the use of language in context. Semiology—having to do with the relationship between a signifier (form) and i t s signified (content). Symbol—a semiological term referring to a content-expression pair where the expression in some way resembles the content. Gestural morpheme—a gestural imitation of some referent which, because of i t s occurrence in the context of discourse, has symbolic status, functionally distinct from simple imitations. Utterance—for the purposes of this study, either a vocalization or a gestural imitation or a combination of both made by the child, bounded (in the case of vocalizations) by a perceptible pause and f a l l -ing under an intonation contour. Dakota—if not specified, Dakota w i l l refer to the Santee dialect. 11 Limitations of the study There are various reasons why the descriptions made and the con-clusions drawn in this study must be qualified to some extent. While the study spans five months, data were collected only during the f i r s t three weeks and on the last day of this period, ruling out the observa-tion of gradual developments throughout this time. Although every effort was made to achieve accuracy in transcription and translation, there remain unintelligible utterances in the data. The collection of the data was meant to be observational but interaction with the child often took the form of an interview. Since only one main subject is reported on, i t is possible that the interesting features of his speech system are idiosyncratic and thus of limited interest in terms of language acquisition in general. CHAPTER TWO THE STUDY Study s e t t i n g and informants The data which are discussed i n t h i s report were c o l l e c t e d as part of an i n v e s t i g a t i o n involving three c h i l d r e n who were acquiring Dakota-Sioux (Santee) as a f i r s t language. The speech from these c h i l d r e n was tape-recorded during 16 playsessions, 15 i n a three-week period when Gabr i e l , the p r i n c i p a l subject, was 2;4(0) to 2;4(22), and one further session f i v e months l a t e r when he was 2;9(0). Gabriel was a healthy, good-natured, reasonably t a l k a t i v e c h i l d who appeared to be developing normally both mentally and p h y s i c a l l y during the time of the study. The other two c h i l d r e n , Esther and Raymond, were both four years o ld. Esther, Gabriel's cousin, was present at a l l taping sessions, and Gabriel's i n t e r a c t i o n s with her form an important part of h i s speech sample. Raymond, one of the younger c h i l d r e n of a neighbouring family, took part i n only three taping sessions and spoke very l i t t l e during t h i s time. Only the data from Gabriel are discussed here. Gabriel and h i s family were l i v i n g i n an Indian community made up of several d i f f e r e n t t r i b e s . This community i s a j o b - t r a i n i n g centre located on a former a i r force base i n Manitoba. Each family had i t s own house; a group of Dakota f a m i l i e s who had moved from the same reserve approximately f o r t y miles away l i v e d as neighbours at the centre. Gabriel's parents' house i s next door to h i s aunt Wilma's 12 13 house, where most of the taping sessions were held. Gabriel's family consists of h i s mother and father and four other c h i l d r e n , Kimberley, 6, Donna, 5, Cory, 1, and N e i l , who was born between the 15th and 16th sessions (ages at time of study). Wilma i s Gabriel's mother's s i s t e r ; apart from being a frequent caretaker of the c h i l d r e n , she took the r o l e of mother-substitute during 14 of the 16 playsessions, i n t e r a c t i n g with Gabriel and Esther and a s s i s t i n g with the t r a n s c r i p t i o n and t r a n s l a t i o n of the tapes. It was not unusual for the c h i l d r e n to have a number of d i f f e r e n t caretakers and playmates i n t h i s extended family s i t u a t i o n . The grandmother, uncles and aunts, and cousins often came to v i s i t or took the c h i l d r e n to t h e i r homes. Among the other c h i l d r e n who some-times joined i n the play with Esther and Gabriel were Esther's s i s t e r Lorraine, 10, Wilma's daughter Gwen, 7, and a cousin Annette, 14. Only Dakota was spoken i n Gabriel's home and i t was the p r i n c i p a l language i n Wilma's home. Esther was approaching fluency i n both English and Dakota; however, while Gabriel's l e x i c o n included many English words, he did not respond to English speech directed at him. The goal i n c o l l e c t i n g the data was to observe the c h i l d r e n at play i n a reasonably natural s e t t i n g . Twelve of the 16 sessions took place i n Wilma's l i v i n g room, where the c h i l d r e n played with various toys, pieces of f u r n i t u r e , drawing materials, magazines and mail-order catalogues. The t e l e v i s i o n was sometimes turned on, but without volume. The other four sessions were taped i n an empty room of a h o s p i t a l b u i l d i n g at the centre; the toys and colouring books were brought along on these occasions. 14 Data collection, transcription and translation In an effort to keep a f a i r l y regular routine in the sessions, most tapings were done between 9:00 and noon when the children were most alert and playful. The children were introduced to the taping equipment during the f i r s t session and were only occasionally distracted by i t . Taping was done on a Wollensak reel to reel recorder, using 5\" Ampex tapes at a recording speed of 3 3/4 ips. I usually sat in a corner of the room, taking a running transcription and making contextual notes. I limited my own interactions with the children because Gabriel was more verbal with Wilma, and Esther tended to answer my Dakota questions in English, a strategy not uncommon for bilingual children, who mark the speakers around them as belonging to one or the other language group. Each tape was transcribed the day i t was recorded. Transcription usually took only slightly longer than taping. This was partly because of the running transcription made during the recording, but also because patterns quickly emerged in the data, with the same conversational routines being re-enacted between Gabriel and Esther and between Gabriel and Wilma. I abandoned my plan to make taped notes because of the confusion my commentaries caused Wilma and the children. Wilma provided both a loose and a l i t e r a l translation of a l l the taped utterances, both the adults' and the children's. These are recorded in the data books for almost half of the sessions. It seemed unnecessary to translate the entire corpus, except for new vocabulary items which appeared in later sessions. A l l utterances were transcribed along with contextual notes. Two further transcriptions were made after leaving the f i e l d ; these were on a superior Sony playback machine. The transcriptions are 15 recorded i n lab. notebooks; samples from the corpus are given i n Appendix I. Conventions used i n t r a n s c r i p t i o n are explained i n Table 2.4. Overview of Dakota-Sioux Dakota-Sioux i s a member of the Siouan family of languages (Macro-Siouan phylum). It i s spoken extensively i n the mid-western United States and i n seven communities i n mid-western Canada. The Dakota-Sioux (Santee) population has been estimated v a r i o u s l y to be between 5000 and 10,000 people, the majority of whom speak t h e i r language. Dakota-Sioux (Santee) i s one of four major branches of Sioux proper, the other three being Teton Sioux or Lakota, Assiniboine or Nakota, and Yankton. The names Dakota, Lakota and Nakota i n d i c a t e one f a i r l y regular sound s u b s t i t u t i o n among the f i r s t three d i a l e c t s . According to informants, there i s some degree of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y among them, although there are many l e x i c a l d ifferences. Each of the major d i a l e c t s has sub-dialects; the speech of Gabriel's community, for example, was s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t from that of another Santee band i n northern Saskatchewan i n c e r t a i n pronunciations and l e x i c a l items. Dakota i s s t i l l the f i r s t language of many ch i l d r e n growing up i n Sioux communities, although the influence of English i s spreading. Gabriel was exposed to English on t e l e v i s i o n and i n play with older neighbourhood chi l d r e n . In the f i n a l session he i s using several English words, even though h i s sentences are too short to determine any synta c t i c preference. There are texts written i n Dakota, mostly b i b l i c a l , dating back to the 1800's. There are also several published works dealing with Siouan languages, e.g., Riggs, 1893; Boas and Del o r i a , 1941; Buechel, 1970; 16 Carter, 1974. I b r i e f l y describe some features of the language i n the following section, but the complexities of Siouan morphology and syntax are not yet part of Gabriel's immature speech system, nor i s the study aimed at any phonological a n a l y s i s . The sound system According to Carter (1974), Dakota has 25 phonemes, including o r a l and nasalized vowels, voiced and vo i c e l e s s v e l a r f r i c a t i v e s and a g l o t t a l stop. See Table 2.1 below for a d e s c r i p t i o n of the phonemes of Dakota-TABLE 2.1 PHONEMES OF DAKOTA-SIOUX (SANTEE DIALECT) Consonants Dental/ Palato-B i l a b i a l Alveolar Alveolar P a l a t a l Velar G l o t t a l P l osive Voiced b d Voiceless unaspirated P t c k I Voiceless h h h k h k2 aspirated G l o t t a l i z e d t t i c c-2 Nasal m n F r i c a t i v e s z § z x y F r i c t i o n l e s s h continuants w y Vowels front back high i i c u u e mid e o low a a c 17 Sioux. Stress i n Dakota i s phonemic; that i s , there are minimal p a i r s , as i n English, where stress placement changes meaning, e.g., /majja/ ' f i e l d ' and /ma^a/ 'goose'. The rules f o r stress movement are complex, but i n m u l t i - s y l l a b l e words, stress often f a l l s on the second s y l l a b l e . Conson-ant c l u s t e r i n g i s common within and across morpheme boundaries. Carter l i s t s 41 intramorpheme c l u s t e r s , e.g., /spaya/ 'wet/, /mnl/ 'water', / p S a / 'sneeze' (1974, 36). Some scholars have chosen to represent the a s p i r -ated, v e l a r p a l a t a l i z e d and g l o t t a l i z e d (or ejective) consonants as con-sonant c l u s t e r s (for example, Hollow, 1970; Matthews, 1955); Levin (1964) handles the g l o t t a l i z e d consonants as geminates. The sub-dialect spoken by Gabriel's speech community displayed quite c l e a r aspirated, v e l a r p a l a t a l i z e d and g l o t t a l i z e d forms, as contrasted with the Santee group i n northern Saskatchewan. Another Siouan feature i s r e d u p l i c a t i o n , which occurs often; there i s also some evidence for sound symbolism. The basic s y l l a b l e structure i s (C)CV(C). Intonation and p i t c h are varied i n normal conversation; interrogatives do not require, but often have, r i s i n g intonation. The adults involved i n t h i s study sometimes spoke sentences i n a kind of h i s s , with exaggerated lengthening.:of vowels. This seemed to occur when they were speaking of s u r p r i s i n g events or behaviours, and i t was not unlike p a r a l i n g u i s t i c features i n English conversation. Gabriel's own sound system i s outlined l a t e r i n t h i s chapter. Morphology Dakota-Sioux i s a synthetic langauge and has r e l a t i v e l y i n t r i c a t e verbal morphology. Carter explains that t h i s i n t r i c a c y i s . . . due i n large part to the e f f e c t s of numerous concord and pro-nominal transformations. These syntactic rules a l l have the general e f f e c t of increasing the semantic content of verb nodes at the expense of t h e i r associated noun nodes; much of t h i s increased 18 semantic content is li t e r a l i z e d as surface verb affixes, typically prefixes (1974, 118). There are two classes of verb stem, the stative and the active, to which are affixed the various classes of verbal morphemes. According to Stanley (1971), there are 19 classes of these morphemes, 12 prefixed and 7 suffixed. Some of these also have male and female variants. The following are a few of the more common verbal affixes. 1. /uk-/—stem class 3, f i r s t person plural marker. 2. /ya-/, /n i - / , /ci-/—stem class 9, second person active, second person stative, and a collapsed form of the f i r s t person singular subject acting on a second person singular object, respectively. 3. /ka-/, /pa-/, /pu-/, /ya-/, /yu-/—stem class 12, instrumental particles meaning, respectively, 'by sudden impact', 'with pressure away from the body', 'with pressure in an indefinite direction', 'by means of the mouth or teeth', and 'by handling or manipulating with motion directed toward the body'. 4. /-pi/--stem class 14, plural of one or more nouns within the scope of the verb stem to which this morpheme is attached. 5. /-kta/—stem class 15, potential marker. 6. /-sni/—stem class 17, negative marker. 7. /-ye/ or /7-e/—stem class 18, predicative marker. There is evidence of only the predicative marker /-ye/ or /-e/ in Gabriel's speech. Most of these morphemes represent fine semantic distinctions beyond the comprehension of a child his age. The morpho-phonological changes which accompany their use are an added d i f f i c u l t y in their acquisition. Dakota morphophonology is very complex, so that root words are d i f f i c u l t to separate and reconstruct in analysis. 19 Carter describes the following morphophonological processes: vowel deletion, syncope, stress movement, ejection (glottalization), aspira-tion, velar palatalization, lateralization, stop voicing, equi-vowel deletion and syneresis. One would expect mastery of this aspect of the language to occur relatively late (e.g., Moskowitz, 1973). Syntax Dakota-Sioux i s an SOV language. The only major feature which does not conform to the typical SOV pattern is the occurrence of adjec-tives, demonstratives and genitives after the nouns they modify. It i s s t i l l too early to see clearly even this most basic syntactic pattern in Gabriel's speech, as he has only begun producing multi-morphemic utter-ances. The adult speech from the study, however, provides examples of many different sentence patterns, some of which follow. (See Table 2.4 at the end of this chapter for explanation of transcription and transla-tion symbols.) 1. Simple declarative (active verb stem): Ci c i n i + yaxte kte ye. \"Monster w i l l bite you.\" mons. you bite P. F. 2. Simple declarative, negative (stative stem): Wastg Sni ye. \"It's not good.\" good N. F. 3. Interrogative (with question word): Taku cletka ha? \"What are you drinking?\" what you-drink Q. 4. Interrogative (yes-no): Ca + ni + ze ha? \"Are you angry?\" c you-angry Q. -20 5. Complex interrogative (yes-no), negative: Duksa o + _y_a + kihi gni ha? \"Can't you cut i t ? \" you-cut you-are able N. Q. 6. Imperative: Haake oye kaya. \"Make some clothes.\" clothes some make 7. Imperative, negative: 2iya 2u s*ni. \"Don't run.\" run do N. 8. Complex declarative: Wa + hde kah| was*te kte de. \"If I go home, this one w i l l be good.\" I go-home i f good P. this Gabriel's syntax is dealt with in some detail in Chapter Three. See Taylor (1974) and Rood (1973) for transformational analyses of aspects of Sioux syntax. Description of the data Thirty-two and one half hours of tape-recorded data were obtained during the observation time, for a total of 7130 utterances from the princ-ipal subject, Gabriel. Gabriel's utterances were numbered for each session, with an average of 446 utterances per session. See Table 2.2 below for sessional information. Calculation of mean length of utterance (MLU) was done for the pur-poses of \"locating\" Gabriel in relation to other children in other studies. Since there i s no agreement among researchers as to the use of this measure across children acquiring only English as a f i r s t language, i t is obvious that the problems in cross-linguistic application are considerable. Rather than try to equate the grammatical morphemes in terms of syntactic complexity, 21 TABLE 2.2 AGE, MLU, UPPER BOUND (UB), NUMBER OF UTTERANCES, TIME IN HOURS. LOCATION, AND PARTICIPANTS IN 16 SESSIONS WITH GABRIEL Length P a r t i c i p a n t s besides Sess. Age MLU U.B. no. u t t s . hrs. Location/time I 2;4(0) 1.38 4 409 Wilma's, A.M. II 2;4(1) 1.30 4 122 k Wilma's, A.M. III 2;4(4) 1.24 4 554 2 Wilma's, A.M. IV 2;4(5) 1.17 4 510 2 Wilma's, A.M. V 2;4(6) 1.27 5 315 2 Wilma's, A.M. VI 2;4(7) 1.48 4 463 2 Wilma's, A.M. VII 2;4(8) 1.82 5 736 2k Wilma's, A.M. VIII 2;4(11) 1.29 5 113 1 Wilma's, P.M. IX 2;4(12) 1.32 4 555 3 Wilma's, A.M. X 2;4(13) 1.59 4 686 2k Wilma's, A.M. XI 2;4(14) 1.46 4 241 1 Wilma's, A.M. XII 2;4(19) 1.50 4 452 2 h o s p i t a l , A.M. XIII 2;4(20) 1.42 5 535 3 h o s p i t a l , A.M. XIV 2;4(21) 1.23 4 669 3 Wilma's, A.M. h o s p i t a l , P.M. X XV 2;4(22) 1.18 4 487 2 h o s p i t a l , A.M. XVI 2;9(0) 1.42 4 283 2 Wilma's, P.M. Wilma, Esther Wilma, Esther Wilma, Esther, Hazel, Annette, Lorraine Wilma, Esther, Annette, Marina, Raymond, Gwen Wilma, Esther, Marina, Annette, Raymond Wilma, Esther, Mar ina, Raymond, Lorraine, Annette Wilma, Esther, Lorraine Annette, Esther, Lorraine Wilma, Esther, Lorraine, H i l d a Wilma, Esther, Annette, V i o l a Wilma, Hazel, Esther, Lorraine, Donna, Wilma, Esther Wilma, Esther Hazel, Wilma, Esther Wilma, Esther Marina, Esther, Donna, Kimberley, Donald 22 I have used the measure as though Dakota and English morphemes were more or l e s s equally accessible i n order to obtain a rough comparison. I took 100 consecutive utterances from each session s t a r t i n g with the second tape (with the exceptions of sessions II and VI, which were very short sessions), omitting u n i n t e l l i g i b l e and uninterpretable utterances. While I adhered i n most cases to the c r i t e r i a established by Brown (1973) for MLU counts, I departed from these by including c e r t a i n gestural morphemes and dialogue forms ( f i l l e r s ) , such as 'huh', 'hey', and assigning morpheme status to /-ye/, which appeared to be a purely syntactic element i n Gabriel's system. Table 2.3 below gives a rough c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of Gabriel's sound sys-tem, although i t i s obvious that many of h i s productions are e x p l i c a b l e i n terms of phonological processes described by Ingram (1976) and O i l e r et a l (1974). Notably absent from his system are p a l a t a l i z e d and g l o t t a l i z e d con-sonants. S i m i l a r l y , stress placement, n a s a l i z a t i o n of vowels and a s p i r a t i o n were inconsistent. It i s i n t e r e s t i n g to note that, while h i s spontaneous speech was phonologically deviant from the adult equivalent, he was produc-ing f a i r l y precise gestural imitations. T r a n s c r i p t i o n conventions The t r a n s c r i p t i o n system used during t h i s study was devised out of the exigencies of the f i e l d s i t u a t i o n . It i s i s a combination of I.P.A., Trager-Smith, personal symbols and t r a d i t i o n a l orthography which seemed the most con-venient for rapid on-site notes and adaptation to the typewriter. Because t h i s was not intended to be a phonological study and the equipment was not exceptionally precise, the phonetic representations are not very d e t a i l e d . While a l l utterances have been transcribed i n f u l l , c e r t a i n abbreviations have been used to reduce the bulk i n t r a n s l a t i o n s . These abbreviations and a key to the phonetic symbols I have used non-conventionally are given i n Table 2.4 below. TABLE 2.3 EXAMPLES OF GABRIEL'S PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM A d u l t sound G a b r i e l ' s s u b s t i t u t e s Examples Vowels 1 « e a a « o u u Consonants i , e, a, o, u, x i a, a > a c a o, o o o p p,b b b, p t t , t Y , d, d d, d j , c c c, t , d, s\\ 2, d j k k, g g g m m n n, m, d s s, s, d_j, i z V s s, k V I . 92. \" b i b i \" , ' b a b y ' + b i b i X I I I . 161. c i , 'want'-^ci; X I I I . 162. ci->-ci V I . 112. \" A n n e t t e ' V n e t ; V I I . 648. wewe, 'hurt'->wawa; V I . 28. w£we, 'hurtVwowo V I I I . 10. hiy£, 'no'+hiya; V I I . 600. h i y a - v h i y | 2 ; V I I . 624. k a , 'that'-vko V I I . 681. h f p a , 'shoe(s) '->h|pa IV. 57. \"boat'Vbop; X I I I . 138. \"boat\"-ybap I I I . 431. i b u , 'sleep'->al>u; IV. 10. \"Andrew\"->ando; X I I . 