Micro-Theory
3V0697.01 [nice bear]: feeling is first ! good example for raising issues in the further-specification model. (12/20/79) Peggy has been using the term “nice” very frequently both as an expression of her feeling about something and her request for concurrence. For example, in P99 or P98, after drawing on a piece of paper, she asked …
3V0696.01 [run…running]: effect of variant form in parent expression; interpreted by Peggy as correction. (12/19/79) Peter Spier’s “London Bridge is Falling Down” is one of Peggy’s favorite books. She really likes the page on which is “Iron and steel will bend and bow.” Inevitably she points to the figure in the middle. “Run.” (Gretchen responds:) …
3V0690.01 Harp and Guitar: naming shows assimilation of a new object to a familiar schema with spontaneous naming, social differentiation of relations, and her locking in the relationship. (12/13/79) We were all watching the Marx Brothers movie “Monkey Business.” (Note also that bob Despain recently gave Miriam an old Guitar of his.) At one point, …
3V0687.01 [gone…room] answers “what happened to your pants?” progressive specification example. (12/13/79) Peggy came into my ken in a short [shirt?] and diaper. “Peggy, what happened to your pants ?” “Gone…room,” she responded. Here the meaning of “gone” is clearly applied beyond the scenario of her game — but the pattern of her response is …
3V0689.01 Conversation: adverbial phrase sans pause assembled from fragments of Gretchen’s phrases. (12/12/79) Today Peggy inquired of me “Daddy ?” G: “Daddy’s coming home… probably tonight.” P: Back ?” G: “Yes, Daddy’s coming back.” “Soon.” Later on, I said something about Daddy, and Peggy responded, “Back soon.” In one of our conversations, Peggy said something …
3V0686.01 [gone…bird] Formulation: pre-sentences as further verbal specification of a well worked out scenario of action (along with infant’s gradually increasing sense of what else it might have meant). (12/4/79) Peggy has been playing her “gone” joke or game (cf. ???) for sometime. Frequently when she says gone, I ask “What’s gone?” Today, while [playing …
3V0683.01 CHIN: word learning and private review in play. (12/6-7/79) Peggy found an old doll of Gretchen’s in the basement. She brought it to Miriam (who was sitting in my lap) and me and began pointing to and naming what struck her — the dress, the hair, face parts — eyes, nose. I realized that …
3V0679.01 OKAY: communication ending with acknowledgment (12/2/79) While I prepared a lecture, Peggy brought a toy to me and named (it) in her way of imploring me to play with her — Peggy: Train. Train. Bob: Take it out to Robby. Peggy: ‘Kay. (takes the toy to Robby. They play.) This very simple conversation show …
3V0670.01 UP & DOWN: symmetrical relations; very IMPORTANT DATA on word-thing relations: she relates words and their structures of meaning through reversibility as actions. (11/23/79) Peggy wandered into the living room today with her “Bear Hug” in hand. She held it high “Up” and put it on the ground “Down.” She repeated this exercise several …
3V0668.01 Answering questions: she interprets query as request for more information but does not interpret specific elements, for example “who” or “what”. (11/21/79) Peggy interprets questions as requests for information — more specificity — in what she has said. but she does not distinguish roles of elements in a sentence as related to the specific …
3V0664.01 Important observation and speculation: hiatus in holophrastic period as structure transition indicator; its disappearance indicates a new level of organization (11/17/79) [following write-up of [bear come peggy] incident — This last incident contrasts with what has been Peggy’s normal usage in situations of accompaniment. It has been typical that when Peggy saw some action …
3V0650.01 Diminutive “y”; is it a personal relation indicator, nominal date inserted: 11/3/79 from “Early November” Peggy has been appending the “y” suffix to a number of words, e.g. “dog” has become (on occasion) “doggy.” She exhibits the typical extension in using any new feature. For example, not only has the dog become “doggy” an …
3V0636.01 /cup…au.ehl/: adjective < further specification of idiom "owl-cup"; idiom degenerates and is reconstructed from more successfully competitive /kup/ in pre-standard order MAJOR EXAMPLE Pointing to my own coffee cup, Peggy remarked /kuhp/, then after a pause said /au ehl/ (owl). I have always identified this cup for Peggy as my owl cup, and pointed ...
