Syntactic Knowledge

What is Syntactic Knowledge?

Syntactic knowledge is the knowledge of how words can be combined in meaningful sentences, phrases, or utterances. It involves the way that words are assembled and sentences are constructed in a particular language. Characteristics of normal development relating to this aspect include, telegraphic speech (use of two or three content words in an utterance with no function words), difficulty in pronounce use, speaking in short utterances, and an increase in the number of adverbs used to expand verb phrases (kindergarten).

Syntactic Knowledge in Infants/Toddlers:

Syntactic development during infancy is not readily evident because infants do not begin to use expressive language until the later part of infancy and then only in the form of idiomorphs and single words. However, research with infants has documented their ability to "detect changes in the order of sounds." Children's receptive knowledge of syntax is developing during infancy as they observe and begin to participate in the communicative contexts around them. Children at the one-word stage appear to indicate that words presented in strings are not isolated units but are part of larger constituents. This early awareness facilitates syntactic knowledge development. Children develop receptive knowledge of syntax through speech directed to them and also by being listeners-observers in adult-to-adult interactions. Syntactically, adult-to-child speech is shorter in length and less complex grammatically. It contains repetitions, uses few subordinate clauses, contains fewer modifiers and pronouns, and has more content words and fewer verbs. Older infants' receptive knowledge of syntax is evident in their nonverbal responses to questions or directions such as, "Where is your cup?" or "Go get the ball" or "Where is your nose?" When a child retrieves a cup or ball or points to his nose, comprehension of the question or request is evident. Infants who are involved in storybook interactions with adults are exposed to more complex syntactic structures than those present in daily conversational settings. As infants near their first birthday, they begin to participate verbally as well as nonverbally during storybook interactions. Adults intuitively appear to alter the exact text to fit the comprehension and linguistic competencies of children. They shorten the text, create their own version of the text, increase repetitions, ask questions, and add sound effects. These adaptations encourage more engagement from children.

Children's speech during the toddler years is characterized by longer utterances and utterances with specific syntactic features. It is often referred to as telegraphic speech. Telegraphic speech is defined as the child's use of two or three content words in an utterance, with no function words, such as conjunctions, articles, prepositions, and inflections. Simple sentences or utterances involving two or three words are created, such as "Daddy come" and "Mommy coat." Grammatical relations are implied in these two-word combinations. Syntactic knowledge is represented in the word order patterns found in telegraphic speech; however, the word order patterns are closely tied to a child's semantic knowledge. Because we cannot directly ask young children how they decide to combine words in utterances, we must analyze their utterances to see what syntactic patterns are present. Children appear to use this syntactic-semantic knowledge when speaking, using such word combinations as "more juice," "play more," "all gone," "kitty come," etc. Even though children may be using multiple word utterances as toddlers, they may have difficulty with pronoun use. Pronoun use is semantic in the sense that pronouns take the place of nouns in an utterance; however, the way pronoun reference works in a sentence or an utterance involves syntactic structure because a pronoun refers to a noun used earlier in the utterance or sentence, in a specific syntactic position. The acquisition of the pronouns, "I", and "you," is particularly complex for toddlers because the use of these pronouns depends on the role of the listener (you) and speaker (I). When toddlers participate in storybook activities with adults, they are exposed to more complex sentence structure than in everyday conversations. With young toddlers, adults may intuitively continue to adapt story text to fit the toddlers' comprehension and attention span. This adapted text often models simple syntactic structures similar to adult-to-child speech. With older toddlers, parents and teachers may also alternate reading short segments of text with conversational comments that engage a child in talking about the illustrations or a related experience. Teachers and parents may also use a series of questions to encourage children to use more complex explanations instead of responding only by pointing to the picture.

Syntactic Knowledge in Pre-Schoolers:

Preschool children's development of syntactic knowledge is evident in the length and structure of their speech. Children entering the preschool years typically are in the telegraphic speech stage, speaking in short utterances of two to three words. Although the sentence is considered a unit of structure in written language, oral language is often composed of smaller structural units, such as phrases composed of several words, and are referred to as "utterances." The grammatical complexity of preschoolers' speech occurs in significant ways: increasing noun and verb phrase complexity, using negation (no, not), producing interrogative sentences (questions), and beginning to use passive forms of sentences. Each of these new structures contributes to the increasing linguistic complexity of preschool children's language. As children's ability to engage in monologues or extended speech develops, they begin to use more complex syntax when sharing stories and accounts of personal experiences. Noun and verb complexity increases with the use of conjunctions (and) as well as with connectives (because, then, so, if).

