Caregiver speech and children's use of nouns versus verbs: A comparison of English, Italian, and Mandarin

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
TWILA TARDIF ◽  
MARILYN SHATZ ◽  
LETITIA NAIGLES
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Spontaneous Production ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Child Speech

This paper examines naturalistic samples of adult-to-child speech to determine if variations in the input are consistent with reported variations in the proportions of nouns and verbs in children's early vocabularies. It contrasts two PRO-DROP languages, Italian and Mandarin, with English. Naturalistic speech samples from six 2;0 English-, six 1;11 Italian-, and ten 1;10 Mandarin-speaking children and their caregivers were examined. Adult-to-child speech was coded for the type frequency, token frequency, utterance position, and morphological variation of nouns and verbs as well as the types and placements of syntactic subjects and the pragmatic focus of adult questions. Children's spontaneous productions of nouns and verbs and their responses to adult questions were also examined. The results suggest a pattern consistent with the children's spontaneous production data. Namely, the speech of English-speaking caregivers emphasized nouns over verbs, whereas that of Mandarin-speaking caregivers emphasized verbs over nouns. The data from the Italian-speaking caregivers were more equivocal, though still noun-oriented, across these various input measures.

Asymmetries in the acquisition of word-initial and word-final consonant clusters

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
CECILIA KIRK ◽  
KATHERINE DEMUTH
Keyword(s):  
Production Data ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Spontaneous Production ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Picture Identification

Previous work on the acquisition of consonant clusters points to a tendency for word-final clusters to be acquired before word-initial clusters (Templin, 1957; Lleó & Prinz, 1996; Levelt, Schiller & Levelt, 2000). This paper evaluates possible structural, morphological, frequency-based, and articulatory explanations for this asymmetry using a picture identification task with 12 English-speaking two-year-olds. The results show that word-final stop+/s/ clusters and nasal+/z/ clusters were produced much more accurately than word-initial /s/+stop clusters and /s/+nasal clusters. Neither structural nor frequency factors are able to account for these findings. Further analysis of longitudinal spontaneous production data from 2 children aged 1;1–2;6 provides little support for the role of morphology in explaining these results. We argue that an articulatory account best explains the asymmetries in the production of word-initial and word-final clusters.

Prosodic, paralinguistic, and interactional features in parent-child speech: English and Spanish

1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben G. Blount ◽  
Elise J. Padgug
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Child Speech ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Interactional Features ◽  
Degree Of Similarity ◽  
Parent Child

ABSTRACTParents employ a special register when speaking to young children, containing features that mark it as appropriate for children who are beginning to acquire their language. Parental speech in English to 5 children (ages 0; 9–1; 6) and in Spanish to 4 children (ages 0; 8–1; 1 and 1; 6–1; 10) was analysed for the presence and distribution of these features. Thirty-four paralinguistic, prosodic, and interactional features were identified, and rate measures and proportions indicated developmental patterns and differences across languages. Younger children received a higher rate of features that marked affect; older children were addressed with more features that marked semantically meaningful speech. English-speaking parents relied comparatively more on paralinguistic and affective features, whereas Spanish-speaking parents used comparatively more interactional features. Despite these differences, there was a high degree of similarity across parents and languages for the most frequently occurring features.

scholarly journals Measuring analyticity and syntheticity in creoles

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Siegel ◽  
Benedikt Szmrecsanyi ◽  
Bernd Kortmann
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Hong Kong English

Creoles (here including expanded pidgins) are commonly viewed as being more analytic than their lexifiers and other languages in terms of grammatical marking. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to examine the validity of this view by measuring the frequency of analytic (and synthetic) markers in corpora of two different English-lexified creoles — Tok Pisin and Hawai‘i Creole — and comparing the quantitative results with those for other language varieties. To measure token frequency, 1,000 randomly selected words in each creole corpus were tagged with regard to word class, and categorized as being analytic, synthetic, both analytic and synthetic, or purely lexical. On this basis, an Analyticity Index and a Syntheticity Index were calculated. These were first compared to indices for other languages and then to L1 varieties of English (e.g. standard British and American English and British dialects) and L2 varieties (e.g. Singapore English and Hong Kong English). Type frequency was determined by the size of the inventories of analytic and synthetic markers used in the corpora, and similar comparisons were made. The results show that in terms of both token and type frequency of grammatical markers, the creoles are not more analytic than the other varieties. However, they are significantly less synthetic, resulting in much higher ratios of analytic to synthetic marking. An explanation for this finding relates to the particular strategy for grammatical expansion used by individuals when the creoles were developing.

