LH BIOGRAPHY
for the Child Mandarin Corpus -- The Taipei Children
Mary S. Erbaugh
LH was a
little boy, aged 2;0.1 at the first taping, and 2;0.21 at seventh and final
taping three weeks later. His MLU (mean length of utterance in morphemes)
averaged 2.33. (See LH statistical summary for details.)
LH was a cheerful and intelligent child, sociable, though not particularly
talkative.
He lived with his mother, father, and two older sisters. A was 6 years old
and B was 8; they spent a lot of time playing with him.
LH’s mother was born in Beijing area, and his father in northern Jiangsu
province. The mother was a college Mandarin teacher with an exemplary
accent; the father, a police officer spoke accented northern Jiangsu Mandarin.
Both parents were college graduates.
Also in the home were LH’s paternal grandmother, as well as two foreign
university students of Mandarin. One came from Australia, the other from
India, but both spoke good Mandarin with the family. The family spoke only
Mandarin among themselves.
LH’s only English word was the name of his teddy bear, ‘Teddy’, pronounced /tε`
dí/.
A housekeeper came every day.
The home was a pleasant, ground level apartment, about 1,200 sf, with a patio
adjacent to the large living room. A kitchen and utility balcony opened
off the kitchen. Four small bedrooms opened off a hall, which also had a
bathroom.
The home was very well stocked with toys, books, furniture, houseplants, and TV,
tape player and other appliances.
Usually I taped LH as he was finishing breakfast. His six-year-old sister
A, and the housekeeper were the most frequent speakers, other than LH and me.
On tape 3, LH’s father played extensive word games with him. His mother,
who was usually at work, appeared rather seldom, and the borders and grandmother
not at all.
Taping went smoothly. LH had no health or social crises during the taping
period.