389. \"moo-moo\"-«iiamu X I I . 405. S u k f , 'horse'-*k£ka; I I I . 127. suk|+k6ka V I I . 650. waxpe\\ 'tea'-s-pe; V I I . 203. i x p a y e , ' f a l l ' + b o y a V I . 140. babaya, \"bye-bye'Vbabaya; V I I . 10. \"b i r d i e \" - > p 6 d 3 i ;I V . 331. \" A n n e t t e \" - n i e t ; V. 312. \"Annette\"->nety; XIV. 163. \"truck\"-vdak X I I . 273. t d k u , 'what'+k5ku IV. 200. de, 'this'->da; V I I . 10. \" b i r d i e ' V p o d j i ; V. 10. \" b i r d i e \" - > b u c i V I . 176. i c u , 'take'-^cu; V I . 177. icu-^-tu; V I . 281. c i c i , 'monster'->-cid 1; XIV. 299. c i c f - > S i c i ; V I I . 659. s i c e , 'bad'+Size; V. 280. c i c i + d j i d - j i V I I . 598. k a , 'that'-^ka; X I I I . 424. k a k a , 'that*->gaka XIV. 638. G a b r i e l + g e j b l V I . 134. \"mdma\"->mama V I I . 87. henana, ' t h a t ' s a l l ' - H i a n a ; I I I . 281. mni, 'water'^mimi; X I I . 257. \" A n n e t t e \" - * l e t I I I . 237. \" p u s i \" , 'pussy'->pusi; XIV. 453. \" j u i c e ' ^ u S ; IV. 131. \"pusi\"-> p u d ^ i ; I I I . 239. \" p u s i \" + p p z i (no examples) V I I . 659. s i c e , 'bad'+size; I I I . 127. sukf., 'horse'+koka Table 2.3 (continued) Adult Gabriel's Sound substitutes Examples 2 i, dj VII. 704. wazi, 'one'+zi; VI. 270. w ^ i ^ i x (no examples) v y (only in phonological play) VI. 8. yuyu (while playing with a toy car) v v (in borrowed English word) XVI. 47. T.V.\"-M:£vi w w, v VII. 648. wewe, 'hurt'->wawa; IV. 70. wewe->vawa 1 1, y VI. 367. la l a , 'candy'->lala; XII. 243. lala+yala y y VII. 78. iyaye, 'go'->yaya h h, k V. 138. ha, 'yes'+ha; XV. 153. \"horse\"->kors 25 TABLE 2.4 TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS A. Phonetic symbols c — I.P.A. /+f/ z\" — I.P.A. / j / § — I.P.A. / j / V — nasalized vowel PPPP — multiple b i l a b i a l f l a p WORD — c a p i t a l i z e d word, exaggerated p i t c h — major stress C*1 — consonant with strong a s p i r a t i o n /2.A2/m/ — phonetic representation of horse neighing, one of Gabriel's words b , g P , k / / — no a s p i r a t i o n , s l i g h t v o i c i n g more d e t a i l e d phonetic representation T r a n s l a t i o n conventions ' ' — can't t r a n s l a t e F. — /ye/, sentence-ending p a r t i c l e meaning \" I t ' s a f a c t \" Q. — /ha/, int e r r o g a t i v e p a r t i c l e N. — /Sni/, negative p a r t i c l e P. — /kta/, p o t e n t i a l marker P l . — / - p i / , p l u r a l marker G. — /ce/, generic p a r t i c l e , meaning \" t h i s i s how i t i s \" ' ' — underlined parts of examples are descriptions of gestural reps. A An E A l i c i a Annette — Esther G H Lo W Gabriel Hazel Lorraine — Wilma CHAPTER THREE PRO-POSITIONAL MEANING Introduction An examination of Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances i s under-taken i n t h i s chapter f o r the purposes of a) t e s t i n g Brown's (1973) hypotheses about the nature of early morpheme combinations, v i z . as being semantically motivated i n the form of a small set of semantic r e l a t i o n s and operations of reference, and b) evaluating the ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' of children's utterances through which these operations and r e l a t i o n s have been ^uncovered'. Brown c o l l a t e d and surveyed the data from several c h i l d language studies from a v a r i e t y of languages. Using a ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' approach, he found what he considered to be \"impressive u n i f o r m i t i e s \" i n the patterns of semantic and grammatical development i n these c h i l -dren. The following discussion focuses on Brown's Stage I, the period of early syntax, which he claims i s the time when the c h i l d i s learning to express a small set of basic semantic r e l a t i o n s and operations of reference. 'Lean' i n t e r p r e t a t i o n The p r e v a i l i n g paradigm for c h i l d language studies during the s i x -t i e s was the so - c a l l e d ' n a t i v i s t ' model proposed by Chomsky (1957, 1965). According to t h i s model, the c h i l d i s innately predisposed to acquiring 26 27 the structures of human language and the rules which generate and trans-form them, structures and rules which form a l o g i c but a l o g i c which i s d i f f e r e n t from general cognitive processes. The f i r s t \" r e a l \" language i s produced when the c h i l d s t a r t s to s t r i n g recognizable words together to form the e a r l i e s t syntactic structures. The f i r s t attempts to apply transformational-generative grammar to c h i l d language data were based on the notion that the c h i l d moved through successive approximations to the adult grammar. Using either l o n g i t u d i n a l data or data from c h i l d r e n of d i f f e r e n t ages and l e v e l s of language development, these investigators wrote grammars at various points i n the a c q u i s i t i o n period i n order to determine the course of the c h i l d ' s approach to adult competence (Brown and Fraser, 1963; M i l l e r and E r v i n , 1964). The constraints of early c h i l d speech data, where word classes and grammatical modulations are omitted, and of the syntax base of the Chomskian model meant that explanations had to be based on surface l e v e l evidence. It i s the opinion of most investigators today that these studies considerably underestimated the l i n g u i s t i c knowledge of the c h i l d , which i s why they are sometimes referred to as 'lean i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' studies. Two d e s c r i p t i v e models x^hich appear extensively i n c h i l d language l i t e r a t u r e from t h i s period are the telegraphic speech and pivot: grammar models. Brown discusses and dismisses them both on the same d i s t r i b u t i o n a l grounds on which they are based, but also because he f e e l s they do not capture enough of the c h i l d ' s expressive compe-tence at the beginning of syntax. Early c h i l d speech was l a b e l l e d telegraphic speech because the early utterances of ch i l d r e n resemble i n many ways the language used i n telegrams; that i s , content words (nouns, verbs) are retained, less 28 e s s e n t i a l f u n c t o r s a r e o m i t t e d . E x p l a n a t i o n s f o r t h i s ' l o o k ' were based on t h e p e r c e p t u a l s a l i e n c y o f c o n t e n t words ( t h e s e t e n d t o r e c e i v e major s t r e s s i n t h e spoken u t t e r a n c e ) and t h e a v a i l a b i l i t y o f t h e mean-i n g s o f c o n t e n t words ( t h e s e o f t e n have r e a l w o r l d r e f e r e n t s , as opposed t o f u n c t o r words w h i c h d e s i g n a t e f i n e r r e l a t i o n s h i p s , sometimes p u r e l y g r a m m a t i c a l ) . As Brown d e m o n s t r a t e s , however, t e l e g r a p h i c s p e ech i s n o t an a c c u r a t e d e s c r i b e r o f t h e e a r l y speech of a l l c h i l d r e n . He p o i n t s out t h a t many c h i l d r e n use f u n c t o r words f r o m t h e s t a r t o f t h e i r morpheme c o m b i n a t i o n s , and, q u i t e o f t e n , t h e y omit c o n t e n t words, w h i c h a r e e s s e n t i a l t o t h e meaning, f r o m t h e i r e a r l i e s t c o n s t r u c t i o n s . The a n a l o g y , t h e r e f o r e , i s a weak one. The second model, p i v o t grammar, e v o l v e d out of t h e s t r i k i n g a ppearance i n e a r l y u t t e r a n c e s t h a t t h e r e were two word c l a s s e s o p e r a t -i n g , one w i t h h i g h c o m b i n a t o r i a l f r e q u e n c y ( t h e p i v o t s ) and t h e o t h e r w i t h low c o m b i n a t o r i a l f r e q u e n c y ( t h e open c l a s s w o r d s ) . T h i s model i s most o f t e n a s s o c i a t e d w i t h M a r t i n B r a i n e ( 1 9 6 3 ) , a l t h o u g h M i l l e r and E r v i n (1964) made s i m i l a r s u g g e s t i o n s . B r a i n e e x t r a c t e d o n l y t h e two-word u t t e r a n c e s f r o m p r o t o c o l s c o l l e c t e d by mothers of t h r e e c h i l d r e n . U s i n g t h e s e d a t a he p o s i t e d t h e word c l a s s e s , p i v o t and open, and d e s c r i b e d p o s i t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n s r e l a t e d t o t h e i r o c c u r r e n c e , e.g., an i n i t i a l p i v o t may n o t o c c u r as a f i n a l p i v o t . These d i s t r i b u t i o n r u l e s , however, seem t o a p p l y more n e a t l y t o B r a i n e ' s d a t a t h a n t o c h i l d l a n g u a g e d a t a f r o m many o t h e r s t u d i e s , as Brown ( 1 9 7 3 ) , Bowerman ( 1 9 7 3 ) , and Bloom (1970) have shown. Brown does acknowledge, though, t h a t e a r l y c h i l d s p e e c h o f t e n has a c l e a r ' p i v o t l o o k ' , w h i c h he d i f f e r e n t i a t e s f r o m p i v o t grammar. T h i s ' l o o k ' i s a c h a r a c t e r i s t i c o f G a b r i e l ' s d a t a and w i l l be examined s h o r t l y . 29 'Rich' i n t e r p r e t a t i o n The ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' method evolved to a large extent out of the f a i l u r e of e a r l i e r models to account for more than some surface c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of early word combinations. The approach was aimed at showing that c h i l d r e n have underlying grammatical competence, which can be retr i e v e d by attending to the meanings (as f a r as they can be recon-structed) of t h e i r early utterances. Brown (1973) says that ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' reveals that Stage I ch i l d r e n express remarkably s i m i l a r meanings, which suggests to him that t h i s period of language development i s motivated by the a c q u i s i t i o n a l importance of a u n i v e r s a l set of c o g n i t i v e l y accessible semantic r e l a t i o n s and operations of reference. This approach to the analysis of f i r s t multi-morphemic utterances i s at least two steps removed from pivot grammar. F i r s t , i t assumes under-l y i n g grammatical structure for the c h i l d ' s utterances, and, second, i t makes the observation of context an e s s e n t i a l part of determining more accurately what meanings are intended by the c h i l d (through which under-l y i n g structure i s i n f e r r e d ) . The major proponents of ' r i c h i n t e r p r e -t a t i o n ' include Brown, Bloom (1970), Schlesinger (1971), and Slobin (1973). Howe (1976), i n a c r i t i c a l review of the approach, notes that, along with attention to context, the expansion of the c h i l d ' s deformed utterances into p l a u s i b l e grammatical utterances i s another strategy used for reconstructing deep structure. Brown apparently has made use of both s t r a t e g i e s ; my own inter p r e t a t i o n s of Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances for the purposes of applying a Brown-type analysis are based on contextual notes. 30 Brown's study While the ' r i c h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' method has l e d , i n some cases, to researchers p o s i t i n g formal l i n g u i s t i c categories i n the deep structure (see, f o r example, McNeill, 1970), Brown prefers semantically-defined configurations. Using the semantic models of Fill m o r e , Chafe and Schlesinger, he has organized a l l of the multi-morphemic utterances i n twelve c h i l d language corpora into the designated r e l a t i o n s and opera-tions of reference and quantified the r e s u l t s . Through t h i s process he has found that there appears to be a set of basic semantic r e l a t i o n s which account for about 70% of the two-term utterances i n the data investigated. See Table 3.1 below for Brown's operations of reference and prevalent semantic r e l a t i o n s . The impressiveness of t h i s f i n d i n g led Brown to speculate as to why Stage I utterances were so uniform. He suggests that . . . a major dimension of l i n g u i s t i c development i s learning to express always and automatically c e r t a i n things (agent, a c t i o n , number, tense and so on) even though these meanings may be i n many contexts quite redundant. . . . I t may be that automatizing a c e r t a i n number of meanings leaves the human's li m i t e d c e n t r a l chan-nel capacity free to cope with the exigencies of p a r t i c u l a r commun-i c a t i o n problems, which require that one say what i s necessary, omit what i s not, and use a lexicon and syntax f a m i l i a r to the p a r t i c u l a r audience (Brown, 1973, 245). He adds that Stage I speech, while semantically t i e d to the c h i l d ' s immediate context, s t i l l demands that l i s t e n e r s have some f a m i l i a r i t y with the c h i l d ' s background knowledge i n order to i n t e r p r e t i t s u t t e r -ances. The c h i l d , on the other hand, p e r s i s t s i n producing ' d e f i c i e n t ' utterances because most of h i s communications take place i n h i s home, where he i s usually understood. In other words, the c h i l d can commun-ica t e s u c c e s s f u l l y f or some time with a very simple syntax through which he i s becoming fluent i n expressing a small set of r e l a t i o n a l and 31 TABLE 3.1 BROWN'S OPERATIONS OF REFERENCE AND PREVALENT SEMANTIC RELATIONS FOR STAGE I Operations of reference Nomination That car Recurrence More cookie Nonexistence A l l gone j u i c e Reference to s e l f or mother Hi mommy Semantic r e l a t i o n s Two-term r e l a t i o n s Agent and action Action and object Agent and object Action and l o c a t i v e E n t i t y and lo c a t i v e Possessor and possession E n t i t y and a t t r i b u t e Demonstrative and en t i r y Three-term r e l a t i o n s Agent, action and object Agent, action and l o c a t i v e Action, object and l o c a t i v e Action, object and l o c a t i v e Four-rterm r e l a t i o n s Agent, action, object and l o c a t i v e Mommy put book table Baby eat See sock Mommy sandwich F a l l grass Baby chair Baby toy Doggie white Train Dog eat cake Daddy s i t there Mommy milk table Put baby bath 32 r e f e r e n t i a l meanings. Aft e r examination of these meanings, Brown i s confident that they conform to the c h i l d ' s cognitive a b i l i t i e s at the period when morpheme combinations appear (late sensorimotor i n t e l l i g e n c e ) . Because c h i l d r e n go through roughly the same kind of s o c i a l i z a t i o n (exposure to a r e l a t i v e l y small group of people during the early years) and because cognitive development i s assumed to follow a s i m i l a r course with a l l c h i l d r e n , Brown f e e l s that the set of r e l a t i o n s and operations which he has posited w i l l describe the meanings of a l l Stage I c h i l d r e n , no matter what language they are learning (198). I have extended t h i s analysis to yet another language, Dakota-Sioux, i n order to test t h i s hypothesis. Mean length of utterance Brown ordered the studies he reviewed according to the develop-mental measure of mean length of utterance. Without minimizing the problems that are encountered i n applying t h i s measure across c h i l d r e n and across languages, Brown states that, \" . . . MLU i s a good simple index of development from about 1.0 to 4.0; i t continues to be respon-sive to what the c h i l d i s learning but i t i s p r i m a r i l y responsive to d i f f e r e n t kinds of knowledge at d i f f e r e n t times (185).\" An example of what Brown i s r e f e r r i n g to here i s the increase i n MLU during Stage I 7 which he says i s caused by the compounding of semantic r e l a t i o n s rather than by embedding. Table 3.2 below places Gabriel along with Brown's chi l d r e n according to t h i s measure. Some of the d i f f i c u l t i e s I encountered i n determining a r e l a t i v e l y comparable MLU f i g u r e f o r Gabriel have already been described (see p. 21). I use the measure here to indi c a t e roughly where he stands i n r e l a t i o n to the c h i l d r e n TABLE 3.2 BROWN'S STUDIES ORDERED DEVELOPMENTALLY ACCORDING TO M.L.U., INCLUDING GABRIEL Kendall GABRIEL Seppo Kendall Viveka S i p i l i T o f i Eve I Sarah Seppo Rina Pepe Adam I I II I II I I 1.10 1.38 1.42 1.48 1.50 1.52 1.62 1.68 1.73 1.81 1.83 1.85 2.06 TABLE 3.3 PROPORTIONS OF TWO-MORPHEME TYPES REPRESENTED BY FOUR PRESUMPTIVE PIVOTS IN GABRIEL'S CORPUS Session Pivot I II I I I IV VII XII XIII XIV XV Aver.1 XVI Aver.2 /ka/ 32 32 30 38 31 22 17 31 30 29 0 26 /ye/ 29 42 19 11 14 22 21 16 7 21 24 21 \"hey\" 7 11 15 3 3 0 6 5 16 8 10 8 /eya/ 14 0 8 14 6 9 11 9 5 9 12 9 Tot a l percent-ages 82 85 72 66 54 53 55 61 58 67 46 64 TABLE 3.4 PERCENTAGES OF ALL UTTERANCE TOKENS REPRESENTED BY UTTERANCES WITH 'ka' No. of Session morphemes I II III IV VII XII XIII XIV XV Aver.l XVI Aver. 2 one 39 21 41 57 62 28 20 61 37 41 3 37 two 30 11 30 35 74 30 11 29 22 30 0 27 more 17 5 11 9 41 23 11 10 9 15 1 14 percentage 19 1 17 per sess. 21 30 15 20 24 18 8 15 14 TABLE 3.5 PERCENTAGES APPROPRIATE WORD ORDER IN TWO-MORPHEME UTTERANCES IN THE REPRESENTATIVE SESSIONS Session I I I i n IV VII XII XIII XIV XV XVI Aver. % 100 100 92 95 87 95 100 89 96 95 95 3 5 i n t h e s t u d i e s w h i c h Brown r e v i e w e d . The q u a l i f i c a t i o n s m e n t i o n e d e a r l i e r a r e r e l e v a n t because t h e y may be r e s p o n s i b l e f o r m i s r e p r e s e n t i n g G a b r i e l ' s p e r f o r m a n c e . G a b r i e l ' s a v e r a g e MLU p l a c e s him i n e a r l y S t a ge I . I was u n a b l e t o d e t e r m i n e how l o n g he had been p r o d u c i n g morpheme c o m b i n a t i o n s b e f o r e t h e s t a r t o f d a t a c o l l e c t i o n ; however, most o f G a b r i e l ' s c o m b i n a t i o n s seem t o f i t i n t o an u t t e r a n c e c a t e g o r y o f Brown's w h i c h he says i s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of e a r l y Stage I . The p a r t i c u l a r c a t e g o r y i s 'Demon-s t r a t i v e + E n t i t y ' , w h i c h Brown s a y s can be e i t h e r a s e m a n t i c r e l a t i o n o r r e d e f i n e d as an o p e r a t i o n of r e f e r e n c e . Brown a l s o s a y s t h a t t h e p r e v a l e n c e of u t t e r a n c e s o c c u r r i n g i n t h i s c a t e g o r y i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e ' p i v o t l o o k ' o f S t a g e I s p e e c h . The ' p i v o t l o o k ' i s v e r y s t r o n g i n G a b r i e l ' s s p e e ch sample and prompted c l o s e r e x a m i n a t i o n i n terms of t h e s e m a n t i c c o n s i d e r a t i o n s w h i c h Brown says g i v e r i s e t o i t . The ' p i v o t l o o k ' Brown s a y s t h a t . . . t h e p i v o t l o o k i s n o t t h e same as t h e p i v o t grammar. The l o o k d e r i v e s p r i m a r i l y f r o m an i m p r e s s i o n t h a t t h e r e i s a s h a r p d i s c o n t i n u i t y o f c o m b i n a t o r i a l f r e q u e n c y i n t h e c h i l d ' s words; some, t h e p i v o t s o c c u r r i n g i n numerous d i f f e r e n t c o m b i n a t i o n s and o t h e r s , t h e open words o c c u r r i n g i n v e r y few c o m b i n a t i o n s ( 1 6 9 ) . By t a k i n g j u s t t h e one c r i t e r i o n f o r a p i v o t , t h a t o f o c c u r r i n g i n a l a r g e number of d i f f e r e n t two-word c o m b i n a t i o n s , Brown found t h a t t h e p r e s u m p t i v e p i v o t s o b t a i n e d i n t h i s way f r o m 22 d i f f e r e n t s t u d i e s c o u l d t h e m s e l v e s be r e c l a s s i f i e d as h i s o p e r a t i o n s o f r e f e r e n c e — n o m i n a t i o n , r e c u r r e n c e , n o n e x i s t e n c e , and r e f e r e n c e t o s e l f o r mother. Brown a l s o o b s e r v e s t h a t t h e meanings of t h e o p e r a t i o n s of r e f e r e n c e a r e p a r t of t h e l a t t e r s t a g e s of s e n s o r i m o t o r i n t e l l i g e n c e , w h i c h a p p a r e n t l y c o i n c i d e with Stage I in Brown's analysis. He says, The combination of cognitive accessibility to the child, express-i b i l i t y by a small lexicon, and the widest compositional potential might be expected to make operations of reference very prevalent in Stage I speech and partly responsible for the pivot look of such speech (169). I examined Gabriel's two-morpheme combinations to determine whether such operations of reference occurred and whether they could account for the definite pivot look of his speech. Following Brown, any word..which occurred in many different two-word combinations was considered as a presumptive pivot. A l l of the multi-morpheme utterances were organized by session into Braine-type charts, with sub-groups based on number of morphemes in each utterance type and a l l combinations of similar struc-ture, for example, /ka/ + Word, listed together. Opposite each utter-ance type were the utterance numbers for the tokens which occurred in a session. (See Appendix II for an example of this data organization.) Familiarity with the data gave rise to my f i r s t intuitions about which morphemes would qualify as pivots. The subsequent quantification sup-ported the choice of the four morphemes shown in Table 3.3 \"(p.33). This table has been assembled from the two-morpheme data from ten represent-ative sessions—sessions I, II, III, IV, VII, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI. Because of the four and one half month gap between sessions XV and XVI, session XVI is separated from the others in some of the calcu-lations . The morphemes which I have found operating as presumptive pivots in Gabriel's language system differ somewhat in nature from those which Brown discovered in the 22 studies he examined. It appears that one of them, /ye/, is a grammatical particle and that another of them, \"hey\", is an exclamation. None of the four expresses the operations 37 of recurrence, nonexistence or reference to self or mother. One of them, however, the presumptive pivot /ka/, f i t s the description Brown gives for the operation of nomination. A. \"/ka/. There are three striking aspects of Gabriel's use of this morpheme. 