The Slow Growth of Language in Children

Robbins Burling

Becca Barnabi, Miki Cao, Emily Weyant

Abstract• Intro

– Burling’s goal is to “show that the development of syntax as we can observe in children, gives no support for the belief that syntax comes suddenly” (298).

• Early Learning– “…learning…occurs silently before children actually produce the

forms they have learned” (298).• Late Learning

– “…fairly basic syntactic learning is still going on considerably beyond the age at which it is generally considered to be complete” (304).

• Middle Years– “…it is still the case that the best evidence for the progressive,

step by step growth of syntax comes from the classical period for language acquisition, from about 1 ½ years old to 5” (306).

• Conclusion– Burling argues “in favour of the gradual development of syntax in

evolution, not on the grounds that children learn gradually, but on the grounds that this is the way evolution works” (308-9).

Robbins Burling

• Born on April 18, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota • Received his Bachelors Degree from Yale University and his

Ph.D in Anthropology from Harvard University• Instructor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of

Pennsylvania • Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania • Assistant Curator of General Ethnology at the University

Museum • Visiting Lecturer, Fulbright Program, in the Department of

Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Rangoon, Burma• Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate of the

Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan

• Currently, he is a Emeritus Professor at the University of Michigan

• Has written many papers about language and culture and the ethnology of India and Bangladesh

Key Terms• Syntax: The study of the rules whereby words or other

elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences.– Partial Syntax– Full Syntax

• Protolanguage: strings of poorly joined individual words• “Syntactic Spurt” (Bickerton): syntax develops very

rapidly in children• ‘Light’ Verbs: common verbs, short, general meanings,

easy to learn (go, do, make, give, put)• Ontogeny: origin and development of individual

organism from embryo to adult• Phylogeny: evolutionary development of an organ• Recapitulation: repetition in development of the

individual of its phylogenetic history

Introduction

• More than one stage of syntax (Carstairs-McCarthy)

• Full syntax came late (40,000-150,000 years ago) and quickly

• Syntax is complex and highly interconnected• *Argument* Partial syntax does not exist and

children jump from protolanguage to full syntax (Bickerton)

• *Argument* Abrupt appearance of syntax in children is an illusion (Burling)

Early Learning

• Learning occurs silently before children actually communicate verbally

• Jamie example• Hirsh-Pasek and

Golinkoff study (How Babies Talk)

• Gerken, Landau, and Remez study

Late Learning

• It may seem like by 5 years of age children have perfect syntax, but this is an illusion—they avoid complex constructions

• Carol Chomsky study• Annette Karmiloff-Smith

study (French children)• Sheldon study

The cat chases the mouse thatruns under the elephant.

The Middle Years• People typically think that children acquire their

language from about age 1 ½ to 5• “Syntactic Spurt” (Bickerton)• William O’Grady’s Syntactic Development• Adele Goldberg

– ‘light’ verbs

The truck goes down the street.

Mom gives me a toy.

I put flowers in the garden.

Conclusion

• Burling concludes that if observable syntax in children develop months before they start speaking, and continue to develop up until the age of 10, then “its acquisition is not as magically fast as it has sometimes been supposed” (308).

• If syntax can grow gradually in children, then it could have grown gradually in evolution.

References• Bickerton, Derek. Language and Human Behavior.

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995. • Burling, Robbins. “The Slow Growth of Language in

Children.” The Transition to Language. Ed. Alison Wray. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.

• Golinkoff, Roberta and Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy. How Babies Talk. New York: Plume, 2000.

• Linneman, Ryan. Robbins Burling. 16 Aug. 2001. 31 Oct. 2005

<http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/burling_robbins.html>.

• Evolution of Language: Sixth International Conference. 6 Oct. 2005. 2 Nov. 2005

<http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/socce/evolang6/>.