Language Structures

Language Structures are characteristics of language that children use to recognize, decode, sort, understand and use words.

1. Phonology
Phonology includes all the important sounds within words.  Words broken down into segments or sounds are called phonemes.  Phonemes when combined together have consonant-vowel combinations. Children begin to have phonological awareness when they compare and contrast words, understanding that some begin or end with the same sound.


Example of Phonology:
In the word cat there are 3 phonemes or sounds /c/, /a/, /t/


Suprasegmentals: otherwise know as prosody, which is sentence intonation and contours. 


Phonemic Awareness:  Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that have meaning.  There are about 40-44 phonemes in English.  Phonemic awareness require the understanding of switching out these phonemes to create new words.  Example the word "bug" can change the /b/ to a /d/ and get the new word "dug".


Phonotactics: are restrictions on phoneme use in language.  (CC=Consonant, Consonant & CCC=Consonant, Consonant, Consonant)

• Initial CC examples: play, try, quite, smoke
• Initial CCC examples: screech, splinter, street
• Final CC examples: Craft, aimed, except, loves
• Final CCC examples: Milked, mumps, crofts
• Final CCCC examples: Waltzed bursts, glimpsed

Milestones

(Griffin, 2012)

ACTIVITIES TO BUILD PHONOLOGY
1. Rhyming games
2. Songs and/or Nursery Rhymes "Apples and Bananas"
3. I-Spy with beginning letter sounds


2. Morphology
Morphology is understanding that words can transform into other words.  Morphemes are the smallest unit of language that has meaning.  Sounds are put together to create new words, therefore they can consist of one or more morphemes.

• Derivational Morphemes are changes to a word to create a different meaning or part of speech.  Adding prefix or suffix to words would be an example of derivational morphemes.  (Impossible, Irregular)

• Inflectional Morphemes can only be suffix addition to words. -s (plural) and -s (possessive) are noun inflections; -s ( 3rd-person singular), -ed ( past tense), -en (past participle), and -ing ( present participle) are verb inflections;  -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.

(Griffin, 2012)

Example of Morphology:

Changing the word eat which has one morpheme to eating with 2 morphemes /eat/, /ing/


In this example the "ing" added to the word created another morpheme to eat, therefore eat has one morpheme and eating has two morphemes.


MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) measures expressive language development.  This changes over time as the child develops and can be different among situations and children.  An utterance length is approximates the language complexity.  Children who are 3 typically have an MLU of 3, children who are 5 typically have a MLU of 5, etc.


Milestones

(Griffin, 2012)

3. Syntax

Syntax is the understanding about word usage and context.  They include rules for how to combine words into sentences or phrases. These include nouns, verbs, and prepositional phrases. Each sentence has a noun phrase and a verb phrase and can also include modifiers like adjectives or adverbs.

Example of Syntax:

"The cat bites the dog."

"The cat bit the dog."

"The cat didn't bite the dog."

"Where did the cat bite the dog?"

In this example the word bit is changed a couple times to make the sentence make sense.  Bit was changed to bites and bite in depending on their particular sentence.


4. Semantics
Semantics is the ordering or structure of sentences to create meaning.   In typically developing children, semantic patterns are not clear until 6 years old.  Two year olds may say "doggie" and it might refer to sheep, cows, or horses. Adults know the meaning of dog to be a domestic animal or pet." (Gleason, 2005, pg. 23)


Units of Semantics

• Subject, Predicate- The predicate may have object or complement

Example of Semantics:
The dog chased the girl.


In this example the girl is the subject and the dog chased is the predicate. 

(Griffin, 2012)

WEBSITE FOR LANGUAGE STRUCTURE GAMES


This website has games that will build all five language structures.
http://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2011/01/word-games-to-target-five-language.html

References

Gleason, J. B. (2005). The development of language. Pearson Education, Inc.

Griffin, P. (2012).  Language Structures[Powerpoint Presentation]. Retrieved from lecture notes.

Resnick, L. B. et. al. (2008). Speaking and listening for preschool through third grade. University of Pittsburgh and The National Center on Education and the Economy. Washington, D.C.