2-1 - Phonological Acquisition: The First Words Flashcards
What is Phonology?
The sounds of a language
How they are organized to form words
What does the child need to learn when acquiring language?
Speech sounds
Phonotactics
Vocabulary
Mental representations
What are speech sounds?
Combinations of consonants and vowels
What do we call the way speech sounds combine to form words?
Phonotactics
splash - good
psash - bad
esplash - bad
What are mental representations (in language acquisition)?
How is each word supposed to be pronounced
Conceptual knowledge of phonemes
What is a Lean Interpretation of child language acquisition?
What does the child know about word? (Do the perceive /@/ as /k@t/? Do they perceive /t/ as /k/?)
They may not have a specific knowledge of /k/, but they might be able to distinguish its sound from other sounds
What features are they listening for?
What is a Rich Interpretation of child language acquisition?
The child hears the specific phonemes but can’t pronounce them yet
Is is easy to prove a rich interpretation of child language acquisition?
No!
During the first words stage, how many words does the child usually acquire? Is this number set in stone?
50
No
A Child’s First Words usually contain _____ syllables (______, ______) and ______.
Simple
CV
CVC
Reduplications
What nasals usually appear in a child’s first words?
/m/
/n/
What stops usually appear in a child’s first words?
/b/
/d/
What affricates are usually in a children’s first words?
None
What liquids are usually in a child’s first words?
None
What glides are usually in a child’s first words?
/w/
/y/
What fricatives are usually in a child’s first words?
/f/
/s/
What three things seems to help determine a child’s first sounds?
Phonetic simplicity
Language Input
Token Frequency
What is Phonetic Simplicity?
Sounds that seem to require less effort than other sounds
This may not be identical for all children even if they are learning the same language
What is Language Input?
Linguistic environment of the child
A child is going to mimics the words being used around them
(This will change depending on the linguistic environment)
Who is Cliff Pye?
Studied “k’iche” /kiʧe/ (Guatmalan)
Noted that the two most frequent early consonants were /ʧ/ & /l/
What is Token Frequency?
How often a sound occurs in speech
What is Type Frequency?
How many unique words have this particuuar sound
Does Dr Ingram believe that token frequency is an important determiner of first words in English?
No
Is there evidence that Token Frequency may play a role in first words for other languages?
Yes
What is an unusually first phoneme for Chinese infants? Why do we think they learn this so early?
Initial nasal velar
Children learn this early but it has a high Type Frequency but a low Token Frequency
Do some kids take a while to pick up final consonants?
Yes
What word structure is more common in Spanish kids but not in English?
VCV
What word structure is most common in English?
CV
What word structure is the most rare?
VC
Do words show variable pronunciations? Why?
Yes
Kids don’t always pronounce words the same way each time they say them
Sounds may be pronounced differently when in different words or in a different position within the words (intitial, medial, final, etc.)
What are three Transition Phenomena?
Word shifts
Proto-Words
Presyntactic Forms
What are Word Shifts?
Change from one word to another
What are Proto-Words?
Child created words
Ex:
Momma = /mamama/
Woof = /u’u/
What are Presyntactic Forms?
Brief, unstressed phonetic material around lexical words
Example:
dog = /ʌda͞ʊgɪ/
Why do kids often produce presyntactic forms?
They rarely hear words on their own. They are usually in the midst of continuous speech
When does the Word Spurt occur? What can the child’s word acquisition rate reach?
1;6
6 words/day
Why does the Word Spurt occur?
The child’s phonology needs to keep up with new sounds & syllables
What is the Lexical Pattern of Emergence?
That some speech sounds come in and are only used in very few, specific words: /mɑmɑ/
Child has /m/ but only lexically. It doesn’t generalize to other words. It only uses the sound for one word.
What is the Gradual Pattern of Emergence?
Most common pattern
A sound will come in lexically then then gradually spread to new words
What was word stress like in English during the 1600s? In the 1900s?
