Glossary
Babbling
A stage of language development, usually around 6 months, where infants produce repetitive consonant-vowel combinations.
Example:
An infant repeatedly saying "ba-ba-ba" or "da-da-da" is demonstrating babbling.
Cooing
An early stage of language development, typically around 2-3 months, characterized by the production of vowel-like sounds by infants.
Example:
A baby making soft "oooooh" and "aaaaah" sounds is engaging in cooing.
Generative Language
The property of language that allows speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of novel sentences and ideas from a finite set of words and rules.
Example:
Even though you've never heard the sentence "The purple unicorn danced on a rainbow," you can understand it because language is generative.
Grammar
The system of rules in a language that governs how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.
Example:
English grammar dictates that "The dog chased the cat" is correct, not "Chased the cat the dog."
Language
A shared system of arbitrary symbols that convey meaning, expressed through sounds, words, and rules.
Example:
Humans use language to communicate complex ideas, like describing a dream or explaining a scientific theory.
Morphemes
The smallest units of language that carry meaning, which can be words, prefixes, or suffixes.
Example:
The word "unbelievable" contains three morphemes: "un-", "believe", and "-able".
One-word stage
A stage of language development, beginning around 12 months, where children use single words to convey complete thoughts or requests.
Example:
A toddler pointing to a toy and saying "Ball!" to mean "I want the ball" is in the one-word stage.
Overextension
A common language learning error where a child uses a word too broadly to refer to a wider range of objects or concepts than is appropriate.
Example:
A toddler calling every four-legged animal they see a "doggy" is an instance of overextension.
Overregularization
A common language learning error where children apply regular grammatical rules to irregular verbs or nouns.
Example:
A child saying "I eated all the cookies" instead of "I ate all the cookies" is an example of overregularization.
Phonemes
The smallest distinctive sound units in a language that can differentiate meaning.
Example:
The sounds /b/ and /p/ are distinct phonemes in English, as they differentiate words like "bat" and "pat."
Semantics
The study of meaning in language, focusing on how words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning.
Example:
Understanding that "destination" and "last stop" have similar semantics helps in comprehending sentences.
Syntax
The set of rules that dictates how words are arranged to form grammatically correct phrases and sentences.
Example:
The syntax of English requires adjectives to typically come before nouns, as in "a fluffy, white cloud."
Telegraphic speech
A stage of language development, typically around 18-24 months, characterized by short, simple phrases that contain only essential words to convey meaning.
Example:
A child saying "Me juice!" to mean "I want juice" is using telegraphic speech.
Underextension
A common language learning error where a child uses a word too narrowly, applying it only to a specific object or a limited set of objects.
Example:
A child only using the word "car" to refer to their family's specific vehicle, and not other cars, is an example of underextension.