A construction based analysis of child directed speech

The child directed speech of twelve English-speaking mothers was analyzed in terms of utterance-level constructions. First, the mothers’ utterances were categorized in terms of general constructional categories such as Wh-questions, copulas and transitives. Second, mothers’ utterances within these categories were further specified in terms of the initial words that framed the utterance, item-based phrases such as Are you . . . , I’ll . . . , It’s . . . , Let’s . . . , What did . . . . The findings were: (i) overall, only about 15% of all maternal utterances had SVO form (most were questions, imperatives, copulas, and fragments); (ii) 51% of all maternal utterances began with one of 52 item-based phrases, mostly consisting of two words or morphemes (45% began with one of just 17 words); and (iii) children used many of these same item-based phrases, in some cases at a rate that correlated highly with their own mother’s frequency of use. We suggest that analyses of adult–child linguistic interaction should take into account not just general constructional categories, but also the item-based constructions that adults and children use and the frequency with which they use them. © 2003 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.