USAGE OF NOUNS

1. Nouns as Subjects
Every sentence must have a subject, and that subject will always be a noun. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing
that is doing or being the verb in that sentence.
Maria is happy.

2. Nouns as Objects
A Direct Object is a noun that receives the action of a verb.
To verify whether a sentence contains a direct object, place question "Whom?" or "What?" after the verb. If nothing answers these
questions, you know that there is no direct object.
Only action verbs can have direct objects. A direct object will never follow a linking verb.
In the following examples, verb is underlined and Direct Objects shown in bold.
I can hardly see the street.
- See what? - the street
The hurricane shattered our cities and villages.
- shattered what? - our cities and villages
I placed all students on a waiting list.
- placed whom? - all students
Tom and Jerry ate the entire cake.
- ate what? - the cake
Vanessa called the salesperson charlatan and a fraud.
- called whom? - the salesperson
In the following sentence, nothing answers "What?" or "Whom?" question so it does not have direct object.
Tom and Jerry ate fast.
- ate what? - ???

3. Nouns as Indirect Objects

Indirect object receives the action of the verb indirectly and it comes before the direct object. Indirect Object shows for whom or
for what the action was undertaken and is identified by imagining a [to] or [for] in front of it.
In the following examples, direct objects are underlined, the indirect objects are shown in color and imaginary "to" or "for" are
placed in brackets.
She baked [for] Mr. Smith a pie.
Should I buy [for] my daughter a bicycle?
Save [for] Mike a seat at the concert.
The teacher told [to] the girls a story.
I paid [to] the mechanic 100 dollars.

4. Object of the Preposition

You know that a noun names a person, place, thing, or idea. You also know that a preposition is a word that comes before one
noun to show its relationship to another word in the phrase or clause. So, a noun can function as an object of the preposition.
The noun that comes after the preposition is called the object of the preposition.To find the object of the preposition:
1) Find the preposition.
2) Then, put the preposition in the blank and ask "_____ who or what?"
Examples of Object of the Preposition:
The preposition is underlined and the noun is italicized.
Our school is around the corner.
Marcus hid under the bed.
Please give the paper to Marissa.
Below are some additional examples of prepositional phrases and objects of the preposition.
1) Jennifer sits beside me in class. (Beside who?) me
2) Morgan's house is across the street. (Across what?) street
3) The play will begin at 7:00. (At what?) 7:00
4) Lee cried during the movie. (During what?) movie
5) The grape rolled under the table. (Under what?) table
6) I hid behind the tree. (Behind what?) tree
7) The phone is on the table. (On what?) table

5. Object of the Verbal

Verbals are forms of verbs used as other parts of speech such as nouns, adjectives or adverbs.

In some cases a noun will follow the verbal and “receive” it. That noun is called the object of the verbal. As with other objects, it
can be identified by asking what? or who? about the verbal.

[In the following examples, the object of the verbal is bold and the verbal is underlined.]

Running the mile is a requirement for the course.

RUNNING is a verb used as a noun (a gerund) and MILE is the object of that verbal.

Most doctors warn their patients to quit smoking.

You can find the object of the verbal by asking the question WHAT? about the verbal. e.g. TO QUIT what? SMOKING. Just to make
it a bit more complicated, SMOKING is also a verbal. A gerund.

Planning a surprise attack, the children hid behind their baby-sitter’s chair.
The participle PLANNING modifies the subject (CHILDREN); but the object of PLANNING — in other words, the thing “receiving”
PLANNING — is the object of the verbal, ATTACK.

The contract offered the workers remains unsigned.

CONTRACT is the subject of the sentence and REMAINS is the verb. OFFERED is a participle modifying the subject. WORKERS is the
object of that verbal.

Sometimes the object of a verbal may be an entire clause rather than a single word.

[In the following examples, the object of the verbal is bold and the verbal is underlined.]

Hoping the child was still alive, the rescue crews dug through the rubble.
The participle HOPING modifies the subject (crews). The object of HOPING (i.e. the thing “receiving” HOPE) is the entire idea: THE
CHILD WAS STILL ALIVE.

Tamala never stopped to think she might be in danger.

