bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comparing communicative competence in child and chimp: the pragmatics of repetition
Authors: Greenfield Patricia M. , Savage-Rumbaugh E. Sue 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThrough an analysis of chimpanzee–human discourse, we show that twoPan troglodyteschimpanzees and twoPan paniscuschimpanzees (bonobos) exposed to a humanly devised symbol system use partial or complete repetition of others' symbols, as children do: they do not produce rote imitations, but instead use repetition to fulfil a variety of pragmatic functions in discourse. These functions include agreement, request, promise, excitement, and selection from alternatives. In so doing, the chimpanzees demonstrate contingent turn-taking and the use of simple devices for lexical cohesion. In short, they demonstrate conversational competence. Because of the presence of this conversational competence in three sibling species, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans, it is concluded that the potential to express pragmatic functions through repetition was part of the evolutionary history of human language, present in our common ancestor before the phylogenetic divergence of hominids and chimpanzees. In the context of these similarities, two interesting differences appeared: (1) Human children sometimes used repetition to stimulate more talk in their conversational partner; the chimpanzees, in contrast, use repetition exclusively to forward the non-verbal action. This difference may illuminate a unique feature of human linguistic communication, or it may simply reflect a modality difference (visual symbols used by the chimpanzees, speech used by the children) in the symbol systems considered in this research. A second difference seems likely to reflect a true species difference: utterance length. The one- and two-symbol repetitions used by the chimpanzees to fulfil a variety of pragmatic functions were less than half the maximum length found in either the visual symbol combinations addressed to them by their adult human caregivers or the oral repetitions of two-year-old children. This species difference probably reflects the evolution of increased brain size and consequent increased memory capacity that has occurred since the phylogenetic divergence of hominids and chimpanzees four to seven million years ago.
The functions of novel word compounds
Authors: Windsor Jennifer 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe traditional assumptions that novel word compounds fill lexical gaps and allow speakers to convey an intended meaning more precisely were explored. Examples from spontaneous language demonstrated that some novel compounds occur in the absence of a lexical gap and that not all compounds serve a communicative function. The relation between communicative demands and novel noun–noun compound use was explored experimentally also. Twenty-eight five-year-old children and 16 adults participated in referential and non-referential communication tasks in which they were exposed to referents whose elements were inherently and non-inherently related. Both children and adults produced more compounds for inherent than for non-inherent referents. However, although the children demonstrated that they were sensitive to the need for greater communicative precision in the referential compared to the non-referential task, there was no difference in frequency of compound use across tasks. These results suggest that the functions ascribed to novel compounds warrant closer scrutiny.
The past conditional verb form in French children: the role of semantics in late grammatical development
Authors: Boloh Yves , Champaud Christian 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTAs shown by Bowerman (1986), it has proved remarkably difficult to find clear-cut interpretations of why children face problems with conditionals. The present study reassesses a part of this puzzle by analysing four- to eight-year-old French children's acquisition of conditional verb forms. Relevant data in the literature and results of an experiment designed to gain information on the temporal meaning of young children's past conditional verb forms are presented and discussed. Among others, they are shown to provide weak support for interpretations stressing the role of conceptual problems and related mapping problems. Meeting one of Slobin's (1985) proposals, an interpretation is suggested that views the lateness of the past conditional verb form as due to an unexpected juxtaposition of ‘possibility’ and ‘non-possibility’ in its semantic representation. It is argued that such a juxtaposition cannot be achieved on the sole basis of cognitive development and that it requires the preliminary mastery of the conditional verb form.
Interactive influences on phonological behaviour: a case study
Authors: Ratner Nan Bernstein 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTAn infant girl's unusual phonological behaviour was evaluated in the light of a maternai model which appeared to exaggerate features of normal conversational speech. It is suggested that parental responses to immature speech patterns may account for selected case study behaviours which have been reported in both the child phonology and child fluency literatures. It appears that evaluation of phonological development within an interactive framework may allow a more accurate picture of the conditions under which children learn speech skills. To this end, further study of the phonetic characteristics of input language and patterns of parental feedback to early articulatory attempts is desirable.