1. In those utterances in which i t occurs, /ka/ is almost always in i n i t i a l position in two-morpheme utterances. 2. Utterances with /ka/ account for an average of 29% of a l l two-morpheme utterance types in the f i r s t nine representative sessions, and 35% of two-morpheme tokens. 3. In session XVI, /ka/ appears to drop out of Gabriel's system, representing only 1% of a l l utterance tokens, 0% of two-morpheme combinations. In the adult language /ka/ is a deictic which means 'that farther away (sometimes out of reach, sometimes out of sight)'. As a demon-strative i t w i l l normally follow the noun i t modifies; as a pronominal subject or object i t w i l l precede the verb stem according to the typical SOV sentence pattern. In Gabriel's system, a simple syntactic rule of the form /ka/ + (Word) + (Word) would appear to account for most of the utterances in which i t occurs. /ka/ not only appears frequently in two-morpheme combinations; i t occurs as a one-word utterance, and in three- and four-morpheme utterances. Table 3.4 (p.34:) gives information on the total occurrence of this morpheme in the ten representative ses-sions; the figures given are based on tokens not types. As can be seen from the table, in two sessions /ka/ as a one-word utterance accounted for over 60% of a l l one-word utterance tokens. In session VII, which is the largest sample from Gabriel (736 utterances in 38 2 i hours) and has the highest MLU (1.82 as compared with the average across sessions of 1.38), /ka/ was present i n 74% of a l l two-morpheme utterance tokens, 41% of morpheme combinations greater than two morphemes, as well as representing 62% of a l l single-word utterances. Over the f i r s t nine representative sessions /ka/ i s present i n an average of 19% of a l l utterance tokens, which remains a s i g n i f i c a n t portion. Tables 3.3 and 3.4 point out the v i r t u a l disappearance of '/ka/ by the time of the sixteenth session. The reasons could be purely gram-matical, i n d i c a t i n g a growing syntactic s o p h i s t i c a t i o n . Since the pivot look extends into session XVI, however, with the other presumptive pivots s t i l l accounting for an average of 46% of two-morpheme types, t h i s hypoth-esis i s weak. It may be, instead, that /ka/ i s replaced i n t h i s f i n a l session by another morpheme of roughly the same nature; that i s , one appearing i n a large number of d i f f e r e n t two-morpheme combinations and representing the operation of nomination. A new morpheme does occur i n session XVI, making up 12% of the two-morpheme combinations. This morpheme i s the English pronoun \"me\". While \"me\" utterances could q u a l i f y as occurrences of an operation of reference, that of reference to s e l f , they are semantically very d i f f e r e n t from most /ka/ combinations, making the disappearance of the one and the appearance of the other most l i k e l y c o i n c i d e n t a l . If there were a semantic explanation, i t could be based on the importance of the operation of nomination i n Gabriel's early sessions. This i n turn could be r e l a t e d e i t h e r to c o g n i t i v e - l i n g u i s t i c factors (the phenomenon of naming which has been noted i n early c h i l d speech samples) or to the interview nature of the data c o l l e c t i o n i n the f i r s t 15 sessions. Other considerations are i t s simple phonological shape 39 and the fac t that i t occurs not infrequently i n the adult data, i n a l l lengths of utterances. Although i t designates a f i n e r semantic d i s -t i n c t i o n i n the adult language (/he/ means 'that within reach', /ka/ means 'that farther away'), Gabriel appears to use i t as the equivalent of the English 'that'. It operated as a general, multi-purpose term i n h i s system; he used i t to i n i t i a t e exchanges while pointing at objects he hadn't yet used the names f o r ; he used i t i n response to adult \"What's that\" questions i n much the same way, i n d i c a t i n g that the appropriate l e x i c a l item was not a v a i l a b l e to him; he also used i t with r i s i n g intonation i n a number of s i t u a t i o n s which could have been i n t e r -preted as \"What i s i t \" , \"Can I have i t \" , \"Is i t O.K. to play with that\". In the two-morpheme utterance types, I interpreted 68% of /ka/ combina-tions as expressing the basic semantic r e l a t i o n 'Demonstrative + E n t i t y ' , following Brown's d e f i n i t i o n s for t h i s r e l a t i o n . The other approx-imately one t h i r d of /ka/ types were h i s 'Entity + A t t r i b u t e ' or 'Other constructions'. One possible reason f o r the predominance of the 'Demonstrative + En t i t y ' r e l a t i o n i s the question-answer nature of the data c o l l e c t i o n i n sessions I-XV. In response to Gabriel's quieter times, Wilma often asked \"What's t h i s / t h a t \" questions to e l i c i t speech from him. In session XVI, on the other hand, he was l e f t more or less to speak spon-taneously. I f there were some way of being c e r t a i n that the data c o l l e c t i o n method affected h i s responses to that extent, the fi g u r e s on prevalence of operations of reference, p a r t i c u l a r l y of nomination, and of the semantic r e l a t i o n 'Demonstrative + E n t i t y ' , w i l l be much les s impressive and comparison with other studies w i l l be more d i f f i c u l t . 40 B. \"hey\". I have interpreted the two-morpheme utterances with \"hey\" as expressions of the operation of nomination, contrary to how Brown seems to treat occurrences of such morphemes. While he says that such forms have l i t t l e i n t e r e s t (180), I f e e l that Gabriel i s say-ing something l i k e \"Look a t \" or \"See\" when he uses t h i s word. In both one-word utterances and multi-morpheme combinations, i t served the purpose of focussing the attention o:f-\"others on h i s own i n t e r e s t s . While i t wasn't always c l e a r l y r e f e r e n t i a l (for example, when i t occurred with a verb), i t was one of the ways i n which Gabriel systemat-i c a l l y introduced objects into discussion; i n t h i s r o l e \"hey\" i s sup-ported by phonological s i m i l a r i t y to the adult Dakota d e i c t i c /he/, which occurred often i n the speech around him. C. /ye/ or /ya/. The p a r t i c l e /ye/ (usually /ya/ i n Gabriel's productions) i s the next most frequent presumptive pivot to /ka/. As with /ka/, i t s occurrence i n two-morpheme utterances i s p o s i t i o n a l l y r e s t r i c t e d , i n t h i s case to f i n a l p o s i t i o n without exception. Like-wise, i t occurs frequently i n the adult speech; /ye/ i s the female speech variant of the declarative sentence ending p a r t i c l e , which means, roughly;,, \" i t i s a fact\".\"'\" Just as a phonetic segment, /ye/ (or /ya/) has wide d i s t r i b u t i o n i n Dakota, f o r example, as a verbal p r e f i x (see p. 19), and i t i s easy f o r a c h i l d to produce. While i t occurred only f i n a l l y i n two-morpheme utterances, i t was sometimes medial i n utterances longer than two morphemes, giving the impression that i t operated rather as a type of morpheme boundary than simply an utterance boundary. With \"Stale c h i l d r e n normally acquire the female speech variants f i r s t because of t h e i r constant exposure to females during the early years of l i f e . At around the age of 5 they receive more formal t r a i n i n g i n appropriate male speech forms. 41 such a meaning ( i . e . , as a boundary marker), c l a s s i f i c a t i o n of /ye/ utterances into semantic r e l a t i o n s categories i s not possible. Indeed, Brown describes three types of \"other constructions\" which could not be c l a s s i f i e d . Of these, the category of \" i d i o s y n c r a t i c and i n f l e x i b l e terms\" seems best to account for Gabriel's use of /ye/. Brown elabor-ates that such a form i s one \". . . that i s perceptually s a l i e n t and highly frequent i n the speech of a p a r t i c u l a r parent (which becomes) lodged i n the speech of that parent's c h i l d though i t w i l l not be used i n a f u l l range of appropriate environments (179-80).\" Although I didn't explore t h i s , i t may be that the frequent adult expansions of Gabriel's one-word utterances, making them into more complete utterances of the form Word + /ye/, could have encouraged Gabriel to form an 'Add /ye/' r u l e i n his own system. There are examples of such build-up sequences i n the data. Although Wilma translated Word + /ye/ utterances as \" I t ' s a \", I would hesitate to c l a s s i f y Gabriel's Word + /ye/ u t t e r -ances as instances of the operation of nomination. D. /eya/. This fourth presumptive pivot i s even less precise than /ye/. It generally appears i n f i n a l p o s i t i o n , and Gabriel seems to prefer to use i t following h i s imitations of actions or comments on the end states of objects or on t h e i r usual motions or a c t i v i t i e s . Wilma translated i t as \" i t says or goes l i k e that\". This i s l i k e l y another i d i o s y n c r a t i c and i n f l e x i b l e term which has been c o i n c i d e n t a l l y reinforced i n the c h i l d ' s system. The one problem with applying t h i s d e s c r i p t i o n to either /eya/ or /ye/ i s that Gabriel does demonstrate some f l e x i b i l i t y i n t h i s use of both of them; that i s , each appears to be under some control i n his morpheme combination s t r a t e g i e s , perhaps i n the way that Dore et a l (1976) suggest, as placeholder morphemes, 42 i n c i p i e n t sentence ending p a r t i c l e s , or verbs (21-23). In either case they do not lend themselves e a s i l y to analysis as operations of reference. i Word order i n the two-morpheme utterances Brown concludes that word order i s one of the simpler devices a v a i l -able to c h i l d r e n to formall}' mark their.semantic intentions i n Stage I (167), and he concludes from evidence i n English a c q u i s i t i o n studies that Slobin's (1971) operating principle-'—pay attention to the order of words and morphemes—has some v a l i d i t y , i n terms of the c h i l d ' s competence. He r e f e r s to Bloom's (1970) p o s i t i o n on the c h i l d ' s use of word order: . . . when a Stage I c h i l d speaking English uses two or three words i n an utterance i n j u s t that s e r i a l order which i s appropriate to the context of reference as an adult sees i t , then the c h i l d has made a kind of discriminating response which may be taken as e v i -dence that he intends the semantic r e l a t i o n s the order implies and not j u s t the meanings of the i n d i v i d u a l words (Brown, 65). In f a c t , with utterances so short and with the p o s s i b i l i t i e s for extrap-o l a t i o n so numerous i n most speech contexts, the c h i l d ' s combinations of morphemes may i n d i c a t e nothing more than h i s desire to comment on two objects/events which to him are i n j u x t a p o s i t i o n . Howe (1976) points out the c i r c u l a r i t y of Brown's (and Bloom's) p o s i t i o n ; Brown has i n t e r -preted the semantic intentions underlying the c h i l d ' s utterances by paying attention to word order and then credited the c h i l d with using word order to express those intentions. She also suggests that there i s a high degree of i m i t a t i o n i n the c h i l d ' s utterances during t h i s period of language development and that various researchers (Brown and Fraser, 1963; Brown and B e l l u g i , 1964) have found that the c h i l d main-tains word order i n imitations. While one may wish to assume that t h i s bears on the c h i l d ' s use of word order i n spontaneous speech, Howe cautions that such a r e l a t i o n s h i p has not yet been established (43). 43 The adult Dakota speech in Gabriel's environment is relatively fixed in order. Table 3.5 (p. 34) gives the percentage of Gabriel's two-term utterances which maintain appropriate word order. With an average of 95% appropriate word order, I w i l l assume that Gabriel has either internalized or evolved some notion of morpheme sequencing. No tests were performed to determine his comprehension of contrastive orders, however, and so the results are of limited interest. Sequencing of the verbal affixes, which w i l l come at a later time in development, w i l l provide a clearer test of his attention to this aspect of language. The semantic relations The semantic characterization of Gabriel's utterances so far has been confined to pivot type constructions. These constructions have the form of a small set of fixed constants in combination with a large set of variables, which Brown says mainly express operations of refer-ence (nomination, recurrence, non-existence and reference to self or mother). I found slightly different results with the presumptive pivots I identified in Gabriel's speech samples. The search for the semantic relations Brown says are expressed by the child's early morpheme combinations involves redefining the .opera-tions of reference where possible and identifying correlates of adult semantic functions in the child's data. Brown states his relations in terms similar to those in Chafe's (1969) and Fillmore's (1968) models. He raises the consideration that \" . . . description in terms of a set of prevalent semantic relations may be l i t t l e more than a technique of data reduction, a way of describing the meanings of early sentences short of 44 l i s t i n g them a l l . . . . (173)\", but the fact that, in his findings, most of the interpretable utterances f e l l into only eight of a l l the possible relations a human language i s capable of expressing and this with surpris-ing uniformity across children and languages, suggests that there is some principle underlying the results. Howe points out that Bloom, Schlesinger and Slobin, working separately from Brown and independently of one another, arrived at very similar conclusions about the semantic intentions expressed by the child's early multi-morphemic utterances (Howe, 29), although she suggests a very different reason for this consensus. Brown feels con-fident enough about his hypothesis to make the stronger claim of invari-ance across languages in this development, saying that these basic mean-ings (his semantic relations) are somehow \"made available\" to the child when he starts to form sentences. It has already been shown that one construction type in Gabriel's corpus—/ka/ + Word—accounted for a large number of Gabriel's two-morpheme utterances. Many of the tokens of this type f i t the descrip-tion of the relation Demonstrative + Entity and so a high representation in this category can already be expected. Reclassification of the other presumptive pivots in Gabriel's corpus wasn't possible; for example, my tentative interpretation of \"hey\" + Word utterances as equivalent to \"look at\" + Word could not really be extended to f i t the relational category of Act + Object without a great deal of speculation. Tables 3.6 and 3.7 below give the results of my analysis of Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances in terms of Brown's definitions of the prevalent semantic relations. A glance at Table 3.6 reveals that most posited relations are barely or not at a l l represented in Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances. 45 TABLE 3.6 SESSIONAL RESULTS FROM GABRIEL FOR SEMANTIC RELATIONS EXPRESSED IN MULTI-MORPHEMIC UTTERANCES Constr. Session I II III IV VII XII XIII XIV XV XVI Aver. MLU 1.38 1.30 1.24 1.17 1.82 1.50 1.42 1.23 1.18 1.38 No. of types* 53 23 73 49 138 90 82 95 81 54 2-morph. r e l a t i o n s Ag.+Act. 02 04 12 12 17 12 06 09 09 15 10 Act.+Obj. 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 04 007 Ag.+Obj. 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 003 Act.+Loc. 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 02 006 Ent.+Loc. 00 04 04 00 05 01 04 05 01 00 02 Poss.+Poss. 00 04 00 02 01 00 00 02 00 00 01 Ent.+Attr. 09 00 08 06 11 09 12 06 15 02 08 Dem.+Ent. 30 30 26 27 , 20 26 12 12 21 02 21 3-morph. -r e l a t i o n s Ag.+Act.+Obj. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 Ag.+Act.+Loc. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 Ag.+Obj.+Loc. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 Act.+Obj.+Loc. 00 00 00 00 00 00 . 00 00 00 00 00 Total % 45 42 50 51 54 48 34 36 46 27 43 *minus uninterpretables f TABLE 3.7 PERCENTAGES PREVALENT RELATIONS FOR GABRIEL COMPARED WITH RESULTS FROM BROWN'S STUDY Kendall Gabriel Seppo Kendall Viveka S i p i l i T o f i Eve Sarah Seppo Rina Pepe Adam Constr. I I II I I II I I MLU 1.10 1.38 1.42 1.48 1.50 1.52 1.60 1.68 1.73 1.81 1.83 1.85 2.06 Multi-morph. types 100 111 152 112 112 75 146 183 272 203 242 229 % prev. r e i s . 81 43 67 72 69 30 51 58 44 74 70 70 64 47 The average across the ten sessions i s 43%, which places him, as i s shown i n Table 3.7, between the two low figures of 30% for S i p i l i and 44% for Sarah I. The average across the twelve Brown children i s 63% m u l t i -morphemic utterances expressing semantic r e l a t i o n s . Because Gabriel f a l l s s i g n i f i c a n t l y short of t h i s f i g u r e , i t i s i n order to speculate as to possible reasons for the d i s p a r i t y . F i r s t , any s i m i l a r i t i e s between Gabriel's data and that of S i p i l i and Sarah I could be revealing. Brown f e e l s c e r t a i n that the low figures obtained for the l a t t e r two ch i l d r e n can be explained by the manner i n which t h e i r data were c o l l e c t e d . He said that the mothers of these chi l d r e n created an unnatural speech environment by asking them questions i n an e f f o r t to e l i c i t speech. \"The r e s u l t i n g protocols for the ch i l d r e n were, consequently, overloaded with the names of things, simple nomina-t i v e s l i k e a book, which were not counted among the prevalent r e l a t i o n s (Brown, 178).