TO THINK is an infinitive. Question: TO THINK WHAT? Answer: She might be in danger.

Not every verbal has an object. Sometimes, verbals are followed by prepositional phrases.

[In the following examples, the verbal is underlined and the prepositional phrase is bold.]

Prepared for the worst, the neighbors waited outside of the burning house.
The participle PREPARED modifies the subject (neighbors). Rather than answering the question what, the information following the
verbal describes PREPARED. In other words, what kind of prepared was it.

Alan, described by most as a “fanatic,” had his entire body tattooed green and gold.
DESCRIBED modifies ALAN. The prepositional phrase tells how or by whom he was described.

6. Objective Complement
An Object Complement (Objective complements) is a noun that completes or adds to the meaning of the direct object.
Object Complements usually follow the noun (or nouns) they modify and used when the direct object would not make complete
sense by itself.
An Object Complement answers the question "What?" after Direct Object
In the following examples, Direct Object is underlined and Object Complement shown in color.
The country elected Mr. Smith president.
- The country elected Mr. Smith what?
Mr. Smith appointed Mr. Brook Governor.
- Mr. Smith appointed Mr. Brook what?
My sister called the salesperson charlatan and a fraud.
She considered the car a lemon.
The parents named the girl Sandy.
My neighbor calls Michael Jackson a great singer.
Note how object complement adds information central to the meaning of the sentence and makes the sentences grammatically
correct and complete.

7. Subjective Complement
Subject Complement (also Predicate Nominative or Predicate Noun) comes after a linking verb (to be, to become, to remain) and is
equivalent to the subject but renames it in different terms (gives more information about the subject, such as a condition or
relationship).
In the following examples, subject is underlined and Subject Complement shown in BOLD.
My friend is a doctor.
Mike will remain the president of the company.
The horse has been a powerful symbol in nearly every culture and every age.
My son became a professional basketball player.
Michael Jackson was a great singer.
Make and John are baseball players.
George Washington was the first president.
The tall boy has been our best player.
Mike may be our next president.
Note: linking verb does not show any action. It simply links the subject of a sentence with the rest of the sentence. Examples of
linking verbs: am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been, remain, become, may be, used to be, etc.

8. Nominative Address
The predicate nominative is the noun following a linking verb that restates or stands for the subject.
Typically, a predicate nominative has the same value or grammatical weight as the subject.
[In the following examples, the predicate nominative is bold and the subject is underlined.]
At the end of the tournament, Tiger Woods was the leader.
The subject and the predicate nominative are essentially the same thing.

For many of us on the team, the fans were an embarrassment.

EMBARRASSMENT restates the subject FANS.
When the plot is discovered, Andrea will be a suspect.
Look for the subject, decide whether the verb indicates a state of being and find out what “state” the subject is in.

Before the announcement, they were the favorites to win the contest.
Once you identify the verb, ask whether the verb was done to someone or something. For example: Did THEY do something? No,
they just were. What they WERE is FAVORITES, making FAVORITES the predicate nominative.
Predicate nominatives may follow linking verbs that are not the verb TO BE.
[In the following examples, the predicate nominative is bold and the subject is underlined.]
During the heat wave, dehydration became a threat for active citizens.
Nothing really happened here. The subject DEHYDRATION is something A THREAT.

Serena’s brother remains the leader in sales for this region.

To determine whether the subject is being linked to the predicate nominative, replace the verb with the correct form of the verb
TO BE. If it works, the verb is linking and if the word it links to the subject is a noun, it is the predicate nominative.

The assistant’s attitude seems a mystery to everyone involved.

Nothing happened. The subject ATTITUDE is A MYSTERY.

