Abstract
This study is based on a record of my daughter Joan's speech from her eleventh to her thirty-sixth month.' It will deal chiefly with phonemic and lexical matters. For, apart from other reasons which will be discussed below, the morphological and syntactical development in the language of English-speaking children has been well described in numerous works, while only two authors have hitherto been concerned, implicitly or explicitly, with problems of phonemics in infant language,2 and as regards vocabulary patterns, it is impossible to glean any information from the customary alphabetical word lists.3 In a multitude of books on infant language it has been established that the acquisition of language properly speaking is preceded by a period, called 'babillage' (by H. Delacroix), 'Lallperiode' (by K. Bfihler), or babbling stage, during which the speech organs are developed and incessantly exercised. Even the most outlandish sounds, i.e. speech sounds which the child has certainly never heard, may be produced and perfectly articulated during this time. An American child may pronounce velar spirants, voiceless nasals, retroflex sibilants, etc. During the early stages a uvular r is quite common.4 Joan was particularly addicted (3d to 8th) to velar g-sounds and to voiceless palatal spirants.5 At the end of this stage, i.e. with the first appearance of phonemes, the ability to produce a multitude of speech sounds seems to vanish overnight. However,
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.