Allophony and Allomorphy Cue Phonological Acquisition : evidence from the European Portuguese vowel system

The acquisition of morphophonological alternations is hardly investigated in phonology (Macken 1995, Bernhardt & Stemberger 1998, Hayes 2004, Kerkhoff 2004). Learnability models of phonological alternations often assume that allophonic variation is easy to learn, as it usually follows from the phonology of the language (Peperkamp & Dupoux 2002, Hayes 2004). On the other hand, these models assume that allomorphic variation is acquired late and learners often show paradigm uniformity at the early stages of development. In our study of longitudinal data of seven European Portuguese children, aged between 0;11 and 3;7, we investigate the acquisition vowel alternations and show that children start acquiring those very early. In particular, children even seem to distinguish vowels in neutralized context to a large extent. We argue that children acquire the abstract phonological vowel system of European Portuguese very early, precisely because of the large amount of systematic variation in the input. We will provide empirical evidence for the claim that the phonological processes in the language help children to set up the abstract vowel system of European Portuguese

Bilingual Preschoolers ’ Speech is Associated with Non-Native Maternal Language Input

Published online: 11 Nov 2018Bilingual children are often exposed to non-native speech through their parents. Yet, little is known about the relation between bilingual preschoolers’ speech production and their speech input. The present study investigated the production of voice onset time (VOT) by Dutch-German bilingual preschoolers and their sequential bilingual mothers. The findings reveal an association between maternal VOT and bilingual children’s VOT in the heritage language German as well as in the majority language Dutch. By contrast, no input-production association was observed in the VOT production of monolingual German-speaking children and monolingual Dutch-speaking children. The results of this study provide the first empirical evidence that non-native and attrited maternal speech contributes to the often-observed linguistic differences between bilingual children and their monolingual peers

Development of sign phonology in Kata Kolok

Much like early speech, early signing is characterised by modifications. Sign language phonology has been analysed on the feature level since the 1980s, yet acquisition studies predominately examine handshape, location, and movement. This study is the first to analyse the acquisition of phonology in the sign language of a Balinese village with a vibrant signing community and applies the same feature analysis to adult and child data. We analyse longitudinal data of four deaf children from the Kata Kolok Child Signing Corpus. The form comparison of child productions and adult targets yields three main findings: i) handshape modifications are most frequent, echoing cross-linguistic patterns; ii) modification rates of other features differ from previous studies, possibly due to differences in methodology or KK’s phonology; iii) co-occurrence of modifications within a sign suggest feature interdependencies. We argue that nuanced approaches to child signing are necessary to understand the complexity of early signing

Feature generalization in Dutch–German bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production

First Published November 29, 2021Dutch and German employ voicing contrasts, but Dutch lacks the ‘voiced’ dorsal plosive /ɡ/. We exploited this accidental phonological gap, measuring the presence of prevoicing and voice onset time durations during speech production to determine (1) whether preliterate bilingual Dutch–German and monolingual Dutch-speaking children aged 3;6–6;0 years generalized voicing to /ɡ/ in Dutch; and (2) whether there was evidence for featural cross-linguistic influence from Dutch to German in bilingual children, testing monolingual German-speaking children as controls. Bilingual and monolingual children’s production of /ɡ/ provided partial evidence for feature generalization: in Dutch, both bilingual and monolingual children either recombined Dutch voicing and place features to produce /ɡ/, suggesting feature generalization, or resorted to producing familiar /k/, suggesting segment-level adaptation within their Dutch phonological system. In German, bilingual children’s production of /ɡ/ was influenced by Dutch although the Dutch phoneme inventory lacks /ɡ/. This suggests that not only segments but also voicing features can exert cross-linguistic influence. Taken together, phonological features appear to play a crucial role in aspects of bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production.This work was supported by the Basque Government [BERC 2018-2021 program]; the Spanish State Research Agency [BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation SEV-2015-0490]; the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 843533]; and the National Science Foundation [BCS1349110; OISE 1545900]

Infants' implicit rhyme perception in child songs and Its relationship with vocabulary

Rhyme perception is an important predictor for future literacy. Assessing rhyme abilities, however, commonly requires children to make explicit rhyme judgements on single words. Here we explored whether infants already implicitly process rhymes in natural rhyming contexts (child songs) and whether this response correlates with later vocabulary size. In a passive listening ERP study, 10.5 month-old Dutch infants were exposed to rhyming and non-rhyming child songs. Two types of rhyme effects were analysed: (1) ERPs elicited by the first rhyme occurring in each song (rhyme sensitivity) and (2) ERPs elicited by rhymes repeating after the first rhyme in each song (rhyme repetition). Only for the latter a tentative negativity for rhymes from 0 to 200 ms after the onset of the rhyme word was found. This rhyme repetition effect correlated with productive vocabulary at 18 months-old, but not with any other vocabulary measure (perception at 10.5 or 18 months-old). While awaiting future replication, the study indicates precursors of phonological awareness already during infancy and with ecologically valid linguistic stimuli