\" Although t h i s type of 'interviewing' was c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the f i r s t f i f t e e n sessions with Ga b r i e l , many of the instances of nom-in a t i o n which resulted q u a l i f i e d for r e c l a s s i f i c a t i o n as semantic r e l a -tions and were counted. In addition, session XVI, which was more 'spontaneous', also showed the lowest percentage semantic r e l a t i o n s — 2 6 % . A second consideration i s the d i s t r i b u t i o n of the r e l a t i o n a l r e s u l t s . I f one were to remove the figures i n the category Demonstrative + E n t i t y from Table 3.6, i t would leave Gabriel producing hardly any semantic r e l a t i o n s at a l l , l e t alone any utterances, whatever the type. Not a l l of Gabriel's utterances were responses to questions. Since the r e l a t i o n Demonstrative + E n t i t y i s e s s e n t i a l l y a naming function, I assume that naming was an important function performed by h i s speech during the period of the f i r s t f i f t e e n sessions, both i n response to 48 questions e l i c i t i n g the names of objects and in spontaneous speech. In addition, i t should be noted that Gabriel is starting to in i t i a t e dialogue, and one of his strategies for doing this is to point things out and name them, sometimes with a rising intonation as i f inviting responses. I w i l l discuss nominatives further when I look at Howe's suggested utterance categories for early speech. It is interesting to note that Brown bases his calculations on multi-morpheme types. I was unable to find out i f he meant by that semantic types. If this was not the case, one can draw two possible conclusions. Either the results w i l l contain that error which 'rich interpretation' i s supposed to avoid (that i s , counting as the same two identical surface level utterances which differ in deep structure) or i t may be that multi-relational (or polysemantic) types do not occur in the 12 corpora (as tended to be the case for Gabriel), something that.'.could have slightly interesting implications. There is an additional factor in my analysis of Gabriel's mor-pheme combinations, and that is the d i f f i c u l t y I experienced in apply-ing Brown's relational categories to much of the data. Provided with contextual notes taken during the course of the tapings, the help of the caretaker-translator during translations, and sufficient knowledge of the language to understand practically everything Gabriel said, I could s t i l l not feel entirely confident about classifying in such specific terms many of the utterances. I believe the problem lie s deeper than definition of the relations. 49 Howe's alternative to 'rich interpretation' Christine Howe (1976) attacks the basic assumption of the 'rich interpretation' method—that children always intend one of the meanings adults might express. She says, At the present state of knowledge, there are grounds for assuming that three very general concepts are available by the time of the f i r s t two-word utterances, namely 'action of concrete object' (regardless of the role of the object in the action), 'state of concrete object' (whether i t be an 'attribute', a 'location', or a 'possession') and 'name of concrete object' (which Piaget [1962] has shown also to be acquired by the end of the second year) (Howe, 36). In other words, i f we take as a p r i o r i that the child's utterances express and reflect his knowledge of the world, we must be careful in how we characterize that knowledge. Howe notes that we have only sketchy information about the child's construction of reality; what we \"know\" has been derived from the cognitive studies of Piaget and others. Brown considers Piaget's description of sensorimotor intelligence in justifying the semantic relations he has posited; however, as Howe points out, he uses the established categories of 'name of object', 'state of object', and 'action of object' as a base from which he extrapolates to the more complex prevalent relations. (For example, Agent + Act + Object utterances \". . . presume the ab i l i t y to dist i n -guish an action from the object of the action and the self from other persons or objects [Brown, 200].\") Howe says we should not so readily attribute to children knowledge about relations such as Agent + Act + Object even though the apparent prerequisites are there. Howe also attacks the research strategies employed by 'rich interpretationists'. She describes these as follows: Specifically, i f information about the non-verbal situation preceding each two-word utterance was available, i t was fe l t that 50 the s i t u a t i o n referred to could be determined by d i r e c t observa-t i o n of the r e l a t i o n between the referents of each word. On the other hand, i f such information was not a v a i l a b l e , i t was f e l t that the s i t u a t i o n referred to could be i n f e r r e d by expanding the two-word utterance into a f e a s i b l e grammatical sentence, which maintained the word order of the utterance wherever possible, and by assuming that the s i t u a t i o n referred to by that grammatical sentence was the referent of the two-word utterance (40). In l i g h t of her objection to the basic assumption of the ' r i c h i n t e r -pretation' approach, the f i r s t strategy commits the error of equating the adult's and the c h i l d ' s perceptions of any given s i t u a t i o n . There i s the added consideration that observation of the s i t u a t i o n does not always c l e a r l y reveal the meaning of the c h i l d ' s utterances; sometimes more than one i n t e r p r e t a t i o n i s f e a s i b l e . This d i f f i c u l t y i s inherent i n the second strategy employed, where almost any two-word combination can be expanded i n a number of ways without seeming implausible. In addition, i n the second strategy, word order, instead of referent s i t u a t i o n , was used to determine the intended meaning. While Howe's approach means a return to a leaner i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the c h i l d ' s utterances, i t i s one based on cognitive considerations rather than on l i n g u i s t i c knowledge. Because her categories are so general, they were easy to apply to Gabriel's data. I f e l t i t was clear from his utterances i f he was commenting on the name, state or action of an object, whereas determination of semantic r e l a t i o n s or rol e s was more d i f f i c u l t . Howe notes another a t t r a c t i o n of her proposal, namely that . . . many of the utterances expressing each of these concepts have c h a r a c t e r i s t i c surface structure features. S p e c i f i c a l l y the presence of a verb of action s i g n i f i e s utterances about the actions of concrete objects; the presence of an adjective s i g -n i f i e s utterances about the states of concrete objects; and the presence of a demonstrative pronoun, an impersonal pronoun or a prolocative (or a few, more i d i o s y n c r a t i c , introducers l i k e see) s i g n i f i e s utterances about names of objects (36). 51 I attempted to apply these categories to Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances and the results are given in Table 3.8 below. This table demonstrates, i f nothing more, that i t was easier to account for more of Gabriel's utterances using the broader classes. It also shows that most of Gabriel's utterances are about the names of or the actions of objects. Howe's point is that, while this seems to say l i t t l e about the child's acquisition of language, i t says most of what we can say about the meanings of the f i r s t two-word utterances. She suggests that the 'rich interpretation' approach has opened a new area in acquisition studies which needs to be further investigated. She says that Brown's, Bloom's, Schlesinger's and Slobin's . . . most significant, though unintentional, contribution to the study of child language development could be their demonstration of the strategies parents use to interpret their children's speech. Parents assume that the two-word utterances of their children express one of the meanings they would themselves express. Parents use word order and their perceptions of the relation between referents of their children's utterances as clues to interpretation (45). If we accept Howe's criticisms, we must assume that grammars cannot be written for early child speech, even i f a semantically-defined model is used. Summary An analysis of Gabriel's multi-morphemic data based on Brown's (1973) model was taken in order to examine one aspect of learning how to mean—the construction of propositions. The pivot look which Brown predicts for Stage I.'(or early syntactic) speech is apparent in Gabriel's corpus, and quantification of the two-morpheme utterances revealed four possible presumptive pivots—/ka/, \"hey\", /ye/ and /eya/. Of these, only /ka/ seemed to be a clear example of a pivot which created TABLE 3.8 HOWE'S CATEGORIES APPLIED TO GABRIEL'S MULTI-MORPHEMIC UTTERANCES Session Category I II III IV VII XII XIII XIV XV XVI Aver. Action 2-morph. 28 31 40 54 27 43 51 34 30 64 40 A l l m u l t i -morph. 35 28 36 51 36 45 49 47 38 67 43 Name 2-morph. 65 58 49 41 43 40 40 53 62 24 48 A l l m u l t i -morph. 54 60 46 37 31 38 38 38 52 18 41 State 2-morph. 7 11 11 5 24 16 8 11 7 12 21 A l l m u l t i -morph. 11 8 11 5 21 14 8 12 9 10 11 T tal % 2-morph. 100 100 100 100 94 99 99 99 99 100 A l l m u l t i -morph. 100 96 93 93 88 97 95 97 99 95 53 operations of reference utterances; \"hey\" was so classified with less confidence. The order of Gabriel's multi-morphemic utterances was con-sistent and appropriate as far as could be determined through comparison with adult sequencing. Classification of the multi-morpheme utterances in terms of Brown's posited semantic relations showed that these cate-gories accounted for considerably fewer of Gabriel's structures than the average found by Brown (Gabriel's 43% compared to Brown's average across 12 children of 63%). Three considerations are raised by this result; that the interview nature of the f i r s t fifteen sessions made Gabriel's data unnaturally overloaded with nominatives; that one relation domin-ated to the near exclusion of others, namely Demonstrative + Entity, indicating that naming is an important function of early child speech; and that Brown's categories are too specific to apply to the deformed and ambiguous utterances of Stage I. Howe's (1976) criticisms of the 'rich interpretation' approach used by Brown and others were introduced in relation to the third consideration. One further classification of the multi-morphemic utterances, this time in terms of the three general utterance categories suggested by Howe—name of object, state of object, and action of object—account for almost a l l of Gabriel's utterances and indicate that most of them express either the names or the actions of obj ects. While Howe urges caution in the interpretation of meanings of the f i r s t two-word utterances, there are other issues in the determination of meaning development which are currently under investigation. Among these are the role of discourse and the functions of child language in communication situations. Propositional meaning as characterized by Brown i s most properly termed semantic; pragmatic meaning as determined through the child's use of language is the focus of the next chapter. CHAPTER FOUR FUNCTIONAL MEANING Introduction This chapter considers Gabriel's a b i l i t y to mean as a function of his performance i n language i n t e r a c t i o n s , p a r t i c u l a r l y i n his emerging dialogue patterns. Discussion i s shaped by Halliday's (1975) f u n c t i o n a l model of language acquistion, i n which he states that the t o t a l semantic or meaning system a c h i l d acquires does not j u s t consist of r e f e r e n t i a l (word meaning) and r e l a t i o n a l (propositional meaning) components; there i s , encompassing these, a fun c t i o n a l component whereby the c h i l d learns to use language to perform d i f f e r e n t communicative tasks. There are numerous aspects to the a c q u i s i t i o n of pragmatic fluency, but the focus here i s Gabriel's i n i t i a t i o n of and p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n dialogue, a devel-opment which marks h i s increasing s o c i a l involvement and which brings his personal language system under the influence of the c o l l e c t i v e adult system. Language use Bates (1976) points out that meaning studies i n developmental ps y c h o l i n g u i s t i c s tend to be of two types: those which treat meaning as object and focus on the meaning of words and propositions, and those which treat meaning as act and deal with the uses of language i n context. She notes that language philosophers such as Strawson (1950) and Frege 54 55 (1952) stress that not a l l meaning can be reduced to reference, but rather that speakers are active in the creation of meaning in different contexts; in fact they consider 'referring' to be \"an activity or use of language by speakers rather than an object or property of sentences (Bates, 423).\" One form of this approach is typified in studies such as Greenfield and Smith (1976) and Paris! (1974), which Bates reviews. These writers are concerned with incorporating some notion of the child's actions in i t s construction of meanings, represented perhaps by sensorimotor struc-tures and inextricably tied to the environment of the referents. They say that the child constructs his meanings by a combination of a l i n -guistic expression which encodes some aspect of the context which is at the same time related to the context surrounding that aspect. They add, \"The connection between the explicitly symbolized and encoded meaning and the implicit, perceptual-motor meaning is often indicated with such overt acts as pointing, orientation of the body, eye contact, etc. (Bates, 423).\" These gestures help adults to respond more appropriately to what the child is trying to make his language do for him at a time when his linguistic devices are too idiosyncratic or insufficient. Any assumptions about the child's meaning potential or intentions must relate directly to the context of utterances, since his construction of reality is so context-bound at the time of early speech. Halliday's work i s more concerned with the established functions of language (such as getting things, regulating others, expressing personal feelings, etc.). He says, The relationship of talk to the environment lie s in the total semiotic structure of the interaction: the significant ongoing activity (and i t i s only through this that 'things' enter into the picture, in a very indirect way), and the social matrix within which meanings are being exchanged (Halliday, 141). 56 In other words, language i s much more than j u s t words and sentences about objects and events and the r e l a t i o n s h i p s between them; i t i s a s o c i a l instrument through which a culture and the rules for operating within i t are being acquired. In f a c t , Halliday says that the c h i l d learns how to perform a number of d i f f e r e n t meaning functions long before he has the words or grammatical structures to r e a l i z e those meanings i n the adult language. The f a c t that these functions seem to appear very early, before what has t r a d i t i o n a l l y been considered as the beginning of language, and that they are the same as the functions around which the adult language i s constructed, suggests to him that they are what i s basic i n the a c q u i s i t i o n process (Halliday, 9). Bates expresses a s i m i l a r view, s t a t i n g that the c h i l d ' s base l i n g u i s t i c development i s pragmatic, from which semantic development and then sy n t a c t i c development proceed (420). Halliday's work i s one of the f i r s t of recent studies to a t t r i b u t e explanatory power to pragmatic development i n an a c q u i s i t i o n model. On important aspect of h i s model i s that he accepts as language any func-t i o n a l l y consistent phonological and gestural forms; the beginnings of language, then, can be found i n the c h i l d ' s f i r s t vocal i n t e r a c t i o n s , before words i n the adult sense and before syntax, at a time when he i s learning that v o i c i n g i s an action j u s t as are pointing and grasping. Halliday takes as a p r i o r i that language, even a r t i f i c i a l utterances, serves some function i n r e l a t i o n to the speaker and h i s environment and audience. This applies as well to c h i l d language as to adult language. Halliday divides the a c q u i s i t i o n process into three phases which d i f f e r from one another i n terms of degree of f u n c t i o n a l elaboration and communicative competence. While, i n the e a r l i e s t phase, function 57 equals use, the construction of a lexicogrammatical system in the second phase makes possible multifunctional utterances which, in the third phase, f i n a l l y acquire the shape they have in the adult language. As Halliday says, the functional component is part of the nature of language. Language is organized around the expression of functions which are shaped by typical interactions between humans in their roles as speaker and hearer. The child acquiring language is acquiring knowledge of what he can do in relation to others and what language can do to assist him in these interactions. Halliday's phases In Halliday's study of his child Nigel, Phase I started at 0;9 and lasted u n t i l about 1;6, during which time six basic language functions appeared. The phonological forms used to express them were invented by the child. Phase II was marked by the sudden increase in adult-word vocabulary and the appearance of word combinations—the lexicogrammatical system which makes possible multifunctional utterances and leads to the major work of acquiring the formal structure and rules of the adult language, which Halliday describes as the job of Phase III. The focus of the following discussion is on Phase II speech. Apart from the vocabulary increase and onset of syntax mentioned above, two other important developments occur in Phase II. These are dialogue, participated in and initiated by the child, and a seventh function, which Halliday calls the Informative function. Both phenomena signal a marked development in the child's knowledge about language. A successful dialogue is conducted according to a complex of rules which are defined by the culture in general and fitted to each particular social setting. 58 Learning how to mean necessitates learning how to be competent i n dialogue s i t u a t i o n s . The appearance of the Informative function i n d i -cates that the c h i l d r e a l i z e s that language can be used not only to express needs and emotions, but to give and receive information. The appearance of t h i s function i s t i e d to the c h i l d ' s a b i l i t y to 'represent' i n Piagetian terms (Phase II corresponds i n many ways to Piaget's s e n s o r i -motor substage VI and Brown's Stage I ) . H a l l i d a y terms Phase II as a t r a n s i t i o n a l phase because i t was during t h i s time that he noted the development of a major d i v i s i o n between the basic macro-categories of pragmatic (performative) and mathetic (ideational) functions, which he f e e l s correspond to the i d e a t i o n a l and interpersonal components of the adult f u n c t i o n a l system. Functional components of the adult language In his discussion of the sources of f u n c t i o n a l concepts, Ha l l i d a y says, . . . the adult language displays c e r t a i n features which can only be interpreted i n f u n c t i o n a l terms. These are found, n a t u r a l l y , i n the area of meaning: the semantic system of the adult language i s very c l e a r l y f unctional i n i t s composition. . . . But what i s r e a l l y s i g n i f i c a n t i s that t h i s f u n c t i o n a l p r i n c i p l e i s c a r r i e d over and b u i l t i n to the grammar, so that the i n t e r n a l organiza-t i o n of the grammatical system i s also f u n c t i o n a l i n character (16). He distinguishes among three 'sets of options' which he says constitute the f u n c t i o n a l component of the semantic system: the i d e a t i o n a l , interpersonal and textual. The d i s t i n c t i o n involves systemic con-st r a i n t s (as described by F i r t h ' s [1957] system-structure theory) such that a speaker's selections i n one set of options a f f e c t only the other choices within that set and not the choices i n the other sets. In other words, i f a speaker makes a statement about something he has 59 observed (an i d e a t i o n a l language use), he does not exclude himself from the p o s s i b i l i t y of using that statement, say, to influence h i s audience (an interpersonal language use). The i d e a t i o n a l (or observer) options r e l a t e to the content of what i s said, language as a means of t a l k i n g about the r e a l world; the interpersonal (or intruder) options are the means whereby the speaker p a r t i c i p a t e s i n the communication s i t u a t i o n , expressing judgments and att i t u d e s , etc.; the textual function i s what i s i n t r i n s i c to language, what r e l a t e s utterances one to another and to the context, so that speech i s not j u s t l i s t s of words (16-17). Functions of Phases I and II In order to characterize the functional p o t e n t i a l of the c h i l d acquiring language, Halliday brought together h i s observations of language use by the c h i l d , t h e o r e t i c a l considerations about l i n g u i s t i c function, and considerations of the r o l e of s o c i a l i z a t i o n and c u l t u r a l transmission i n the a c q u i s i t i o n process. On the basis of these he proposed the following as the functions of Phase I (18): 1. Instrumental—This i s the use of language for getting things done or s a t i s f y i n g one's needs, a kind of 'I want . . .'function. It tends to be object-oriented. 