Telegraphic Speech; A Crosslinguistic Perspective
Telegraphic Speech is a universal characteristic of grammatical development. Toddlers all over the world produce some form of telegraphic speech, no matter what their native language might be. In telegraphic speech, children prioritize open class words over closed class words and morphemes. An example of telegraphic speech in a Japanese 26 month old is presented in this video. The toddlers omits the tense suffix -ru from the verb ‘kowareru’, which means ‘break’. When we compare grammatical development in English to Japanese, it appears that English speaking toddlers experience a lengthy, protracted period of tense omission, possibly because of the numerous irregular verbs of English and the requirement to mark subject agreement. In comparison, the period of tense omission is much shorter in Japanese grammatical development. Nevertheless, it appears that all children approach grammar in the same way: they prioritize the open class over the closed, as they learn to produce sentences in their native language.