1600s - Words (whose stress can distinguish meaning) had stress at the end
Project (PROject vs. proJECT)
1900s - Stress has moved to the beginning of the word
What is Sudden Emergence? How common is it?
A child will avoid a sound for a long time then will all of the sudden master it
Rarest pattern
What is Salience?
That some children will prefer certain sounds and templates
What is a Template? When do they occur?
Syllable forms with similar consonants and vowels
They characterize a subset of words in first 100 words, but Dr. Ingram doesn’t feel like this is clinically vital for SLPs
What can templates be used to estimate? Is this applicable for all children?
How the would child pronounce an “unpronounceable” word
(Dr. Ingram sees this as somewhat controversial)
No
What is Avoidance?
Refusing to pronounce difficult sounds
What did “T” avoid?
/p/
What did “Ian” avoid?
Fricatives (Could only form /h/)
j -> “It’s called a lemon”
zither -> “Can’t say the word”
sheriff -> “Lemon”
saxophone -> “I call’em a lemon-hone”
What did Samuel Ingram used when avoiding sounds?
/jai jai jai/
What is Whole Word Complexity?
Looking at the correctness of the whole word (syllables, vowels, etc.) instead of just the consonant correctness
Do words differ dramatically in their complexity?
Yes
First words are phonologically _______.
Simple
e.g. dog, cat, fish, mama, dada
Words become more complex due to ______ and ______.
More syllables, (e.g. banana, elephant)
Consonant clusters, (e.g. splash, branch)
What did Dr. Ingram devise as a way to measure complexity?
Whole Word Complexity
Using Phonological Mean Length of Utterance (PMLU
What does PMLU stand for?
Phonological Mean Length of Utterance
How do you score Phonological Mean Length of Utterance (PMLU)?
1 point for each phoneme they produce
1 additional point for each correct consonant
Example: /kæt/
/kæt/ = 5 or 100% (maximum score) /tæt/ = 4 or 80% /tæp/ = 3 or 60% /tæ/ = 2 or 40% /æ/ = 1 or 20% Raspberry = 0 or 0%
What is Proximity Measure?
The child’s PMLU divided by the target PMLU
Typically developing English speaking children usually have proximitiy scores over ______.
60%
Proximity Measures tend to even out the scores between kids who maintain _______ versus those who are better at _______.
Syllable correctness
Consonant correctness
When we are looking at Syllable Structure/Early Syllable Shapes, what are we looking for?
What syllable shapes are most used
CV, V, CVC, etc
What does Dr. Ingram likes to measure in regards to syllable structure? Why
Percent of Monosyllables
Some kids preserve syllable structure but with inaccurate consonants
Some kids drop syllables but preserve consonant accuracy
The percent of monosyllables that English speaking kids tend to produce tends to range from _______.
50-100%
Why is there such a wide range in the percent of monosyllables produced by English speaking children?
Due to the fact that some kids aren’t so keen on reduplication
Some kids seem more drawn to molosyllables and others to multi-syllables.
Monosyllabic kids tend to get _______ earlier
Multi-syllabic kids tend to not get _______ and seem to only be able to _______.
Final consonants
Final consonants as quickly / produce them if they can add a vowel afterwards
It takes kids ______ years to master consonant clusters.
6-7
Who tends to get higher articulation scores: monosyllabic kids or non-monosyllabic kids? Who is more intelligible?
Monosyllabic kids
Both
What did Stoel-Gammon find in his experiment on 33 2-yr-olds?
Found that their words were…
CV, V (all samples)
CVC (97%)
CVCV (79%)
CVCVC (65%)
Some instances of clusters
What should SLPs have in their tool box in order to perform Multidimensional Analysis?
Whole Word Complexity
Syllable Structure
Phonetic Inventories
Phonological Processes
What are Phonetic Inventories?
The particular phonemes a child knows
What sounds would Dr. Ingram want a child to master first? What position are these phonemes usually found?