9. Appositive
An Appositive is a noun or phrase that comes after another noun (or pronoun), and identifies, explains or gives more information
about that word. If the Appositive is needed to identify the noun (called Restrictive Appositive) then no comma is used.
If the Appositive provides only additional, accompanying information about the noun – it is called Nonrestrictive Appositive and it
should be set off from the rest of the sentence with commas (dashes, colons and parentheses can also be used).
In the following examples, appositives shown in color and the nouns they modify is underlined.
Moscow, the capital of Russia, is a crowded city.
Peter’s father, Mr. Smith, helped me with my homework.
My brother, Sasha, is the best person in a world.
Peter’s sister Sandy left the room.
Appositives in the first three sentences are nonrestrictive. They are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Peter has only
one father and I have only one brother. But, in the last sentence, since Peter has more than one sister, the name Sandy is
necessary to identify which sister is being discussed. That is why punctuation is not used in last sentence. Looking from different
perspective, since no punctuation surrounds the appositive Sandy, we know that Peter has more than one sister.

VARIED LANGUAGE (HALLIDAY’S 7 FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE)

Halliday (1975) identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years. For Halliday, children are motivated to
develop language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them.
The first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social needs. Halliday calls them instrumental, regulatory,
interactional, and personal functions.
1. Instrumental: This is when the child uses language to express their needs (e.g. "Want juice")
2. Regulatory: This is where language is used to tell others what to do (e.g. "Go away")
3. Interactional: Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (e.g. "Love you, Mummy")
4. Personal: This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions, and individual identity (e.g. "Me good girl")
The next three functions are heuristic, imaginative, and representational, all helping the child to come to terms with his or
her environment.
5. Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (e.g. 'What is the tractor doing?')
6. Imaginative: Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment.
7. Representational: The use of language to convey facts and information.

--------------------------------------------------------------

LANGUAGE FAMILIES
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental
language, called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in historical
linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree, or in a subsequent
modification, to species in a phylogenetic tree of evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists therefore describe the daughter languages
within a language family as being genetically related.

A "living language" is simply one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also
many dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified, or are even unknown outside
their respective speech communities.

Membership of languages in a language family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a
"genetic" or "genealogical" relationship. The latter term is older. Speakers of a language family belong to a common speech
community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with
the original speech community gradually evolving into distinct linguistic units. Individuals belonging to other speech communities
may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process.

Genealogically related languages present shared retentions; that is, features of the proto-language (or reflexes of such
features) that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership in a branch or group within a language
family is established by shared innovations; that is, common features of those languages that are not found in the common
ancestor of the entire family. For example, Germanic languages are "Germanic" in that they share vocabulary and grammatical
features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be
innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, a descendant of Proto-Indo-European that was the source of all Germanic
languages.

FIRST LANGUAGE LEARNING

First Language Acquisition

How children so quickly and as if by magic acquire language has interested people for thousands of years.

Psammeticus, an Egyptian Pharoah during the 7th century BC, believed language was inborn and that children isolated from
birth from any linguistic influence would develop the language they had been born with. He isolated two children, who were
reported to have spoken a few words of Phyrgian, an IE language of present day Turkey. Psammeticus believed that this was the
first, or original, language.

In the 15th century King James V of Scotland performed a similar experiment; the children were reported to have spoken good
Hebrew.

These first studies of human language tended to be concerned with the origin of the oldest, or first, language (They were
phylogenetic), and were only secondarily concerned with the precise way in which individual infants acquire speech. True studies
of language development in the infant (ontogenetic studies) came later.

Akbar, a 16th cent. Mogul emperor of India, desired to learn whether language was innate or acquired through exposure to the
speech of adults. He believed that language was learned by people listening to each other and therefore a child could not develop
language alone. So he ordered a house built for two infants and stationed a mute nurse to care for them. The children did not
acquire speech, which seemed to prove Akbar's hypothesis that language is acquired and does not simply emerge spontaneously
in the absence of exposure to speech.

Only in the last 40 years after the invention of the tape recorder was child language recorded carefully and studied in any
systematic fashion. Sophisticated recording machinery of all sorts are now used to monitor language proficiency in infants and
small children.

Child language acquisiton studies often attempt to map out the stages of language acquisition. Such studies are of two types:

LONGITUDINAL-- development of speech in the same group over time. Most studies of child language acquisition are of this form.

CROSS SECTIONAL-- search for a certain type of data in a broad spectrum of different children, such as a study of the language of
two-year olds across the country.

