bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Linguistic significance of babbling: evidence from a tracheostomized infant
Authors: Locke John L. , Pearson Dawn M. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThe role of babbling in language development is not well understood. One source of evidence is the utterances of infants who were tracheostomized during the period in which they would normally have produced syllabic vocalization. We describe here the phonetic patterns and linguistic development of a girl called Jenny. She was tracheostomized and generally aphonic from 0;5–1;8 but cognitively and socially normal, with near-normal comprehension of language. Acoustic analyses of Jenny's utterances following decannulation revealed a tenth of the canonical syllables which might be expected in normally developing infants, an extremely small inventory of consonant-like segments, and a marked preference for labial obstruents. In these ways, she resembled a group of infants of the same age who also cannot hear their oral-motor movements, the congenitally deaf, suggesting that the audibility of babbling contributes to its onset. Two months following decannulation, when Jenny was 1;10, she produced only a handful of different words. We think this is because aphonia prevented her from discovering the referential value of vocal expression and discouraged the formation of a phonetic repertoire that could be appropriated for lexical service. This unusual case suggests that babbling normally facilitates the development of language and speech.
The acquisition of Irish: a study of word order development
Authors: Hickey Tina 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThis study examines the development of word order patterns in Irish, a strict VSO language. It was found that the three children studied used subject-initial utterances considerably more frequently than adults in input, and that in both adult and child the elision of the verb ‘to be’ played a significant role. Another significant factor was found to be the different restrictions on main verbs and verbal nouns with regard to the subject: in neutral sentences the main verb always precedes the subject, while the verbal noun always follows it. The Bates & MacWhinney (1979). hypothesis that early verb initialization results from a tendency to place new information before given information was also investigated.
Subject, topic and Sesotho passive
Authors: Demuth Katherine 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTCounter to findings in English, German and Hebrew, recent acquisition studies have shown that the passive is acquired early in several non-Indo-European languages. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon, this paper addresses certain typological phenomena which influence the early acquisition of passives in Sesotho, a southern Bantu language. After outlining the structure of the Sesotho passive and its syntactic and discourse functions, I examine Sesotho-speaking children's spontaneous use of passives, showing that the acquisition of passives in Sesotho is closely linked to the fact that Sesotho subjects must be discourse topics. I conclude that a detailed examination of how passive constructions interact with other components of a given linguistic system is critical for developing a coherent and universally applicable theory of how passives are acquired.
Structure and function of baby talk in a day-care centre
Authors: Morra Pellegrino Maria Luisa , Scopesi Alda 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to examine how caretakers speak to young children in a day-care centre and particularly to investigate how they adjust their language, according to children's age and to size of groups. Five Italian teachers were observed, each one during six different sessions. Children's ages were 0;10–1;2 and 2;6–3;0. The number of children varied from a rather large group (seven children) to a small group (three children) to a single child. Language was taperecorded during free-play sessions of ten minutes. Context was noted by two observers. Transcripts were analysed according to structural features (syntactical complexity, redundancy, type-token ratio, speed) and functional features (proportion of utterances with different purpose: control and organization of child behaviour, empathy, conversation and teaching). Results show some significant differences in structure and function according to children's age and group size.
Young children's conversations with their mothers and fathers: differences in breakdown and repair
Authors: Tomasello Michael , Conti-Ramsden Gina , Ewert Barbara 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTIn this study we compared the conversations of mothers and fathers with their children at 1;3 and 159, with special attention to breakdown-repair sequences. We found that, overall, children and secondary caregiver fathers experienced more communicative breakdowns than did children and primary caregiver mothers. More specifically, fathers requested clarification of their children more often than did mothers, and they most often used a non-specific query (e.g. What?). Mothers used more specific queries (e.g. Put it where?) and were involved in more ‘looped’ sequences involving multiple requests for clarification. Fathers also failed to acknowledge child utterances more often than did mothers. After a father non-acknowledgement, children tended not to persist and when they did they often received further non-acknowledgements; the dyad did not often return to the child's original topic. After a maternal non-acknowledgement, on the other hand, children persisted and the dyad more often returned to its previous topic. The results are interpreted as support for the Bridge Hypothesis which claims that fathers present children with communicative challenges that help prepare them for communication with less familiar adults.
Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes
Authors: Shatz Marilyn , O'Reilly Anne Watson 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTYoung children's competence in using and responding to clarification requests may reflect their desire to achieve goals through the direction of others rather than knowledge that messages must be understood by another mind. This possibility was addressed by examining miscommunication episodes between children aged 2;6 and their parents in videotaped free play sessions. Although the children generally responded appropriately in form to parental clarification requests, they responded more often to and resolved successfully more of those following their own requests than those following their assertions. Thus, the results support the idea that young children are frequently motivated to repair their utterances when they have not achieved some overt behaviour desired from others. These findings are discussed in the light of the conversational experience two-year-olds bring to clarification situations.
Relations between prosodic variables and communicative functions
Authors: Flax Judy , Lahey Margaret , Harris Katherine , Boothroyd Arthur 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThree children were observed interacting with their mothers at three different times: before the onset of single words, when vocabulary consisted of 10 words, and when vocabulary consisted of 50 words. Relations between communicative functions and acoustic analyses of prosodie variables (i.e. rise vs. nonrise of terminal contours) were studied. Considerable variability was found among the children in the number of rises produced overall and those produced for any function. Each child's use of rise was fairly constant over time and rises were produced RELATIVELY more frequently than nonrises with functions requiring a response from the listener. Factors affecting similarities and differences are discussed.
Early lexical development and maternal speech: a comparison of children's initial and subsequent uses of words
Authors: Barrett Martyn , Harris Margaret , Chasin Joan 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTIn Harris, Barrett, Jones & Brookes (1988), we reported the results of a detailed analysis of the initial uses of the first 10 words which were produced by four children. The present paper reports the results of an analysis of the subsequent uses of these 40 words. This analysis reveals that seven qualitatively different patterns of change occurred between the children's initial and subsequent uses of these words; the particular patterns of change which occurred support Barrett's (1986) model of early lexical development. In addition, it was found that, although there was a strong relationship between maternal speech and the children's initial word uses, the relationship between maternal speech and the children's subsequent word uses was very much weaker. These findings indicate that the role of linguistic input in early lexical development may decline quite sharply once the child has established initial uses for words.
Directive interactions and early vocabulary development: the role of joint attentional focus
Authors: Akhtar Nameera , Dunham Frances , Dunham Philip J. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTMaternal directiveness, assessed by the mother's use of prescriptives, is correlated with slow vocabulary development. As prescriptives are most often used to redirect a child's attention to a different object or activity, it is hypothesized that attentional regulation underlies this negative relationship. In the present study, twelve mothers were videotaped interacting with their children aged 1;1, and 100 maternal utterances were coded for pragmatic intent. Prescriptives were coded as either changing (LEADING) or FOLLOWING the child's focus of attention. Only the frequency of mothers' FOLLOW-prescriptives correlated significantly with a productive vocabulary measure taken at 1;10. This correlation was high and positive, indicating that, given joint focus, directing a 13-month-old's behaviour can have beneficial effects on subsequent vocabulary development.
Later rather than sooner: extralinguistic categories in the acquisition of Thai classifiers
Authors: Carpenter Kathie 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTAn experimental elicitation task with children between the ages of 1;8 and 11;3 shows that children learning Thai numeral classifiers begin with purely distributional information: specifically, (1) that classifiers must appear in the post-numeral position, and (2) that classifiers comprise a conventional, closed set of words. Semantic organizing features, such as salient features of the head noun's referent, appear later than these syntagmatic organizing features. Use of such semantic information is not an immature ‘first guess’ at grammatical categories, but rather, a necessary component of adult linguistic competence, because the categories are productive both for older children and for adults.
Syntax and semantics in the acquisition of locative verbs
Authors: Gropen Jess , Pinker Steven , Hollander Michelle , Goldberg Richard 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTChildren between the ages of three and seven occasionally make errors with locative verbs like pour and fill, such as * I filled water into the glass and * I poured the glass with water (Bowerman, 1982). To account for this pattern of errors, and for how they are eventually unlearned, we propose that children use a universal linking rule called OBJECT AFFECTEDNESS: the direct object corresponds to the argument that is specified as ‘affected’ in some particular way in the semantic representation of a verb. However, children must learn which verbs specify which of their arguments as being affected; specifically, whether it is the argument whose referent is undergoing a change of location, such as the content argument of pour, or the argument whose referent is undergoing a change of state, such as the container argument of fill. This predicts that syntactic errors should be associated with specific kinds of misinterpretations of verb meaning. Two experiments were performed on the ability of children and adults to understand and produce locative verbs. The results confirm that children tend to make syntactic errors with sentences containing fill and empty, encoding the content argument as direct object (e.g. fill the water). As predicted, children also misinterpreted the meanings of fill and empty as requiring not only that the container be brought into a full or empty state, but also that the content move in some specific manner (by pouring, or by dumping). Furthermore, children who misinterpreted the verbs' meanings were more likely to make syntactic errors with them. These findings support the hypothesis that verb meaning and syntax are linked in precise ways in the lexicons of language learners.
