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Speech sound characteristics of early words: influence of phonological factors across vocabulary development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2017

Barbara DAVIS ,
Suzanne VAN DER FEEST  and
Hoyoung YI
Barbara DAVIS*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Suzanne VAN DER FEEST
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin, USA
Hoyoung YI
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Barbara Davis, Suzanne van der Feest, University of Texas at Austin – Department of Linguistics, 2504A Whitis Ave. Stop A1100, Austin Texas 78712, United States. e-mail: babs@mail.utexas.edu; suzanne@austin.utexas.edu
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Abstract

This study investigates whether the earliest words children choose to say are mainly words containing sounds they can produce (cf. ‘phonological dominance’ hypotheses), or whether children choose words without regard to their phonological characteristics (cf. ‘lexical dominance’ hypotheses). Phonological properties of words in spontaneous speech from six children age 0;8 to 2;11 were analyzed by comparing sound distributions of consonant place and manner. Word-initial and word-final consonant patterns in children's Word Targets versus Actual Word Forms were analyzed as a function of vocabulary size. Word-initial results showed more overall evidence for phonological dominance. In word-final position, at lower vocabulary sizes, results showed several differences between Word Targets and Actual Word Forms, consistent with lexical dominance. These findings challenge an ‘either–or’ phonological versus lexical dominance approach, and support consideration of a multifactorial set of influences, including different phonological dimensions and word positions, on the words that young children choose to say.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 673 - 702
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

This work was supported in part by NICHD R-01 HD27733-03 to the first author. We appreciate the statistical support of Sally Amen and Erika Hale of UT Austin's Statistics and Data Science Department. Special thanks to Yvan Rose and the PhonBank team for implementation of Phon analyses and ongoing Phon support. Last, we would like to express our deep appreciation to the children and their families without whom this work would not have been possible. Part of the data from this study was presented at IASCL 2014 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, at BUCLD 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts, and at ICPC 2016 in Flagstaff, Arizona at the International Child Phonology Conference, 2016.

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