Since this discipline is so new there is little conclusively known about child language acquisition. One fact is definite: Language
acquisition depends upon the child being exposed to language. (Akhbar's experiment was correct.) The language a child acquires
is that of his/her surroundings. Children who are deprived of language in their environment simply do not begin to speak
spontaneously. (Wolf children, Genie, had no language.)

The main question in all modern studies of child language acquisition involves finding out what in human language is inborm,
innate, we say hard-wired, into the infant's brain structure, and what is learned through experience. Although this question hasn't
been answered to anyone's complete satisfaction, it seems clear that the basic capacity to learn language is innate, while the
particular form/meaning connections of individual languages are acquired through prolonged exposure to a specific speech
community.
 There are three main theoretical approaches to child language acquisition; all of them have merit but none can fully explain the
phenomenon of child language acquisition.

1. Cognitive theory-- Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Views lang. acq. within the context of the child's broader intellectual development. A child first becomes aware of a concept,
such as relative size, and only afterward do they acquire the words and patterns to convey that concept. Simple ideas are
expressed earlier than more complex ones even if they are grammatically more complicated-- Conditional mood is one of the last.
(cf. Spanish vs. Russian.)

There is a consistent order of mastery of the most common function morphemes in a language Example from English: first--
-ing, then in and on, then the plural -s, last are the forms of the verb to be. Seems to be conditioned by logical complexity: plural
is simple, while forms of the verb to be require sensitivity to both number and tense.

Pros and cons-- clearly there is some link between cognitive development and language acquisiton; Piaget's theory helps
explain the order in which certain aspects of language are acquired.
But his theory does not explain why language emerges in the first place. Apes also develop cognitively in much the same way
as young children in the first few years of life, but language acquisition doesn't follow naturally from their development. Bees
develop the cognitive ability to respond to many shades of color, but bees never develop any communication signals based on
shades of color.

2. Imitation and positive reinforcement

Children learn by imitating and repeating what they hear. Positive reinforcement and corrections also play a major role in
Language acquisition. Children do imitate adults. Repetition of new words and phrases is a basic feature of children's speech.
This is the behaviorist view popular in the 40's and 50's, but challenged, since imitation alone cannot possibly account for all
language acquisition.

Con: 1) Children often make grammatical mistakes that they couldn't possibly have heard: Cookies are gooder than bread. Bill
taked the toy. We goed to the store, Don't giggle me.

2) This hypothesis would not account for the many instances when adults do not coach their children in language skills.
Positive reinforcement doesn't seem to speed up the language acquisition process. Children do not respond to or produce
metalanguage until 3 or 4, after the main portion of the grammar has been mastered. (Children don't comprehend discussions
about language structure.) Story about Tyler, Kornei Chukovsky: yabloka, tibloka)

3. The final theory we will discuss involves the belief in the innateness of certain linguistic features. This theory is connected with
the writings of Noam Chomsky, although the theory has been around for hundreds of years. Children are born with an innate
capacity for learning human language. Humans are destined to speak. Children discover the grammar of their language based on
their own inborn grammar. Certain aspects of language structure seem to be preordained by the cognitive structure of the human
mind. This accounts for certain very basic universal features of language structure: every language has nouns/verbs, consonants
and vowels. It is assumed that children are pre-programmed, hard-wired, to acquire such things. (The "gavagai" experiment.)

Yet no one has been able to explain how quickly and perfectly all children acquire their native language. Every language is
extremely complex, full of subtle distinctions that speakers are not even aware of. Nevertheless, children master their native
language in 5 or 6 years regardless of their other talents and general intellectual ability. Acquisition must certainly be more than
mere imitation; it also doesn't seem to depend on levels of general intelligence, since even a severely retarded child will acquire a
native language without special training. Some innate feature of the mind must be responsible for the universally rapid and
natural acquisition of language by any young child exposed to speech.

No one has been able to explain just what this mysterious language acquisition device, or LAD, is. Some language acquisition
must certainly be due to simple repetition: greetings, swear words; much of it is not. A three year old child generally can recall and
use a new word heard once even months afterward.

Chomsky originally believes that the LAD is a series of syntactic universals, structural properties univerally found in all
languages. These syntactic structures are inborn. Only the words are learned. Allows us infinite creativity based on a limited
number of patterns. Children thus generate sentences based on learned words and innate syntactic patterns. This is why children
make grammatical mistakes that they could not be repeating.

