Author:

Keywords:

child language development consonant Dutch input frequency funcitional load, Social Sciences, Psychology, Developmental, Linguistics, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, INPUT FREQUENCY, SPEECH, LOAD, COMPLEXITY, PATTERNS, Age Factors, Child Language, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Language, Male, Netherlands, Phonetics, Vocabulary, 11 Medical and Health Sciences, 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, 20 Language, Communication and Culture, Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology, 42 Health sciences, 47 Language, communication and culture, 52 Psychology

Abstract:

The impact of input frequency (IF) and functional load (FL) of segments in the ambient language on the acquisition order of word-initial consonants is investigated. Several definitions of IF/FL are compared and implemented. The impact of IF/FL and their components are computed using a longitudinal corpus of interactions between thirty Dutch-speaking children (age range: 0 ; 6–2 ; 0) and their primary caretaker(s). The corpus study reveals significant correlations between IF/FL and acquisition order. The highest predictive values are found for the token frequency of segments, and for FL computed on minimally different word types in child-directed speech. Although IF and FL significantly correlate, they do have a different impact on the order of acquisition of word-initial consonants. When the impact of IF is partialed out, FL still has a significant correlation with acquisition order. The reverse is not true, suggesting that the acquisition of word-initial consonants is mainly influenced by their discriminating function.