Phonotactics and morphophonology in early child language: Evidence from Dutch

• TANIA S. ZAMUNER ^[1] ; ANNEMARIE KERKHOFF ^[2] ; PAULA FIKKERT ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Ottawa

     University of Ottawa

     Canadá

     
  2. [2] Utrecht University

     Utrecht University

     Países Bajos

     
  3. [3] Radboud University Nijmegen

     Radboud University Nijmegen

     Países Bajos

     

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• Localización: Applied psycholinguistics, ISSN 0142-7164, Vol. 33, Nº 3, 2012, págs. 481-499
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This research investigates children's knowledge of how surface pronunciations of lexical items vary according to their phonological and morphological context. Dutch-learning children aged 2.5 and 3.5 years were tested on voicing neutralization and morphophonological alternations. For instance, voicing does not alternate between the pair [pɛt]~[pɛtən] (cap~caps) but does in [bɛt]~[bɛdən] (bed~beds). Data from the first experiment showed that children at a younger age were less accurate at imitating words with /d/ than /t/, regardless of morphological context. In a second study, children between 2 and 4 years were asked to produce singulars from novel plurals (e.g., [kɛtən]~[kɛt] and [kɛdən]~[kɛt]). Results indicated that children's performance was better in contexts that did not require surface variation. Dutch-learning children are not able to robustly generalize their knowledge of phonotactics and morphophonological alternations. Rather, it appears that their knowledge is more concrete, in line with recent usage-based theories of acquisition.