Non-dialogue speech during preschool interactions
Authors: Schober-Peterson Debra , Johnson Cynthia J. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTYoung children's skilfulness in conversational interaction is of great importance in understanding pragmatic aspects of language development. The purpose of this investigation was to describe the portion of preschool verbal interaction which could not be considered successful dialogue. Ten dyads of four-year-olds were videotaped during free play. Segments of talk were identified as dialogue or non-dialogue. Non-dialogue was coded when one child did not appear to direct his/her utterances to the other or when an attempted topic failed to capture the interest of the other child. Thirteen types of non-dialogue were identified. Results revealed that all dyads exhibited non-dialogue, but differences were noted in regard to amount and type. Dyads labelled as less co-operative displayed greater amounts of self-directed talk (monologue).
Strategies used to communicate route directions by telephone: a comparison of the performance of 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds and adults
Authors: Lloyd Peter 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTStandard outcome measures used in a referential communication (route finding) task showed that 7-year-olds were inferior to 10-year-olds and adults in terms of adequacy of messages provided (as speakers) and selection of referent (as listeners). Because the task involved negotiation of route directions by telephone, a richer dialogue resulted than is usual in referential communication studies. This made possible an analysis of the strategies used and revealed differences untapped by the standard measures. The types of strategies used (COMPONENTS, NUMBERING, DIRECTIONAL, MINIMAL) varied as a function of age, with the adults using much directional information and the children very little. Much of the younger children's description was either minimal or used inadequately specified mature strategies. Adults frequently used dual strategies (e.g. directional + numbering). Older children showed little evidence of these individually but achieved them, in practice, through dialogue with their partners. Age differences in quantity of communication (number of turns) were found to be linked to strategy use. The advantages of the telephone as an experimental medium of communication are discussed.
On the acquisition of syntax in Tamil: a comment on Garman (1974)
Authors: Lust Barbara , Eisele Julie 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTGarman (1974), reporting on twenty Tamil children aged three to five, postulated a linguistic strategy and two prelinguistic strategies to explain the results of a question-picture choice task involving sentences with embedded and subordinate clauses. In a reanalysis of his data, we identify four processing strategies and show that some of Garman's findings are better explained not as the outcome of prelinguistic strategies but as an artefact of the experimental design. In fact the data provide evidence of a grammatical sensitivity which is consonant with a sensitivity – demonstrated in recent language-acquisition studies – to the branching direction of the language being acquired.
Phonetic development in early infancy: a study of four Swedish children during the first eighteen months of life
Authors: Roug L. , Landberg I. , Lundberg L.-J. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThe present paper presents data on the phonetic development of four normal Swedish infants, who were audiorecorded bi-weekly in their homes from 0;1 to 1;5. Our results show five distinct stages in the development of early vocalizations: the glottal stage, the velar/uvular stage, the vocalic stage, the reduplicated consonant babbling stage and the variegated consonant babbling stage. The results are based on auditory analysis of selected parts of the material. A comparison is made of this developmental pattern with studies of infants raised in other linguistic communities. The results of this comparison support the claim that babbling follows a universal developmental pattern.
Crossing boundaries: more evidence for phonological constraints on early multi-word utterances
Authors: Matthei Edward H. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTA number of researchers have argued that phonological constraints may influence the emergence and form of combinatorial speech in children. Donahue (1986) presented evidence that one child's consonant harmony constraint operated across word boundaries. This paper presents further evidence for the operation of word-level phonological constraints in multi-word utterances. Selection and avoidance patterns as well as her modifications of adult forms indicate the presence of a syllable sequencing constraint in this child's grammar: an initial syllable must begin with a consonant whose sonority value is not less than that of the following syllable. The same constraint governs the form of her early word combinations. The existence of evidence for the operation of word-level constraints in word combinations, it is pointed out, has consequences for how we interpret two-lexicon models of phonological development.