2. Regulatory—This i s the use of language f o r c o n t r o l l i n g the behaviour of others; i t i s focussed on a p a r t i c u l a r i n d i v i d u a l , a 'Do that . . .' function. 3. I n t e r a c t i o n a l — T h i s i s the use of language for i n t e r a c t i n g with others, including greetings and i n v i t a t i o n s to play. 4. P e r s o n a l — T h i s i s the use of language f o r expressing the personality, d i s t i n g u i s h i n g the s e l f from the environment. Halliday c a l l s i t the 60 'Here I come' f u n c t i o n . 5. H e u r i s t i c — T h i s i s t h e use o f lan g u a g e t o e x p l o r e t h e e n v i r o n m e n t , o f t e n i n terms o f a s k i n g f o r t h e names o f t h i n g s . 6. I m a g i n a t i v e — T h i s i s t h e use o f l a n g u a g e f o r p l a y and p r e t e n d i n g . A s e v e n t h f u n c t i o n — t h e I n f o r m a t i v e f u n c t i o n — a p p e a r s l a t e r i n Phase I I and i s t h e use of l a n g u a g e t o communicate i n f o r m a t i o n . H a l l i d a y p o i n t s o u t , The i d e a t h a t l a n g u a g e can be used as a means of communicating i n f o r m a t i o n t o someone who does n o t a l r e a d y p o s s e s s t h a t i n f o r m a -t i o n i s a v e r y s o p h i s t i c a t e d one w h i c h depends on t h e i n t e r n a l -i z a t i o n o f a whole complex s e t o f l i n g u i s t i c c o n c e p t s t h a t t h e young c h i l d does n o t p o s s e s s . I t i s t h e o n l y p u r e l y i n t r i n s i c f u n c t i o n o f l a n g u a g e , t h e o n l y use of language i n a f u n c t i o n t h a t i s d e f i n a b l e s o l e l y by r e f e r e n c e t o l a n g u a g e . . . . I t i s u s e f u l , however, t o r e f e r t o i t a t t h i s p o i n t , p a r t i c u l a r l y because i t te n d s t o p r e d o m i n a t e i n a d u l t t h i n k i n g about l a n g u a g e . T h i s , i n f a c t , i s one o f t h e r e a s o n s why t h e a d u l t f i n d s i t so d i f f i c u l t t o i n t e r p r e t t h e image o f lan g u a g e t h a t a v e r y young c h i l d has i n t e r n a l i z e d ( 2 1 ) . I t seems t h a t H a l l i d a y f e e l s t h a t s u c h a p r e c o n c e p t i o n may be r e s p o n s i b l e t o some e x t e n t f o r t h e f o c u s on s e m a n t i c c o n t e n t r a t h e r t h a n p e r f o r m a t i v e meaning t a k e n i n many c h i l d l a n g u a g e s t u d i e s . As s t a t e d e a r l i e r , H a l l i d a y s a y s t h a t , d u r i n g Phase I I , t h e s e f u n c t i o n s f a l l i n t o two major c a t e g o r i e s : t h e p r a g m a t i c and t h e m a t h e t i c ; t h e s e appear t o c o r r e s p o n d t o t h e two a d u l t f u n c t i o n a l c a t e g o r i e s , t h e i n t e r p e r s o n a l and t h e i d e a t i o n a l , r e s p e c t i v e l y . H a l l i d a y bases t h i s c o n c l u s i o n on a s t r i k i n g f e a t u r e o f N i g e l ' s Phase I I u t t e r a n c e s , a c o n -t r a s t i v e use o f i n t o n a t i o n . There was no e q u i v a l e n t phenomenon i n G a b r i e l ' s c o r p u s , however, and t h e r e i s t h e p o s s i b i l i t y t h a t t h e m a r k i n g of such a d i s t i n c t i o n i s an i d i o s y n c r a s y o f N i g e l ' s system. 61 Location of Gabriel i n Halliday's model From what has already been described of Halliday's phases, i t seems clear that Gabriel is in Halliday's Phase II. He is producing word combinations; his lexicon is s t i l l small relative to the adult vocabulary (about 100 items) and partially consists of idiosyncratic form, but i t is growing. He exhibits a l l of the Phase I functions in his speech and is actively participating in and in i t i a t i n g dialogue. Phase I functions in Gabriel's speech The following are examples from the data intended to show that Gabriel has mastered the six Phase I functions. They have been gathered from a survey of a l l sessions and represent typical utterances in the corpus. (1) Instrumental. Session III, 2;4(4), utts. 278-281. (Gabriel i s asking his cousin Annette for a drink of water. He persists u n t i l he gets one.) G: Hey. Hey. Net. Ka mimi. \"Hey. Hey. Annette. That water.\" \" \" Annette that /mni/ = water (2) Regulatory. Session II, 2;4(1), utts. 36-39 (Gabriel and Wilma are looking through a mail-order catalogue.) G: Hiyu. K|: + z l . \"Come here. That one.\" come-here that /wa2i/ = one (Wilma starts to turn to the next page.) G: Hiya\\ HiyS. \"No. No.\" (Gabriel tries to stop her from turning the page.) (3) Interactional. Session IV, 2;4(5), utts. 114-117 (Gabriel initiates a turn-taking game with Esther, whom he calls 'Andrew', around the activity of pushing a toy truck along the floor to one another.) 62 G: Eya Andu. Eya, eya Andu. Eya. \"Go (?) Andrew, go (?), etc.\" Andrew Andrew Personal. Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 47-48. (Gabriel and Esther fight over some toy animals.) G: Andrew. \"Andrew.\" II A: Andrew aim ha? \"Is Andrew sleeping?\" \" sleep Q. G: Ka /mam^ Ln/. \"That's mine.\" that \"mine\" (Gabriel then slaps Esther.) Heuristic. Session IV, 2;4(5), utt. 70 (Gabriel watches Wilma putting calomine lotion on her arms.) G: KS /vawa/? \"That hurt?\" that /w£we/ = hurt Imaginative. Session IV, 2;4(5), utts. 347-348 (Wilma holds a ceramic ornament of a horse against Gabriel's back where he can't see i t . ) W: He taku ha? \"What's that?\" that what Q. G: C i c i . \"Monster.\" monster W: Cic i S n i y£. \"It's not a monster.\" monster N. F. G: Hiya. \"No.\" (negative disagreement) no 63 It didn't seem that quantification of the data in terms of the functions would be particularly useful. The predominance of one function over the others might reflect some functional priorities in the child's system, but the main point is that the child i s capable of using language in a number of functional situations. The identifica-tion of these situations is s t i l l problematic; many of the child's utterances may accomplish something they were not intended to, as a result of interactant misinterpretation. In addition, what I have chosen as examples of the Phase I functions in Gabriel's speech may not in fact correspond to what Halliday intended, but this would be the result of trying to match two children on the basis of possibly idio-syncratic category definitions. Effect of interviewing on Gabriel's speech I noted earlier that much of Gabriel's speech in the f i r s t fifteen sessions was in response to e l i c i t a t i o n questions designed to get him to speak more. In terms of a Brown-type study, such a collection procedure is considered undesirable because el i c i t e d speech tends to be of..one type, simple nominations, as opposed to spontaneous speech which is usually more various. While interviewing could result in a functional skew (for example, many Heuristic utterances), any adult interaction with the child, no matter how modelled, is considered to be contributing to language development. It is in listening to and responding to the utterances of others and in experiencing language in the social setting that the child acquires i t himself. As might be expected, in a compari-son; of the two sessions where Gabriel's total output was the greatest and the smallest, there were more speech elicitations directed towards 64 Gabriel, more responses made to Gabriel's i n i t i a t i o n efforts and fewer of Gabriel's interaction attempts ignored in the session where his output was greatest. DIALOGUE Assigning and accepting rdles The basic rule of dialogue is that i t requires the assigning and accepting of the rdles of speaker and hearer in a kind of turn-taking pattern. The child must understand that when he speaks someone should listen (if i t is to be a successful exchange) and that when he has spoken he can sometimes expect a reply (or, i f he has not spoken f i r s t , that he should attend to speech directed toward him). The most elementary form of rfile assignment and acceptance in Gabriel's data can be seen in the turn-taking games he plays (usually with Esther). The games are often invented on the spot, revolving on some simple activity, and involving the simple r u l e — \" f i r s t my turn, then yours\". They are examples of ludic behaviour and are often accompanied by laughter, gasps and exag-gerated intonations; one game seems to serve the sole purpose of generating excitement. (7) Session XIII, 2;4(20), utts. 216-252 (Gabriel initiates this game by te l l i n g Esther to dance.) G: CI Andu c i . \"Dance Andrew dance.\" /waci/ = dance Andrew dance (Esther dances, sits down and then t e l l s Gabriel to dance; he does so, ending with the exclamation /ha£h/ and sits down for Esther's turn. The game continues in this way for several minutes with the children dancing and laughing.) 65 (8) Session VII, 2;8(8), utts. 2-4 (Esther makes a face and says \"Andrew\". She is amused that Gabriel calls her this.) E: Andrew. G: Afidu. E: Afidu. G: Afidu. E: Andrew. G: Aridu. E: Afidu. Afidu. (9) Session.,IT,' 2;4(5) , utts. 193-213 (Gabriel initiates this game by throwing a toy boat and te l l i n g Esther to get i t . When she brings i t back, he throws i t again and t e l l s her to get i t . Esther's r61e here i s in response to Gabriel's commands; she doesn't say anything herself.) G: Du. Andu. Du. \"Get i t , Andrew. Get i t . \" /icu/—-go-take Andrew go-take (10) Session XIV, 2;4(21), utts. 366-375 (Gabriel and Esther are colouring in colouring books.) G: Hey! (he gasps.) Hiyti! Hiyti! \"Hey! Come here. Come here.\" \" come-here come-here E: Gabriel! Hiyti! \"Gabriel! Come here!\" \" come-here G: Hiyu! (+5) Hiyu Afidu. \"Come here. (+5) Come here Andrew.\" E: Hiyu! Hiyti Gabriel! \"Come here. Come here Gabriel.\" G: Hiyti! Andu hiyti hiyti. \"Come here. Andrew come here, etc.\" E: Hiyti hiyti Gable de: \"Come here, come here Gabriel, this.\" (Esther points to a picture of a duck in the colouring book.) 66 These exchanges require cooperation around a very simple two-person activity. They also give the children a chance to practise certain paralinguistic elements, raised pitch, varied intonation, gasping and so on. In example (10), /hiyu/, \"come here\", seems almost an empty form used by the children to transmit excited tones; the excitement appears to be contrived, as the exchange ends with their looking at a picture of a duck which they have seen many times before. Even though these are play behaviours,they incorporate a skeleton dialogue structure. Speech routines Another type of interaction which serves as a model for dialogue is the practised speech routine, similar to \"Hello, how are you—I'm fine\". In Gabriel's case, the best example of such a routine is the scenario which is enacted almost every time Wilma lights a cigarette and lets Gabriel blow out the match. (11) Session IX, 2;4(12), utts. 187-188 (Wilma lights a cigarette and holds the match out for Gabriel to blow on.) W: Hiyu. Waka, i /pu/ ahe + kte + ye. 1 o o come-here /wayaka/ = look 'blow' do P. F. \"Come here. Look, blow this.\" G: Ka. \"That.\" that W: Tdkex? \"How?\" how G: Kd /pu/ ya. \"That 'blow'.\" O O that 'blow' F. (Gabriel blows out the match.) 67 W: /pu/ ahe + kte ha? \"Did you blow i t out?\" o o 'blow' do P. Q. This routine recurs in the data with several small variations. The basic elements which always occur are the stimulus (a l i t match) which marks the entry point to the exchange, either an invitation from Wilma to Gabriel or a request from Gabriel to Wilma to blow out the match, the incorporation of Gabriel's onomatopoeic word /pu/ into o o Wilma's utterances during the exchange, the blowing out of the match, and a yes/no question from Wilma as to whether i t has been extinguished, which marks the exit from the exchange. Even though the parts in a routine have been made relatively auto-matic through practice, i t is more like a dialogue than are the turn-taking games. It involves more than just simple repetition of one utterance or act. There is a mixture of questions and answers relating to an ongoing activity in the context. The beginning and end of the exchange are not arbitrary in the way that the games seem to be. The degree of cooperation required between the participants is higher. The match routine has the same general structure as many of Gabriel's more spontaneous (that i s , unpractised) exchanges with Wilma, and i t operates as one model for new interactions. About dialogue There is no elegant way of presenting the discourse s k i l l s that Gabriel i s acquiring at the time of the sampling. The predictability which exists in normal spontaneous dialogue involves speaker-hearer expectations which are acquired over a lifetime and which relate to the functions of dialogue, only one of which is to convey information. 68 Gabriel's emerging s k i l l s range from i n i t i a t i o n strategies to reparation attempts, when he has realized that he is not being properly understood, to sustaining responses. Basically, there are two kinds of dialogue with Gabriel—that initiated by the adult and that initiated by the child. Depending on how a dialogue i s initiated, the person addressed must respond not only with a possible response but also with an appropriate one. In adult- initiated exchanges Gabriel did the following: (a) answered questions or obeyed commands (b) gave a general response form, such as /ka/ (c) requested more information or a repetition by using \"hmmm?\" or \"huh?\" In Gabriel-initiated dialogues, his interactants did the following: (a) gave back the child's utterance in question form; repeated (b) made neutral responses like \"ohhh\" which were intended to show interest (c) reworded and/or expanded the child's utterance (d) gave new information With the f i r s t seven sessions I attempted to paragraph the data; that i s , I marked off the changes in topic. This procedure is hardly accurate, even when pauses, new referents and new speakers are noted; I could not be sure that what seemed like a change of topic to me actually was for Gabriel. A set of exchanges containing references to several different toys, for example, might s t i l l be better considered as one dialogue event in terms of flow and functional character. In general, though, pauses and changes of referent were used here as signals for the purpose of determining the boundaries of specific exchanges. \" 69 I n i t i a t i o n s Halliday notes that information-seeking questions are the most common way of i n i t i a t i n g dialogue. However, such dialogues can only s t a r t to be pa r t i c i p a t e d i n by the c h i l d at the beginning of Phase I I , when he can answer information-seeking questions, and can only be i n i t i a t e d by the c h i l d l a t e r i n the phase when he masters the Inform-a t i v e function and i s thus able to ask his own information-seeking questions (48). A. A d u l t - i n i t i a t e d exchanges. The examples given here are inter a c t i o n s i n i t i a t e d by Wilma, who was Gabriel's p r i n c i p a l caretaker and i n t e r l o c u t o r during the sessions. Her exchanges with Gabriel had ce r t a i n predominant c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s . The o r i e n t a t i o n was toward Gabriel's i n t e r e s t s — h i m s e l f , the immediate surroundings and people. Wilma used simple and clear language, sometimes with exaggerated intona-t i o n to gain Gabriel's attention. Most exchanges began with information-seeking questions such as \"What's that?\", \"Who's that?\", \"Where i s ?\", \"How does i t go/talk?\". Other exchanges pointed things out, for example, \"Look here, there's a .\" There was constant modelling, sometimes with several i n i t i a t i o n attempts, to help Gabriel understand. This i s a t y p i c a l exchange: (12) Session I, 2;4(0), u t t s . 36-38 (Wilma and Gabriel are looking at pictures i n a mail-order catalogue.) W: His taku ha? \"What's that one?\" that what Q. G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: He taku ha? \"What's that?\" that what Q. 70 G: Ka /babi/ ya. \"That's a baby.\" that \"baby\" F. (?) W: Ka \"baby\" ha? \"That's a baby?\" that 11 Q-G: Ha. c yes \"Yes.\" Most of Wilma's e l i c i t a t i o n dialogues with Gabriel began with a Wh-question and ended with a yes/no question. Within t h i s framework Gabriel was able to form various responsesy almost a l l of them r e l a t i n g to the immediate context, but some requiring the r e c a l l of past events. The supplying of information i n t h i s way no doubt contributes to the ch i l d ' s mastery of the Informative function. B. C h i l d - i n i t i a t e d exchanges. Most of Gabriel's dialogue i n i t i a -tions consisted of an engagement utterance, usually \"hey\", sometimes accompanied by pointing or eye contact with an object of i n t e r e s t , but mostly with attempts to make eye contact with the hearer to make sure s/he was attending. Sometimes eye contact was s u f f i c i e n t f o r him to continue, sometimes he waited for a verbal response. These responses tended to be questions, guesses about what he wanted to say or was interested i n having others look at. Once begun, most of h i s dialogues followed the pattern of example (12) above, with Wilma taking up h i s comment and making i t into a yes/no question for him to answer. The example below i s of one of Gabriel's unsuccessful engagement attempts. (13) Session I I I , 2;4(4), u t t s . 531-539 (Gabriel i s pointing at the T.V. where a cartoon i s showing.) 71 G: Net. Hey Net. Ka. \"Annette. Hey Annette. That.\" Annette \" Annette that Hey! Hey! Hey! Ka. Net. \"Hey, etc.\" Hey! Net! Net! (When Annette doesn't respond, he l e t s the e f f o r t drop.) The next example i s more successful: (14) Session I I I , 2;4(4), u t t s . 2-11 (Gabriel comes into the room and sees the toy animals.) G: Hey. /£A2W ka. /2A2AIII/. \" 'horse' that 'horse' W: Tukte? where G: Ka /mumu;/. that \"moo-moo\" W: \"Moo-moo\"? Oh. G: Ka /mumu:/. that \"moo-moo\" W: Tokex eha ha /2A2;>m/? how say Q. \" Sukf. horse G: Hey. (+3) /mumu;/. W: Tokex eya ha? Tokex? how say Q. how G: /mumu/. \"Hey. Horse that. Horse.\" \"Where?\" \"That moo-moo.\" \"Moo-moo? Oh.\" \"That moo-moo.\" \"How does i t say /2A2AIII/? \"Horse.\" \"Hey. Hey. Hey. Moo-moo.\" \"How does i t talk? How?\" \"Moo-moo.\" Example (14) is primarily mathetic in nature. The following example, however, where Gabriel is asking for a drink of water, is pragmatic. Once he has his water, having had to persist in his request for some time, his next utterance i s mathetic. (15) Session III, 2;4(5), utts. 483-493 (Gabriel wants his cousin to give him some water.) G: Hey. Ka. Net. Ka memx. \"Hey. That. Annette. That water. \" that Annette that /mnx/ = water L: Memx (imitating Gabriel). \"Water.\" /mnx/ = water G: Net! Net! \"Annette. Annette.\" An: Hey? \"Hey?\" G: Ka memx. \"That water.\" that /mnx/ = water (Annette gives him some water. He turns to Wilma.) G: Ka Net mamx ya. \"That Annette water.\" that Annette water F. W: On Net mnx niclu ha? \"Oh, Annette gave you some water?\" \" Annette water you-give Q. G: Ha. \"Yes.\" c yes W: Ofih. A brief survey of four representative sessions (I, VII, XV and XVI) showed that most of Gabriel's initiated interactions were mathetic in nature. The 'intruder' element i s of course present in the engagement efforts which preface the interactions, but the tone of the dialogue seems to be observational. Halliday says that, for the child, \". . , . language evolves in the context of his thinking about the universe no less than in the context of his exploiting i t (75).