3V0622.01 [mama got eye]: MAJOR NOTE on cognitive structures behind speech; topic and comment at “discourse” level, not a word level. 10/6/79 Gretchen long ago began instructing Peggy in the names of body parts, especially of the face. Recently, Peggy has surprised me by making comments about the commonality of the body parts. For example, …
3V0614.01 [gone]: first explicit verbal joke. 9/28/79 Peggy still enjoys putting things in my pockets and taking them out. Not only does she ask for a pen (/pehn/) but she explains that she is putting in or taking out of the pocket (pae/taet/) by saying [in there] (as she stuffs a pen in) or [put …
3V0612.03 Getting a name wrong: [pooh pooh]: Tiger in Madeline (=> a new word = last phrase in discourse) 9/26/79 [Pooh pooh] (with falling intonation). Reading Madeline today. As we turned the page which shows the little girls skating (left) and at the zoo (right), Peggy immediately pointed to the tiger in the right hand …
3V0609.02 [pass]: desired food at table. [bark] replacing /vae/vae’/ 9/23/79 At lunch today Peggy coveted our sandwiches. I don’t recall whether the offer to give her some was direct or indirect; but Peggy reached out her hand, waving and calling impatiently and imperiously, [pass, pass] “Bark” is replacing “vava” as the word indicating what dogs …
3V0609.01 [light off]: complex situation represented by order free catenation of words. 9/23/79 Peggy and I have played with a flash light recently, which I switched on and off and gave to her to play with. I named it for her as a “light” which she reproduced as /lait/. Peggy has since found lights everywhere …
3V0603.01 [cup…mama]: word catenation used to express an instantaneous relation that later becomes syntactically expressed. 9/17/79 Peggy sat in my lap while I sipped at my morning coffee. She has lately been naming the containers from which I drink things, e.g. /kaen/ for a beer can and /kuhp/ for such a one as she pointed …
3V0597.02 Gotcha: a game – shows fluidity of actions and control over them at the complete and partial changes of rules (see also P.85) Peggy has long played a game with me where she would come between my knees and I would give her a gentle squeeze, saying “gotcha”. Her control of the game was …
3V0594.04 [mommy, get door]: vocative action sentence. 9/8/79 Running the dishwasher. The last thing to go in was Peggy’s cup. she called after it [cup, cup, cup…]. Then she scrabbled at the closed door of the machine, finally turning to me and saying “Mommy” (not momma) “get door.”
3V0594.03 /cul’/dae/gen’/: elaboration of verbal portion of script for exploration beyond simple pragmatic requirements. 9/8/79 Peggy enjoys playing with Scurry in different ways, but most of them share the element of her getting Scurry to move where she wants her. The usual form involves tugging the dog’s tail or ear. Tonight, Peggy found Scurry with …
3V0594.02 ONE, TWO: [one, two]: note on standardization of Peggy’s counting 09/08/79; You can’t avoid counting, and it’s hard to avoid instructing those who don’t know what you know — but we’ve been trying to avoid instructing Peggy. The children are persistent, at odd moments that we can’t witness. So Peggy’s idiosyncratic counting [one, one, …
3V0594.01 /wae/thaet/: issues: discussion of what a word is. 9/8/79 Peggy has enjoyed playing with my belt as a baby but has not done so for quite a while. Today, she sat in my lap and, pointing at my belt buckle, said, “/wae/thaet/?” I told her it was a belt buckle, which answer seemed to …
3V0593.01 [maemae take bath]: CENTRAL NOTE: first complex follow up to /cul’/du/vae/vae’/ 9/7/79 This morning, as Peggy and I played on the bed, Gretchen asked if I were going to take a bath, and we agreed she should do so first. Peggy played with her bear, picked up a book, called out “Mama !” and …
3V0588.02 [some…/bae/bae/]: appearance of modified noun, but no clear evidence that “some” is used adjectively. As Peggy has recently pleaded [one… one… one…] when asking for a cookie or a piece of cheese, an apple, or whatever. Our frequent response has been “Do you want some cheese ?” etc. Thus the word “some” has begun …
3V0588.01 [mine…box]: “sentences” with pauses; precursors to standard structures. 9/2/79 Playing in the living room, Peggy recognized a large card board box in which I kept blocks et alia for our experiments. Robby has just picked up all the junk left scattered about by Peggy the day before. She struggled to pull the box off …
3V0587.01 /cul’/du/vae/vae’/: CENTRAL INCIDENT;major insight ascribed on basis of incident. 9/1/79 Over the past several weeks, our house has suffered a greater than usual density and flux of Tintin cartoon books. As do the older kids, Peggy enjoys them. She brings a magazine, says /aen//aen/ and convinces one to hold her in his lap while …
3V0583.02 [fan]: indistinct initial consonant; her accepting correction. 8/28/79 Terrible, muggy weather with the atmosphere filled with pollen and mold spores. I set up the fan to pull cold air from the air conditioned bedroom down to the dining room. Peggy came over to play with the new object and was warned away because of …
3V0581.01 On: [on]: three different applications of “on” similar to concurrent discriminating uses of [up].: 8/26/79; This morning Peggy clambered into my bed where I waked from a nap. She sat beside me, pointing with her right hand at her left upper arm. She said /”on”/ at least four times in succession. I was much …
3V0581.01 Increased Specificity: 8/26/79; By now it is clear that Peggy is trying to communicate (orally) on a wider scale. “Dat, dat, dat” lacked any specificity and soon outran its usefulness. She then developed a remarkable range by merely varying the pitch on a neutral syllable [***], repeated several times. Now she seems to be …
3V0578.01 Up: [up] different use; spontaneous on sitting up: 08/23/79; Playing with me on my bed, Peggy, after lying on her back at one point, rose with her normal difficulty to sitting and said to herself, “Up.” 08/27 — Playing with a matchbox racer, Peggy pushed the little car along the floor, up the vertical …
