Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-bvgqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T16:42:31.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From sound to syntax: phonological constraints on children's lexical categorization of new words*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2008

STANKA A. FITNEVA ,
MORTEN H. CHRISTIANSEN  and
PADRAIC MONAGHAN
STANKA A. FITNEVA*
Affiliation:
Queen's University
MORTEN H. CHRISTIANSEN
Affiliation:
Cornell University
PADRAIC MONAGHAN
Affiliation:
University of York
*
Address for correspondence: Stanka A. Fitneva, Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada. e-mail: fitneva@queensu.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two studies examined the role of phonological cues in the lexical categorization of new words when children could also rely on learning by exclusion and whether the role of phonology depends on extensive experience with a language. Phonological cues were assessed via phonological typicality – an aggregate measure of the relationship between the phonology of a word and the phonology of words in the same lexical class. Experiment 1 showed that when monolingual English-speaking seven-year-olds could rely on learning by exclusion, phonological typicality only affected their initial inferences about the words. Consistent with recent computational analyses, phonological cues had stronger impact on the processing of verb-like than noun-like items. Experiment 2 revealed an impact of French on the performance of seven-year-olds in French immersion when tested in a French language environment. Thus, phonological knowledge may affect lexical categorization even in the absence of extensive experience.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 36 , Issue 5 , November 2009 , pp. 967 - 997
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

[*]

The research was supported by grant RGP0177/2001-B from the Human Frontiers Science Foundation to MHC. We thank Kristen Dunfield, Tobias Stier and Gabrielle Cole for help with data collection and Nick Chater and Lesly Wade-Woolley for their perceptive comments.

References

REFERENCES

Baayen, R. H., Pipenbrock, R. & Gulikers, L. (1995). The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM). Philadelphia, PA: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Black, A. W., Taylor, P. & Caley, R. (1990). The Festival Speech Synthesis System. Available from www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival. Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR), University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.Google Scholar
Brooks, P. J., Braine, M. D., Catalano, L., Brody, R. E. & Sudhalter, V. (1993). Acquisition of gender-like noun subclasses in an artificial language: The contribution of phonological markers to learning. Journal of Memory and Language 32(1), 76–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, S. (1978). The child as a word learner. In Bresnan, J., Miller, G. & Halle, M. (eds.) Linguistic theory and psychological reality, 264–93. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cassidy, K. W. & Kelly, M. H. (1991). Phonological information for grammatical category assignments. Journal of Memory and Language 30(3), 348–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassidy, K. W. & Kelly, M. H. (2001). Children's use of phonology to infer grammatical class in vocabulary learning. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 8(3), 519–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B. & Jessner, U. (eds) (2001). Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition: Psycholinguistic perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, M. H. & Monaghan, P. (2006). Discovering verbs through multiple-cue integration. In Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R. M. (eds.) Action meets words: How children learn verbs, 88–107. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comeau, L., Cormier, P., Grandmaison, E. & Lacroix, D. (1999). A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language. Journal of Educational Psychology 91(1), 29–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diesendruck, G. & Markson, L. (2001). Children's avoidance of lexical overlap: A pragmatic account. Developmental Psychology 37(5), 630–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunn, L. & Dunn, L. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test III. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Eckman, F. R. (2004). From phonemic differences to constraint rankings: Research on second language phonology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26(4), 513–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farmer, T., Christiansen, M. H. & Monaghan, P. (2006). Phonological typicality influences on-line language processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(32), 12203–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). Why nouns are learned before verbs: Linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In Kuczaj, S. A. (ed.) Language development: Vol. 2. Language, thought and culture, 301–334. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gerken, L., Wilson, R. & Lewis, W. (2005). Infants can use distributional cues to form syntactic categories. Journal of Child Language 32(2), 249–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gillette, J., Gleitman, H., Gleitman, L. & Lederer, A. (1999). Human simulations of vocabulary learning. Cognition 73, 135–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golinkoff, R. M., Jacquet, R. C., Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Nandakumar, R. (1996). Lexical principles may underlie the learning of verbs. Child Development 67(6), 3101–119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golinkoff, R. M., Mervis, C. B. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1994). Early object labels: The case for a developmental lexical principles framework. Journal of Child Language 21(1), 125–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grosjean, F. (2001). The bilingual's language modes. In Nicol, J. (ed.). One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing, 1–22. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harm, M. & Seidenberg, M. S. (1999). Reading acquisition, phonology, and dyslexia: Insights from a connectionist model. Psychological Review 106, 491–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollich, G. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M. et al. (2000). Breaking the language barrier: An emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child-Development 65(3).Google ScholarPubMed
Houston-Price, C., Plunkett, K. & Harris, P. (2005). ‘Word-learning wizardry’ at 1 ; 6. Journal of Child Language 32(1), 175–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, M. H. (1992). Using sound to solve syntactic problems: The role of phonology in grammatical category assignments. Psychological Review 99(2), 349–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markman, E. M. & Wachtel, G. F. (1988). Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meaning of words. Cognitive Psychology 20(2), 121–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markman, E. M., Wasow, J. L. & Hansen, M. B. (2003). Use of the mutual exclusivity assumption by young word learners. Cognitive Psychology 47(3), 241–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mervis, C. B., Golinkoff, R. M. & Bertrand, J. (1994). Two-year-olds readily learn multiple labels for the same basic-level category. Child Development 65(4), 1163–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monaghan, P., Chater, N. & Christiansen, M. H. (2005). The differential role of phonological and distributional cues in grammatical categorisation. Cognition 96(2), 143–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monaghan, P., Christiansen, M. H. & Chater, N. (2007). The phonological-distributional coherence hypothesis: Cross-linguistic evidence in language acquisition. Cognitive Psychology 55, 259–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, J. L. & Demuth, K. (1996). Signal to syntax: An overview. In Morgan, J. L. & Demuth, K. (eds.) Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition, 1–22. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
New, B., Pallier, C., Ferrand, L. & Matos, R. (2001). Une base de données lexicales du français contemporain sur internet: LEXIQUE. L'Année Psychologique 101, 447–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., Rice, M. L. & Swank, L. K. (1995). Quick incidental learning (QUIL) of words by school-aged children with and without SLI. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 38, 434–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ontario Ministry of Education (2001). The Ontario curriculum: French as a second language: extended French, French immersion. Retrieved on 29 November, 2005 from www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/fsl18curr.pdf.Google Scholar
Shi, R. S., Morgan, J. L. & Allopenna, P. (1998). Phonological and acoustic bases for earliest grammatical category assignment: A cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Child Language 25(1), 169–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snedeker, J., Geren, J. & Shafto, C. (2007). Starting over: International adoption as a natural experiment in language development. Psychological Science 18(1), 79–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Storkel, H. L. (2001). Learning new words: Phonotactic probability in language development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44(6), 1321–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Storkel, H. L. (2003). Learning new words II: Phonotactic probability in verb learning. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46(6), 1312–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Storkel, H. L., Armbrüster, J. & Hogan, T. P. (2006). Differentiating phonotactic probability and neighborhood density in adult word learning. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49(6), 1175–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vitevitch, M. S. & Luce, P. A. (1998). When words compete: Levels of processing in spoken word perception. Psychological Science 9, 325–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, R. K., Torgesen, J. K. & Rashotte, C. A. (1999). Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.Google Scholar
Werker, J. F. & Yeung, H. H. (2005). Infant speech perception bootstraps word learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9(11), 519–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed