Week 5 Flashcards
How do newborns recognize stories they heard in the womb?
They remember the prosodic qualities of the story.
Phonemes
individual speech sounds
The two segmentation problems
In the river of speech, where are the sounds and where are the words?
coarticulation
The effects of the physical properties of neighbouring sounds on the physical properties of a phoneme.
VOT
voice onset time
voice onset time
The time it takes for voicing to begin after the start of a phoneme.
HAS
high amplitude sucking
ERP
event related potentials
How does ERP (event related potentials) work?
Electrodes placed on the scalp record electrical activity in the brain. Shows changes over time, but not where activity takes place.
NLNC
native language neural commitment hypothesis
Native Language Neural Commitment hypothesis
By Kuhl to explain why the infant’s perceptual abilities change over time. Language learning produces dedicated neural networks that code the patterns of native-language speech.
Functional reorganisation
By Werker & Yeung to account for change of infant’s perceptual abilities over time. Perceptual capabilities are reorganised as a result of increasingly selective attention to the properties of the native language.
At what age can children segment words from fluent speech?
7 months
What are the two broad categories of cue in speech signal to help segmentation that researchers have examined?
Transitional probabilities
Prosodic cues
Transitional probabilities
Statisticsl information on the probability that one syllable will follow another
Prosodic cues
Information from the music of speech
In a deductive inference, the outcome is…
Certain and true, because the premises are true.
In inductive inferences, we arrive at a conclusion by…
Going beyon the premises. The conclusion is not absolutely certain.
What three factors cause the perception of stress?
1) amplitude
2) duration
3) increase in pitch
Amplitude
Louder syllables are perceived as stress
Duration
Longer syllables sound stressed
What is the strongest cue that a given syllable is stressed?
An increase in pitch
Trochaic
A strong-weak pattern (prosody)
Iambic
A weak-strong pattern (prosody)
CHILDES
Child Language Data Exchange System
What are deletions or substitutions of word segments dependent on?
The development of the word template.
Trochaic bias
Weak syllable omission
What two approaches in the area of segmental phonology does Fikkert discuss?
the acquisition of segmental inventories and
acquisition of segmental rules or processes.
What did Jakobson propose about phonological features?
The concept of maximal contrast dictates the order of acquisition of phonological oppositions. Broad contrasts are acquired first.Features that occur in all languages are acquired first.
laws of irreversible solidarity according to Jakobson:
laws based on the distribution of phonological features among the world’s languages that not only determine inventories but also dictate what kinds of rules are to be expected in acquisition.
Are front or back consonants acquired first?
Front consonants, because back consonants presuppose front consonants.
Are plosives or fricatives acquired first?
Plosives before fricatives.
How does Mieke Beers view phonological acquisition?
As the gradual unfolding of the feature geometry. Start with a minimal specified feature tree and add more structures when contrasts are learned.
What is the order of phonological acquisition in syllable-final position?
plosives - fricatives - nasals
What phonological type is acquired late in syllablefinal position?
Liquids, a type of approximant.
What divide can be made in the order of acquisition of syllables?
The acquisition is different in syllable-initial and syllable-final position.
What did Willem J.M. Levelt find about inaccurately produced vowels?
In most cases this involves either vowel length or place of articulation, both aspects of the front-back dimension rather than the height dimension of sound production.
Consonant harmony process
the process whereby two consonants in a word become more alike. ‘assimilation-at-a-distance’ process. Features from one consonant spread to a non-adjacent consonant.
non-linear phonology
expresses relationships between phonological units like features, segments, syllables, feet in hierarchical structures.
How does non-linear phonology account for consonant harmony?
By spreading the features of one consonant to a consonant not specified for place of articulation.
‘Spreading is feature-filling’
spreading is always from a specified (labial/dorsal) to an underspecified (coronal) consonant.
ESP
extrasyllabic position
Extrasyllabic position (ESP)
A position that is licensed by a word word-initially.
Minimal onset parameter
Whether onsets are obligatory yes/no.
maximal onset parameter
Whether onsets can be branching yes/no.
Extrasyllabicity parameter
Whether extrasyllabic consonants are allowed word-initially yes/no.
Describe the general pattern of development of onset structure in Dutch children:
Onsets are obligatorily present in child’s production forms, default CV syllables. Thn onsetless output forms appear and finally complex onsets.
homorganic onset consonants
Consonant sounds that are articulated in the same place as each other.
open syllable
A syllable containing a vowel without a consonant after it.
Sonorant
Produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Contrasts with obstruents.
What speech sounds are sonorants?
Vowels plus some nasals and liquids.
Rhyme parameter
Whether closed syllables are allowed yes/no
Nucleus parameter
Whether the nucleus can be branching yes/no
Extrarhymal position parameter
Can bipositional rhymes be followed by an extrarhymal consonant?
What four stages in the acquisition of rhyme does Fikkert propose?
1) Only open syllables
2) Branching rhymes appear
3) Branching nuclei occur
4) Extrasyllabic positions are acquired.
Describe the first stage of rhyme acquisition according to Fikkert:
Only open syllables are allowed. Vowel length is non-distinctive, core syllable CV.
Describe the second stage of rhyme acquisition according to Fikkert:
Rhymes consisting of a nucleus and coda appear: branching rhymes. Coda is always an obstruent (maximal constrast vowel and consonant)
Describe the third stage in rhyme acquisition according to Fikkert:
Branchin nuclei occur of a long or short vowel + a sonorant consonant. More subtle contrasts are acquired.
Describe the fourth stage in rhyme acquisition according to Fikkert:
Extrasyllabic positions acquired. Syllables can end in long vowel + consonant or in short vowel + sonorant-obstruent cluster.
What fifth stage in rhyme acquisition does Fikkert hypothesize?
Syllables ending in two or more obstruents appear.
Phonetic discrimination
Distinguishing between sounds that are different.
Functional reorganisation of perceptual abilities
The process that happens in the first year of life when the child figures out which contrasts are functional and which are not.
HAS
High Amplitude Sucking procedure
Consonant cluster deletion
For example ‘pant’ instead of ‘plant’
Stopping process
When a fricative is replaced with a stop.
For example: ‘koppie’ instead of ‘koffie’ or ‘dis’ instead of ‘this’.
Fronting
A substitution process of replacing a sound with another sound that is placed more upfront in the mouth.
‘fumb’ instead of ‘thumb’
Devoicing/voicing process
Substitution process that replaces voicing with unvoicing or vice versa.
Assimilation process
Substitution process when sounds become more similar by taking each others properties. Also called consonant harmony.