3V0575.01 “Duff”: 08/20/79; Peggy has been imitating words we speak (usually the last one of an utterance) for quite some time. If I note anything special about this imitation now, it is its becoming so pervasive as to be the norm in her response now. When offered some cake this evening, Peggy responded /***/ to …
3V0574.02 “One” : 08/19/79; Peggy has begun using the sound “one” to indicate that she wants some particular thing. The use may have come from my giving her one cookie for one hand and one cookie for the other (cf. VT P82 for her counting 3 bean bags as one…one…SZBTFG[?]). Today, requesting a cookie, she …
3V0573.02 Enriched Phrases : 08/18/79; Peggy has long said [have that] meaning either [(you) have that] or [(I want to) have that] as the pragmatic context makes sufficiently clear. In a typical scenario today, Peggy was unnecessarily specific in her utterance, thus. Peggy frequently plunks some object (a book or toy) in one’s lap, says …
3V0573.01 See and That: 08/18/79; Scurry looms large in Peggy’s life, and it should be no surprise that she was much delighted to find among our other books one on “Caring for Your Scotch Terrier.” After bringing the book to me, Peggy turned pages and pointed. [That…that…see]. In this usage, I see prefigured a functional …
3V0568.01 A Verbal Confusion: 08/13/79; During the videotape session P81, Robby read THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY to Peggy. At that time, or later in the evening, Peggy pointed to a picture of a lizard (on the page with no other animals). “Lizard,” I said. Peggy imitated my naming by saying /***/, possibly /***/. (This heard …
3V0559.01 “Daddy Hug Peggy” : 08/04/79; Comforting the baby, it was our custom to hold her close and pat her gently on the back. Amusingly, when she was so comforted, even though crying, Peggy would return this gentle patting on the back. Recently, she has begun responding to my statement or question “Daddy hug Peggy” …
3V0550.01 [is a stairs] (7/26/79) Recently Peggy has been using the phrase “Is a X”. This use has been in a context we would interpret as declaring the identification of a thing. It may not mean that to Peggy. It may mean that and other things as well, as this observation suggests. I recently refinished …
3V0545.01 VERBAL LABELS: 07/21/79; Peggy frequently points to or touches things saying “that” with an intonation not signifying interrogation. I would say she uses the standard declarative intonation except that it might imply an intention — but that is precisely what we don’t know. Does she mean “Look at that” ? “I recognize that” ? …
3V0536.01 More words and situations: “Give this to dada” vs. “dada have that”; language role in microworld selection: role genetically prior to terminal specification though it recedes to discourse level feature (CENTRAL IDEA) (7/12/79) Miriam sat across the dining room table unable to bring me something I wanted (a magazine, perhaps). She directed Peggy, “Give …
3V0534.01 Words and situations: trash can-words, like things seen can be unconsidered (cf. notes # for problem solving analogy) (7/10/79) A little exploration following Chomsky’s advice that you can probe language understanding (only) by examining the interpretation of nonsense — Gretchen’s “snuggle gruggle” shows how easy it is to over interpret language understanding on the …
3V0531.01 COUNTING: beginning of notes. Cookies, hands, and counting (7/7/79) During interviews at IBM, Moshe Zloof raised the question of whether or not, in effect, counting is innate. I told him the question was a big one about which I felt no one could speak with authority but that I had very strong prejudices. As …
3V0516.02 Concrete pipe: putting in (6/22/79) Peggy often rides with Miriam and me down to the Cox school to pick up Robby after soccer practice. Beside the soccer field is a play area for the older children.. One object is an 8 foot long concrete pipe of 4 foot diameter. Peggy was obvious(ly) fascinated by …
3V0516.01 Naming cars; relation of teaching and exploration (6/22/79) Riding Back from graduation at MIT, Peggy frequently pointed at trucks passing in the opposite direction with her squeals of delight. We named them for [her] “truck,” “van.” We all over subsequent days continued this on local trips where the distinction was often made between trucks …
3V0503.01 [Who have that?] role of pragmatics; example for analysis (6/9/79) Miriam, sitting at the table, had left a pair of shoes across the kitchen despite my asking her to pick them up. When I called them to her attention and we talked about the shoes, Peggy picked up one and carried it over to …
3V0502.03 TIRADES; issue: forming technical terms for phenomena appearing in observations (6/8/79) Tirades — I am introducing this word as a technical term in the sense in which it appears in French and Italian drama. The tirade is a long speech or declamatory passage by a single actor directed to an audience but not to …
3V0502.02 Pure verbal interpretation overwhelms context: 6/08/79 Pick up Foxy The older children have a bad habit (likely picked up from me) of dropping wherever they are whatever they have no further need of. when I try to get them to pick up after themselves they complain “I didn’t have that” or “Shouldn’t (the other …
3V0502.01 Trash can: comprehension and generalization Peggy comes to pick at the contents of my writing table whenever she is in my bedroom. (Just now she took a box of chalk and complained vociferously when I retrieved it from her). Today she found the cap of a beer bottle and picked it up. I asked …
3V0497.01 Comprehends [Daddy have the brush]; she gets it (6/3/79) Peggy comes in the bathroom whenever I take a bath. She likes me to wind up a little plastic duck and let it paddle about in the water. Today after watching the duck, she picked up a hair brush from the side of the tub, …