Functional Morphemes Research Articles

The intonation of yes/no and focus constructions in Navajo

This study is a preliminary investigation of tone and intonation in yes/no and focus questions in Navajo (Southern Athabaskan). Navajo is a tone language. The Navajo verb stands as complete proposition, with complex morphological and morpho-syntactic structure. The word final stem is a content morpheme preceded by functional morphemes filling out its propositional content. This stem is marked by acoustic properties commonly associated with stress: longer, louder segments and pitch range expansion, resulting in a striking end-prominent profile [McDonough, Anthro. Ling. 41, 503–539 (1999)]. Preliminary studies indicated no apparent boundary tones. Research has shown that tone languages may use intonational and/or stress-related strategies (boundary tones, pitch-range expansion) to mark focus and yes/no questions. To investigate the acoustic properties of these constructions in Navajo, 12 native speakers were recorded reciting short statements followed by either yes/no questions (three types) or focus constructions. Both type constructions in Navajo are marked by pro and enclitic-like particles on/surrounding the (nonutterance final) NPs. Results indicate no differences in the F0 contour between statements and the contrasting constructions. This fact is arguably related to the NPs nonargument status in the grammar, possibly indicating a consequential interaction of morphology, morpho-syntax, and intonation in these type languages. [Work supported by NSF.]

Syntactic Development. By William D. O'Grady, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997, pp. 409, ISBN 0‐226‐62077‐8 (paperback).

Infant and Child DevelopmentVolume 9, Issue 3 p. 170-173 Book ReviewFree Access Syntactic Development. By William D. O'Grady, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997, pp. 409, ISBN 0-226-62077-8 (paperback). Rick Ruhland, Rick Ruhland Grote Kruisstraat 2/I, 9712 TS Groningen, NetherlandsSearch for more papers by this author Rick Ruhland, Rick Ruhland Grote Kruisstraat 2/I, 9712 TS Groningen, NetherlandsSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 September 2000 https://doi.org/10.1002/1522-7219(200009)9:3<170::AID-ICD208>3.0.CO;2-EAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat References Elman JL. 1993. Learning and the development in neural networks: the importance of starting small. Cognition 48: 71– 99. Gerken LA, Landau B, Remez RE. 1990. Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production. Developmental Psychology 26: 204– 216. Gerken LA, McIntosh BJ. 1993. Interplay of function morphemes and prosody in early language. Developmental Psychology 29: 448– 457. Ingram D. 1989. First Language Acquisition: Method, Description and Explanation. University Press: Cambridge. Ruhland R. 1998. Going the distance: a non-linear approach to change in language development. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Groningen, Netherlands. Volume9, Issue3September 2000Pages 170-173 ReferencesRelatedInformation

The proceedings of the twenty-eighth annual child language research forum Ed. by Eve V. Clark (review)

