Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:03:48.547Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonotactics and morphophonology in early child language: Evidence from Dutch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2011

TANIA S. ZAMUNER ,
ANNEMARIE KERKHOFF  and
PAULA FIKKERT
TANIA S. ZAMUNER*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
ANNEMARIE KERKHOFF
Affiliation:
Utrecht University
PAULA FIKKERT
Affiliation:
Radboud University Nijmegen
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Tania S. Zamuner, Department of Linguistics, Arts Hall, Room 401, University of Ottawa, 70 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada. E-mail: tzamuner@uottawa.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research investigates children's knowledge of how surface pronunciations of lexical items vary according to their phonological and morphological context. Dutch-learning children aged 2.5 and 3.5 years were tested on voicing neutralization and morphophonological alternations. For instance, voicing does not alternate between the pair [pɛt]~[pɛtən] (cap~caps) but does in [bɛt]~[bɛdən] (bed~beds). Data from the first experiment showed that children at a younger age were less accurate at imitating words with /d/ than /t/, regardless of morphological context. In a second study, children between 2 and 4 years were asked to produce singulars from novel plurals (e.g., [kɛtən]~[kɛt] and [kɛdən]~[kɛt]). Results indicated that children's performance was better in contexts that did not require surface variation. Dutch-learning children are not able to robustly generalize their knowledge of phonotactics and morphophonological alternations. Rather, it appears that their knowledge is more concrete, in line with recent usage-based theories of acquisition.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 481 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baayen, H., Schreuder, R., Jong, N. H. de, & Krott, A. (2002). Dutch inflection: The rules that prove the exception. In Nooteboom, S. G., Weerman, F., & Wijnen, F. (Eds.), Storage and computation in the language faculty (pp. 41–73). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Bals, B. A. (2004). The acquisition of grade alternation in North Saami. Nordlyd, 32, 1–27.Google Scholar
Berko, J. (1958). The child's learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhardt, B. H., & Stemberger, J. P. (1998). Handbook of phonological development. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Booij, G. E. (1977). Dutch morphology. A study of word formation in generative grammar. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (2001). Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles-Luce, J. (1993). The effects of semantic context on voicing neutralization. Phonetica, 50, 28–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christophe, A., Millotte, S., Bernal, S., & Lidz, J. (2008). Bootstrapping lexical and syntactic acquisition. Language & Speech, 51, 61–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chomsky, N., & Halle, H. (1968). The sound patterns of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Coady, J. A., & Evans, J. L. (2008). Uses and interpretations of non-word repetition tasks in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 43, 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, L. J., Hall, T. A., & Raffelsiefen, R. (Eds.). (2005). Paradigms in phonological theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ernestus, M., & Baayen, H. (2007). Paradigmatic effects in auditory word recognition: The case of alternating voice in Dutch. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fikkert, P. (1994). On the acquisition of prosodic structure. PhD dissertation. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Fikkert, P., & Freitas, M. J. (2004). The role of language-specific phonotactics in the acquisition of onset clusters. In Cornips, L. & Doetjes, J. (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2004 (pp. 58–58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Fikkert, P., & Freitas, M. J. (2006). Allophony and allomorphy cue phonological development: Evidence from the European Portuguese vowel system. Journal of Catalan Linguistics, 5, 83–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillis, S., & Ravid, D. (2006). Typological effects on spelling development: A crosslinguistic study of Hebrew and Dutch. Journal of Child Language, 33, 621–659.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gómez, R. L., & Maye, J. (2005). The developmental trajectory of nonadjacent dependency learning. Infancy, 7, 183–206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayes, B. (2004). Phonological acquisition in optimality theory: The early stages. In Kager, R., Pater, J., & Zonneveld, W. (Eds.), Constraints in phonological acquisition (pp. 158–203). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, G. K. (1982). Voice alternations in Lac Simon Algonquin. Journal of Linguistics, 19, 161–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kager, R. (1996). On affix allomorphy and syllable counting. In Kleinhenz, U. (Ed.), Interfaces in phonology (pp. 155–171). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Kager, R., van der Feest, S., Fikkert, P., Kerkhoff, A., & Zamuner, T. S. (2007). Representations of [voice]: Evidence from acquisition. In van de Weijer, J. & van der Torre, E. J. (Eds.), Voicing in Dutch: (De)voicing—phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics (pp. 41–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerkhoff, A. (2004). Acquisition of voicing alternations. In Baauw, S. & van Kampen, N. J. (Eds.), Proceedings of GALA 2003 (pp. 269–280). Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Kerkhoff, A. (2007). Acquisition of morpho-phonology: The Dutch voicing alternation. PhD dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Kirk, C., & Demuth, K. (2005). Asymmetries in the acquisition of word-initial and word-final consonant clusters. Journal of Child Language, 32, 709–734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuijpers, C. (1993). Temporal coordination in speech development. A study on voicing contrast and assimilation of voice. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Lasky, R. E., Syrdal-Lasky, A., & Klein, R. E. (1975). VOT discrimination by four to six and a half month old infants from Spanish environments. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20, 215–225.Google Scholar
Levelt, C. C. (1994). On the acquisition of place. PhD dissertation, Leiden University, HIL Dissertation Series 8.Google Scholar
Macken, M. A., & Barton, D. (1979). A longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American–English word–initial stops, as measured by voice onset time. Journal of Child Language, 7, 41–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ManasterRamer, A. Ramer, A. (1996). A letter from an incompletely neutral phonologist. Journal of Phonetics, 24, 477–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peperkamp, S., & Dupoux, E. (2002). Coping with phonological variation in early lexical acquisition. In Lasser, I. (Ed.), The process of language acquisition (pp. 359–385). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. (2006). The statistical basis of an unnatural alternation. In Goldstein, L., Whalen, D. H., & Best, C. (Eds.), Laboratory phonology VIII, varieties of phonological competence (pp. 81–107). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2003). Phonetic diversity, statistical learning, and acquisition of phonology. Language and Speech, 46, 115–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prince, A., & Tesar, B. (2004). Learning phonotactic distributions. In Kager, R., Pater, J., & Zonneveld, W. (Eds.), Constraints in phonological acquisition (pp. 245–291). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, E. K. (1972). When are speech sounds learned? Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 37, 55–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scobbie, J. M., Gibbon, F., Hardcastle, W. J., & Fletcher, P. (2000). Covert contrast as a stage in the acquisition of phonetics and phonology. In Broe, M. & Pierrehumbert, J. B. (Eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology V: Language acquisition and the lexicon (pp. 194–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, N. (1973). The acquisition of phonology: A case study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Steriade, D. (2000). Paradigm uniformity and the phonetics–phonology boundary. In Broe, M. & Pierrehumbert, J. B. (Eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology V: Language acquisition and the lexicon (pp. 313–334). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Swingley, D. (2005). 11-Month-olds’ knowledge of how familiar words sound. Developmental Science, 8, 432–443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
van der Feest, S. (2007). Building a phonological lexicon: The acquisition of the Dutch voicing contrast in perception and production. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
van Kampen, J. (1997). First steps in Wh-movement. Delft: Eburon.Google Scholar
van der Vijver, R., & Baer-Henney, D. (2010). Acquisition of alternations: The role of substance, frequency and phonotactics in the acquisition of German voicing and vowel alternations. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
van der Vijver, R., & Baer-Henney, D. (in press). Acquisition of voicing and vowel alternations in German. In Danis, N., Mesh, K., & Sung, H. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Voeikova, M. D., & Dressler, W. U. (Eds.). (2006). Pre- and protomorphology: Early phases of morphological development in nouns and verbs. Lincom Studies in Theoretical Linguistics (Vol. 29). Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
White, K., Peperkamp, S., Kirk, C., & Morgan, J. (2008). Rapid acquisition of phonological alternations by infants. Cognition, 107, 238–265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zamuner, T. S. (2006). Sensitivity to word-final phonotactics in 9- to 16-month-old infants. Infancy, 10, 77–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zamuner, T. S., Kerkhoff, A., & Fikkert, P. (2006). Acquisition of voicing neutralization and alternations in Dutch. In Bamman, D., Magnitskaia, T., & Zaller, C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 701–712). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Zink, I., & Lejaegere, M. (2002). N-CDIs: Lijsten voor communicatieve ontwikkeling. Aanpassing en hernormering van de MacArthur CDIs van Fenson et al. [A CDI user's manual with normative and validity data]. Leusden, The Netherlands: Acco.Google Scholar