Language Acquisition Exam 2 Practice

Which morphemes characterize Brown's stage 4?

present progressive -ing and prepositions past irregular and possessive contractable/uncontractable auxiliary articles (the,a,an) and past regular

Correct Answer:

articles (the,a,an) and past regular

Explanation:

The main idea here is the order in which Brown describes morphemes emerge in early child speech. In Stage 4, children typically start using articles (the, a, an) before nouns and begin marking past tense with regular endings (-ed). So you’ll hear phrases like “the dog,” “a ball,” and “walked” or “jumped.” These two morphemes show up together because they reflect different grammatical domains: a determiner for noun phrases and a tense marker for the verb. Earlier forms like present progressive -ing and basic prepositions show up before this stage, and irregular past or possessive -s usually appear earlier as well, while more complex auxiliary forms tend to come after Stage 4.

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