1. Consonant variegations in first words: Infants’ actual productions of
Consonant-Vowel-Consonant word forms
Katsura Aoyama University of North Texas Barbara L. Davis The University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Methodology
Results
Summary of Results
Table 1. Summary of the data
This presentation compares place of articulation characteristics of non-adjacent consonant sequences in young children’s consonant-vowel-consonant (C1VC2) target words with their actual productions of those words. Some consonant sequences (Coronal-Coronal, not) occurred more frequently both in target words and in children’s actual productions. Only about one third of the total tokens were produced with sound sequences matching those in word targets, due to high frequencies of final consonant deletions and use of other syllable types.
Results showed that two sequence types were significantly more frequent in target words: Labial-Coronal (e.g., mat, pot) and Coronal-Coronal (e.g., night, sit) (Figure 1). In the actual child productions, percentages of final consonant deletion were high (around 50%) during this period (Figure 2). When the children’s actual productions were compared between the place-repeated and place-variegated target words they were attempting, they produced the final consonant more frequently when the target word form consisted of a place-repeated sequence (i.e., “map”) than when it consisted of a place-variegated sequence (i.e. “mat”) (Figure 3).
N of children
N of sessions
Age range
N of C1VC2 target word types (tokens) 18
281
0;9-2;0
749 (3,800)
Target words were grouped into nine different categories based on the possible sequence types.
Labial-Labial mom, map
Labial-Coronal mat, pan
Labial-Dorsal pack, pig
Coronal-Labial tub, nap
Coronal-Coronal dad, not
Coronal-Dorsal dog, knock
Dorsal-Labial cap, gum
Dorsal-Coronal cat, kiss
Dorsal-Dorsal cake, king
Children’s actual productions of the target words were coded as (1) ‘match’ in terms of place of articulation categories, (2) final consonant deletion (FCD), and (3) other syllable types (such as consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel, C1VC2V).
Background
Clinical implications
In American English, typical word shapes in the first-word period consist of monosyllables or disyllables, and labial and coronal places of articulation dominate in production output (Davis, MacNeilage & Matyear, 2002). Children’s vocabulary size also increases to approximately words during the first-word period (Stoel-Gammon, 2011). Stoel-Gammon (2011) postulated that young children’s word choices are influenced by phonological development at early stages (birth to 2;6) and that the characteristics of target words they attempt likely reflect both ambient language characteristics and their production capacities. We investigated children’s first word productions to evaluate Stoel-Gammon’s postulate that selection of target words is influenced by actual production capacities. Based on the hypothesis that some consonants and consonant sequences are more accessible to children’s production capacities than others (Davis et al., 2002), children’s actual productions were compared with phonemic characteristics of target words they attempted in this early period.
Results of our studies suggest:
Some consonant sequences are much more frequent than other sequences. Targeting early occurring consonants and consonant sequences may be a more functional goal than targeting lower frequency types.
High frequencies of final consonant deletion do not seem to prevent children from combining words.
Infants produced the final consonant more frequently when the target C1VC2 word had repeated place of articulation in C1 and C2 (e.g., Labial-Labial, Coronal-Coronal). Target words with repeated consonant place of articulation may be good for stimulating production of final consonants.
Figure 2. Nonadjacent consonant sequence types. Gray bars indicate raw token frequencies of target words for each sequence type. Black bars indicate raw token frequencies of actual productions for each sequence type.
Results
Acknowledgements
The data in this study were collected with support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development R-01 HD to the second author. The authors sincerely thank the infants, their families, and all the research assistants at UNT and UT Austin.
Methodology
References
Aoyama, K. & Davis, B. L. (2016). Non-adjacent consonant sequence patterns in English target words during the first-word period. Journal of Child Language, 43, 1-23.
Davis, B. L., MacNeilage, P. F., & Matyear, C. L. (2002). Acquisition of serial complexity in speech production: A comparison of phonetic and phonological approaches to first word production. Phonetica, 59,
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk volume I: Transcription format and programs (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Stoel-Gammon, C. (2011). Relationships between lexical and phonological development in young children. Journal of Child Language, 38, 1-34.
18 children in the English-Davis corpus in the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) (MacWhinney, 2000)
First-word period (14 months to 20 months on average)
 A total of 3,333 productions consisting of consonant-vowel-consonant (C1VC2) target word forms
C1VC2 target words were classified based on place of articulation into labial (L), coronal (C), and dorsal (D) categories
/h/ was excluded from analysis
Figure 3. Nonadjacent consonant sequence types. Place- repeated targets include Labial-Labial, Coronal-Coronal, and Dorsal-Dorsal target word forms. Place-variegated targets include words with variegated sequences such as Labial-Coronal, Coronal-Labial, and Dorsal-Labial.
Figure 1. Nonadjacent consonant sequence types in target word forms (Aoyama & Davis, 2016). White bars indicate percentages of target word types with each sequence type. Gray bars indicate percentages of target word tokens with each sequence type.