In this exploratory study, the productions of the phoneme /ʀ/ were examined in the speech samples of 25 children. All children (aged 2;11 - 6;3) have a (presumed) Developmental Language Disorder...Show moreIn this exploratory study, the productions of the phoneme /ʀ/ were examined in the speech samples of 25 children. All children (aged 2;11 - 6;3) have a (presumed) Developmental Language Disorder and were attending either a toddler Intervention Group or an Auris Language school. From each child a language sample was elicited twice in a play situation and during a picture naming task, by their speech therapist, with an interval of 3 months. The productions of target /ʀ/ within these speech samples were studied and analyzed in terms of correctness, substitutions and deletions. Productions revealed a wide variety of renditions of target /ʀ/, the most significant being /ʀ/ -> [l], [ʋ],and [j]. It was difficult to determine progress in the productions of /ʀ/ between the two recordings, which indicates the need for a longer interval between recordings, or more recordings. A deviating development of /ʀ/ could be observed in the data of this specific group of children.Show less
This thesis investigated the positional effects from surrounding segments on the acquisition of /ɹ/ in syllable onsets. The analysis was based on transcriptions of spontaneous productions from a...Show moreThis thesis investigated the positional effects from surrounding segments on the acquisition of /ɹ/ in syllable onsets. The analysis was based on transcriptions of spontaneous productions from a single child learning American English, collected over the course of around two years. Four contexts were examined in detail: word-initial singleton onsets, intervocalic singleton onsets, complex onsets with coronal stops, and complex onsets with labial stops. Results showed that acquisition of /ɹ/ in these contexts follows one of three slightly different developmental paths from making mistakes, deletions and/or substitutions, to producing recognizable [ɹ]’s. Previous literature suggested that coarticulation facilitates the production of [ɹ]’s in complex onsets with coronal stops, and this appeared to be the case for the data examined here. Substitution by [j] and [ɥ] occurred only adjacent to certain vowels, which can also be explained through coarticulation.Show less
This thesis is an exploratory corpus study on the origins of single segment speech errors in child language. The central question is which phonological factors other than markedness influence the...Show moreThis thesis is an exploratory corpus study on the origins of single segment speech errors in child language. The central question is which phonological factors other than markedness influence the acquisition of fricatives, more specifically word-initial labiodental fricatives. Through examination of Dutch and U.S. English child speech data of approximately 1-3 years old, patterns emerged that indeed suggest an influence of markedness on the phonemes that children substitute for targets /f/ and /v/. A cross-linguistic difference in the produced phonemes, along with a salient faster and more consistent development of the U.S. English participants, could not be explained by markedness. An influence of neighbourhood density is proposed in addition to the influence of markedness.Show less
This paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt...Show moreThis paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt et al., a couple of hypotheses regarding German syllable type acquisition were formulated. Since German does not have onsetless syllables, the syllable types V, VC, and VCC were not expected to appear in child language. The German data for this study consisted of recordings of four German children between the ages 1;00 and 2;00. The data was searched for different syllable types at different stages of acquisition. Unexpectedly, onsetless syllables did appear in the recordings. However, additional analysis showed that they appear unsystematically and are thus likely produced due to a phonetic or articulatory error and do not emerge from underlying grammar. Therefore, onsetless syllables were disregarded, in the order of acquisition. All children showed the same order of acquisition for the rest of the syllable types. The acquisitional order of the syllable types was accounted for by an OT analysis in which each new syllable type emerges from a reranking of constraints in the underlying grammar. The most prominent difference to the Dutch OT grammar is that in German grammar ONSET remains high ranked and does not get outranked by FAITH.Show less
This paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt...Show moreThis paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt et al., a couple of hypotheses regarding German syllable type acquisition were formulated. Since German does not have onsetless syllables, the syllable types V, VC, and VCC were not expected to appear in child language. The German data for this study consisted of recordings of four German children between the ages 1;00 and 2;00. The data was searched for different syllable types at different stages of acquisition. Unexpectedly, onsetless syllables did appear in the recordings. However, additional analysis showed that they appear unsystematically and are thus likely produced due to a phonetic or articulatory error and do not emerge from underlying grammar. Therefore, onsetless syllables were disregarded, in the order of acquisition. All children showed the same order of acquisition for the rest of the syllable types. The acquisitional order of the syllable types was accounted for by an OT analysis in which each new syllable type emerges from a reranking of constraints in the underlying grammar. The most prominent difference to the Dutch OT grammar is that in German grammar ONSET remains high ranked and does not get outranked by FAITH.Show less
In previous research, covert contrast in child language has mainly been found in English-speaking and non-typically developing children. Since Dutch, like English, contrasts voiced and voiceless...Show moreIn previous research, covert contrast in child language has mainly been found in English-speaking and non-typically developing children. Since Dutch, like English, contrasts voiced and voiceless plosives, it is likely that Dutch speaking children also produce a covert contrast when learning to differentiate between these different plosives. In order to test this hypothesis a data sample from a Dutch child was used to measure and compare the voice onset time (VOT) of bilabial plosives, which were all transcribed as [p], but for which the target form was either voiced (/b/) or voiceless (/p/). A single-sample T-test with bootstrapping was performed to test the difference between the VOT means. Although the mean VOT for voiceless plosives which had a voiced target form was shorter than for plosives with a voiceless target, the difference was not significant, indicating that no covert contrast in VOT was present in this data. However, as the sample size was quite small, with only one subject and 74 utterances, no large-scale conclusions can be drawn for the Dutch population yet.Show less