A multiple form word production checklist for assessing early language
Authors: Reznick J. Steven , Goldsmith Lynn 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTWe describe the development of a set of five equivalent checklists to assess word production of children in their second year. The words on each list do not overlap, but represent comparable levels of difficulty. Thus, individual lists may be used to estimate the child's production vocabulary, and the set of lists may be used serially in a longitudinal design.A validation study on 25 infants suggests that the five lists produce comparable mean production scores, reflect differences in age, and preserve individual differences in total production and production of linguistic categories such as nouns, verbs, open class items, and closed class items. This finding provides further support for the reliability of parental report instruments in this developmental domain.
Acquisition of complementation
Authors: Bloom Lois , Rispoli Matthew , Gartner Barbara , Hafitz Jeremie 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThis study concerns the acquisition of complex sentences with perception and epistemic verbs that take a second verb in their complements. The acquisition of complementation began between two and three years of age in this longitudinal study of four children's spontaneous speech. The results of the study showed that (1) complement types and complementizer connectives and (2) the discourse contexts in which complementation occurred were specific to individual matrix verbs. The most frequent verbs acquired were the perception verbs see and look and the epistemic verbs think and know. Developments in both discourse and syntax indicated that these verbs expressed attitudes of certainty/uncertainty toward the content expressed in their complements. The results are discussed in terms of both linguistic and psychological factors in the acquisition of complex sentences with complementation.
Early bilingual development: one language or two?
Authors: Genesee Fred 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTIt is commonly thought that children learning two languages simultaneously during infancy go through a stage when they cannot differentiate their two languages. Virtually all studies of infant bilingual development have found that bilingual children mix elements from their two languages. These results have been interpreted as evidence for a unitary, undifferentiated language system (the unitary language system hypothesis). The empirical basis for these claims is re-examined and it is argued that, contrary to most extant interpretations, bilingual children develop differentiated language systems from the beginning and are able to use their developing languages in contextually sensitive ways. A call for more serious attention to the possible role of parental input in the form of mixed utterances is made.
Rhyme and alliteration in poems elicited from young children
Authors: Dowker Ann 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTAttempts were made to elicit poems from 133 children between the ages of 2 and 6. Seventy-eight of the children produced 606 poems between them. Sixty per cent of the poems contained phonological devices; 42% contained rhyme and 26% contained alliteration. There was no obvious age trend as regards the use of rhyme but the frequency of alliteration declined with age. There were no significant age differences as regards the relative frequency with which different phonemes were manipulated in rhyme and alliteration. The possible functions of such sound-based language play in language development are discussed, with special reference both to children's sound play in crib speech, and to the development of phonological awareness and its importance in learning to read.
Children's over-regularization of nouns and verbs
Authors: Cox Maureen V. 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThe procedure used by Pratt, Tunmer & Bowey (1984) was employed in this study to investigate young children's abilities to correct over-regularized plural nouns and verbs in the past tense. Older children (mean age 6; 4) performed better than younger children (mean age 4; 11) and plural nouns were corrected significantly more than past-tense verb forms. As predicted, the younger children were better at correcting the nouns than the verbs; the two grammatical forms were corrected equally well by the older children.
Patterns in babbling: a cross-linguistic study
Authors: Blake Joanna , Boysson-Bardies Bénédicte De 
Published: February 2009

ABSTRACTThree Canadian–English infants and three Parisian–French infants were filmed bi-weekly for three to five months, from the age of 0;9 or 0;11 until 1;2, at home in naturalistic interaction with a parent. Their babbled utterances were transcribed phonetically and categorized according to consonant-type and vowel-type. The contexts for each utterance were described in terms of both specific and more general contextual categories. Observed frequencies of co-occurrences between phonetic and contextual categories were compared to expected frequencies, and deviations were considered to be patterns in babbling. Patterning increased after age 1;0 for most infants, and from 15% to 30% of each infant's babbled utterances recurred in particular contexts with a greater-than-expected frequency. Similarities in patterns were found both within and across language groups. These sound-meaning correspondences in babbling are viewed as continuous with early situation-bound meaning in words.