Morphosyntax and Grammar: A Complete Guide for Speech Therapists
Morphosyntax refers to the set of rules governing the structure of sentences (syntax) and the form of words (morphology). Morphosyntactic disorders are common in children with developmental language disorder, and their rehabilitation constitutes an important part of speech therapy work. This guide presents normal development, warning signs, and intervention strategies.
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Definition and Components
Morphosyntax encompasses two complementary areas of language. Morphology concerns the form of words: agreements in gender and number, conjugations, derivations (prefixes, suffixes). Syntax concerns the order of words and the structure of sentences: subject-verb-object order, complex sentences, subordinate clauses.
Components of Morphology
- Inflectional Morphology: agreements in gender (small/small), in number (cat/cats), conjugations (eat/eat, ate)
- Derivational Morphology: prefixes (redo, undo), suffixes (singer, female singer), word families
- Grammatical Words: articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions
Components of Syntax
- Word Order: canonical SVO structure in French
- Simple Sentences: affirmative, negative, interrogative, imperative
- Complex Sentences: coordination (and, but, or), subordination (because, when, who, that)
- Particular Structures: passive, relative, cleft
Normal Morphosyntactic Development
| Age | Morphosyntactic Acquisitions |
|---|---|
| 12-18 months | Isolated words (holophrase), first predicates |
| 18-24 months | Combinations of 2 words ("daddy gone", "more cake") |
| 2-3 years | Sentences of 3-4 words, articles (the, a), first pronouns (I, me), negation (not), irregular plural |
| 3-4 years | Complex sentences with "and", "because", pronouns he/she, gender agreement, questions with inversion |
| 4-5 years | Relative subordinate clauses (who, that), past tense, imperfect, conditional |
| 5-6 years | Passive sentences, complex relatives, tense agreement, future |
| 6+ years | Refinement and consolidation, rare structures (subjunctive, complex passive) |
The Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) is a key indicator of morphosyntactic development. It is calculated as the number of morphemes per utterance. An MLU of 1 corresponds to isolated words, an MLU of 4-5 to elaborated sentences.
Morphosyntactic Disorders
Morphosyntactic disorders manifest as difficulties in constructing grammatically correct sentences and/or using morphological markers correctly. They are particularly common and persistent in Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
Warning Signs
- Absence of word combinations after 24 months
- Sentences of less than 3 words after 3 years
- Systematic omission of grammatical words (articles, pronouns, prepositions)
- Persistent conjugation errors after 4 years
- Difficulties with agreements in gender and number after 5 years
- Absence of complex sentences after 4-5 years
- Agrammatism: telegraphic style ("me want cake")
Common Error Types
- Omissions: articles ("want candy"), pronouns ("doesn't want"), auxiliaries ("he gone")
- Substitutions: gender ("the house"), pronouns ("him is nice" for "he is nice")
- Overgeneralizations: "he has took", "the horses"
- Order Errors: "why he left?" → "why left he?"
- Simplifications: avoidance of complex structures
Assessment of Morphosyntax
Morphosyntactic assessment generally includes several complementary components:
Standardized Tools
- BILO (Computerized Oral Language Battery): comprehension and syntactic production
- ECOSSE: understanding of syntactic structures
- N-EEL: expressive and receptive morphosyntactic tests
- EVALO: corpus analysis, MLU, syntactic diversity
Corpus Analysis
The analysis of a spontaneous language sample allows for the calculation of:
- The MLU (Mean Length of Utterance)
- The syntactic diversity (types of structures used)
- The error rate by category
- The complexity of utterances (subordination index)
Intervention Strategies
💡 General Principles
- Start from the child's level: target the zone of proximal development
- Meaningful Context: authentic communication situations
- Repetition and Modeling: provide many correct models
- Visual Supports: make the sentence structure visible
- Progression: from simple to complex, from frequent to rare
Rehabilitation Techniques
Modeling and Reformulation: The adult provides the correct model without asking for repetition. "Me want cake" → "You want a cake? Yes, you want a cake." The child hears the correct form in context.
Expansion: Restate the child's utterance while enriching it. "Daddy gone" → "Yes, daddy has gone to work." Gradually increase complexity.
Visual Indexing: Use visual supports to represent the structure of the sentence: colored tokens, pictograms, diagrams. Helps to raise awareness of word order and missing elements.
Fill-in-the-Blank Sentences: Offer incomplete sentences to complete, targeting a specific element (article, pronoun, conjugated verb, preposition).
Sentence Manipulation: Transform sentences (affirmative → negative, active → passive, present → past), add elements, combine simple sentences.
Recommended Progression
- Simple SVO sentences with frequent action verbs
- Introduction of articles and determiners
- Subject personal pronouns (I, you, he/she)
- Negation (not)
- Simple questions (where, what, who)
- Past tense (perfect tense)
- Coordination (and, but, or)
- Subordination (because, when, so that)
- Relative clauses (who, that)
- Complex structures (passive, conditional)
Our Downloadable Morphosyntax Tools
🔤 Sentence Construction Cards
Images and pictograms for constructing SVO sentences. Several levels of complexity.
Download📊 Syntactic Visual Support
Diagrams and color codes to visualize the structure of sentences. Subject-Verb-Complement.
DownloadFrequently Asked Questions
Yes, it is completely normal. Conjugation errors like "he has took" (overgeneralization) are typical until 4-5 years and reflect an active process of learning the rules. The child applies the rules they have deduced, even when they do not work (irregular verbs). These errors generally disappear spontaneously.
No, explicit correction ("No, we don't say it like that") is not the most effective strategy. Favor reformulation: restate the child's sentence in the correct version without asking them to repeat. "He has took my toy" → "Oh, he took your toy? That's annoying." The child hears the correct model naturally.
In the case of DLD, morphosyntactic difficulties can indeed persist, although they may lessen with rehabilitation and development. In adulthood, they may manifest as occasional errors in writing, difficulties with complex structures, or a simpler style. Early and intensive intervention significantly improves the prognosis.
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