Contrast and conflict in Dutch vowels

The nature of phonological representations has been extensively studied in phonology and psycholinguistics. While full specification is still the norm in psycholinguistic research, underspecified representations may better account for perceptual asymmetries. In this paper, we report on a mismatch negativity (MMN) study with Dutch listeners who took part in a passive oddball paradigm to investigate when the brain notices the difference between expected and observed vowels. In particular, we tested neural discrimination (indicating perceptual discrimination) of the tense mid vowel pairs /o/-/ø/ (place contrast), /e/-/ø/ (labiality or rounding contrast), and /e/-/o/ (place and labiality contrast). Our results show (a) a perceptual asymmetry for place in the /o/-/ø/ contrast, supporting underspecification of [CORONAL] and replicating earlier results for German, and (b) a perceptual asymmetry for labiality for the /e/-/ø/ contrast, which was not reported in the German study. A labial deviant [ø] (standard /e/) yielded a larger MMN than a deviant [e] (standard /ø/). No asymmetry was found for the two-feature contrast. This study partly replicates a similar MMN study on German vowels, and partly presents new findings indicating cross-linguistic differences. Although the vowel inventory of Dutch and German is to a large extent comparable, their (morpho)phonological systems are different, which is reflected in processing

How Native Prosody Affects Pitch Processing during Word Learning in Limburgian and Dutch Toddlers and Adults

In this study, Limburgian and Dutch 2.5- to 4-year-olds and adults took part in a word learning experiment. Following the procedure employed by Quam and Swingley (2010) and Singh et al. (2014), participants learned two novel word-object mappings. After training, word recognition was tested in correct pronunciation (CP) trials and mispronunciation (MP) trials featuring a pitch change. Since Limburgian is considered a restricted tone language, we expected that the pitch change would hinder word recognition in Limburgian, but not in non-tonal Dutch listeners. Contrary to our expectations, both Limburgian and Dutch children appeared to be sensitive to pitch changes in newly learned words, indicated by a significant decrease in target fixation in MP trials compared to CP trials. Limburgian and Dutch adults showed very strong naming effects in both trial types. The results are discussed against the background of the influence of the native prosodic system

The Language Environment at Home of Children With (a Suspicion of) a Developmental LanguagDisorder and Relations With Standardized Language Measures

Purpose: This study compares the home language environments of childrwith (a suspicion of) developmental language disorder (DLD) with that children with typical development (TD). It does so by adopting new technolothat automatically provides metrics about children’s language environmen(Language ENvironment Analysis [LENA]). In addition, relationships betweeLENA metrics and standardized language tests are explored in the DLD grouMethod: Ninety-nine 2-to 4-year-old toddlers participated: 59 with (a suspicioof) DLD and 40 with TD. LENA metrics on adult word count, conversational count, and child vocalization count were obtained. For all children, data parental education and multilingualism were available. In the DLD group, dawere collected on receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar, and nonverbal intelligence, using standardized tests. Results: We found lower adult word count, conversational turn count, and cvocalization count in the DLD group, independent of multilingualism but not parental education. In the DLD group, receptive vocabulary was related to cversational turn count and child vocalization count, but not to adult word coExpressive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and expressive grammar were norelated to LENA metrics. Conclusions: Toddlers with (a suspicion of) DLD vocalize less at home thchildren with TD. They also hear fewer adult words and experience fewer cversational turns. Children with DLD’s language outcomes are to a limitextent related to language environment at home. Conversational turns and chvocalizations are in this respect more important than adult words, in line findings for TD populations

Robustness of the rule-learning effect in 7-month-old infants: A close, multicenter replication of Marcus et al. (1999)

We conducted a close replication of the seminal work by Marcus and colleagues from 1999, which showed that after a brief auditory exposure phase, 7-month-old infants were able to learn and generalize a rule to novel syllables not previously present in the exposure phase. This work became the foundation for the theoretical framework by which we assume that infants are able to learn abstract representations and generalize linguistic rules. While some extensions on the original work have shown evidence of rule learning, the outcomes are mixed, and an exact replication of Marcus et al.'s study has thus far not been reported. A recent meta-analysis by Rabagliati and colleagues brings to light that the rule-learning effect depends on stimulus type (e.g., meaningfulness, speech vs. nonspeech) and is not as robust as often assumed. In light of the theoretical importance of the issue at stake, it is appropriate and necessary to assess the replicability and robustness of Marcus et al.'s findings. Here we have undertaken a replication across four labs with a large sample of 7-month-old infants (N = 96), using the same exposure patterns (ABA and ABB), methodology (Headturn Preference Paradigm), and original stimuli. As in the original study, we tested the hypothesis that infants are able to learn abstract “algebraic” rules and apply them to novel input. Our results did not replicate the original findings: infants showed no difference in looking time between test patterns consistent or inconsistent with the familiarization pattern they were exposed to