And yet, so far, no properties have been discovered that are truly universal in all languages. It seems that the syntactic
structures differ from language to language and couldn't be innate. All attempts to construct a universal grammar that would
underlie all structures in all languages have come to failure, Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar being a case in point.

Today Chomsky believes that the universal properties are constraints, rules that dictate what cannot be in any language rather
than structures which are universal. Some of these apparently universal constraints include the observation that forms a question
by reciting words backwards; the subject of a subordinate clause never governs the verb in the main clause, etc. It is assumed that
something about the structure of our brain causes languages to be somewhat limited in how they can differ syntactically. This built
in limitation aids the child in acquiring the language by narrowing down the possible patterns to a few.

The problem with the theory of innateness, then, is not in deciding whether the theory is correct, since the ability to learn
language is certainly innate, but rather in identifying just what the mysterious language acquisition device actually is, what
constraints or structural features are hard-wired in the mind. The LAD must be something more than general intelligence. And yet
there doesn't seem to be any structural property or set of properties found in all languages that would allow us to identify any
purely linguistic skill that is separate from human intelligence.

Let's take up the subject of just how structured the input is in child learning acquisition. Chomsky maintains that children
couldn't simply figure out language structure by repetition and analogy because the language they hear is highly irregular. He
claims that language spoken around the child extremenly fragmentary, random simplification of adult speech. Speech between
adults is often fragmentary or even ungrammatical. Such run on and incomplete sentences must serve as clues to something
already in the mind.

More recent studies show that language spoken around child is not as full of random errors, not as fragmented or randomly
pidginized as one might believe. It has been found that mothers use a special register of language, dubbed motherese, to talk to
their children. Motherese, just like other social registers, is highly structured; it is not random and irregular as Chomsky would
have us all believe. There is a set correlation between motherese and adult language and the featurese characteristic of
motherese differ across cultures:

Let's look at a few features of Anglo-American motherese:

Pragmatic features: sentences are shorter (4 or fewer words), speed slower, use of more clarificational features than in speech
between adults, more questions, attempts at getting feedback from the child. In Samoan these features are lacking.

Grammatical elements found in motherese are even more diverse, but each language group has its own structured set:
expressive element (intonation), lip rounding (Latvian palatalizes consonants), reduplication: choo-choo, use of special words,
especially for toys, bodily functions: bunny, kaka, poo-poo. Use of special morphemes, like English y/ie: doggy, kitty, ducky,
(Berber suffix: sh/sht, Russian -ik, ichiko, itsa). Such 'baby' morphemes often are used in speech between adults to make
hypochoristics. Some language apparently lack any special grammatical or lexical markers for motherese: Samoan, Maya.

There is also a social register called fatherese: more demanding of information, using more direct questions and a wider
vocabulary than motherese. There is also otherese. Older children and neighbors also talk to infants and very small children using
special baby talk. The special social registers that developed from the need to speak to small children have developed into forms
that are specific to each language. Very little work has been done to study these types of speech.

It seems increasingly apparent that the language a child hears is not fragmented randomly, but is highly structured and this
structure plays a role in language acquisition. This proves, once again, that the structures themselves are not innate but acquired
through exposure; the capacity to learn is what is innate.

Stages in child language acquistion--Universal

1. Pre-speech: Much of importance goes on even before the child utters his first word: infants learn to pay attention to speech,
pays attention to intonation and the rhythm of speech long before they begin to speak.

Infants respond to speech more keenly than to other sounds. Speech elicits greater electrical activity in the left side of the 2
month old infant's brain than do other sounds. Experiment with microphone and nipple showed that infants suck more vigorously
if the action triggers a human voice as opposed to music or other sounds.

Child learn to recognize the distinctive sounds, the phonemes of the language they hear from birth long before they are able to
pronounce them. Infants can distinguish between /p/ and /b/ at three or four months (in an experiment with /ba/ played vs. /pa/,
a two month infant showed awareness of the change). But children do not learn how to use these sounds until much later--
around the second year or later--as shown by the experiment with /pok/ and /bok/. The same is true for rising vs. falling
intonation, which only becomes systematically funtional much later. Infants know the difference between one language and
another by recognition of phonological patterns (Story of the Russian fairy tale book.)