Preschool children begin to use the word "no" at the beginning of an utterance; later on, the negative word-element appears within sentences, as in "I no want milk." Gradually contractions such as "don't" or "can't" appear. Preschool children ask a lot of questions. Some children seem to realize that, by asking questions such as "why?" they can keep a conversation going. In summary, during the preschool years, significant changes occur in children's syntactic knowledge. At the beginning, children are likely to use simple two and three word utterances, whereas at the end of the preschool years, children use a wider variety of syntactic structures characterized by greater complexity, having embedded clauses (because...) and conjoined clauses (...and...).

Syntactic Knowledge in Kindergarteners:

Kindergarten-age children can construct basic sentences with little difficulty. The average sentence length for 5-year-olds is five to seven words. Children can comprehend others' speech that is more syntactically complex than the speech they produce. Kindergarten-age children's acquisition of syntactic knowledge continues as they begin to use more complex noun and verb phrase structures. Increases in syntactic knowledge allow children to communicate more complex ideas. Acquisition of more complex noun phrase structures may involve clearer use of pronouns. Most kindergarten-age children have mastered pronoun use for indicating subjects (I, you, she, he, they) and objects (me, him, her, them); however, they are just beginning to master the use of reflexives (myself, himself, herself, etc.). Kindergarten-age children's speech is characterized by an increase in the number of adverbs used to expand verb phrases. Auxiliary verbs such as "have, do, will, was, and could" are also increasingly used throughout the kindergarten year. During the kindergarten year, children typically begin to comprehend passive sentence construction, although they may be able to produce only short sentences using passive voice. Children appear to use passive sentences for specific linguistic or discursive purposes. For example, when Steven approached his teacher and said, "The truck wheel got broke," he was using passive sentence construction that did not mention who broke the truck's wheel. It may be that Steven wanted to take the focus off who broke the wheel, or perhaps he just wanted to focus on the fact that it was broken and appeal to his teacher to fix the truck so he would be able to play with it.

Syntactic Knowledge in Primary Age Children:

Children's use of sentence structure becomes more elaborate and complex in both their oral and written language during the primary grade years. This syntactic development is influenced by language use in home, school, and community settings and by children's semantic language knowledge. Children who have been exposed to more complex language through a variety of genres, such as poetry, drama, nonfiction, and narrative stories, and who have many opportunities to create their own decontextualized texts will develop more elaborate syntactic knowledge. It is also important for children to have opportunities to participate in collaborative projects with their classmates as well as to participate in informal conversations and instruction-based discussions. Classrooms where most of the instruction occurs in teacher-directed large groups or where children work independently offer little opportunity for children to develop the linguistic competencies needed for complex language and literacy tasks. Primary-age children's knowledge of syntax is evident in their creation of both narrative and informational writing. They also continue to develop a clearer understanding of how pronouns are used in oral and written language. When pronouns are used in oral language, their referents are often indicated by the context, the setting, or both, in which the speech occurs; however, in written language, pronoun referents need to be identified through specific syntactic features.

During primary grades, children are more accurate in understanding and producing passive sentences. Passive sentences require a different type of linguistic processing because passive sentences do not follow the expected subject-verb-object sequence. Children appear to use a variety of clues in understanding passive sentences: contextual support, the presence of action verbs, and the presence of a preposition such as "from" or "by," as in "The window was broken by the ball." Teachers can informally observe primary children's syntactic knowledge by providing opportunities for children to participate in creating their own written stories and participating in story dictation. Through careful observation, teachers can become better acquainted with children's current and developing syntactic knowledge of oral and written language.

Tips for Parents: 

1. Label parts of speech during shared book reading. For example, highlight and label different parts of speech by turning grammar into a fun game.

2. Another great tip is to create your own mad libs. Help your child understand parts of speech by creating your own Mad Libs modeled after the popular fill-in-the-blank game. Use any book you read together to create many similar sentences in order to help your child to understand nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

3. You can also build a sentence using objects. Build sentences with your child by using your own tangible materials (such as stuffed animals or lego people). For example, you could line up a baby doll, a spoon, and a bowl of cereal and "read" the sentence, "The baby eats cereal." This is a fun, interactive way to build skills together.