\" Dialogue participation There were three basic response types Gabriel made in adult-initiated exchanges. The f i r s t of these—answering, questions or obeying commands—is the most sophisticated. It requires attention to the adult utterance, comprehension of both i t s intent and referent(s), and then appropriate verbal or actional response. At the time of sampling, Gabriel's performance was s t i l l very unstable. He could name the indi-cated referent or suggest a referent in response to \"What's that\" ques-tions (within the constraints of his lexicon); however, other Wh-questions, like \"What's he doing\", \"Where is i t \" , \"Who,is i t \" , and even yes/no questions at times drew poor responses, i f any at a l l . In many ways, the other two types of response—the general response form and the maintaining form—compensated for his inability to answer many questions at this time. The general response form, usually /ka/, accompanied by a pointing gesture, worked as a substitute for the actual name of an object. Gabriel also used this form without pointing, on which occasions i t was sometimes too vague for his interlocutors to go on. The following two examples show his use of this general form. (16) Session I, 2;4(0), utt. 200 (Wilma points to a picture.) W: De taku he de? \"What's this?' this what Q. this G: KS. \"That.\" (Wilma points to a different picture.) 74 W: Wayaka t X 6 . Taku ha? \"Look here. What's t h i s ? \" look what Q. (17) Session IV, 2;4(5), u t t s . 30-34 W: De taku he de? \"What's t h i s ? \" t h i s what Q. t h i s G: Ko. Ko. \"That. That.\" that that W: Taku? \"What?\" what G: Ko. Ka. \"That. That.\" that that W: \"Boat\"? \"Boat?\" G: Ka /bop/. \"That boat.\" that \"boat\" In example (17), Wilma f i n a l l y provides the l e x i c a l item Gabriel has been unable to produce and he then forms an appropriate utterance. In these s i t u a t i o n s , /ka/ i s l i k e a placeholder, allowing Gabriel to take on a dialogue r61e without having to wait for an increase i n h i s vocabulary. The t h i r d type of response i s s l i g h t l y l e s s ambiguous only i n that i t seems to s i g n a l that Gabriel does not understand the question or cannot answer i t even though he may understand or that he has not been attending but i s interested i n keeping some sort of i n t e r a c t i o n going. This i s the maintaining response \"huh\" or \"hmmm\" (or sometimes \"hey\"), uttered with r i s i n g intonation. The following examples demonstrate how i t i s used. 75 (18) Session IV, 2;4(5), u t t s . 174-182 (Wilma i s t r y i n g to get Gabriel to imitate the word /ihimu/, which means \" t i g e r \" . ) W W: Kuna. /Ihimu/ aya. hurry \" say G: Huh? /ihimu/ eya. say G: Huh? W: Ktina. Hey? hurry \" G: K£. /mu/. that /Ihimu/ W: /mu/? G: Ha. yes /Ihimu/. Huh? /Ihimu/. Huh? /Ihimu/. /e mu/. Ha. yes /e mu./. W: Hd, /ihimu/. \"Hurry. Say /ihimu/.\" \"Huh?\" \"Say /Ihimu/.\" \"Huh?\" \"Hurry. Hey?\" \"That. /mu/.\" \"/mu/?\" \"Yes.\" \"/ihimu/.\" \"Huh?\" \"/Ihimu/.\" \"Huh?\" \"/Ihimu/.\" \"/e mu/.\" \"Yes.\" \"/e mu/.\" \"Yes, /ihimu/.\" yes 76 (19) Session X, 2;4(13), u t t s . 384-388 W: K c i Andrew xza dukse + kte + ye. \"Cut i t out with Andrew. with \" her you-cut P. I G: Huh? W: Andrew £z\"a dukse + kte + ye. \" her you-cut P. F. G: Huh? W: Andrew i z a paha yukse + kte + ya? \" her ha i r cut P. F. G: Huh? W: Andrew? G: Huh? W: Andrew 12a yukse + kte + ya. \" her cut P. F. G: Andrew? W: Ha. c \"Huh?\" \"Are you going to cut with Andrew?\" \"Huh?\" \"Is Andrew cutti n g her h a i r ? \" \"Huh?\" \"Andrew?\" \"Huh?\" \"Is Andrew cutting?\" \"Andrew?\" \"Yes.\" yes Use of t h i s maintaining response e f f e c t i v e l y a l t e r s the adult strategy i n both example i n t e r a c t i o n s . Wilma repeats her utterances several times, sometimes changing them, u n t i l Gabriel gives a response other than \"huh\"; she then reconstructs her r e p l i e s i n terms of the response he has made. It would seem that Gabriel has a very economical discourse system. Three words—\"hey\" (for i n i t i a t i o n s ) , /ka/ and \"huh\" (for p a r t i c i p a t i o n ) — are a l l he needs to be involved i n dialogues; that i s , as long as h i s in t e r l o c u t o r s are as cooperative as Wilma. Adult modelling It is only with a great .deal of modelling, restructuring and exper imenting that Wilma is able to make continuing dialogues out of Gabriel' s t i l l vague verbal responses. Among the obvious ways in which she re-shapes her own speech to accommodate him, the most important seem to be: (a) repetition of his and her own utterances (b) acceptance of his personal words and conversation 'topics' (c) limiting her contradictions and corrections of what he has said. Some examples are given here. (20) Session IV, 2;4(5), utts. 39-40 W: De \"moo-moo\" ye de. this \" F. this G: Cici ya. monster F. W: Oh c i c i ya? \" monster F. G: H|. yes W: Ohhh. (21) Session XV, 2;4(22), utts. 19-22 W: Cory istima h5? \" sleeping Q. G: Huh? W: Cory is'tima ha? \" sleeping Q. Abu eya ha? sleeping go Q. \"This i s a moo-moo.\" \"Monster.\" \"Oh, a monster?\" \"Yes.\" \"Ohhh.\" \"Is Cory sleeping?\" \"Huh?\" \"Is Cory sleeping?\" \"Is he sleeping?\" 78 G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: Cory abu eya ha? \"Is Cory sleeping?\" \" sleeping go Q. G: Ha. \"Yes.\" yes W: Oh, tokiya? \"Oh, where?\" \" where G: Cuci abu ya. \"Cory sleeping.\" Cory sleeping F. W: Ohh. \"Ohh.\" These examples demonstrate the l i m i t a t i o n s to Gabriel's involvement i n discourse. In an adult dialogue there i s a constant s h i f t i n g of p o s i -tions of both speaker and hearer i n t h e i r r e l a t i v e r o l e s . In dialogues with Gabriel, i t i s the adult who must keep rep o s i t i o n i n g his/her utterances i n accord with Gabriel's. Other discourse a b i l i t i e s Gabriel i s s t a r t i n g to show other discourse s k i l l s which indicate that he i s becoming more aware of the need to adapt h i s own utterances to some extent i n order to be understood. On two occasions, f o r example, he corrects h i s own speech spontaneously; he also corrects others' r e p e t i t i o n s of h i s utterances, or he t r i e s out several responses' i n an e f f o r t to be more appropriate. These kinds of reparations are t y p i c a l of the constant adjustment to the s o c i a l s e t t i n g (including the discourse i t s e l f ) which i s necessary i n adult language use. As Halliday says, they mark a pragmatic development, a use of language for imposing the s e l f on the speech s i t u a t i o n i n a language-defined way. These are some 79 examples from Gabriel. (22) Session VII, 2;4(8), u t t s . 31-33 (Gabriel pushes a toy horse over.) G: KA BAYA! that f a l l - b r e a k E: Babaya. (attempting to imitate) \"bye-bye\" F. G: /p6 ya7. f a l l - b r e a k E: /b6 ya/. (imitating) A: Ixpaye ya\\ f a l l F. W: Ixpaye yi.. f a l l F. G: /pa ya/. W: Ha. \"Yes.\" yes (23) Session VII, 2;4(8), u t t s . 147-150 (I tear the cellophane o f f a tape box.) G: Ka\" puya. \"That break.\" that break (?) A: Ka puya? \"That break?\" that break (Gabriel hands me another new tape box and indicates that he wants the c e l l o o f f i t too.) \"That f e l l - b r o k e . \" \"Bye-bye.\" \"Fell-broke.\" \"Fell-broke.\" \" I t f e l l down.\" \" I t f e l l down.\" \"Fell-broke.\" G: Ka boya. that break \"That break.\" 80 A: Ixpaye ha? \" F a l l down?\" f a l l Q. G: Hiya ka ka boya. \"No that that /b6ya/.\" no that that break (?) A: Ixpaye? \" F a l l down?\" f a l l G: Hiya ka boya ka. \"No that /boya/ that.\" no that break that (24) Session VII, 2;4(8), u t t s . 301-302 G: Hey mama babaya. \"Hey, mama bye-bye.\" \" \"bye-bye\" W: Hiya. \"No.\" no G: Mama abu + ya? \"Mama sleeping?\" \" sleeping F. W: Ha mama abu + ye. \"Yes, mama i s sleeping.\" yes \" sleeping F. It seems cl e a r from these examples that Gabriel i s s t a r t i n g to know enough about language to r e a l i z e when some sort of c l a r i f i c a t i o n i s necessary. The word /boya/, which has many phonetic v a r i a n t s , presents an i n t e r p r e t a t i o n problem since i t resembles a number of p l a u s i b l e adult words and i s used i n such a wide range of sit u a t i o n s by Gabriel. Gabriel, however, appears to have some sense of the intended and received messages or, at l e a s t , of the p o s s i b i l i t y of having been misinterpreted, judging from the exception he takes to how others repeat or expand t h i s word. There are obviously many things which Gabriel cannot yet do i n his verbal i n t e r a c t i o n s . He asks no Wh-questions; only /ka/ with r i s i n g 81 intonation accompanied by a pointing gesture resembles a request for a name. He doesn't ask permission to do things; there are no 'Can I' forms. Examples from sessions XIII and XIV, where Gabriel pretends a chair i s a car and r e c a l l s the b l i n d r a t t l i n g against the window are among the few instances of h i s symbolic representation and r e f e r r i n g to past events. In addition, he responds only to h i s caretakers. Summary In acquiring a language a c h i l d i s not only learning words and syntactic r u l e s , he i s taking on a communication system which performs various i n t e r a c t i o n a l functions. According to Halliday the c h i l d demon-strates f u n c t i o n a l development long before the emergence of a formal lexicogrammatical structure; t h i s f u n c t i o n a l development i s t i e d to the functional components of the adult language system, e s s e n t i a l l y pragmatic (interpersonal) and i d e a t i o n a l (observer) functions. He also notes that the most sophisticated basic function, that of using language to exchange information, i s one that we tend to take most for granted; i n f a c t , we do much more with our language than give information. While the c h i l d may p a r t i c i p a t e i n proto-dialogues during h i s early develop-ment, his a b i l i t y to answer information-seeking questions, early i n Phase I I , marks the s t a r t of r e a l dialogue. Through t h i s development the c h i l d becomes increasingly involved i n the s o c i a l semiotic and h i s personal language system i s brought under the influence of the c o l l e c t i v e adult system. An examination of Gabriel's data from a f u n c t i o n a l perspective reveals that he i s using language to perform a l l of the s i x basic func-tions mentioned by H a l l i d a y . He i s able to answer information-seeking 82 questions, though only imperfectly, and he appears to have developed some immature dialogue i n i t i a t i o n and p a r t i c i p a t i o n s t r a t e g i e s . The words \"hey\", f o r engaging an audience, and \"ka\" and \"huh\", as general response form and maintaining form, re s p e c t i v e l y , make up the most frequently used elements i n h i s dialogue system. Gabriel l i v e s i n an environment of mathetic speech, with those around him going out of t h e i r way to point at things and name them and draw r e l a t i o n s h i p s between them; what he doesn't seem able to understand i s digested for him by h i s i n t e r l o c u t o r s . What constitutes dialogue i n h i s speech production i s ac t u a l l y a sometimes loosely connected series of egocentric utterances, highly dependent on modelling and expansion by the adult interactants. CHAPTER FIVE LEXICAL MEANING IN SEMANTIC AND SEMIOLOGICAL TERMS Introduction One important mechanism for the expression of meaning i s the word:. This chapter focusses on Gabriel's l e x i c a l development, but from two d i f f e r e n t perspectives. The f i r s t goal of the chapter i s to character-i z e b r i e f l y h i s vocabulary i n terms of various issues which have emerged through studies into the meanings of the c h i l d ' s early words. The second goal i s to demonstrate how instances of gestural imitations occurring with Gabriel's speech can be analysed as proto-words according to Piaget's descriptions of semiological genesis. Recent studies of c h i l d language a c q u i s i t i o n which have turned to a Piagetian model i n examining the r e l a t i o n s h i p between cognitive and l i n g u i s t i c development have centred l a r g e l y on the problem of determining the c h i l d ' s meaning p o t e n t i a l . Many investigators now assume that the meanings the c h i l d i s capable of expressing are drawn from a r e p e r t o i r e of cognitive concepts (for example, object permanance), which he i s already a c t i v e l y b u i l d i n g up by the time he f i r s t s t a r t s to speak. Another question which arises from consideration of the cognitive-l i n g u i s t i c r e l a t i o n s h i p i s to what extent cognitive achievements are responsible for the emergence of formal l i n g u i s t i c structures (that i s , the devices for the expression of those meanings, devices such as words). Piaget's p o s i t i o n on language i s that i t i s j u s t one part, although the 83 84 major p a r t , o f a l a r g e r s y m b o l i z i n g c a p a c i t y w h i c h s t a r t s t o e v o l v e i n p l a y and i m i t a t i v e b e h a v i o u r d u r i n g t h e s e n s o r i m o t o r p e r i o d . Language a c q u i s i t i o n , a c c o r d i n g t o t h i s v i e w , i s by d e f i n i t i o n a p a r t of semio-l o g i c a l g e n e s i s , w h i c h i n P i a g e t ' s model i s a c o g n i t i v e development. The d a t a f r o m G a b r i e l a r e p a r t i c u l a r l y i n t e r e s t i n g i n t h i s r e s p e c t i n t h a t a s i g n i f i c a n t p o r t i o n ( o v e r 20%) o f h i s a p p r o x i m a t e l y 100 o b s e r v e d morphemes a r e c l e a r l y u n c o n v e n t i o n a l — s o m e i m i t a t i v e , some i d i o s y n c r a t i c w o r d - l i k e i n v e n t i o n s . The most s t r i k i n g a s p e c t o f h i s s y s t e m i s h i s use of g e s t u r a l i m i t a t i o n s i n v e r b a l s y n t a c t i c f r a m e s , as c o n t r a s t e d w i t h o t h e r t y p e s of g e s t u r a l b e h a v i o u r . The appearance of t h e s e phenomena make n e c e s s a r y a r e - e v a l u a t i o n o f t h e s t a t u s o f h i s more a d u l t - s h a p e d morphemes i n a h i e r a r c h y o f l i n g u i s t i c s i g n s . SOME SEMANTIC CONSIDERATIONS OF GABRIEL'S LEXICON E s t a b l i s h i n g t h e l e x i c o n The c h i l d b e g i n s s p e a k i n g w i t h a v e r y l i m i t e d v o c a b u l a r y . S e v e r a l i n v e s t i g a t o r s ( f o r example, N e l s o n , 1973) have n o t e d , however, t h a t v o c a b u l a r y e x p a n s i o n f o l l o w s a f a i r l y r e g u l a r p a t t e r n a c r o s s c h i l d r e n . The f i r s t r a p i d g rowth, a f t e r a p p r o x i m a t e l y 50-100 words have been a c q u i r e d , seems t o be c o r r e l a t e d w i t h t h e o n s e t of word c o m b i n a t i o n s , t h e b e g i n n i n g s o f d i a l o g u e and t h e appearance o f c o g n i t i v e b e h a v i o u r s m a r k i n g t h e t r a n s i t i o n between s e n s o r i - m o t o r i n t e l l i g e n c e and r e p r e s e n -t a t i o n a l i n t e l l i g e n c e ( s e n s o r i m o t o r s u b s t a g e V I ) . I c o u n t e d j u s t o v e r 100 morphemes i n G a b r i e l ' s c o r p u s , out of 7130 u t t e r a n c e s ; a much s m a l l e r s u b s e t o f t h e s e forms t h e w o r k i n g c o r e of h i s v o c a b u l a r y . T a b l e 5.1 below l i s t s a l l o f h i s morphemes i n ' a l p h a b e t i c a l ' o r d e r ( a c c o r d i n g t o E n g l i s h o r t h o g r a p h y ) . 85 TABLE 5.1 GABRIEL'S LEXICON 1. abu 'sleep' SCW 2. \"Andy\" name 3. \"Andrew\" 'Esther' name 4. au 'bring' ASW 5. \"baby\" AEW 6. \"byebye\" ECW 7. b6p 'boat' AEW 8. \"boom\" AEW 9. boya ' f a l l down' ASW 10. bi[=pahi] 'pick up' ASW 11. \"bo'di\" 'birdie' AEW 12. \"bag\" AEW 13. bika[=pika] 'cards' ASW 14. biba (ref. toy) PS 15. \"bad boy\" AEW 16. ci[=ci] 'want' ASW 17. c i c i 'monster' SCW 18. ceye 'cry' ASW 19. cu[=icu] 'take' ASW 20. cica[=sice] 'bad' ASW 21. cekaya 'weasel' ASW 22. ciza[=ksiz'e] 'fight' ASW 23. caktlya 'road' ASW 24. de 'this' ASW 25. \"Donna\" name 26. \"dak\"[= \"truck\"] AEW 27. \"da'da\"[=\"Santa\"] AEW 28. eyd PS 29. er 'defecate' SCW 30. \"Giba\"[=\"Gabriel\"] name 31. \"GAn\"[=\"Gwen\"] name 32. \"go way\" AEW 33. hm, \"huh\" AEW 34. hfpa 'shoe' ASW 35. \"hey\" AEW 36. ha_ 'yes' ASW 37. hiya 'no' ASW 38. \"hati\"[=\"hockey\"] AEW 39. [2/vlAm] 'horse' PS 40. hiyu 'come here' ASW 41. \"hat\" AEW 42. \"Hiwda\"[=\"Hilda\"] name 43. \"hors\"[=\"horse\"] AEW 44. lsi[= i s ^ i S i ] 'uncle' ASW 45. \"d5us\"[=\" juice\"] AEW 46. \"d5u\"[=\"too\"] AEW 47. ka 'that distant' ASW 48. \"ka\"[=\"car\"] AEW 49. ka <5[=ka onmf] 'that turns' ASW 50. k6ka[=S^k|] 'horse' ASW 51. \"kai\"[=\"bike\"] AEW 52. kuya 'down' ASW 53. kuku§i 'pig' ASW 54. kla[=k2-({^ })Gestural i m i t a t i o n /eya/ This sentence pattern provides Gabriel with a frame into which he can at some point substitute l i n g u i s t i c signs for the gestural morphemes he now uses. Note that, i n example (14), he does exchange the word /babdi/ f o r the i m i t a t i o n of waving bye-bye a f t e r Wilma e l i c i t s the word. One more obvious point about the examples i s that Gabriel does not I l l attempt to represent the shapes of objects, their size or location, but only their customary actions, underlining the sensorimotor nature of his knowledge of the world. C. Two more cognitively complex uses of gestural morphemes. The next two examples show how extensive is Gabriel's strategy of using gestural imitations. The f i r s t example, (17), involves a gestural representation which cannot be imitative of an immediately present stimulus since the represented event did not take place. In fact, i t could be an instance of prevarication. Gabriel reconstructs a cause he hasn't observed, given only the effect. In order to do this, he must f i r s t form a mental image of what might have happened, and, in the case of prevarication, deform that image in order to re-assemble the incorrect representation. He has been witness to the events preceding the effect, so i t is plausible that he is being deliberately misleading. . (17) Session VI, 2;4(7), utts. 178-182 (Marina has brought her younger brother, Raymond, to Wilma's house, intending to leave him to play. When she leaves, however, he starts to cry, so she comes back to get him and they leave together.) W: Taktuk hu ha? (to Gabriel) What's he doing?\" c what do Q. G: Abu y£. \"Sleep.\" (perhaps speculating on where Raymond has gone) sleep F. De /aendu/ he pretends to strike with his hand eya k6. this Andrew:. that \"Andrew hit this one.\" W: TSktuk hu ha? \"What did she do?\" t what do Q. 112 G: /e/ he performs the same hitting action yaya... goes \"Goes h i t . \" W: Oh eya- ha? \"Oh, like that?\" \" Q. G: Ha\\ \"Yes.\" yes While in that example there i s contextual support for others to interpret Gabriel's comments, the next example shows that, removed from the referent event, his reconstructions using these personal gestural symbols are not as successful. The limitations of the personal symbol, as opposed to the arbitrary and conventional linguistic sign, become apparent when Gabriel attempts to use his private gestural representation to relate an incident to his mother. (18) Session I,. 2;4(0), reported by Wilma after the session was over (Gabriel and Esther and I had been playing a Sleeping Beauty game where one of us pretended to be asleep and was woken by another with a kiss on the cheek.) When Wilma took Gabriel home, his mother was waiting on the front step. He secured her attention and said /net/, pointing to Wilma's house, which is next-door. Then he reached up and kissed his mother's cheek and said /eya/, pointing to Wilma's house next door. In order for his communication to be successful, i t was necessary for Wilma to translate for Gabriel's mother what her shared experience with Gabriel that morning led her to interpret from his gestures and words. In fact, many children who use personal symbols in early speech, either verbal or gestural, are only comprehensible to their caretakers. 113 A c o r o l l a r y to t h i s i s that the length of time that personal symbols p e r s i s t i n the language system of a c h i l d may be a function of how far his s o c i a l i n t e r a c t i o n s extend beyond the-.immediate family. D. Onomatopoeic imitations . In addition to the gestural mor-phemes, Gabriel has invented some onomatopoeic symbols based on sounds which are attached to objects and events i n h i s environment. One such example i s the morpheme /pu/, which accompanies his blowing out the o o match whenever Wilma l i g h t s a c i g a r e t t e . In f a c t , Wilma has adopted t h i s morpheme of his when she wants him to blow one out. (19) Session I I , 2;4(1), u t t s . 