SYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT
The One-Word Stage
Child begins to produce one-word utterances between the ages of twelve and
eighteen months. A basic property of these one-word utterances is that they can be used to
express the type of meaning that is associated with an entire sentence in adult speech. Thus, a
child might use the word dada to assert “I see Daddy”, more to mean “Give me more juice”, and up
to mean “I want up”. Such utterances are called holophrases (literary ‘whole sentences’.
In forming holophrastic utterances, children seem to choose the most informative word
that applies to the situation at hand. A child who wants juice, for example, would say juice rather
than want since juice is more informative in this situation. Similarly, a child who notices a new doll
would be more likely to say doll than sees, referring to the most novel feature of the situation he or
she is trying to describe.
Table 9.16 Semantic relations in children’s one-word utterances
Semantic Utterance Situation
Relation s
Agent of an action dada as father enters the room
Action or state down as child sits down
Undergoer (for theme) door as father closes the door
Location here as child points
Recipient mama as child gives mother something
Recurrence again as child watches lighting of a match
Comprehension appears to be considerably in advance of production in the one-word
stage, and children are able to understand many multiword utterances during this period. One
indication of this comes from an experiment in which children in the one-word stage listened to
sentences such as Big Bird is hugging Cookie Monster as an experimenter tracked their gaze
toward competing pictures: the children preferred to look at a depiction of Big Bird hugging
Monster rather than the reverse situation.
Submitted by:
ANACITA Q. LOCION
Student – Blue Team
Submitted to:
DR. ALFREVILYN G. DASIG
Instructor
CLL 103 (Summer 2021-2022)
