Multiword Utterances

Multiword Utterances
Talk about Bloom’s stages of language development

Analysis
Fei Yen has acquired all of her early-developing sounds and most of her middle developing sounds, but late developing sounds remain difficult. She uses the phonological process of ‘gliding’ to transform liquids, like /l/, into glides, such as /w/:

7.     “I don’t wike moekeetoes.”

Consonant clusters are still tricky. Fei Yen deletes the more complicated sound and leaves the stop:
 * 1) “Moekeetoes,” grumbles Fei Yen (3;4.6, Chinese, 3′1″). “I don’t wike moekeetoes.”


 * 1) “It coughs me! Moekeetoes coughs me! Pah!”
 * 2) The fricative /s/ in this /sk/ fricative-stop cluster is deleted so only the stop, /k/, remains.

-         The liquids /r/ and /l/ in these /tr/ and /pl/ stop-liquid clusters are deleted, leaving only the stops /t/ and /p/, respectively.
 * 1)  “Bad moekeetoes.” Fei Yen sticks out her tongue. “Moekeetoes, go pest tipets.”

(McLeod et al., 2001)

Fei Yen's syntax and morphology is consistent with a child in Brown (1973)'s Stage Three of language development, working on grammatical notions, like negation and imperatives, in lines 12 and 19:

7.     “I don’t wike moekeetoes.”

-         Negation, “don’t” go pest tipets.” -         Imperative commands
 * 1) “Moekeetoes,

She has long since left Stage One and Stage Two, mastering elements like English word order, regular plurals, and relational meanings:

7.      “I don’t wike moekeetoes.”

-         English word order, early pronouns (in this case, “I”)

12.  “Bad moekeetoes.” Fei Yen sticks out her tongue. “Moekeetoes, go pest tipets.”

1.      English word order, regular plurals

19.  Fei Yen splutters, “Yuck! Bad moekeetoes!”

1.      Regular plurals, Relational meanings (attribute + entity)

Clark, 2003:142 (Causal errors, 3;1). The social context of meaning acquisition: acquisition of a single component, such as CAUSE.