83-91 (Wilma l i g h t s a cigarette.) G: Hey! Ka. KS. Ka. /ptiV + ye. o o \" that that that blow F. W: Hey? \"Hey. That. That. That. Blow.\" G: Ka /pti/ + ya. o o that blow F. Ka. Ka. KS. that that that W: /pu/ iye + kta? o o blow go P. G: HS. c yes Another of Gabriel's onomatopoeic representations perhaps provides an example of how a personal symbol can eventually be replaced by a l i n g u i s t i c sign. Gabriel uses both an im i t a t i o n of a horse neighing, phonetically of the shape /2A2A\"m/, and the form /koka/, derived from the adult Dakota word /SukS/, to r e f e r to h i s toy horses and to pictures of \"Hey?\" \"That blow.\" \"That. That. That.\" \"You'll blow i t out?\" \"Yes.\" 114 horses. These two forms are used interchangeably throughout the sessions in a number of syntactic frames or as one-word utterances. In session XV, however, while playing with the boy animals, Gabriel uses /I^IKXH/ along with /koka/ and then appears to \"introduce\" the English word /hors/ into his lexicon. He has certainly heard the English word in the speech around him, but Wilma was sure i t was the f i r s t time she had heard him use i t himself. The example has been edited in order to present the two following observations: (a) the use of a l l three forms for the same referent (b) the practising of the new form /horsV in syntactic frames both of the old forms have been used in. (2) Session XIV, 2;4(22), utts. 125-158 1. (Gabriel picks up one of the small toy horses; i t s t a i l i s broken off.) G: Hey! /koka/ boya. \" horse broken (?) W: Hey? G: K6ka b6ya. horse broken W: §uk|? horse G: H|i. Koka boya. yes horse broken W: Suka ixpaye ha? horse f a l l Q. G: H|. K6ka b6ya. yes horse broken \"Hey! Horse broken.\" \"Hey?\" \"Horse broken.\" \"Horse?\" \"Yes. Horse broken.\" \"Did the horse f a l l down?\" \"Yes. Horse broken.\" W: Ha. 3uka ixpaye ye. G: Hey! W: Hey? G: Bapi. \"puppy\" W: /bapi/? \"puppy\" G: /ZA2AITI/. / U l W - /ZAUHI/. horse horse horse (He picks up another toy horse.) Hey. Hey. /hors/ i y a . \"horse\" 2. (The following utterances have dialogue, but represent spontaneous /horS/ i n old syntactic frames.) G: Hey! /hors*/ /bab|i/. \"horse\" \"bye-bye\" 115 \"Yes. The horse f e l l down.\" \"Hey.\" \"Hey?\" \"Puppy.\" \"Puppy?\" \"Horse. Horse. Horse.\" \"Hey. Hey. Horse goes.\" een removed from the surrounding utterances using the new form \"Hey. Horse bye-bye.\" /hors/ /d^id^isV. \"Horse monster, \"horse\" / c i c i / = monster Hey /hors/. \"Hey horse.\" \" \"horse\" Hey /hors*/ iyaya. \" \"horse\" goes \"Hey horse goes.\" 116 Hey /horsV /paya:/. \"Hey horse broken.\" \" \"horse\" broken Hey potet /horsV i y a . \"Hey two horses go.\" two \"horse\" The new word /horsY i s brought into Gabriel's system through old structures i n which i t s precursors have been used. It could be that other new adult forms w i l l replace personal symbols according to t h i s operating p r i n c i p l e which has been observed i n the speech systems of other c h i l d r e n : Use old structures for p r a c t i s i n g new forms; use old forms for p r a c t i s i n g new structures. Unfortunately, the data don't appear to include other examples, nor was there any reference to horses i n the f i n a l session to test whether the two old forms had i n fact been replaced. CONCLUDING REMARKS In t h i s chapter I have attempted to view Gabriel's lexicon from • both a semantic and semiological perspective. The f i r s t part focussed on word categories and semantic range i n Gabriel's vocabulary, i n d i c a t -ing t e n t a t i v e l y that he i s using perceptual features i n order to over-extend h i s l e x i c a l items. The second part discussed the emergence of l i n g u i s t i c signs from personal symbols, an approach which appears to account quite well for i d i o s y n c r a t i c phenomena i n Gabriel's language system. These phenomena, gestural and onomatopoeic representations, match the descriptions given by Piaget of t r a n s i t i o n a l behaviours between sensorimotor i n t e l l i g e n c e and sign-based or representational 117 i n t e l l i g e n c e ; they thus appear to be precursors to l i n g u i s t i c signs. I have t r i e d to show that these data provide quite convincing evidence that there i s a connection between the c h i l d ' s early i m i t a t i v e behaviours and his eventual capacity to use l i n g u i s t i c signs as a speaker of an adult language. CHAPTER SIX CONCLUDING REMARKS Semiology, pragmatics arid semantics This report has been shaped by the assumption that language acquis-i t i o n involves the a c q u i s i t i o n of semiological, pragmatic and semantic knowledge, a l l of which can be observed i n the speech system of the c h i l d before he has developed any syntactic s o p h i s t i c a t i o n . This p o s i t i o n implies that t r a d i t i o n a l syntax-based studies, beginning as l a t e as the multi-morphemic stage and attempting to explain even the e a r l i e s t morpheme combinations i n purely syntactic terms, have missed a considerable range of l i n g u i s t i c and l i n g u i s t i c - r e l a t e d data from the c h i l d which more recent investigations are suggesting have explanatory power i n an a c q u i s i t i o n model. According to the broader view, language i s f i r s t of a l l a sym-b o l i c system and the capacity to symbolize i s a cognitive achievement, the basic steps of which take place during the f i r s t two years of l i f e . Language i s also an a c t i v i t y through which the c h i l d can r e a l i z e a range of goals and potentials r e l a t e d to h i s ever-increasing involvement i n the s o c i a l meaning system; i n other words, every occurrence of speech, with the possible exception of language p r a c t i c e , has fu n c t i o n a l meaning apart from the semantic content of the words and word combinations being used. Semantic knowledge, the a b i l i t y to express r e f e r e n t i a l and r e l a t i o n a l meaning through formal l i n g u i s t i c devices, derives i n part from pragmatic development but:.also from basic cognitive developments, such as categorizing 118 119 and r e c o g n i z i n g o b j e c t permanence (± e x i s t e n c e ) , agency, l o c a t i o n , and t h e s e p a r a t i o n of s e l f f r o m e n v i r o n m e n t . On t h e a s s u m p t i o n t h a t l a n -guage i s used t o e x p r e s s meaning w h i c h i s d e r i v e d from s u c h c o g n i t i v e a c t i v i t i e s and w h i c h r e f l e c t s t h e c h i l d ' s g r o w i n g knowledge o f t h e w o r l d , r e s e a r c h e r s a r e a t t e m p t i n g t o d e s c r i b e t h e development of f o r m a l l i n g u i s t i c d e v i c e s i n terms o f s e m a n t i c a c q u i s i t i o n . F o r example, e a r l y s y n t a x i s seen as t h e e x p r e s s i o n o f a s e t o f u n i v e r s a l b a s i c s e m a n t i c r e l a t i o n s w h i c h i t i s c l a i m e d a r e c o g n i t i v e l y a v a i l a b l e t o t h e s e n s o r i m o t o r c h i l d ; g r a m m a t i c a l m o d u l a t i o n s i n d i c a t e an awareness of f i n e r d i s t i n c t i o n s w h i c h t h e c h i l d comes t o r e a l i z e can be e x p r e s s e d f o r m a l l y . What I have b r i e f l y d e s c r i b e d h e r e i s a h i e r a r c h y o f a b s t r a c t i o n i n t h e c o n s i d e r a t i o n o f l a n g u a g e . A t t h e o u t s i d e l e v e l , l a n g u a g e i s a s y s t e m of symbols w h i c h , a t t h e n e x t l e v e l , a r e put t o use t o p e r f o r m a number of d i f f e r e n t f u n c t i o n s w h i c h , a t t h e n e x t more p r e c i s e l e v e l , i n v o l v e t h e e x p r e s s i o n of t h e c o n t e n t s o f i n d i v i d u a l symbols o r s i g n s , t h e i r s p e c i f i c r e a l w o r l d r e f e r e n t s . I t must a l s o be assumed t h a t t h e c h i l d i s f u l l y competent a t none of t h e s e l e v e l s when he f i r s t b e g i n s t o i n t e r a c t v e r b a l l y and t h a t s e m i o l o g i c a l , p r a g m a t i c and s e m a n t i c developments w i l l be o c c u r r i n g s i m u l t a n e o u s l y d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d of e a r l y l anguage a c q u i s i t i o n . S e m i o l o g i c a l development The a b i l i t y t o s y m b o l i z e c o n s i s t s o f s u b s t i t u t i n g some f o r m (a s i g n i f i e r ) f o r some c o n t e n t (a s i g n i f i e d , o r m e n t a l image o f a r e a l w o r l d r e f e r e n t ) . The s i g n i f i e r - s i g n i f i e d r e l a t i o n s h i p i s c a l l e d a s i g n ; s i g n s range i n c o m p l e x i t y f r o m t h e s i g n a l , w h i c h i s a l m o s t l i k e a r e f l e x and 120 i n v o l v e s no m e n t a l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n ( t h e baby's f i r s t c r i e s a r e s i g n a l s ) , t o t h e l i n g u i s t i c s i g n , o r word, w h i c h i n v o l v e s a m e n t a l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n and i n w h i c h t h e s i g n i f i e r - s i g n i f i e d r e l a t i o n s h i p i s u n m o t i v a t e d , a r b i t r a r y and, t h r o u g h c o l l e c t i v e agreement (by t h e s p e a k e r s o f a l a n g u a g e ) , e x a c t . P i a g e t says t h a t t h e c h i l d ' s s i g n i n g b e h a v i o u r d e v e l o p s a c r o s s t h i s r a n g e , s t a r t i n g w i t h t h e r e f l e x i v e s i g n a l and f i n a l l y r e a c h i n g t h e s t a t u s o f l i n g u i s t i c s i g n s (even though p e o p l e c o n t i n u e t o use a f u l l range o f d i f f e r e n t s i g n s t h r o u g h o u t t h e i r l i v e s , i n d r a w i n g , g e s t u r i n g , a c t i n g , e t c . ) . The i m p l i c a t i o n s of t h i s p o s i -t i o n f o r t h e s t u d y o f e a r l y c h i l d speech a r e c l e a r . One cannot assume t h a t t h e a d u l t - s h a p e d words a c h i l d i s p r o d u c i n g b e f o r e he has s t a r t e d d e m o n s t r a t i n g r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l b e h a v i o u r a r e f u l l l i n g u i s t i c s i g n s . They a r e more l i k e l y t o be s y m b o l s , i n w h i c h t h e s i g n i f i e r i s r e l a t e d i n some n e c e s s a r y way t o t h e s i g n i f i e d ; f o r t h e c h i l d , t h i s c o u l d a r i s e out of a word's a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h a p a r t i c u l a r a c t i o n schema o f h i s . U n t i l i t has been e s t a b l i s h e d t h a t t h e c h i l d i s c a p a b l e of r e p r e s e n t i n g , and P i a g e t s a y s t h a t t h i s can be d i s c o v e r e d t h r o u g h o b s e r v a t i o n o f t h e c h i l d ' s i m i t a t i v e and p l a y b e h a v i o u r s toward t h e end of t h e s e n s o r i m o t o r p e r i o d , h i s knowledge of l a n g u a g e a t t h e v e r y b a s i c l e v e l — t h e w o r d — d i f f e r s c o n s i d e r a b l y f r o m t h e a d u l t ' s . The d a t a from G a b r i e l i n c l u d e d a phenomenon w h i c h appears t o s u p p o r t P i a g e t ' s t h e o r y o f s e m i o l o g i c a l g e n e s i s . W h i l e t h e m o t i v a t e d n a t u r e o f t h e c h i l d ' s e a r l i e s t a d u l t - s h a p e d words can o n l y be i n f e r r e d , G a b r i e l ' s use o f onomatopoeic and g e s t u r a l morphemes as words p r o v i d e s what I c o n s i d e r t o be c l e a r e v i d e n c e of t h e s y m b o l i c p r e c u r s o r s t o l i n g u i s t i c s i g n s . These forms b e a r a p h y s i c a l r e s e m b l a n c e t o t h e i r r e f e r e n t s based e i t h e r on a c t i v i t i e s t h e y p e r f o r m o r d i s p l a y o r on t h e 121 sounds they make, and Gabriel uses them in a range of verbal syntactic frames instead of their lexical equivalents (which I assume he doesn't yet have), thus expanding on an as yet limited vocabulary. It may be possible to suggest that idiosyncratic aspects of his syntax are related to the imperfect knowledge of the conventional nature of language the gestural and onomatopoeic representations reveal. Pragmatic or functional development One of the more important claims that Halliday (1975) makes is that language is used for many other purposes than the exchange of information, although i t is this function which predominates in adult thinking about language. In fact, Halliday says that the Informative function is a sophisticated one, defined in purely language terms as the exchange of symbols for the purposes of transmitting and receiving information; and i t is the latest to appear Of seven basic functions. The child uses language to perform much the same functions as an adult: to regulate the behaviour of others, to get things, to interact socially, to express personal feelings, to discover things about the world and to develop and extend the imagination. These functions appear long before the child has acquired a lexicogrammatical structure which w i l l enable him to encode functional meanings in the adult language; this indicates that functional meaning is independent to some extent from the acquisition of formal linguistic devices. A l l language use, however, is functional or pragmatic by definition. Halliday points out that the adult language is organized around functional components. The child, there-fore, must be functionally fluent before he can acquire, say, interrogat-ive or imperative structures. 122 B e s i d e s t h e l e x i c o g r a m m a t i c a l s t r u c t u r e , t h e a d u l t language system i n c o r p o r a t e s a system f o r v e r b a l i n t e r a c t i o n — t h e d i a l o g u e . The c h i l d ' s a b i l i t y t o answer i n f o r m a t i o n - s e e k i n g q u e s t i o n s , and l a t e r t o a s k such q u e s t i o n s , marks, a c c o r d i n g t o H a l l i d a y , a p o t e n t i a l f o r t r u e d i a l o g u e p a r t i c i p a t i o n . T h i s development i n d i c a t e s h i s i n c r e a s i n g i n v o l v e m e n t i n t h e s o c i a l s e m i o t i c and what w i l l be t h e q u i c k l y g r o w i n g i n f l u e n c e o f t h e c o l l e c t i v e a d u l t l a n g u a g e system on h i s p e r s o n a l language system. An e x a m i n a t i o n o f G a b r i e l ' s l a n g u a g e u s e shows t h a t he has ma s t e r e d t h e s i x b a s i c f u n c t i o n s and i s s t a r t i n g t o d e m o n s t r a t e some competence i n r e l a t i o n t o t h e g i v i n g and g e t t i n g o f i n f o r m a t i o n . H i s p e r f o r m a n c e i n d i s c o u r s e r e v e a l s t h a t he has a c q u i r e d a few p r i m i t i v e s t r a t e g i e s f o r i n i t i a t i n g and p a r t i c i p a t i n g i n v e r b a l i n t e r a c t i o n s . H i s p r i n c i p a l i n i t i a t i n g p a t t e r n i s t o engage an a u d i e n c e by means o f t h e word \"hey\" accompanied by eye c o n t a c t and sometimes p o i n t i n g g e s t u r e s t o i d e n t i f y t h e f o c u s o f h i s i n t e r e s t . P a r t i c i p a t i o n r e v o l v e s on t h r e e b a s i c t y p e s o f r e s p o n s e . The f i r s t , a n s w e r i n g a q u e s t i o n o r o b e y i n g a command, i s t h e one he i s l e a s t adept a t ; however, t h e g e n e r a l r e s p o n s e f o r m / ka/ and t h e m a i n t a i n i n g r e s p o n s e f o r m \"huh\" o r \"hmmm\" ( w i t h r i s i n g i n t o n a -t i o n ) a r e used e x t e n s i v e l y and a l l o w him t o t a k e p a r t i n a p e r f u n c t o r y way i n many d i a l o g u e s i t u a t i o n s . V e r b a l i n t e r a c t i o n s w i t h him a r e a c t u a l l y l o o s e l y c o n n e c t e d e g o c e n t r i c u t t e r a n c e s t i e d t o g e t h e r by a d u l t i n t e r l o c u t o r s t h r o u g h e x t e n s i v e m o d e l l i n g and e x p a n s i o n . Semantic development The word and t h e word c o m b i n a t i o n o r s e n t e n c e a r e t h e two major s e m a n t i c u n i t s o f a l a n g u a g e . They e x p r e s s r e f e r e n t i a l and r e l a t i o n a l o r p r o p o s i t i o n a l meanings. A c c o r d i n g t o s e v e r a l r e s e a r c h e r s ( f o r 123 example, Bowerman, 1976; Clark, 1973; Nelson, 1973), the ab i l i t y to categorize is entailed by the formation of word meanings. On the basis of his sensorimotor knowledge of the world, with i t s perceptual and func-tional components, the child categorizes objects and events and labels them, using his own personal symbols or adopted adult words. Whether he relies more on perceptual or functional features in this activity is s t i l l a matter of debate, although data apparently support the perceptual feature hypothesis. Categorization strategies are revealed, i t is claimed, through child word use errors, errors such as overextension, where the child applies the word correctly to the class members but extends i t to non-members which presumably resemble the class members in some way. That the child's f i r s t two-morpheme utterances almost always express one of a small set of semantic relations is the position of Brown (1973). He arrived at this conclusion through a semantically-character-ized 'rich' interpretation of the early syntactic structures of a number of child language samples from different languages. The prevalent relations which he proposes—agent and action, action and object, agent and object, action and locative, entity and locative, possessor and possession, entity and attribute and demonstrative and entity—and four 'operations of reference'—nomination, nonexistence, recurrence and reference to self or mother—can, he claims, be derived from sensorimotor concepts which are normally available to the child at the beginning of syntax. Interpreting two words occurring together as evidence of the child's underlying relational knowledge involves the assumption that the child both understands and wants to express those aspects of situations which tend to be obvious to, and thus taken for granted by, adults. 124 Some researchers (for example, Howe, 1976; Tran Due Thao, 1973) feel, however, that this overestimates the child's semantic potential at the time of early speech. Howe suggests instead very general utterance categories based on what we can be much surer i s within the child's cognition—the categories of name of object, state of object and action of o b j e c t — a l l of which can be determined from the surface structure of the child's utterances. The occurrence of two words together could merely be the child's expression of his recognition of a simple juxta-position, rather than of a semantic relation. In the Brown-type analysis of Gabriel's multi-morphemic data, I found that a significantly lower percentage of his utterances expressed one of the relations proposed by Brown. That percentage consisted almost exclusively of the one relation—Demonstrative + Entity—which is a naming relation closely tied to the operation of reference, nomination. Brown suggests that the 'pivot look' of the early syntax of many c h i l -dren is caused by the frequency of the operations of reference in their speech at this time. Using this framework I was able to identify four 'presumptive pivots' in Gabriel's two-morpheme utterances, one of which, /ka/, accounted for almost one third of his total corpus. The predom-inance of this operation, and thus of the relation Demonstrative + Entity (through redefinition), may be explained as an effect of the interview nature of the f i r s t fifteen data sessions, although this isn't a strong argument in Gabriel's case. It may also indicate that naming is an important activity for this child, something he accomplishes through a simple syntactic pattern of /ka/ + Word. The low counts for the other relations could be due to hesitations I f e l t about assigning rather complex interpretations to s t i l l very deformed and ambiguous data. 125 Although Brown has defined his utterance categories semantically and tied them to sensorimotor cognitive achievements, i t remains that they are essentially syntactic categories. Howe's more general classification accounts for almost 100% of Gabriel 1s. multi-morphemic data, which, as she says, may not say much about the meanings alchild at the point of early syntax has, but i t says a l l we can confidently say about semantic meaning at this stage of knowledge. 