Child+Language+and+Evolution-Slobin

__I. Does ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny?__ A. Ontogeny: The development or course of development, especially of an individual organism (M-W).

B. Recapitulate: Repeat (an evolutionary process) during development and growth.

C. Phylogenesis: The evolutionary development and diversification of a species, group of organisms, or a particular feature of an organism (TheFreeDictionary).

D. Slobin wants to prove that children are not comprable to mature proto or pre hominids in regartd to language development. 1. Today's children grow up exposed to an already developed language. 2. Children's brains are already evolved so that they can absorb and use an evolved language.

E. Bickerton believes that trained apes and children do share similarities in proto language.

__II. Trained apes, human toddlers, and proto language__. A. many of the prerequisites for language were __present__ before the emergence of the hominid line

__III. Proto-grammar and early child language.__ A. in the one word stage Turkish children are already using grammatical morphemes (but in English a child would not recogne that broken is correct rather than breaked) B. early telegraphic speech and fixed word order patterns are only characteristic of child language in certain types of languages C. much of early language is item based rather than reflecting productive combinations of the telegraphic or pre-grammatical type

__IV. Proto-language and early child semantics__ A. Children and chimps learn from existing language unlike pre-humans who did not have an existing language to work with.

__V. Heterochrony__ A. Heterochrony: changes in the relative time of appearance and rate of development for characters already present in ancestors -human cognitive development is accelerated in comparison to other species and the two sorts of cognition develop in parallel with each other in humans, but asynchronously in apes and monkeys

B. Infant thought development is faster than that of apes and monkeys.

__VI. Answering question one__ A. Children can not be models to study early speech because they learn from existing language.

__VII. Does diachrony recapitulage ontogeny?__ A. Diachrony: Change or development in a language system over time. 1. For a linguistic change to have an effect on the overall language, it must be maintained into adulthood.

__VIII. Changes in past-tense froms of the English verb__ A. Changes made to language in childrens speech do not last.

B. Changes made in adult speech sometimes last and transition into language.

__IX. Answering question two__ A. past and current research suggests that children are not the ones to create new grammatical forms

__X. Do children create grammatical forms?__

__XI. From pidgin to creole__

A. Pidgin: A rudimentary form of communication or language between groups of people who do not have a common dialect.

B. Creole: A language that developed from a pidgin.

C. Children can regulate and automate language, but do not innovate it.

__XII. The creation of homesigns by deaf children__ A. Without being taught children can develope their own language consisting of homesigns. 1. Children developing homesigns today are still exposed to developed culture as opposed to developing humans who were not.

__XIII. From homesign to Nicaraguan Sign Language__ A. When deaf children in Nicaragua were first gathered together in school, they combined their homesigns into a common sign language. 1. Deaf children can innovate language, but it takes an interacting community to push the language to become an automated and efficient language system. __XIV. Answering question three__ __XV. An Interim Conclusion__