A Dense Corpus Study of Past Tense and Plural Overregularization in English

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1319-1333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Maslen ◽  
Anna L. Theakston ◽  
Elena V. M. Lieven ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Strong Negative Correlation ◽  
Retrieval Failure ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
The Face ◽  
Child Speech

In the "blocking-and-retrieval-failure" account of overregularization (OR; G. F. Marcus, 1995; G. F. Marcus et al., 1992), the claim that a symbolic rule generates regular inflection is founded on pervasively low past tense OR rates and the lack of a substantive difference between past tense and plural OR rates. Evidence of extended periods of OR in the face of substantial correct input (M. Maratsos, 2000) and of an initial period in which nouns are more likely to be overregularized than verbs (V. A. Marchman, K. Plunkett, & J. Goodman, 1997) casts doubt on the blocking account and suggests instead an interplay between type and token frequency effects that is more consistent with usage-based approaches (e.g., J. Bybee, 1995; K. Köpcke, 1998; K. Plunkett & V. Marchman, 1993). However, previous naturalistic studies have been limited by data that account for only 1–2% of child speech. The current study reports analyses of verb and noun ORs in a dense naturalistic corpus (1 child, 2;00.12–3;11.06 [years;months.days]) that captures 8–10% of child speech and input. The data show (a) a marked difference in verb and noun OR rates; (b) evidence of a relationship between relative regular/irregular type frequencies and the onset and rate of past tense and plural ORs; (c) substantial OR periods for some verbs and nouns despite hundreds of correct tokens in child speech and input; and (d) a strong negative correlation between input token frequencies and OR rates for verbs and nouns. The implications of these findings for blocking and other accounts of OR are discussed.

The locative alternation in verb-framed vs. satellite-framed languages

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 864-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Lewandowski
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Verb Meaning

I propose a comparative analysis of the locative alternation in Polish and Spanish. I adopt a constructional theory of argument structure (Goldberg (1995)), according to which the locative alternation is an epiphenomenon of the compatibility of a single verb meaning with two different constructions: the caused-motion construction and the causative + with adjunct construction. As claimed by Pinker (1989), a verb must specify a manner of motion from which a particular change of state can be obtained in order to be able to appear in both constructional schemas. However, I show through a corpus study that the compatibility between verbal and constructional meaning is further restricted by Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) distinction between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. In particular, Talmy’s lexicalization patterns theory systematically explains why both the token frequency and the type frequency of the alternating verbs are considerably higher in Polish than in Spanish.

scholarly journals Slot-and-Frame Schemas in the Language of a Polish- and English-Speaking Child: The Impact of Usage Patterns on the Switch Placement

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Gaskins ◽  
Ad Backus ◽  
Antje Endesfelder Quick
Keyword(s):  
Language Usage ◽  
Bilingual Child ◽  
Diary Data ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Collection Period ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Switch Placement ◽  
The Impact

How does the bilingual child assemble her first multiword constructions? Can switch placement in bilingual combinations be explained by language usage? This study traces the emergence of frozen and semi-productive patterns throughout the diary collection period (0;10.10–2;2.00) to document the acquisition of constructions. Subsequently the focus falls on most frequently produced monolingual and bilingual combinations captured through 30 video recordings (1;10.16–2;5.11) which are linked to the diary data to confirm their productivity. First, we verify that like in monolingual development, frequency-based piecemeal acquisition of constructions can be reproduced in our bilingual diary data: in the child’s earliest combinations 87% are deemed as semi-productive slot-and-frame patterns. Second, video recordings show that productivity, understood as a function of type frequency, plays a role in determining the switch placement in early bilingual combinations only to some extent. A more accurate explanation for why frames from one language take slot fillers from another is their autonomous use and semantic independence. We also highlight limitations of input: while the child was raised with two languages separated in the input, she continued to switch languages which suggests that switching is developmental.

scholarly journals Contributions of phonetic token variability and word-type frequency to phonological representations

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 951-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER RICHTSMEIER ◽  
LOUANN GERKEN ◽  
DIANE OHALA
Keyword(s):  
Word Type ◽  
Talker Variability ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Abstract Entities ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Language Frequency ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Phonotactic Learning