210 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) 'Phonology above the word', introduces prosodie phonology. This book gives a very good presentation and overview ofthe actual mainstream phonological theories. It poses many problems phonology has had to deal with in the last 30 years and presents the solutions that have best addressed them. The discussions are clear, complete, and not too technical. As said above, this book gives the newcomer in phonology a very good introduction to mainstream generative phonology. It would have been interesting to find, in the preface or the epilogue, a short paragraph saying that, though the theories presented in the book are accepted and used by a majority of researchers in phonology, other theories, some outside generative linguistics, are developed and may be worth looking into. [Alain Thériault, Université de Montréal.] The proceedings of the twenty-eighth annual child language research forum. Ed. by Eve V. Clark. Stanford, CA: CSLI, 1997. Pp. x, 308. This volume contains 25 papers delivered at Stanford University, 12-14. April 1996. The papers, which are presented alphabetically by contributors' names, may be grouped by area of investigation. Semantics: Thomas Lee discusses the acquisition of cumulative and distributive readings ofquantifiers in Chinese, and Xlangdong Jia, Patricia Brooks, and Martin Braine focus on children's use of universal quantifiers in this language. Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdóttir and Sven Stromqvist investigate the acquisition of grammatical devices expressing spatial relations in Scandinavian languages. Lourdes de León studies the development of the notion of vertical path in Tzotzil (Mayan). Gedeon DeAk and Michael Maratsos evaluate the methodology for assessing semantic representations through children 's referential acts. Annick DeHouwer looks at the development of past verb forms in a Dutch-English bilingual child; Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdóttir, Hanne Gram Simonsen, and Kim Plunkett compare the acquisition of these forms in Icelandic and Norwegian. Nitya Sethuraman, Adele Goldberg, and Judith Goodman investigate whether the meanings of new verbs can be derived solely from the verbs' syntactic environment. Masami Nomura and Yasuhiro Shirai study the overextension of intransitive to transitive verbs in Japanese children. Processing: Letitta Naigles argues that children at seventeen months do not show substantial verb comprehension. Allyson Carter and LouAnn Gerken claim that young children use function morphemes as an aid in parsing speech. Phonology: Thierry Nazzi explores how rhythm influences early speech perception, and Richard F. S. Hung claims that rhythm differences in Mandarin and Taiwanese Chinese result in different acquisition strategies. Penelope Brown examines the roles of prosody and semantic salience in the acquisition of first verbs in Tzeltal Mayan. Heather Goad argues that children's first word-final consonants are syllabified as onsets of empty-headed syllables. Mark Hale and Charles Reiss propose that deviations from target forms in children's phonological production are due to performance factors instead of children 's grammar. Pragmatics: Shu-Hui Eileen Chen investigates how Mandarin-speaking children and adults use word order and competing stress to interpret given and new information. Syntax: Helen Goodluck, Arhonto Terzi, and Gema Chocono Díaz study the influence of lexical semantics and subordinate clause morphology on the acquisition of controlled PRO. Narrative: F. Hülya Özcan examines pronominalization strategies in the narratives of Turkishspeaking children; Norma Jean Gomme and Carolyn Johnson investigate this area in English-speaking children. David Wilkins explores the construction of complex motion events in Arrernte children's narratives. General Issues: Judy Kegl and John McWhorter present the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language as an example of current-day creolization. Werner Deutsch, Angela Wagner, Renate Burchardt, Karen Jahn, and Nina Schulz discuss the acquisition of possessives in children with siblings versus singletons. Susanne Döpke argues that structures characteristic of bilingual acquisition are due to increased processing complexity oftwo languages. ?e? Nakamura investigates Japanese boys' and girls' acquisition of gender-specific linguistic features. This book makes available generally high-quality work on diverse aspects of children's language development , representing various theoretical approaches to acquisition. [Ellen Thompson, University ofPuerto Rico.] The theory of functional grammar. Part 1 : The structure of the clause. 2nd edn. By Simon C. Dik. (Functional grammar series 20.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Pp. xx, 509. Part 2: Complex and derived constructions. 1st...

An electrophysiological study of infants' sensitivity to the sound patterns of English speech.

The study explores 10- to 11-month-old infants' sensitivity to the phonological characteristics of their native language. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained for tones that were superimposed on two versions of a story: an Unmodified version containing normal English function morphemes, and a Modified version in which the prosodic and segmental properties of a subset of function morphemes were changed to make them atypical. The 11-month-olds exhibited significantly lower amplitude ERPs to the tones during the Modified story than to the Unmodified story, whereas the 10-month-olds showed no differences. These results suggest that the 11-month-olds discriminated the two versions of the story based on their representations of the phonological properties of English. Further, the tone-probe ERP method can successfully be used to study the development of speech perception in the pre-linguistic infant.

Constructing interlanguage: building a composite matrix language

Treating interlanguage as language contact results in an explanatory account of second-language acquisition (SLA). The proposed model is informed by three sets of assumptions. First, lexical structure is composed of levels or substructures; the relevant levels are lexical-conceptual structure, predicate-argument structure, and morphological-realization patterns (Talmy 1985; Jackendoff 1990; Myers-Scotton and Jake 1995). Second, the distinction between content and system (i.e. functional) morphemes, developed in the matrix language frame model of intrasentential code switching (Myers-Scotton 1993), determines how lexical items can contribute to building the interlanguage grammatical system. Two types of system morphemes are recognized: conceptually activated system morphemes and structurally assigned system morphemes (Bock and Levelt 1994 ; Jake and Myers-Scotton 1996). Finally, the matrix-language and embedded-language distinction structures interlanguage. In SLA an INTENDED matrix language, the target language, and a DE FACTO matrix language, the developing linguistic competence, are recognized. The L1 acts as an embedded language. Interlanguage structures are projected by lexical substructures of the three linguistic systems in contact. Principles structuring language contact and the nature of the grammatical elements projecting lexical structure determine what types of grammatical structures each system can contribute and how they are combined into a developing composite matrix language

The Development of Speech Perception: The Transition from Speech Sounds to Spoken Words

Introduction: developing theories of speech perception - constraints from developmental data, Judith C. Goodman et al. Part 1 Innate sensory mechanisms and constraints on learning: observations on speech perception, its development, and the search for a mechanism, Joanne L. Miller and Peter D. Eimas the importance of childhood to language acquisition - evidence from American sign language, Rachel I. Mayberry. Part 2 Perceptual learning of phonological systems: cross-language speech perception - developmental change does not involve loss, Janet F. Werker perceptual learning of non-native speech contrasts - implications for theories of speech perception, David B. Pisoni et al the emergence of native-language phonological influences in infants - a perceptual assimilation model, Catherine T. Best. Part 3 Interactions of linguistic levels - influences on perceptual development: infant speech perception and the development of the mental lexicon, