How We Learn to Speak: The Stages of Language Acquisition

 

First language acquisition refers to how infants and young children acquire their native language naturally, without formal teaching. It’s a universal process that happens in predictable stages, although the exact ages may vary slightly by child. Studies of linguistic development have revealed a series of crucial stages in children as they master their native languages. Though the correlation of age with the given stage can vary remarkably from child to child, the particular sequences of stages seem to be the same for all children in first language acquisition.

Syntactic process

 The syntactic process of a language refers to the way words are arranged and combined to form phrases, clauses, and sentences according to the rules of grammar. It is the mechanism that allows language to create complex and meaningful sentence structures from simple elements. There are some major syntactic processes, and these are given below:

Discontinuous constituents:

Discontinuous constituents are when a phrase or clause is broken up by other words, yet the separated parts still form a single grammatical unit. For example, in the English language, the phrasal verb ‘pulled down’ in the sentence ‘he pulled the thief down’ is a discontinuous constituent separated by the ‘the thief’.

Recursion:

Recursion in syntax is the process by which a grammatical rule can be applied to its own output, allowing structures to be nested inside each other indefinitely. Recursion explains why human language can generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of rules and words.

Concatenation:

Concatenation in syntax is the process that places words one after another to build larger structures. For example, in the sentence ‘the boy runs’, we see that the structure is subject ( the boy)+ verb (runs).

Conjoining:

Conjoining or coordination is the process that links two or more units of the same type using conjugations. For example:

the scene of the movie was in Singapore.

The scene of the play was in Singapore.

The two sentences can be turned into a new sentence by the process of conjoining: the scene of the play and the movie was in Dhaka city.

Embedding:

Embedding in syntax occurs when a subordinate clause is embedded within a superordinate or main clause, as in the example: "The boy who spoke to you is my brother."

Simple Words, Complex Words and Compound Words based on syllable

 A syllable is a phonological unit that is composed of one or more morphemes. It is a single, unbroken sound of a spoken or written word. It is a unit of pronunciation that contains one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants.

Phonologically, a syllable is defined by how vowels and consonants combine to construct various sequences. That is, the structure of a syllable is “consonant (s) plus vowel (s) plus consonant (s). A vowel is a compulsory element that can alone form a syllable, whereas a consonant is an optional element.

A syllable is a segment of speech that typically contains: a vowel sound (central element) and optional consonants before (called onset) and /or after (coda).

Structure of a syllable:

A syllable has three main parts:

Part	Description	Example (in ‘bed’)
Onset	The initial consonant (s) sound (if any)	“b”
Nucleus	The core vowel sound (always present)	“e”
coda	The ending consonant (s) sound (if any)	“d”

 Every syllable has at least one vowel sound.

More examples:

Word	Syllables	Breakdown
dog	1	Dog
apple	2	Ap-ple
banana	3	Ba-na-na
elephant	3	El-e-phant

 A minimal syllable in the English language may be a single vowel in isolation:

Are [a:]

Or [ɔ:]

Err [ ʒ:]

Some other English syllables could have no onset but a termination:

Am [ æ m]

Ought [ ɔ:t]

Ease [ i: z]

Finally, some English syllables could have both onset and termination:

Run [ r Λ n]

Sat [ s æ t]

Fill [ f I l]            

Importance:

1. Pronunciation: syllables help in correctly pronouncing words.

2. Dividing words into syllables can help in spelling.

3. Syllables are key to understanding stress and intonation.

Rules of stress placement within the word

One syllable or single-syllable words, especially nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs receive primary stress if they are pronounced in isolation. But the question of placing stress on the first or the second syllable or so arises when a learner of English as a second/foreign language has to pronounce a word having more than one syllable. Roach (2000) propounds the following criteria to be considered so as to decide on stress placement within the word:

a) Whether the word is morphologically simple.

b) Whether the word is complex as a result of containing one or more affixes.

c) Whether the word is compound as a result of combining two independent words.

d) The grammatical category to which the word belongs (noun, adjective, verb, adverb, etc.)

e) The number of syllables in the word.

f) The phonological structure of the syllables in the word.

Simple words:

 Simple words are those not composed of more than one grammatical unit and are usually either disyllabic or trisyllabic. While in case of a two-syllable word the primary stress is on either the first or the second syllable and the other syllable remains unstressed, in case of a three-syllable word the primary stress is either on the first, the second, or the third syllable,

If the second syllable of a 'two-syllable verb' has a long vowel or diphthong or if it has more than one ending consonant,  the second syllable receives stress:

Re’move            a’pply

a'rrive                 a’ttract

Af the second syllable of a 'two-syllable verb' has a short vowel and one or no ending consonant, the first syllable receives stress:

'open                        ‘enter

'equal                       envy

If the second syllable of a 'two-syllable verb' contains the diphthong / au /, the first syllable receives stress:

'follow                          ‘borrow

'mellow                       ‘hollow

These rules also apply to 'two-syllable adjectives", excepting a few of them such as 'honest' and 'perfect':

di'vine                           co’rrect

'lovely                            ‘even

'hollow                          ‘mellow

'Two-syllable adverbs' and 'prepositions' are found to behave like verbs and adjectives. However, 'two-syllable nouns' require a different rule. If the second syllable has a short vowel, the first syllable receives the stress. Otherwise, the second syllable is stressed:

'money                            ‘product

ba'llon                             de’sign

If the last syllable of a 'three-syllable verb' contains a short vowel and not more than one ending consonant, the second syllable is stressed:

de'termine                         en’counter

If the last syllable of a 'three-syllable verb' contains a long vowel or diphthong or more than one consonant, the last syllable receives primary stress and the first syllable secondary:

enter'tain                                     resu’rrect

If the last syllable of the 'three-syllable noun' contains a short vowel or the diphthong / au/, it receives no stress. If the second syllable has a long vowel or diphthong or more than one ending, consonant, it is stressed:

mi'mosa                                 di'saster

po'tato                                    sy'nopsis

If the last syllable of the 'three-syllable noun' has a short vowel and the second syllable a short and not more than one the consonant, the first syllable receives stress:

‘custody                                 'quantity

‘Emperor                                  ‘cinema

If the last syllable of a 'three-syllable noun' contains a long vowel or diphthong and/or more than one ending consonant, it receives secondary stress and the first syllable receives primary stress:

'inte, llect                         'alka, li

'mari,gold                        'stalac,tite

This rule also applies to 'three-syllable adjectives':

'oppor,tune                             'dere,lict

'inso,lent                                 anthrou,poid

The rules discussed and exemplified above do not cover all the simple words of the English language. They are only related to major categories of two- and three- syllable lexical words. However, these rules are supposed to help ESL/EFL learners substantially to place stress on the appropriate syllables of a large number of commonly used simple words.

Complex words:Here complex words include those words which are made from a basic stem word with the addition of an affix, that is, a prefix coming before the stem, e. g. 'in-'+'complete'-> 'incomplete', or a suffix coming after the stem, e.g. 'care' + '-less' ->'careless'. Affixes can have one of three possible effects on words stress:

First, affixes themselves receive primary stress:

semi-'+ "circle'                          ‘semicircle

person' +"-ality'                       person'ality

'Ja'pan' + '-ese'                 Japa'nese

mountain' + '-eer'                 mountaineer  

“picture' + '-esque'                 pictu’resque, etc.

Second, affixes have no impact on stress placement within the word:

'in-+'com'plete'               incom'plete

"comfort' +'-able'               'comfortable

"wide' + '-en'                'widen

"wonder' +'-ful’           '    wonderful

"a'maze' + '-ing'                a'mazing

"hard' +'-ly'                 "hardly

"punish' +'-ment'              'punishment

"fun'+'-y'               'funny

"power' +'-less"                'powerless, etc.

Third, affixes influence stress, which is shifted to a different syllable of the stem:

'ad'vantage' + '-eous'                 advan'tageous

"photo' +'-graph                pho'tography

"climate' +'-ic                         cli'matic

"perfect' +'-ion'                      per’fection

'injure' + '-ious                   in'jurious

'tranquil' + '-ity’                tran'quillity, etc.

We have here dealt with those prefixes and suffixes which are common and productive, and are supposed to help ESI learners to a considerable extent.

Compound words:

Compound words are those ones which are constituted of at least two independent words, for example. ‘sun’+ ‘rise'           'sunrise',   'fruit' +'cake'       "fruit-cake', 'battery" + ‘charger’        'battery charger', etc. The compound that combines two nouns receives primary stress on its first element:’

‘sunrise 'typewriter

‘tea-cup'desk lamp, etc.

The compound that is made up of an adjectival first element and the '-ed' morpheme at the end permits primary stress on the second element:

bad -'tempered

heavy -'handed

black -' coloured

half -'timbered, etc.

The compound which has a number in some form as its first element permits primary stress on the second element:

four -'wheeler

second -'class

third -'party, etc.

The compound that functions as an adverb receives primary stress on its second part:

east -'west

down -'stream

head -'first, etc.

Lastly, the compound that contains an adverbial first element and functions as a verb permits stress on the final part:

ill -'treat

down -'grade

back -'pedal, etc.