ABSTRACTThe experiments here build on the widely reported finding that children are most accurate when producing phonotactic sequences with high ambient-language frequency. What remains controversial is a description of the input that children must be tracking for this effect to arise. We present a series of experiments that compare two ambient-language properties, token and type frequency, as they contribute to phonotactic learning. Token frequency is the raw number of exposures children have to a particular pattern; type frequency refers to a count of abstract entities, such as unique words. Our results suggest that children's production accuracy is most sensitive to a combination of type and token frequency: children were able to generalize a target phonotactic sequence to a new word when familiarized with multiple word-types across tokens from multiple talkers, but not when presented with either word-types with no talker variability or multiple talker-tokens of a single word.

scholarly journals Bilingual children's production of regular and irregular past tense morphology

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUDITH RISPENS ◽  
ELISE DE BREE
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
The Past ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Past Tenses

This study examined the production of the Dutch past tense in Dutch–Hebrew bilingual children and investigated the effect of type of past tense allomorph (de versus te) and token frequency on productions of the past tense. Seven-year-old bilingual children (n=11) were compared with monolingual children: age-matched (n=30) and younger vocabulary-matched (n=21). Accuracy of regular and novel past tense was similar for the bilingual and monolingual groups, but the former group was worse on irregular past tense than the age-matched monolingual peers. All three groups showed effects of type frequency: te past tenses were more accurate than de. The difference between the bilingual and monolingual children surfaces in the extent of the effect: for the bilingual children it was most pronounced in verbs with low token frequency and novel verbs. Results are interpreted as stemming from a learning strategy or from phonological transfer from the Hebrew morphosyntactic system.

scholarly journals A Corpus-based Case Study on the POS Tagging of Self-referential Lexemes in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 879
Author(s):  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Heng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Pos Tagging ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Categorization Theory ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Contemporary Chinese ◽  
Grammatical Functions

The POS tagging in the 5th edition of the CCD has been revised in the 6th and the 7th editions. The noun POS of most sports and science lexemes are deleted, and their senses of noun (self-referential senses) are included into verbs. However, most of these lexemes can be used as nouns intuitively, and their noun POS and senses should exist. Based on the grammatical functions of words (Xv & Tang, 2006) and the two-level word class categorization theory (Wang, 2014), this study conducts a corpus-based case study of a science lexeme “guina”. The result shows that “guina” not only has self-referential usage, but has high token frequency, with 133 occurrences accounting for 42.8% of the total usages, and rich type frequency widely distributed in “guina + (of) + NP “,” NP + (of) + guina” and “VP + guina”, which conforms to the criterion of conventionalization. Therefore, it is necessary to tag the noun POS and to set up the self-referential sense for “guina”. This research has an implication for solving the POS tagging problem of self-referential lexemes in the CCD.

ANGER metaphors in American English and Kabyle

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-252
Author(s):  
Sadia Belkhir
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
American English ◽  
Prototype Model ◽  
Sociocultural Influences ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
And Control ◽  
Domain Concept

The position standardly held in cognitive linguistics is that anger is an emotion concept that communicates about human thinking and which is instantiated in language in ways that are often metaphorically, systematically, and conceptually structured. The container metaphor is claimed to be near-universal (Kövecses 2000), but also subject to variation (Kövecses 2005). Variation in metaphor frequencies across languages has also been investigated (Boers & Demecheleer 1997; Boers 1999; Deignan 2003; Kövecses et al. 2015). This article reports a corpus-based contrastive investigation of anger metaphors in American English and Kabyle — a Tamazight language variety spoken in the northern part of Algeria. Its main objective is to contrast these metaphors and try to find out the most used ones in these languages through a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the token frequency of linguistic expressions belonging to each of the conceptual metaphors, the type frequency of their linguistic realizations, and the number of their mappings. Aspects of the anger scenario are also studied and contrasted. The findings indicate similarities and differences in the use of anger metaphors in the two languages. The three most frequently used metaphors in American English involve the container, possessed object and opponent source domains while the most frequently used ones in Kabyle involve the fire, container and possessed object source domains. These results confirm the near-universality of the container metaphor. However, the most frequently used metaphorical source domain concept is different in the two languages due to sociocultural influences. In addition, the findings relating to aspects of the anger scenario (intensity and control) support Lakoff and Kövecses’ (1987) prototype model of anger, although it is found to be influenced by sociocultural specificities in American English and Kabyle.

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