2. Babbling stage. Begins at several months of age. Characterized by indiscriminate utterance of speech sounds-- many of which
may not be used in the given language but are found in other languages-- clicks. Many native speech sounds may be absent--
some are naturally harder to pronounce-- /r/ /th/. Very few consonant clusters and repeated syllables are common.

3. One word (holophrastic) stage. Infants may utter their first word as early as nine months: usually mama, dada (these words
resemble babbling). Deaf babies whose parents use sign language begin making their first word/gestures around eight months.
This stage is characterized by the production of actual speech signs. Often the words are simplified: "du" for duck, "ba" for bottle.
When the child has acquired about 50 words he develops regular pronunciation patterns. This may even distort certain words--
turtle becomes "kurka". Incorrect pronunciations are systematic at this time: all words with /r/ are pronounced as /w/. sick--thick,
thick--fick. Children tend to perceive more phonemic contrasts than they are able to produce themselves.
 The first 50 words tend to be names of important persons, greetings, foods, highlights of the daily routine such as baths, ability
to change their environment-give, take, go, up, down, open.

The meaning of words may not correspond to that of adult language:

overextension-- dog may mean any four legged creature. apple may mean any round object. bird may mean any flying object.
Child can still distinguish between the differences, simply hasn't learned that they are linguistically meaningful.
Dissimilarities linguistically redundant.
two patterns in child word learning--
referential-- names of objects.
expressive-- personal desires and social interactions: bye-bye, hi, good,
This is a continuum. Child's place on this continuum partly due to parent's style: naming vs. pointing.

The extra-linguistic context provides much of the speech info. Rising and falling intonation may or may not be used to
distinguish questions from statements at the one-word stage. Words left out if the contexts makes them obvious. At this stage,
utterances show no internal grammatical structure (much like the sentence yes in adult speech, which can't be broken down into
subject, predicate, etc.)

4. Combining words-- 18 mo--2 years. By two and a half years most children speak in sentences of several words--but their
grammar is far from complete. This stage rapidly progresses into what has been termed a fifth and final stage of language
acquisition, the All hell breaks loose stage. By six the child's grammar approximates that of adults.

Children learning any language seem to encode the same limited set of meanings in their first sentences:
ownership-- Daddy's shoes; describing events-- Me fall; labeling-- That dog; locational relations-- toy in box.

Sentences usually two words. Children can repeat more complex sentences spoken by adults but cannot create them until later
(called prefabricated routines) not indicative of the child's grammar.

Other patterns in early speech

The ends of words learned more quickly: -raff for giraff, -mato for tomato, -narna for banana. This is true even in lang. where
the stress in always on the first syllable.

Avoidance of exceptions-- overextention of a pattern: go--goed; good--gooder.

The rest of the acquisition of grammar is idiosyncratic-- some children repeat more, others create more. Some children
produce a great number of words before beginning to combine them into sentences. Others immediately begin to make
sentences. There may be several individual routes to mastering one's native language.

Conclusion. All three theories--the imitation theory, the innateness theory, and the cognitive theory--are probably correct to a
degree; each describes particular facets of a complex phenomenon.

1) Cognitive development is an essential prerequisite for linguistic development. But language acquisition doesn't occur
spontaneously because of cognitive development (as seems to be the case in animal systems of communication.

2) Repetition, imitation, structured input are all a part of language acquisition. Greater exposure to language might speed
language acquisition up but is not essential.

3) Innate learning device. All children exposed to language, regardless of environmental factors and differences in intelligence,
are able to acquire very complex grammars at a very early age. Something innate to the child--the LAD--allows for such rapid and
successful language acquisition by children.

All of the above studies have revealed a few universally accepted facts about child language acquisition.

1) Child Language acquisition is a natural consequence of human society. All children exposed to language acquire it naturally
without deliberate efforts of teaching or learning.

