Development of POS across month stages

The result of mean proportion of POS in each age stage is reported here. Table 4.7 and Table 4.8 provide the mean proportion of POS in each age stage. Wordlist of POS except for nouns and verbs are in Appendix 4.

Table 4.7: The mean proportion of POS types in each age stage.

19-24

Table 4.8: The mean proportion of POS tokens in each age stage.

19-24

Nouns: As seen in Table 4.7, children produced 36.6% noun types in the stage

19-24 months, 34.2% in 25-30 months, 30.2% in 31-36 months, 32.1% in 37-42 months and 30.8% in 43-48 months. The noun proportion decreases gradually before children’s 36 months, later increases in the following six months before they were 42 months old,

and decreases again before 48 months old. In the aspect of tokens, a similar trend is shown. The proportion of noun tokens in the 19-24 months is the highest 31.5%, and it decreases in later stages, less than 30%. The proportion is about 25.5% after 31 months.

Verbs: Children produced 35.8% verb types in 19-24 months, 38.2% in 25-30

months, 38.1% in 31-36 months, 36.1% in 37-42 months, and 35.6% in 43-48 months.

The verb proportion increases in 25-30 months, and it does not change much in 31-36 months. In later stages, the proportion of verb types decreases gradually. On the contrary, the token proportions of verb before 30 months, 32.8% and 34.2%, are higher than those in the later stages.

Adverbs: Children produced 2.4% types of adverb in 19-24 months, 4.0% in 25-30

months, 5.7% in 31-36 months, 6.5% in 37-42 months, and 5.9% in 43-48 months. The proportion of adverb increases gradually until children were 42 months old, and it decreases after their 42 months. The token proportion of ADV shows a similar trend as type proportion. Children produced 1.5% tokens of ADV, and gradually increased the proportion until 37-42 months, 5%, and then decreased the proportion in 43-48 months.

Classifiers: Children produced 1.5% types of classifier in 19-24 months and 25-30

months, 2.3% in 31-36 months, 1.8% in 37-42 months, and 1.7% in 43-48 months. The proportions of classifiers are the same in the first two stages. After children’s 30 months, the proportion increases in 31-36 months, but it decreases gradually in the following two stages, after they were 36 months old. On the contrary, children produced more proportion of tokens than types of CL. They produced 4.5% CL in 19-24 months, 3.3%

in 25-30 months, 5.4% in 31-36 months, 5% in 37-42 months, and 5.5% in 43-48 months. Although children produced fewer types of CL, they frequently used CL.

Quantifiers: Children produced 1.9% quantifier types in 19-24 months, 1.5% in

The proportion of quantifier types decreases in 25-30 months, but it increases gradually before 42 months. The proportion decreases slightly again in 43-48 months. The proportion of quantifier tokens shows a similar trend, but the highest proportion is in 31-36 months, 2.5%. In the later stages, the proportion decreases to 1.8%.

Adjectives: Children produced 1.0% adjective types in 19-24 months, 1.1% in

25-30 months, 1.0% in 31-36 months, 1.1% 37-42 months, and 1.2% in 43-48 months.

The proportion of adjectives does not change much in five age stages. The token proportions of adjectives are lower than 1%. The highest token proportion is in 25-30 months, and those in the rest age stages have no difference.

Conjunctions: Children produced 0.3% conjunction types in 19-24 months, 0.9%

in 25-30 months, 1.7% in 31-36 months, 1.8% in 37-42 months, and 1.8% in 43-48 months. The proportion of conjunctions increases gradually until 42 months, and it remains unchanged in 43-48 months. A similar trend is found in token proportion of conjunctions. Children produced only 0.2% conjunction tokens in 19-24 months, and became more frequently use conjunctions with increasing ages until 37-42 month, 1.4%.

But the token proportion of conjunction decreases again in 43-48 months.

Prepositions: Children produced 0.7% preposition types in 19-24 months, 1.4% in

25-30 months, 1.6% in 31-36 months, 1.9% in 37-42 months, and 1.7% in 43-48 months.

The proportion of prepositions is the smallest in the first stage, and it increases stage by stage until 37-42 months. After 42 months, the proportion is decreased again. As for token proportion of prepositions, a similar trend is found. Children produced only 0.5%

of preposition tokens in 19-24 months, and became more frequently use prepositions with increasing ages until 37-42 month, 1.4%. But the token proportion of conjunction decreases again in 43-48 months.

WH-words: Children produced 1.3% WH-word types in 19-24 months, 1.8% in

25-30 months, 2.0% in 31-36 months, 1.8% in 37-42 months, and 2.1% in 43-48 months.

The proportion of WH-words is the smallest in the first age stage, 19-24 months, and it increases in the next two age stage before 36 months. After 36 months, the proportion is reduced slightly in 34-42 months, but it increases again in 43-48 months, in which the proportion of WH-words is the highest. A similar trend of token proportion in WH-words is found. The proportion is lowest in 19-24 months, 1.3%, and it increases to 2.4 in 31-36 months. In the next age stages, the proportion of WH-tokens decreases in 37-42 months, and then increases again in 43-48 months.

Modals: Children produced 0.7% modal types in 19-24 months, 1.2% in 25-30

months, and 1.3% in 31-36 months, 37-42 months and 43-48 months. The proportion of modals is the smallest in the first age stage, 19-24 months, and it increases in the following three stages before 36 months. After 36 months, the proportion of modals keeps unchanged in the following stages. In terms of proportion of modal tokens, children produced fewer modals in 19-24 months, 0.3%. However, in later stages, the proportion increases to 1.3% and 1.9% in 37-42 months. It decreases slightly to 1.8% in 43-48 months.

Others: Other POS types accounts for 17.8% in 19-24 months, 14.1% in 25-30

months, 13.9% in 31-36 months, 13.1% in 37-42 months, and 15.5% in 43-48 months.

The proportion of other POS types is the highest in the first age stage, 19-24 months, and it decreases in the next three stages before 42 months. The proportion increases again in 43-48 months, 15.5%. On the contrary, the proportion of tokens shows a different trend. The proportion is 25% in 19-24 months, and it falls to 23.1%. After 30 months, children increase the tokens gradually. The highest proportion is 27.4% in 43-48 months.

Therefore, proportions of word frequency can be used to present the development trend of children’s early Mandarin vocabulary. In early stage, 19-24 months, nouns and verbs have the highest proportion of children’s vocabulary. After children’s 30 months, the proportion of nouns and verbs will decrease. The proportion of 8 POS (ADV, CL, QN, ADJ, CONJ, PREP, WH, and MOD) is a small proportion but it will increase after children’s 2 years old. The proportion of other POS is another story. The proportion of types decreases after 24 months, but the proportion of tokens decreases in 25-30 months first and it increases after 30 months. The results of children’s POS distribution indicates that children acquire content words first and frequently use them in early ages, whereas they acquire function words later, and increase the use of function words when they are older.

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