Imitations, repetitions, routines, and the child's analysis of language: insights from the blind
Authors: Pérez-Pereira Miguel 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTA blind child and her sighted twin sister were recorded at home once a month from 2;5 to 3;5. Their imitations, repetitions and routines (IRR speech) were analysed with respect to three dimensions (type, faithfulness to the model, and function). MLU for IRR speech was greater than that for productive utterances, which supports the idea that these productions facilitate language development. The blind girl used routines and modified imitations and repetitions more frequently than her sighted sister, and her use of modified repetitions increased during the study. She also seemed to use IRR speech for a longer period in her development. Both children frequently used these forms as a means of maintaining conversation and to fulfil their intentions. By introducing modifications (varying some element, or expanding the model) both children, especially the blind girl, analysed language and learned to use these utterances in the appropriate circumstances with a clear pragmatic function. Such behaviour is typical of holistic language processing and acquisition.
Words in discourse: a dialectical approach to the acquisition of meaning and use
Authors: Levy Elena , Nelson Katherine 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTWord learning by young children is viewed as a problem of deriving meaning from the use of forms in discourse contexts. Uses of causal and temporal terms in private speech by a child studied longitudinally from 1;9 to 3;0 are analysed from this perspective. Evidence is presented that words are first constrained to uses in specific discourse contexts, and later used more flexibly and with greater control over the semantics of the terms. Derivation of meaning from discourse is described as a dialectical process, and as such it is claimed to be more consistent with the full range of observational data, and with theories of word learning applicable to older children and adults, than other current theories of lexical acquisition in early childhood.
Interactive communication between children: learning how to make language work in dialogue
Authors: Anderson Anne H. , Clark Aileen , Mullin James 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTIn this paper we investigate the development of interactive communication skills in 170 children aged seven to thirteen. Using a communication task that allows extended dialogues between pairs of young speakers, we are able to assess both the overall communicative success achieved by any pair; and from an analysis of the dialogues we can identify several interactive strategies that characterize older and more successful communicators. Successful communication involves the active involvement of both participants: asking and answering questions, volunteering information and responding sensitively to contributions from their partners. In contrast to the process of language acquisition, the development of these interactive skills takes place over an extended time period and subjects vary greatly in their ability to communicate effectively. For many analyses differences in the communicative success achieved by subjects differ more within than between age groups. For example, a substantial minority of our oldest subjects communicate no better than children six years younger
Anaphora and branching direction in Japanese
Authors: O'Grady William , Cho Sook Whan , Sato Yutaka 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper constitutes a response to Lust & Mazuka's (1989) defence of the Principal Branching Direction parameter and their critique of O'Grady, Suzuki-Wei & Cho's (1986) experiment, which purported to show that even children learning left-branching languages exhibit a preference for forward patterns of anaphora. Results of new experimental work with children learning Japanese are reported and shown to support the claim that there is a universal preference for forward patterns of anaphora in the early stages of language acquisition.
Object transfer, intersubjectivity and third position repair: early developmental observations of one child
Authors: Wootton Anthony J. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTInteraction sequences are explored which are initiated by either child requests or adult offers of objects. The focus is on those sequences in which the child does not want an object that is passed to her, and on how the child manages such an interactional contingency. Throughout the age range in question, 1;0 to 1;8, the child uses re-requests where this contingency occurs in request sequences. The analysis traces the development of these re-requests and compares them with other forms of re-request. In addition, differences are uncovered as between request and offer sequences concerning the child's ways of dealing with an unwanted object that is passed to her. Linkages are made between these themes and work on third position repair within conversation analysis. Home based video-recordings of one child between the ages of 1;0 and 1;8 constitute the data base for the study.
A metrical template account of children's weak syllable omissions from multisyllabic words
Authors: Gerken Louann 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTYoung children learning English as well as many other languages frequently omit weakly stressed syllables from multisyllabic words. In particular, they are more likely to omit weak syllables from word-initial positions than from word-internal or -final positions. For example, the weak syllable of a weak-strong (WS) word likegiraffeis much more likely to be omitted than the weak syllable of a SW word liketiger. Three hypotheses for this omission pattern have been offered. In two, children's weak syllable omissions reflect innate perceptual biases either to ignore initial weak syllables or to encode word-final syllables. In contrast, the SW Production Template Hypothesis states that children have a template for producing a strong syllable followed by an optional weak syllable. When they apply a series of SW templates to their intended utterances, weak syllables that do not fit the templates are more likely to be omitted than those that do. To compare the three hypotheses, young two-year-olds were asked to say four-syllable SWWS and WSWS nonsense words. Children's pattern of weak syllable preservations was highly consistent with the SW production template hypothesis, but not with the perception-based hypotheses. Implications of this research for children's function morpheme omissions and for the relation of metrical and segmental production templates are discussed.
