Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-01T06:18:37.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acquiring diminutive allomorphs: taking item-specific characteristics into account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2019

Tiffany BOERSMA Open the ORCID record for Tiffany BOERSMA [Opens in a new window] ,
Judith RISPENS ,
Fred WEERMAN  and
Anne BAKER
Tiffany BOERSMA
Affiliation:
ACLC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Judith RISPENS*
Affiliation:
ACLC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Fred WEERMAN
Affiliation:
ACLC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Anne BAKER
Affiliation:
ACLC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: J.E.Rispens@uva.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Phonological characteristics and frequencies of stems and allomorphs have been explored as possible factors causing differences in production accuracies between allomorphic forms. However, previous findings are not consistent and the relative contributions of these factors are unclear. This study investigated target and erroneous productions of the Dutch diminutive, which has five allomorphs with varying type frequencies and of which the selection depends on the phonological characteristics of the stems. Typically developing children (N = 115, 5;1–10;3) were tested on their production of real and nonce diminutives. Linear mixed effects modelling was used to analyse the data taking nonverbal IQ into account. Type frequencies of the allomorphs and differences in phonological characteristics of the stems were found to be related to differences in production accuracies between the allomorphs. However, phonological characteristics of the stems appeared to have a bigger impact, mainly due to the phonological complexity of these characteristics.

Keywords

morphophonologyfrequency effectsdiminutive acquisition
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 567 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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.)

