Test 2 Flashcards
What are two challenges for speech segmentation?
speech is continuous therefor identifying units is hard; words are not generally taught in isolation
Why do children need to engage in speech segmentation?
segmentation is required for successful acquisition as the production of words requires the identification of words in the speech stream
what is phonological/prosodic bootstrapping?
the use of phonological properties of the speech stream to identify boundaries between linguistic units; used in segmentation
How do prosodic cues help with identifying word boundaries?
changes in pitch/pauses/lengthening of segments can help identify word boundaries
How does segmental info help with identifying word boundaries?
by using transitional probability (probability of a segment/syllable occurring) and phonotactic constraints (constraints on which segments can appear next to each other)
-learners posit word boundaries where low TP is detected and ignore places where high TP is detected
How does stress help with identifying word boundaries?
if a given language consistently exhibits stress in the same location in a word, children will learn that the word boundary aligns with or is close to the stress syllable
-strong-weak words are more easily acquired
-babies (7.5mo english-exposed) often mis-segmented weak-strong words
What was learned from experiments surrounding segmental info?
that infants listened longer to part-words than to the words on which they had already been trained; this suggests that infants were surprised by and more interested in the novel words
Why are function words good cues to segmentation?
they are a closed class (no knew words added); the type of function word will tell you info about the word that will follow
-articles/determiners, prns, conj.
-grammatical relationships
Why do infants babble/why is it important?
allows infants to practice + adjust their articulatory capabilities AND builds sensory-motor representations of sounds
Canonical vs variegated babbling
canonical: 7-9mo, consonant-like sounds, syllables in isolation (ex. ba, baba)
variegated: 9-12mo, sequences of cons + vowels that differ in quality, sounds like target language (ex. badi)
Why may signers acquire words before speakers?
Hand signs are easier for babies than using their still-developing vocal tract
Why do children use phonological processes to adapt words to their grammars?
they use them until they can refine their own grammar system to be like an adults system; markedness issues, for ex. in the area of speech sound and syllable structure complexity
Define substitution in your own words
child substitutes a sound they don’t have in their phonemic inventory for one that they do have
ex. stopping is when fricative sounds become stops, like zebra becoming debra
Define assimilation in your own words
a sound will take on the features of a nearby sound to become more similar
ex. voicing: cons picks up voicing of the following vowel, like pig to big (p to b)
Define syllable simplification in your own words
sounds/syllables are reduced or omitted to simplify a cluster of consonants into something more manageable
What’s the difference in a language being marked and unmarked?
simple/common structures in a language are considered to be unmarked; complex/less common structures are considered to be marked
What is the Markedness Hypothesis?
a. first stage in development of construction is typically that which is cross-linguistically unmarked
b. the developmental path that children follow tends to mirror cross-language patterns in the sense that cross-linguistically marked patterns are acquired earlier than marked patterns
What does the Markedness Hypothesis observe/imply?
parts of a language that are less marked are acquired before parts that are more marked; the most/least common consonants of a language will be the first/last acquired in any given language
What is the Continuity Hypothesis?
a. all stages of child phonology correspond to possible (adult) phonological grammars
b. phonological development (from one stage to another) is gradual
What does the Continuity Hypothesis observe/imply?
development is S-shaped
-incorrect production, followed by a period of gradual improvement, followed by target-like production
What could a child’s mispronunciations be due to?
adult-like representations and non-adult phonological rules; anecdotal evidence suggests that children perceive adult forms in adult ways and therefor their underlying reps are adult-like
Why do concrete nouns predominate in early speech?
concrete nouns refer to physical objects and are easy to learn because babies can see them in their FOV; the form-meaning pairing can be made very easily; child-directed speech includes many concrete nouns
What is over and underextension?
over: uses a word to cover a wider range of things than it actually means (ex. “dog” for any animal)
under: a word only has a very narrow range of meaning (ex. “bottle” is only for child’s feeding bottles) (not as common i think)
Why does over/underextension occur?
semantic representations may not be target like due to the length of time since first learning the word of because the word is not as frequently used; recently acquired words likely have less semantic info and thus have the highest likelihood of being overextended in comprehension and production