The development of segmental phonological production in a bilingual child
Authors: Schnitzer Marc L. , Krasinski Emily 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTA longitudinal diary-and-videotape study of the production of phonological segments by a Spanish–English bilingual child, age 1;1–3;9, revealed four stages in consonantal acquisition: presystematic variation, formation of a single system, separation into two systems corresponding to the two languages, and achievement of adult target values with later interference of one language in the other. Vocalic acquisition proceeded with widespread variation, followed by stabilization at target adult values, without any apparent intermediate unitary-system stage. Relevance of the data adduced here to the issue of whether bilingual children first function with a single system before acquiring two discrete languages is discussed. The issue of what it may mean to have one or two systems of phonology is addressed.
The unintelligibility of speech to children: effects of referent availability
Authors: Bard Ellen Gurman , Anderson Anne H. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTSpeech addressed to children is supposed to be helpfully redundant, but redundant or predictable words addressed to adults tend to lose intelligibility. Word tokens extracted from the spontaneous speech of the parents of 12 children aged 1;10 to 3;0 and presented in isolation to adult listeners showed loss of intelligibility when the words were redundant because they had occurred in repetitions of an utterance (Experiment 1) or referred to an entity which was physically present when named (Experiment 2). Though children (N= 64; mean age 3;5, S. D. 6·1 months) recognized fewer excerpted object names than adults (N= 40), less intelligible tokens appeared to induce child listeners to rely on the word's extra-linguistic context during the recognition process (Experiment 3), much as such tokens normally induce adults to rely on discourse context. It is proposed that interpreting parental utterances with reference to non-verbal context furthers linguistic development.
Addressee co-operation and request reformulation in young children
Authors: Marcos Haydée , Bernicot Josie 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the present study was to show that children under age 3;0 are capable of reformulating requests in different ways depending on how their addressee responds to the request. This adaptive ability is considered to be an indication of the use of both communicative and conversational skills. Children from French-speaking families were observed at two developmental thresholds: the end of the prelinguistic period (1;6) and the start of the linguistic period (2;6). The verbal and nonverbal outputs of the two groups of 12 children (1;6 and 2;6) were compared in three object request situations: the adult immediately complies with the request (satisfaction), the adult asks a clarification question (clarification), and the adult refuses to comply with the request (refusal). The ways in which the children adapted to each situation were found to be similar at the two ages considered. In the clarification situation, vocal productions and their repairs were more numerous, whereas in the refusal situation, non-reformulations and gazes to and from the requested object and addressee predominated. The discussion deals with the significance of these results in the development of communicative and conversational skills in children.
A developmental study of the acquisition of colour terms in Setswana
Authors: Davies Ian , Corbett Greville , McGurk Harry , Jerrett David 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTWe report a study of the acquisition of colour terms by speakers of Setswana, the language of Botswana in Southern Africa. This was carried out as a test of Berlin & Kay's theory of colour term universals, on a language with less than the maximum complement of eleven basic colour terms, and in order to document changes in Setswana under the impact of economic development. Seventy-seven five- to nine-year-olds were studied on two colour tasks: elicited lists and colour naming. In general the data were consistent with Berlin & Kay's theory: the rank order of frequency of correct use of colour terms was similar to the order of the Berlin & Kay hierarchy; and primary colour terms were offered more frequently and were more likely to be used correctly than secondary colour terms. The use of English colour terms was prevalent, especially amongst the younger groups, but they functioned as substitutes for Setswana terms, rather than as a means to fill the vacant basic colour term slots.
Children's songs to infant siblings: parallels with speech
Authors: Trehub Sandra E. , Unyk Anna M. , Henderson Joanna L. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTChildren aged 2;11 to 8;3 sang informally, once in the presence of their infant sibling and once when the infant was out of view. Paired excerpts from 22 children were presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed excerpt in each pair. Listeners' accuracy was above chance levels but below what would be expected for mothers' singing in comparable contexts. Children altered their singing style in the infant's presence by singing at a higher pitch level and with a different vocal quality.