References

Adriaans, F. (2006). PhonotacTools (Test version ed.). Utrecht: Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS.Google Scholar
Bakema, P., Defour, P., & Geeraerts, D. (1993). De semantische structuur van het diminutief. Forum der letteren, 121–37.Google Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). lme4: linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version 1.1–7. 2014.Google Scholar
Berko, J. (1958). The child's learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–77.Google Scholar
Blom, E. (2003). From root infinitive to finite sentence: the acquisition of verbal inflections and auxiliaries (PhD). Available from LOT Publications (LOT Number 70).Google Scholar
Blom, E., & Paradis, J. (2013). Past tense by English second language learners with and without language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 56, 281–94.Google Scholar
Blom, E., Paradis, J., & Duncan, T. S. (2012). Effects of input properties, vocabulary size, and L1 on the development of third person singular -s in child L2 English. Language Learning, 62(3), 965–94.Google Scholar
Boersma, T. A. (2018). Variability in the acquisition of allomorphs: the Dutch diminutive and past tense (PhD). Universiteit van Amsterdam. Available from LOT publications (LOT Number 489).Google Scholar
Boersma, T., Rispens, J. E., Baker, A., & Weerman, F. (2018). The effects of phonological skills and vocabulary on morphophonological processing. First Language, 38(2), 111–28.Google Scholar
Booij, G. (1995). The phonology of Dutch. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brus, B. T., & Voeten, M. J. M. (1979). EMT (one minute real word reading test). Amsterdam: Pearson.Google Scholar
Buckler, H., & Fikkert, P. (2016). Using distributional statistics to acquire morphophonological alternations: evidence from production and perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(540), 1–16. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00540Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (1985). Morphology: a study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (2007). Frequency of use and the organization of language. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L., & Slobin, D. I. (1982). Rules and schemas in the development and use of the English past tense. Language, 58(2), 265–89.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. (2004). The growth and maintenance of linguistic complexity. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Damhuis, R. (1992). Woordenlijst voor 4- tot 6-jarigen. een streeflijst voor kleuters. Rotterdam: Projectbureau OVB.Google Scholar
de Bree, E., & Kerkhoff, A. (2010). Bempen or bemben: differences between children at-risk of dyslexia and children with SLI on a morpho-phonological task. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14(1), 85–109.Google Scholar
Den Os, E., & Harder, R. (1987). De verwerving van de regels voor meervouds- en verkleinwoordsvorming in het nederlands [The acquisition of plural and diminutive rules in Dutch). De Nieuwe Taalgids, 80, 240–50.Google Scholar
Jarmulowicz, L., & Hay, S. E. (2009). Derivational morphophonology: exploring errors in third graders' productions. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40(3), 299–311.Google Scholar
Jolly, H. R., & Plunkett, K. (2008). Inflectional bootstrapping in 2-year-olds. Language and Speech, 51(1/2), 45–59.Google Scholar
Kempe, V., Brooks, P. J., & Gillis, S. (2005). Diminutives in child-directed speech supplement metric with distributional word segmentation cues. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 145–51.Google Scholar
Kerkhoff, A. (2007). Acquisition of morphophonology: the Dutch voicing alternation. Doctoral Dissertation, LOT.Google Scholar
Kerkhoff, A., & de Bree, E. (2004). Acquisition of morpho-phonology in children with specific language impairment and typically developing children. In Kerkhoff, A., de Lange, J., & Leicht, O. S. (Eds.), Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, yearbook 2004 (pp. 37–52).Google Scholar
Keuleers, E., Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2010). SUBTLEX-NL: a new frequency measure for Dutch words based on film subtitles. Behavior Research Methods, 42(3), 643–50.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A. (1997). Children's productivity in the English past tense: the role of frequency, phonology and neighbourhood structure. Cognitive Science, 21(3), 283–304.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., & Bates, E. (1994). Continuity in lexical and morphological development: a test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 21(2), 339–66.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., Wulfeck, B., & Weismer, S. E. (1999). Morphological productivity in children with normal language and SLI: a study of the English past tense. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 206–19.Google Scholar
Marshall, C. R., & Van der Lely, H. K. J. (2006). A challenge to current models of past tense inflection: the impact of phonotactics. Cognition, 100, 302–20.Google Scholar
Matthews, D. E., & Theakston, A. L. (2006). Errors of omission in English-speaking children's production of plurals and the past tense: the effects of frequency, phonology and competition. Cognitive Science, 30, 1027–52.Google Scholar
Mealings, K. T., Cox, F., & Demuth, K. (2013). Acoustic investigations into the later acquisition of syllabic -es plurals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1260–71.Google Scholar
Mennen, I., Levelt, C., & Gerrits, E. (2006). Acquisition of Dutch phonology: an overview. In Scobbie, J. M., Mennen, I., & Watson, J. (Eds.), QMUC Speech Science Research Centre Working Paper WP10 (pp. 1–15). Retrieved from https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/152.Google Scholar
Oetting, J. B., & Horohov, J. E. (1997). Past-tense marking by children with and without specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 62–74.Google Scholar
Oostdijk, N. (2000). The spoken Dutch corpus: outline and first evaluation. In Gravilidou, M., Caravannis, G., Markantonatou, S., Piperidis, S., & Stainhaouer, G. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC) (pp. 887–94).Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Tulpar, Y., & Arppe, A. (2016). Chinese L1 children's English L2 verb morphology over time: individual variation in long-term outcomes. Journal of Child Language, 43, 553–80.Google Scholar
Peelaerts, C. (2008). Van kleine boot tot scheepje: Experimenteel onderzoek naar de diminutiefvorming bij Vlaamse kinderen [From ‘kleine boot tot scheepje’: experimental research on diminutive production in Flemish children). Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2003). Phonetic diversity, statistical learning and acquisition of phonology. Language and Speech, 46(2/3), 115–54.Google Scholar
Raven, J., Raven, J. C., & Court, J. H. (2003). Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment.Google Scholar
Rispens, J. E., & de Bree, E. H. (2014). Past tense productivity in Dutch children with and without SLI: the role of morphophonology and frequency. Journal of Child Language, 41(1), 200–25.Google Scholar
Royle, P., & Stine, I. (2013). The French noun phrase in preschool children with SLI: morphosyntactic error analyses. Journal of Child Language, 40, 945–70.Google Scholar
RStudio Team, (2015). RStudio: Integrated Development for R. RStudio, Inc., Boston, MA. Online http://www.rstudio.com/.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E., Smith, N. S. H., & Hoefnagel-Höhle, M. (1979). The acquisition of some Dutch morphological rules. Journal of Child Language, 7, 539–53.Google Scholar
Song, J. Y., Sundara, M., & Demuth, K. (2009). Phonological constraints on children's production of English third person singular -s. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 623–42.Google Scholar
Tomas, E., Demuth, K., & Petocz, P. (2017a). The role of frequency and predictability in learning morphophonological alternations: implications for children with SLI. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(5), 1316–29.Google Scholar
Tomas, E., Demuth, K., Smith-Lock, K. M., & Petocz, P. (2015). Phonological and morphophonological effects on grammatical development in children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 50(4), 516–28.Google Scholar
Tomas, E., van de Vijver, R., Demuth, K., & Petocz, P. (2017b). Acquisition of nominal morphophonological alternations in Russian. First Language, 37(5), 453–74.Google Scholar
Trommelen, M. (1984). The syllable in Dutch. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Van de Weijer, J. (2002). An Optimality Theoretical analysis of the Dutch diminutive. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 19(1), 199–209.Google Scholar
Van Den Bos, K. P., Spelberg, L. H. C., Scheepstra, A. J. M., & De Vries, J. R. (1994). KLEPEL [two minute pseudo word reading task]. Amsterdam: Pearson.Google Scholar
Zamuner, T. S., Kerkhoff, A., & Fikkert, P. (2006). Acquisition of voicing neutralization and alternations in Dutch. Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2, 701–12.Google Scholar
Zamuner, T. S., Kerkhoff, A., & Fikkert, P. (2012). Phonotactics and morphophonology in early child language: evidence from Dutch. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 481–99.Google Scholar