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Paper delivered at American Anthrop. Assoc. meeting, Mexico City, 1974. van der Geest, T. Some aspects of communicative competence and t h e i r implications f o r language a c q u i s i t i o n . Assen, The Netherland: Koninklijke van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., 1975. APPENDIX I Excerpts from data sessions I and VII Session I, 2;4(0), utts. 1-43 W: Iyuteka! \"Sit down!\" si t down (I point to a picture of a l i t t l e boy in the catalogue.) A: Hoks'ina waz*£? c boy one W: Be t£ku he dd? Hey? \"Is that a boy?\" \"What's this? Hey?' this what Q. this \" (She lights a cigarette.) Kuna /pu/ + yekte yd. ** o o hurry blow go P. F. Ake\\ /pri/ iya*. o o again blow go Kuna. c hurry G: /pu7. (He blows.) o o blow A: Ah, wa§t£. good W: Icu! Dukse\" + kte h£? get you-break P. Q. Tuwe\" yuks£ ha? who break Q. A: He takd ha? that what Q. (Wilma points to a page of shoes in the catalogue.) \"Hurry, blow this out.\" \"Again. Go blow.\" \"Hurry.\" \"Blow.\" \"Ah, good.\" it I I \"Get i t . Did you break i t ? \" \"Who broke i t ? \" \"What's that?\" W: Dena t ku ha? Hey? these what Q.G: Hmmm? W: Dena taku ha? these what Q. He taku ha? that what Q. He taku ha? that what Q. G: H£pa. shoes W: H|pa? shoes G: Hey. W: Hey? G: H^pa + ye. shoes F. Talcu ha? what Q. Dena taltu ha? these what Q. \"What are these?\" \"Hmmm?\" \"What are these?\" \"What's that? What is i t ? \" \"What's that? What are thes \"Shoes.\" \"Shoes?\" \"Hey.\" \"Hey?\" \"Shoes.\" 132 W: H|pa? shoes \"Shoes?\" De IS t o ? Taku ha? \"What about t h i s ? What i s t h i s i t — what Q. G: /h|:pa/ + shoes ye. F. \"Shoes.\" W: T6kex? how \"How's t h a t ? ' G: /h|:pa/ + shoes y a . F. \"Shoes.\" W: /h£:pa/ + shoes yA ha? F. Q. \"Shoes?\" G: H£. yes \"Yes.\" W: Dis' t a k u (de+is*) t h i s what ha? Q-\"What's t h i s ? \" G: Ka e z i . (w a z i ) t h a t one /x a / . (ka) t h a t \"That one. T h a t . \" W: Taku ha? De t a k u what Q. t h i s what h a , E s t h e r ? Q. \"What i s i t ? What's t h i s , ( E s t h e r i s l o o k i n g a t \" p i c t u r e s o f women i n t h e c a t a l o g u e . ) E: W£ya. \"Women.\" W: Wiya? H§. women Q. \"Women? Y e s . \" /de:/. He t a k u ha? \" T h i s . What's t h a t ? \" t h i s t h a t what Q. (Wilma p o i n t s t o a p i c t u r e o f a s l e e p i n g baby.) G: /babaya/. baby F. W: Hey? G: /babaya/. baby F. W: Oh. Abu + ye ha? \" s l e e p F. Q. G: Huh? W: De abu + y e . t h i s s l e e p F. Ta k t u k hu ha? /de:/. what do Q. t h i s G: Huh? W: /de:/. G: Ka abu + y e . Ka. t h a t s l e e p F. t h a t W: Hey? T a k t u k h£ ha? \" what do Q. Ka. C i c i . t h a t monster H i y a . C i c i + s n i + ye. no monster N. F. Taku ha? Taku? what Q. what G: W: \"Baby.\" \"Hey?\" \"Baby.\" \" I s i t s l e e p i n g ? ' \"Huh?\" \" I s t h i s one s l e e p i n g ? \" \"What i s i t d o i n g ? T h i s one.\" \"Huh?\" \" T h i s . \" \"That s l e e p i n g . T h a t . \" \"Hey? What i s i t d o i n g ? \" \"That. M o n s t e r . \" \"No. I t ' s n o t a mon s t e r . \" \"What i s i t ? What?\" 133 (Gabriel points to another baby in the catalogue.) G: Ka /beibi/ + ya. that \"baby\" F. /beibi/ he? \"baby\" Q. Ha. o yes Ha. yes Ka babi + ya. that \"baby\" F. De i s to. He tuwa ha? this i t — that who Q. G: H^pa + ya. Ka. shoes F. that W: Hmmm? G: Ka h^pa + ye. that shoes F. W: H|. yes (Wilma points to some clothes.) De taku ha? this what Q. Ci c i . monster Ma de c i c i . De is to. wow this monster this i t — Ka h^pa ye. that shoes F. G: W: G: \"That baby.\" \"Is i t a baby?\" \"Yes.\" \"Yes.\" \"That baby.\" \"What about this? Who's that?\" \"Shoes. That.\" \"Hmmm?\" \"That shoes.\" \"Yes.\" \"What's this? \"Monster.\" \"Look at this monster, this?\" \"That shoes.\" What about W: H|pa + shoes ya F. ha? Q. \"Shoes? II G: H|L \"Yes.\" yes them?\" W: Tukted where u + use P + Pl. ce G. he? Q-\"Where do they wear G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: Tukted where \"u + c use P + Pl. ce G. he? Q. \"Where do they wear them?\" G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: ..Tukted where u + c use P + Pl. ce G. he? Q. \"Where do they wear them? G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: Tukted iye u + P + ce he dena? where i t use Pl. G. Q- these these?' \"Where do they wear G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: /de:/. \"This.\" G: Huh? \"Huh?\" W: Tokeca eha? \"How do you say it? II (why) how say 1 3 4 G: Ka /ha:pa/ + ye. t h a t sfioes F. Ka babaye. Ka. t h a t baby F. t h a t W: H i y a . no G: Hmmm. yes^ W: His' t a k u ha? (he+18) t h a t what Q. G: Huh? W: He t a k u ha? t h a t what Q. G: Ka b a b i y a . t h a t \"baby\" F. W: Ka / b g i b i / ha? t h a t \"baby\" Q. G: Ha. yes W: De is* t o ? t h i s i t — G: H i y a k a e z i . no t h a t one W: Huh? G: 2i. ( w a z i ) one W: IytisSda g dukse + k t a ha? s c i s s o r s u s e y o u - c u t P. Q. Waz\"i dukse + k t a ha? one y o u - c u t P. Q. G: H|. yes ( G a b r i e l and E s t h e r a r e now p l a y i n g w i t h s c i s s o r s and c o n s t r u c t i o n paper.) W: Ih£. Yu k s a . O.K. c u t \"That s h o e s . \" \"That baby. T h a t . \" \"No.\" \"Yes.\" \"What's t h a t one?\" \"Huh?\" \"what's t h a t ? \" \"That baby.\" \" I s t h a t a b a b y ? \" \"Yes.\" \"What about t h i s ? \" \"No t h a t one.\" (?) \"Huh?\" \"One.\" \"Are you g o i n g t o c u t w i t h s c i s s o r s ? \" \"Are you g o i n g t o c u t one?\" \"Yes.\" \"O.K. C u t . \" \"Cut t h i s way.\" \"Cut l i k e t h i s . \" \"Cut w i t h t h e s c i s s o r s h e r e . \" Decex i y a . l i k e - t h i s go Decex yuksa.. l i k e - t h i s c u t Ded i y u z d a y u k s a . h e r e s c i s s o r s c u t (Wilma p o i n t s t o a baby i n t h e c a t a l o g u e . ) He t a k u ha? Hey? He t a k u ha? t h a t what Q. \" t h a t what Q. \"What's t h a t ? Hey? What's t h a t ? \" G: / b ^ . b i / . \"Baby.\" \"baby\" 135 W: / b ^ l b i / ? Oh. baby He taktuk u + yaka ha? that what use Q. Maku ged i£ he? chest there use Q. Duksa + y.a-.:+ k i h i + Sni ha? Hey? you-cut you able-to N. Q. \" D_ukse + kte ha? you-cut P. Q. G: H|. yes \"Baby? Oh.\" \"What's that ?\" \"Does he wear i t on h i s chest?\" \"Can't you cut i t ? \" \"Are you going to cut?\" \"Yes.\" Session I, 2;4(0), u t t s . 81-106 W: W|ka + de. He tSku ha? i (wayaka) look t h i s that what Q. G: Ka pppp yo. (motor noise) that F. (Gabriel i s looking at toys i n the W: Hey? G: Ha. yes W: Tokex eya + ce ha? how t a l k G. Q. G: Pppp + ya. F. W: Eya ha? Tokex eya + ce ha? how t a l k G. Q. G: P6tet pppp. two W: Eya + ca he? Izumiya ha? t a l k G. Q. go-zoom Q. G: Potet pppp eye. two F. W: Eya ha? Ohhh. — Q. G: Hey. Go potet pppp ya ka. (ka) \" that two F. that W: Wak^n iyaye + kte? up-there go P. G: H|. yes ) \"Look at t h i s . What's that? (+2)\" \"That pppp.\" talogue.) \"Hey?\" \"Yes.\" \"How does i t t a l k ? \" \"PPPP-\" \"Like that?\" \"How does i t t a l k ? \" \"Two pppp.\" \"Is i t l i k e that? Does i t go zoom? \"Two pppp.\" \"Like that? Ohhh.\" \"Hey. That two pppp. That.\" \"Is i t going to go up?\" \"Yes.\" 1 3 6 W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: / k a : k i / i y a y e + k t e ? o v e r - t h e r e go P. Huh? Tokex i y a + ce he? how go G. Q. P o t e t e t o k e x i y a + ce he? two - how go G. Q. P o t e t pppp y a . \" I s i t g o i n g t o go ov e r t h e r e ? \" two Eya Hf. yes Oh. Eya! F. ha? Q-Eya! Hey? Ke p o t e t t h a t two pppp y a . — — F. P o t e t pppp a ha? two Q. Ha. yes De nako w a ^ i i y a y e + k t e ye. t h i s a n o t h e r one go P. F. Hmmm? Ka /z'yaz'ya/. Ka pppp go. ( i y a y e ) t h a t go t h a t \"go\" (gasps) I y a y e + k t e ? t o P. I y a y a . go Ha. yes Hey. P o t e t pppp i y a y a . two go Ha. yes Ka y a y a . t h a t go Iy a y a ? Hmmm? go „1 \"Huh?\" \"How does i t go?\" \"How do t h o s e two go? \"Two pppp.\" \" L i k e t h a t ? \" \"Yes.\" \"Oh.\" \"Go! Go!\" \"Hey?\" \"That two pppp.\" \"Those two go pppp?\" \"Yes.\" \"Another one i s g o i n g t o go. \"Hmmm?\" \"That go. That pppp go.\" \" I s i t g o i n g t o go?\" \"Goes.\" \"Yes.\" \"Hey. Two pppp go.\" \"Yes.\" \"That goes.\" \" I t goes? Hmmm?\" G a b r i e l has i n v e n t e d t h e word / p o t e t / w h i c h he u s e s i n r e f e r e n c e t o p a i r s o f o b j e c t s . I n t h i s c a s e he i s r e f e r r i n g t o (and Wilma i s conform-i n g ) a t o y a i r p l a n e . He o f t e n uses / p o t e t / when t h e r e f e r e n t a p p ears t o be a i r p l a n e s ; one p o s s i b l e r e a s o n f o r t h i s i s t h a t h i s house i s n e a r an a i r f o r c e c a d e t t r a i n i n g camp where c a d e t s a r e g i v e n g l i d e r t r a i n i n g . Most o f t h e t i m e he sees a i r p l a n e s , t h e n , i s i n p a i r s , w i t h t h e g l i d e r b e i n g towed. 137 G: Ha. c yes W: Ake wa^i /oya/ dekte. again one — P . De is 1 to. t h i s i t — G: Huh? \"Yes.\" \"Look at another one.\" (?) \"What about t h i s ? \" \"Huh?\" Session I, 2;4(0), u t t s . 187-198 G: WawH. (wewe) hurt W: Hey? G: Ka wawa. that hurt W: Wewe he? hurt Q. G: H|. yes W: Pazo to. show — \"Hurt.\" 'Hey (He points to mosquito bite s . ) \"That hurt.\" He tSktuk hand ha? that what you-do Q. \"Does i t hurt?\" \"Yes.\" \"Show me.\" \"What are you doing?\" \"Hurt.\" \"Hurt?\" \"Yes.\" Wawa. hurt Wewe ha? hurt Q. yes Ohhh. /ni:na/ n i + yaza_ ha? much you hurt Q. G: H|. yes W: Ohhh. (Wilma indicates the tape recorder.) W: He t6keca ha? that why Q. G: Hey ka. Ka. Z i . Ka z i ya. \"Hey that. That. One. That one.\" (wazi) (wazi) \"Ohhh.\" \"Does i t hurt you a l o t ? \" \"Yes.\" \"Ohhh.\" \"What's that f o r ? \" \" that that one that one F. Taktuk hy ha? what do Q. Ka. that Tokex eya ha? how t a l k Q. /s:/ eya. \"shh\" — \"What does i t do?\" \"That.\" \"How does i t t a l k ? \" \" I t goes 'shhhh'.\" 138 Session I, 2;4(0), utts. 222-227 W: Waxpe detka iS mni detk| he? tea you-drxnk or water you-drink Q. G: W: G: W H|. yes Talcu? what /peV • (waxpd) tea Waxpd? tea G: Ha. yes W: Ohhh. G: /epeV + ya. (waxp6) tea F. W: /peV ha? (waxp£) tea Q. G: H|. W: yes Ohhh. \"Did you drink tea or water?\" \"Yes.\" \"What?\" \"Tea.\" \"Tea?\" \"Yes.\" \"Ohhh.\" \"Tea.\" \"Tea?\" \"Yes.\" \"Ohhh.\" Session I, 2;4(0), utts. 309-330 G: Hey. (+4) \"Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.\" Pdya. (I've cut a piece of paper.)\"Fall-break.\" fall-break W: IxpSye ha? \"Did i t f a l l ? \" f a l l Q. G: H|. \"Yes.\" yes W: Oh. P£ye ha? (Imitating \"Oh, did i t f a l l ? \" (ixpaye) Gabriel.) f a l l Q. G: H|. \"Yes.\" yes (Gabriel squeals.) Kaya. \" F a l l . \" (imit. of ixpaye?) f a l l (Wilma suggests that he draw a cow on the paper.) W: Wak.ade /mumu/ owa + kaya ye. \"Look. Draw a cow.\" (waydka+de) look \"moomoo\" write make F. •ya. A: G: W: (Es G: W: /mimf/ + (mni) w a t e r Mnx ya? w a t e r F. /mimx/ (mnx) ye s w a t e r Mnx d a t k a w a t e r y o u - d r i n k Q t h e r has asked f o r Ha. c + ha? ya . a d r i n k o f w a t e r /mimx/ (mnx) w a t e r /mimx/ (mnx) w a t e r + y a . \"Water.\" \"Water?\" \"Yes. Water.\" \" D i d you d r i n k w a t e r ? \" and i s now d r i n k i n g i t . ) \"Water.\" + ya? ( I m i t a t i n g G a b r i e l ) \"Water?\" F. W: G: W: G: W: G: Andrew /mimx/ + ye. (mnx) \" w a t e r F. Andrew /mimx/ + ya he? (mnx) \" w a t e r F. Q. H|. yes Ohhh. Hey Da. (de) \" t h i s Nx2a mnx you w a t e r H|. yes He /mimx/ + y a (mnx) t h a t w a t e r F. Afidu /mimi/ + (mni) Andrew w a t e r / c i / . °°(cicx) monster + y a he? F. 0. y a . W: G: W: mni G a b r i e l naku \" a l s o w a t e r + y a ha? F. Q. Hey? G a b r i e l naki£ mni + y a ha? \" a l s o w a t e r F. Q. Andrew /mimi/ + y a . (mni) \" w a t e r F. \"Andrew w a t e r . \" \"Andrew (has) w a t e r ? \" \"Yes.\" \"Ohhh.\" \"Hey. T h i s . M o n s t e r . \" \" D i d you (have) some w a t e r ? \" \"Yes.\" \"That w a t e r . \" \"Andrew w a t e r . \" \" D i d G a b r i e l have w a t e r t o o ? \"Hey?\" \" D i d G a b r i e l have w a t e r t o o ? \"Andrew w a t e r . \" 140 Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 119-123 (Gabriel s t a l l s the tape on the tape recorder.) G: Ka b6. that broken Ka /m^jn/. (To Esther.) that \"mine\" E: Abu. GSble cica. (s'i'ce) sleep Gabriel bad G: Aridu cica. ( s i c e ) Andrew bad E: Gable cica. Gabriel bad G: ANDU DIDA! (Sice) Andrew bad E: GABLE CICA! Gabriel bad G: Andu. Andrew \"That broken.\" \"That mine.\" \"Sleep. Gabriel bad?\" \"Andrew bad.\" \"Gabriel bad.\" \"Andrew bad.\" \"Gabriel bad.\" \"Andrew.\" Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 179-188 \"What are you doing?\" W: Taktuk han£ ha? what you-do Q. (Gabriel i s at the living room door looking out into the hallway, has just l e f t the room.) G: Net l a l a . Annette candy W: Hey? G: Net yaya. Annette go W: Annitte iyaya? go G: Net ka + ya. Annette there F. W: Toki? where G: Net ka + ya. Annette there F. W: Toki? where G: Net ka + ya. Annette there F. W: Yfize + sni. touch N. G: Net ka + ya. Annette there F. (+4) Net. Annette Annette \"Annette candy.\" \"Hey?\" \"Annette go.\" \"Did Annette go?\" \"Annette there.\" \"Where?\" \"Annette there.\" \"Where?\" \"Annette there.\" \"Don't touch.\" \"Annette there. Annette.\" 141 W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G: W: G. Hiyu. Hiyu. (Gabriel steps out of come-here come-here Net kS + ya? Annette there F. Hiyu. come-here Kakekakd? (kakiya) there Hey? Net kd + ya? Annette there F. Hiya. no /kakiya/ Net. (kakiya) over there Annette Ha. yes Net ka. Annette there Annette iya. Annette abu + ya. go Net abu + ya? Annette sleep F. Hg. Ak^n abu + yes up sleep Net kaya? Annette there F. H|. yes sleep ye. F. Net ka + ya' Net ka + YA! Annette there F. H|. yes Net ka + ya. Annette there F. Annette there F. Hey? Nits' ka + ya? Annette there F. the room) \"Come here. Come here.\" \"Annette there?\" \"Come here.\" \"There?\" \"Hey?\" \"Annette there?\" \"No.\" \"Annette over there.\" \"Yes.\" \"Annette there.\" \"Annette went away. Annette's sleeping.\" \"Annette sleeping?\" \"Yes. She's sleeping up there.\" \"Annette there?\" \"Yes.\" \"Annette there?\" \"Yes.\" \"Annette there. Annette there.\" \"Hey?\" \"Annette there.\" Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 213-224 (Gabriel hits his head accidentally against the wall.) G: Andu /ga/! (he gasps.) \"Andrew that.\" Andrew that E: Gable. \"Gabriel.\" Gabriel G: Andu wewe + ya. \"Andrew hurt.\" Andrew hurt F. 142 (Gabriel points to his head and goes to Wilma. He is attempting to blame Esther.) G: Wewe. hurt KS wewe. that hurt A: Gabriel. G: Ka wa. that hurt W: Hey? G: Ka wa. W: Wewe ha? hurt Q. Taktuk han§ ha? what you-do Q. G: Andu wewe + wa. (ye) Andrew hurt F. W: Hey? G: Andu wewe + ya. Andrew hurt F. Ib6to ha? bump Q. HS. yes Tukted? Hey? where \" /bubu:/ bu + ya. \"boom\" (\"boom\" iya = i t went boom) IxpSye ha? f a l l Q. Afidu /am::!/.. Andrew — \"me\" De tSku he de? (She tries to change subject.) \"Hurt.\" \"That hurt.\" \"Gabriel.\" \"That hurt.\" \"Hey?\" \"That hurt.\" \"Hurt?\" \"What are you doing?\" \"Andrew hurt.\" \"Hey?\" \"Andrew hurt.\" \"Did i t bump?\" \"Yes.\" \"Where? Hey?\" \"Boom-boom.\" (?) \"Did i t f a l l ? \" \"Andrew me.\" this what that this Ka /b6:/. that \"boom\" (or = iboto, 'bump') \"What's this?\" \"That boom.\" (or bump) Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 271-279 (Gabriel goes to the front door.) E: \"Bye\" Gabriel. G: \"Bye.\" (+3) W: TukidS ha? where-go Q. G: MSma /babSya/. \"bye-bye\" F. W: HiyS inSxa + sne. (sni+ye) no N. F. \"Good-bye Gabriel.\" \"Good-bye.\" (+3) \"Where are you going?\" \"Mama bye-bye.\" \"Noa. Don't .\" (Gabriel wants to go home.) G: Hey. Henana. \"Hey. That's a l l . \" \" that a l l (no more) Ka. /babij./. \"That. Bye-bye.\" that \"bye-bye\" Session VII, 2;4(8), utts. 484-498 (Gabriel is playing with the boy animals.) W: Tukte /mumu/ ge; a he? where \"moomoo\" that is Q. Hey? Tukte /mumu/ ge a ha? where moomoo that is F. /2A2AW eya. (neigh) T6kex eya ha? Q. 'Where is that cow?\" G: W: W G: W: W: W: G: W: W: how Hey? T<5kex eya ha? how Q. /lAUm/ eya. (neigh) Ka /2AZW eya. that (neigh) /2A2AIH/ eya ha? (neigh) Q. Hmmm. (hf) yes Tukted /mumu/ ge a ha? (tukte+is) where i t moomoo that is Q. TuktS /mumu/? Huh? Ka /2A2/\\m/ eya. that (neigh) Eya ha? Q. Ka /2A2AITI/ eya. that (neigh) Eya ha? Q. Na Wilman. here Wilma Hey. Kd /2A2AHI/ eya. \" that (neigh) /hausa/ /hausa/ / l i S a / . \"husha\" \"husha\" L i c i a \"Hey?\" \"Where i s that cow?\" \"Goes /2A2Am/.\" \"How does i t talk?\" \"Hey?\" \"How does i t talk?\" \"Goes /2A2Xm/.\" \"That goes /2A2/W.\" \"Does i t say /2A2Xm/?\" \"Yes.\" \"Where's that cow?\" \"Where's the cow?\" \"Huh?\" \"That goes /2A2W.\" \"Like that?\" \"That goes /2A2£III/.\" \"Like that?\" \"Here Wilma.\" \"Hey. That goes /2A2AW. \"Husha-husha L i c i a . \" 144 \"Come h e r e .\" \"No. Here.\" \"Don't do t h a t , G a b r i e l . \" \" Y o u ' l l get h u r t . \" \"That t h a t . T h a t . \" \"Goes /2A2AV.\" \"Does i t go /2/\\2/\\m/?\" \"Boo. Boo.\" G: H i y u . come-here Lo: H i y a . Na. no h e r e W: Hecu + n i G a b r i e l . \" (2ni) t h a t do N. \" Wewe + k t e y a . h u r t P. F. G: He k a . Ka. t h a t t h a t t h a t /2v\\2jCm/ eya. ( n e i g h ) W: /2/\\2Am/ eya. ha? ( n e i g h ) Q. Lo. \"Boo. Boo.\" ( L o r r a i n e b r u s h e s h e r h a i r f o r w a r d o v e r h e r f a c e and c r a w l s on h e r hands and knees p r e t e n d i n g t o be a monster.) E: / m i d j a / , / m i d j a / . (Wants L o r r a i n e t o c a r r y h e r on h e r bac k . ) (raize) (raize) ™~ \" me me / m i d j a / Gwen. (mile) me H i y u . come h e r e W: I y a u + s n i . r u n do N. \"Don't chase them a r o u n d . \" G: Hey. A n n e t t e /mumu/ aya. \" \" moo-moo W: A n n e t t e \"mooo\" aya ha? Q. 'Me. Me.' \"Me, Gwen.\" \"Come h e r e . \" \"Don't r u n . \" \"Don't chase them a r o u n d . \" \"Hey. A n n e t t e goes moo-moo.\" \" D i d A n n e t t e say \"Moo\"?\" 145 APPENDIX II Braine-type chart of multi-morphemic utterances i n session I I I Types Tokens Two morphemes 1. ka Andy 500 2. ka bdya 369 3. ka c i c i 357, 540 4. ka eya 169 5. ka kdka 459, 460 6. ka mimx 281, 286, 291, 486; 7. ka \"mine\" 226 8. ka \"moo-mdo\" 5, 6 9. ka Net 294 10. :,ka 16/ (=homni) 553, 554 11. ka h^pa 174 12. ka /p^2a/ (=wap*alia) 406, 407, 408 13. ka \"puppy\" 133, 135, 137, 141 14. ka waxpe 522, 524 15. ay a ya 395 16. b i b i ye (=\"baby\") 148 17. /b6/ ye (=\"ball\") 157 18. c i c i ye 67, 102, 103, 231 19. c i ye (=ci) 210 20. llfiU&l ye 106 21. /ka7 ye (='*car\") 516 22. \"moo-moo\" ye 211, 230, 545 23. mimi ye 300 24. henana ye 64 25. hey bx 331 26. hey eyd 184 27. hey hey 534 28. hey hiyii 379, 449 29. hey kd 187, 376, 551, 44 30. hey mt 275, 532, 538 31. hey puppy 397, 398 32. hey wa.z'x 65 33. /bam/ eya- (=\"boom\") 415 34. Dorina eya\" 389 35. \" h e l l d \" eya\" 94, 95 36. /mf :/ eya 544 37. 38. 39. /2A2AW babdba (=\"bye-bye\") /lAliym/ ka\" 380 224, 232, 233, 363 3 146 40. Andrew \"bye-bye\" 262, 263 41. Andrew iyaye 269 42. Andrew \"mine\" 240 43. Andy iyaye 266, 267, 268 44. potet eya 28 45. potet £ 124, 317 46. . c i c i ' ka 320 47. eya ka 472 48. Net koko (=kakiya ?) 271 49. Net iyaye 270, 277 50. Net \"mine\" 351 51. \"bad boy\" 53, 481, 548, 549 52. hiyu kaye 70 53. kuka /iyap/ (=suka \"hurry up\") 529 Three morphemes 54. ka \"baby\" ye 151 55. ka \"birdie\" ye 359, 360 56. ka c i c i ye 68 57. ka / IA IAW \"moo-moo\" 229 58. ka iye Andy 498 59. hey ka \"puppy\" 527 60. hey ka HiKlAm/ 100 61. hey Andrew paye 302 62. hey c i c i yaka 319 63. hey \"moo-moo\" ye 311 64. hey potet ye 125 65. Net \"bye-bye\" ye 99, 200 66. Net \"boom\" eya 416 67. Net mine eye 147 68. Andrew \"bye-bye\" ya 264 69. Donna \"bye-bye\" ya 78 70. Andrew \"mine\" eye 91 71. \"bye-bye\" ya ka 274 72. kaka koka c i , 546 147 Four morphemes 73. ka Net mamx ya (=mni) 492 74. Net Woma \"bye-bye\" ya (=Wilma) 198 Unintelligibles 75. hey Net lala 424 76. ka. x x x ka 276 77. k 2a k 2a 474 o o o o o o 78. kokaya (ixpaye ?) 128 "@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0094371"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Linguistics"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "Meaning development in one child acquiring Dakota-Sioux as a first language"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21013"@en .