Production as a source of input for analysis: evidence from the developmental course of a word-blend
Authors: Elbers Loekie 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTTheoretical arguments for considering production as a source of input for analysis (the OUTPUT-AS-INPUT hypothesis) are reviewed, and empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is presented. The evidence consists of a longitudinal study of the developmental course of a self-created form, produced by one Dutch child. This form is the product of blending two words,watandiets, to yield unitarywat-iets. In Dutch, independentwatandietsmay each mean ‘some’ and/or ‘something’. Thoughwat-ietsis not permitted by the language, and so does not occur in environmental input, the form stays in the child's repertoire for about 10 months (between 3;8 and 4;7) and is apparently subjected to processes of generalization: first the child treatswat-ietsas a two-word frame that may be regularized, later as a unitary word that may be semantically extended. After the extension ofwat-iets, independent synonymouswatandietsappear for the first time in the child's speech. It is argued that the child actually analysed his own creation.
The effect of conversational setting on topic continuation in mother–child dyads
Authors: Kertoy Marilyn K. , Vetter Dolores Kluppel 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTTwelve children (five boys and seven girls, mean age 4;1) interacted with their mothers in two conversational settings: playing with a favourite toy and helping to prepare lunch or muffins. The percentage of two topic continuation processes – topic incorporation and collaboration – used by mothers and children was analysed. It was hypothesized that the help setting with a predetermined structure would elicit a greater percentage of topic incorporation by the dyads than the play setting. In fact, the play setting elicited a greater percentage of topic incorporation from mothers than the help setting. Children did not differ significantly in the percentage of use of topic incorporation between the two settings, but appeared to be equally proficient in incorporating topics in settings with and without a predetermined structure. The play setting also elicited more topic collaboration from the children than the help setting. While the help setting appeared to support collaborative action, the play setting permitted the dyads to be informative about the toys as well as related topics. Therefore, the two settings provided different opportunities for the dyads to continue topics.
How shall a deceptive thing be called?
Authors: Merriman William E. , Jarvis Lorna H. , Marazita John M. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThirty-six three-, four- and five-year-olds were asked to select labels for deceptive stimuli (e.g. for an eraser that looked like a pencil). Three types of labelling were investigated –simple (e.g. ‘is an eraser’); appearance-predicated (e.g. ‘looks like an eraser’); and reality-predicated (e.g. ‘is really and truly an eraser’). An age-related appearance-reality shift was observed in simple labelling (e.g. older children were more likely than younger ones to accepteraserand rejectpencilas simple names for the pencil-eraser). This trend was robust over method and semantic domain, though weaker with object than with colour labels. As in previous research, older children were more likely than younger ones to map different appearance- than reality-predicated labels onto an item (e.g. to accept that the pencil-eraser looks like a pencil, but is really and truly an eraser); however, all age groups were reluctant to extend more than one name to a stimulus via a common predicate (e.g. to accept two reality-predicated labels for the same object). This one-label-per-predicate pattern was observed more frequently within reality than within appearance predicates; more frequently with colour than with object names, and with questions blocked by predicate than by name. It is argued that younger children maintained this pattern because of inflexible encoding, but that older ones did so because of better understanding of the appearance-reality distinction, greater reality dominance, and a Mutual Exclusivity bias.
Cross-language synonyms in the lexicons of bilingual infants: one language or two?
Authors: Pearson Barbara Zurer , Fernández Sylvia , Oller D. K. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's Principle Of Contrast (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded at varying intervals between ages 0;8 and 2;6, using the MacArthur GDI, a standardized parent report form in English and Spanish. The two single-language vocabularies of each bilingual child were compared to determine how many pairs of translation equivalents (TEs) were reported for each child at different stages of development. TEs were observed for all children but one, with an average of 30% of all words coded in the two languages, both at early stages (in vocabularies of 2–12 words) and later (up to 500 words). Thus, Volterra & Taeschner's empirical claim was not upheld. Further, the number of TEs in the bilinguals' two lexicons was shown to be similar to the number of lexical items which co-occurred in the monolingual lexicons of two different children, as observed in 34 random pairings for between-child comparisons. It remains to be shown, therefore, that the bilinguals' lexicons are not composed of two independent systems at a very early age. Furthermore, the results appear to rule out the operation of a strong principle of contrast across languages in early bilingualism.