This thesis covers a pilot study that examines whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. It is inspired by Sato et al.’s 'Development of Hemispheric...Show moreThis thesis covers a pilot study that examines whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. It is inspired by Sato et al.’s 'Development of Hemispheric Specialization for Lexical Pitch–Accent in Japanese Infants' (2010). Sato et al. found that Japanese infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in Japanese disyllabic words, and that they start processing these stimuli mostly in the left hemisphere (rather than bilaterally) as they get older in their first year of life, suggesting that Japanese infants perceive lexical pitch-accent as a lexical acoustic cue. Since Dutch does not use pitch-accent as a lexical cue, we would not expect Dutch infants to start processing tonal patterns in the left hemisphere as they get older within their first year. The first step to examining this expectation is carrying out a behavioural discrimination task to establish whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords in the first place. Only then does it become fruitful to carry out a NIRS experiment like Sato et al. to investigate in what parts of the brain Dutch infants process lexical tonal patterns, and whether this differs as they get older. We found that Dutch infants do seem to be able to distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. Though the sample size of this pilot is small, the effect that we found is of such significance that we expect to find it in the larger sample size of the official study as well, showing that Dutch infants can distinguish words on the basis of their tonal pattern. We therefore expect that performing a NIRS study like Sato et al. (2010) will be feasible.Show less
The glottal stop is frequently used in Finnish but it is usually not considered a phoneme. It participates in sound rules like other phonemes and has prosodic uses in turn-holding and signaling...Show moreThe glottal stop is frequently used in Finnish but it is usually not considered a phoneme. It participates in sound rules like other phonemes and has prosodic uses in turn-holding and signaling syllable boundaries. Studies on Maltese have suggested the glottal stop can occur both as a phoneme and as a prosodic effect (Mitterer et al., 2021). The present study had 28 participants listen and rate the comprehensibility and fluency of utterances with a glottal stop or a glottal stop unpronounced in an online experiment. The participants rated the items without a glottal stop significantly lower than the items with a glottal stop. The ratings were significantly affected by the likelihood that specific suffixes occur with a glottal stop. The findings suggest that a glottal stop between two separate words is a phoneme that only occurs with certain suffixes. The results concerning compound words were inconclusive and the effect of identical vowels around the glottal stop should be further investigated.Show less
In early speech, Dutch children favor voiceless stops in initial position and often substitute voiced stops for their voiceless counterparts (/b/ → [p] and /d/ → [t]). These devoicing errors have...Show moreIn early speech, Dutch children favor voiceless stops in initial position and often substitute voiced stops for their voiceless counterparts (/b/ → [p] and /d/ → [t]). These devoicing errors have been accounted for by either an incomplete phonological contrast in the lexical representation, or the inability to phonetically implement the contrast, or to execute the phonetic-articulatory program. The present study replicates, albeit with an adjusted design for Dutch children, Baese-Berk and Goldrick (2009) to shed more light on which one of the proposed accounts can be held accountable for these devoicing errors. In this production-experiment four girls and five boys with a mean age of 23;15 months participated. It was found that VOT values differed significantly for target voiced labials and target voiceless stops, indicating that children possess an underlying representation of this contrast. Furthermore, VOT values of initial target voiced labial stops presented with their minimal pair competitor were significantly shorter than the same initial target voiced labial stops presented without their minimal pair neighbor. These results demonstrate that the phonological contrast between voiced and voiceless initial stops is present in the lexical representation and, as a result, devoicing errors in Dutch children must be due to problems at the level of the motor plan.Show less
When infants have two possible rules that they can discover in an artificial language, a prosodic rule and a structure rule, which one do they discover and does this change with development? Prior...Show moreWhen infants have two possible rules that they can discover in an artificial language, a prosodic rule and a structure rule, which one do they discover and does this change with development? Prior studies on infants’ cue weighing suggest a preference for prosodic cues for eight-month-old infants, and a preference for structure for ten-month-old infants when segmenting speech. Using a Headturn Preference Procedure with adapted stimuli from Spierings and ten Cate (2014), we compared looking times for a prosody and structure test condition. We found condition did not have a significant effect on looking time. However, ten-month-old infants had significantly longer looking times compared to the eight-month-old infants. We also found a significant difference for gender, suggesting that female infants have a preference for a different cue to discover underlying language patterns than males.Show less
Prosody and structure are important cues for infants when they are learning a language. In this thesis, I investigated which of these two cues infants of seven months old find more salient. A Head...Show moreProsody and structure are important cues for infants when they are learning a language. In this thesis, I investigated which of these two cues infants of seven months old find more salient. A Head-Turn Preference procedure was used in both Experiment 1a and Experiment 1b to see whether infants found an inconsistent prosody pattern or inconsistent structure pattern compared to a familiarized pattern more interesting. Results revealed that infants had a longer looking time for the inconsistent prosody pattern than for the inconsistent structure, which indicates a stronger interest for the inconsistent prosody. If infants have a novelty preference, which is commonly assumed, this would mean that infants rely more on prosodic cues than structural cues. Whether or not this is the case will be examined further in Experiment 2. Also the points of improvement for Experiment 1 and the design of how Experiment 2 is conducted are discussed.Show less
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