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Using distributional statistics to acquire morphophonological alternations: evidence from production and perception

Buckler, Helen; Fikkert, Paula

Using distributional statistics to acquire morphophonological alternations: evidence from production and perception Thumbnail


Authors

Paula Fikkert



Abstract

Morphophonological alternations, such as the voicing alternation that arises in a morphological paradigm due to final-devoicing in Dutch, are notoriously difficult for children to acquire. This has previously been attributed to their unpredictability. In fact, the presence or absence of a voicing alternation is partly predictable if the phonological context of the word is taken into account, and adults have been shown to use this information (Ernestus and Baayen, 2003). This study investigates whether voicing alternations are predictable from the child’s input, and whether children can make use of this information. A corpus study of child-directed speech establishes that the likelihood of a stem-final obstruent alternating is somewhat predictable on the basis of the phonological properties of the stem. In Experiment 1 Dutch 3-year-olds’ production accuracy in a plural-elicitation task is shown to be sensitive to the distributional statistics. However, distributional properties do not play a role in children’s sensitivity to mispronunciations of voicing in a Preferential Looking Task in Experiment 2.

Citation

Buckler, H., & Fikkert, P. (2016). Using distributional statistics to acquire morphophonological alternations: evidence from production and perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 540. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00540

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 29, 2016
Publication Date May 3, 2016
Deposit Date Aug 31, 2017
Publicly Available Date Aug 31, 2017
Journal Frontiers in Psychology
Electronic ISSN 1664-1078
Publisher Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 7
Article Number 540
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00540
Keywords first language acquisition, lexical representations, production, perception, alternations
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/791591
Publisher URL http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00540/full

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