2) The outcome of first language acquisition will be the same regardless of individual differences in intelligence. Two children
with quite different intellectual abilities will both acquire a highly complex native language by age six.

3) Although the basic ability to acquire language is innate to the child, no specific structural property of language has yet been
proven to be innate. Therefore, any infant is equally capable of acquiring any language. Infants born of different racial stocks will
acquire the same form of language if raised in the same linguistic environment. There is no such a thing as a Russian language
gene or a Swahili language gene. An infant born of Russian parents and adopted into an American family will acquire the same
form of English as his stepbrothers and sisters.

Otherwise, the phenomenon of child language acquisition is just as much a mystery to us as it was to Pharoah Psammeticus.
DIFFERENCE BET. DECS & CHED
DECS-Department of Education, Culture and Sports
CHED- Commission on Higher Education

COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Powers and Functions

Per Section 8 of R.A. 7722, the CHED has the following powers and functions:

Formulate and recommend development plans, policies, priorities, and programs on higher education;
Formulate and recommend development plans, policies, priorities, and programs on research;
Recommend to the executive and legislative branches priorities and grants on higher education and research;
Set minimum standards for programs and institutions of higher learning recommended by panels of experts in the field and
subject to public hearing, and enforced the same;
Monitor and evaluate the performance of programs and institutions of higher learning for appropriate incentives as well as the
imposition of sanctions such as, but not limited to, diminution or withdrawal of subsidy, recommendation on the downgrading or
withdrawal of accreditation, program termination or school course;
Identify, support and develop potential centers of excellence in program areas needed for the development of world-class
scholarship, nation building and national development;
Recommend to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) the budgets of public institutions of higher learning as well as
general guidelines for the use of their income;
Rationalize programs and institutions of higher learning and set standards, policies and guidelines for the creation of new ones as
well as the conversion or elevation of schools to institutions of higher learning, subject to budgetary limitations and the number of
institutions of higher learning in the province or region where creation, conversion or elevation is sought to be made;
Develop criteria for allocating additional resources such as research and program development grants, scholarships, and the other
similar programs: Provided, that these shall not detract from the fiscal autonomy already enjoyed by colleges and universities;
Direct or redirect purposive research by institutions of higher learning to meet the needs of agro-industrialization and
development;
Devise and implement resource development schemes;
Administer the Higher Education Development Fund, as described in Section 10 of R.A. 7722, which will promote the purposes of
higher education;
Review the charters of institutions of higher learning and state universities and colleges including the chairmanship and
membership of their governing bodies and recommend appropriate measures as basis for necessary action;
Promulgate such rules and regulations and exercise such other powers and functions as may be necessary to carry out effectively
the purpose and objectives of R.A. 7722; and
Perform such other functions as may be necessary for its effective operations and for the continued enhancement, growth and
development of higher education.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

– The Department of Education was established through the Education Decree of 1863 as the Superior Commission of Primary
Instruction under a Chairman. The Education agency underwent many reorganization efforts in the 20th century in order to better
define its purpose vis a vis the changing administrations and charters. The present day Department of Education was eventually
mandated through Republic Act 9155, otherwise known as the Governance of Basic Education act of 2001 which establishes the
mandate of this agency.

– The Department of Education (DepEd) formulates, implements, and coordinates policies, plans, programs and projects in the
areas of formal and non-formal basic education. It supervises all elementary and secondary education institutions, including
alternative learning systems, both public and private; and provides for the establishment and maintenance of a complete,
adequate, and integrated system of basic education relevant to the goals of National development.
By virtue of Republic Act No. 9155 enacted on Aug. 11, 2001, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports was renamed the
Department of Education. Its main office is on Meralco Avenue, Pasig City. It was authored by Sen. Oreta.

The Commission on Higher Education The CHED is attached to the Office of the President for administrative purposes. It covers
both public and private higher education institutions as well as degree-granting programs in all post-secondary
educational institutions in the country.