Word Initial Position
Nasals: /m/, /n/
Stops: All
Fricatives: /f/, /s/, /h/
Glides: /w/, /j/
What phonemes are usually acquired in Word Final Position during language acquisition?
Nasals: /n/
Stops: Unvoiced
Fricatives: /s/
Liquids: /r/ but only sometimes
Are more phonemes acquired in Word Initial or in Word Final Position?
Word Initial Position
What did David Stampe write? When?
“Natural Phonology”
Late 1960s
What was the point of Stampe’s “Natural Phonology”?
When child is learning fricatives, but can’t make them, they might change them all into stops
/f/ -> /p/
/s/ & /ʃ/ -> /t/
What is the process of substituting stops for fricatives called? What is its purpose?
Stopping
To simplify words until they are learned correctly
At what ages is stopping commonly seen?
First words to age 6 or so
Why does Stopping simplify words?
Stopping airflow is easier than impeding it
e.g. ‘foot’ as ‘put’
What is Final Consonant Deletion?
Omitting word final consonants to preserve CV
e.g. ‘back’ spoken as ‘baa’
What is Unstressed Syllable Deletion?
Deleting syllables that carriy weak stress
e.g. ‘banana’ spoken as ‘nana’
What is Cluster Reduction?
Deleting consonant combinations,
e.g. ‘play’ spoken as ‘pay’
What is Consonant Simplifications?
Using a simpler consonant for a more difficult one
What is Fronting? What types of sounds are fronted?
Substituting consonants to those produce more forward in the mouth
Always Velars -> Alveolars
(e. g. ‘d’ & ‘t’ are easier than ‘g’ or ‘k’)
(e. g. ‘cow’ spoken as ‘dow’)
What is the benefit to Fronting?
Consonants produced at the forward part of the mouth are easier than those produced further back
Are Velars -> Bilabials considered fronting?
No. They tend to be a perceptual issue
What is Backing? Does Dr. Ingram believe this is a real thing?
Changing alveolars to velars (/t/ -> /k/)
Dr. Ingram thinks this is bunk
What is Gliding?
Replacing /r/ and/or /l/ with /w/
(e.g. ‘rock’ spoken as ‘wo(ck)’
What is Assimilation?
Making one sound the same as, or similar to, another in the word
(e.g. ‘dark’ pronounced as ‘guck’ (in really early stages)
What is Prevocalic Voicing?
Voicing consonants that come before vowels
e.g. ‘top’ [dap]
What is Postvocalic Devoicing?
Devoicing consonants that come after vowels
e.g. ‘pig’ [bik]
What is the Neo-Jakobson Approach?
Syllable structure starts with CV or reduplicated CV (e.g. ma, mama, pa, papa)
This will expand to CVC, CVCV
Are consonants are acquired systematically? How so?
Yes
Either by contrasting place or contrasting classes/manner or articulation (stops vs. fricatives, etc.)
What were Joan Velten’s First INITIAL Consonants? What was weird about this?
Nasals: /m/, /n/
Stops: /b/, /d/
Fricatives: /f/, /z/
Glides: /w/
Weird = /z/ (Turns out she had a French nanny)
What were Joan Velten’s First FINAL Consonants?
Nasals: /m/, /n/
Stops: /p/, /t/
Fricatives: /f/, /s/
What were Joan Velten’s First Vowels?
/u/
/ɑ/
What Phonological Processes did Joan Velten employ?
Syllable Deletion (e.g. bottle [ba], banana [na:’na])
Final Consonant Deletion (e.g. ban [ba])
Voicing (e,g, push [bus])
Fronting (e.g. duck [dat], push [bus])
What four things do languages differ in?
Phonological inventories
Phonotactics
Functional load
Number of contrasts (minimal pairs) for a particular phoneme
The sequence of phoneme acquistion is determined by ______ and ______.
Phonetic Complexity
Functional Load
Order of acquisition is influenced by the ______ that a phoneme occurs in.
Number of words
e.g. Italian [v]
