Phonemes - basic units of sound that are used in spoken language
Morphemes - smallest meaningful units of language
                (prefixes, suffixes, verb tense modifiers ....)
Semantics - actual meaning expressed in the words/sentence
Syntax - rules for how words are combined to produce meaning
Pragmatics - principles that underlie effective and appropriate communication

Receptive language - comprehension
                                - ability to understand language
Productive language - expressive
                                - ability to communicate information to others

Theories
Learning - Skinner
Nativist - Chomsky
Interactionist
 

Newborns
Productive - crying
Receptive - Motherese
        - Open eyes & look at speaker
        - preference for mom's voice over stranger
        - preference for speech over rhythmic sounds
        - discrimination of consonant sounds (1 month)
        - respond differently to different intonations

2 months
Productive - Cooing
Receptive - discrimination of vowel sounds
Harmonize

4-6 months
Productive - Babbling

7-8 months
Receptive - Turn taking - vocalize in response to vocalizations
                                    - wait for pause to vocalize

8-10 months
Productive - gestures and nonverbal communication
    - facial expressions, pointing
        protodeclarative gestures - direct attention to an object
        protoimperative gestures - attempts to get request granted

12 months
Productive - first word that has meaning

Holophrases -1 word = entire sentence
By evaluating the environment/situation, a person can infer what the child means.
Single words can have different meanings in different situations.
Gestures and nonverbal communication added to convey meaning

Early words tend to be simplified versions of the word
baw = ball ghetti = spaghetti
unstressed syllables are deleted
ending syllable is replaced with a vowel sound

Early words tend to be primarily object names (family members,
animals, toys, pets, things that they can manipulate)
Children also learn action words (verbs), modifiers(adjectives), and social expressions (please, thank you) to a lesser extent.

Initial word learning is slow

18-24 months
Productive -vocabulary spurt - naming explosion
- children learn 10-20 new words/week
Receptive - Fast mapping
- overextension
- underextension

Inferring New Word Meanings
Object scope constraint
Mutually Exclusive
Syntactical Bootstrapping

18-24 months
Productive - Simple sentences - Telegraphic speech
- contains only crucial words (articles/prepositions left out)

2- 5 years
Productive - voice level appropriate so a listener can hear you
- consider what listener knows
- pronunciation improves
- sentences increase in complexity
- better understanding of syntax
- begin to use morphemes
- overregularization (goed, tooths)
Receptive - passive sentences misinterpreted

1) The girl hit the boy.
active sentence - children can identify who is doing the hitting and who is being hit

2) The boy was hit by the girl.
passive sentence - children often identify the boy as doing the hitting and the girl as being hit

3) The tree was hit by the boy.
passive sentence - but because a tree can not hit a person, children will correctly identify the boy as doing the hitting and the tree as being the object hit
 
 

6-14 years
Receptive - passive and conditional sentences understood
Productive/Receptive - morphological knowledge increases
- metalinguistic awareness

Bilingualism
- exposure before 3 - some crossover effects early in learning
    - no significant problems with learning language
- exposure after 4 - approx 1 year to reach near native ability
- early learning of 2^nd language may actually increase metalinguistic skillsbecause of translation between 2 languages