ENGL 202
Prof. G. Steinberg
Language Acquisition Exercise

Examine the following utterances from a child's speech over a period of a year. What would you say about the child's language development in terms of morphemes, nonlexical categories, negation, and question formation?

28 months
Play checkers.
Big drum.
I got horn.
A bunny-rabbit walk.

30 months
Write a piece a paper.
What that egg doing?
I lost a shoe.
No, I don't want to sit seat.

32 months
Let me get down with the boots on.
Don't be afraid a horses.
How tiger be so healthy and fly like kite?
Joshua throw like penguin.

34 months
Look at that train Ursula brought.
I simply don't want put in chair.
Don't have paper.
Do you want little bit, Cromer?
I can't wear it tomorrow.

36 months
I going come in fourteen minutes.
I going wear that to wedding.
I see what happens.
I have to save them now.
Those are not strong mens.
They are going sleep in wintertime.
You dress me up like a baby elephant.

38 months
So it can't be cleaned?
I broke my racing car.
Do you know the lights went off?
What happened to the bridge?
Can I put my head in the mailbox so the mailman can know where I are and put me in the mailbox?



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