The Department of Education is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for the management and
governing of the Philippine system of basic education. It is the chief formulator of Philippine educational policy and is responsible
for the Philippine primary and secondary school system. The Department of Education is also known by its old name, the
Department of Education, Culture and Sports DECS.
DAYALEK – KAHULUGAN AT HALIMBAWA
Kahulugan ng Dayalek
Dayalek ang tawag sa wikang ginagamit sa isang partikular na pook o lugar, maliit man o malaki. Ito ang unang wika na nakagisnan
natin sa ating tahanan. Kadalasan itong ginagamit ng ating mga magulang at iba pang mga miyembro ng ating pamilya.
Ito rin ang mga salitang namumutawi sa bibig ng mga karaniwang tao sa ating sambayanan. Dahil din sa mga iba’t-ibang aspetong
sosyal, heograpikal at temporal, tayo ay nagkaroon ng baryasyon ng dayalekto.
Halimbawa nito ay ang wikang Tagalog may napakaraming baryasyon ayon sa heograpiya:
Tagalog ng Batangas – Ala e, ang bait naman niya!
Tagalog Nueva Ecija – Kainam-naman ng ugali niya.
Tagalog Pangasinan – Ang bait niya eh.
Sa bawat kapuluan ay mayroon ding partikular na dayalek na ginagamit. Ilonggo sa Iloilo, Chavacano sa Zamboanga, Ilocano sa
Ilocos Region, Pangasinense sa Pangasinan, Kapampangan sa Pampanga, Bicolano sa Bicol Region, Tagalog sa Manila at iba pang
Rehiyo sa katagalogan, Bisaya sa Cebu, Zambal sa Zambales, at Kankanaey sa Mountain Province. Ilan sa ating mga dayalek ay
naapektuhan na dahil sa mga uri ng mga indibidwal na nakapaligid sa atin. Halimbawa nito ay ang paggamit ng magkahalong Ingles
at Tagalog na kung tawaging ng nakakarami ay konyo. Andiyan din ang pag-gamit ng salitang beki (gay lingo) at jejemon.

IDYOLEK – KAHULUGAN AT HALIMBAWA

Ang wikang Filipino ay nauuri sa napakaraming barayti dahil sa pagkakaroon ng pagkakapangkat-pangkat ng bawat indibidwal ayon
sa antas ng edukasyon na natapos, lugar kung saan nakatira, okupasyon, uri ng lipunan na ginagalawan, kasarian, edad at
kapaligirang etniko. Dahil dito ay nagkaroon pa ng iba’t-ibang barayti ang wika. May homogeneous at heterogeneous na uri ng
wika. Isa sa mga uri ng barayti ng wika ay ang Idyolek. Ito ay isang uri ng pormal na salita na karaniwang ginagamit ng isang
indibidwal sa isang natatangi o yunik na pamamaraan. Ang bawat tao ay may kanya-kanyang
istilo ng pananalita. Maaring ang pagkakaiba ay dulot ng pagbigkas o di kaya naman ng naiibang pagbigay diin sa mga salita o mga
parirala. Ang iba naman ay gumagamit ng yunik na tono o ritmo sa pagbigkas o pamamahayag ng mga partikular na linya ng
pangungusap. Dahil dito ang bawat indibidwal ay nagkakaroon ng sariling tatak o namumukod-tanging pamamahayag ng
saloobin.
Halimbawa nito ay ang mga susunod:
1.) Naiibang tono sa pagbigkas ni Noli de Castro ng mga katagang, “Magandang Gabi Bayan!”
2.) Ang malumanay na pananalita ni Charo Santos Concio sa kanyang programang Maalala Mo Kaya.
3.) Ang paos na boses ni Inday Badiday sa pagsasabi ng katagang “Promise!”
4.) Ang maton at maangas na pagbabalita ng mga Tulfo brothers.
5.) Ang maharot na istilo ng pagiinterbyu ni Arnold Clavio.
6.) Ang pag ubo at pagsasabi ni Mike Enriquez ng “Excuse me po!” at “Di namin kayo ka tatantanan!”
7.) Ang makapal at malamig na boses ni Rey Langit.
8.) Ang paggamit ng mga matatalinhagang salita ni Jimmy Licauco.
9.) Ang masayahin na pananalita ni Mark Logan sa mga Kwento ni Marc Logan.
10.) Ang magkahalong Ingles at Tagalog na lengwahe ni Kris Aquino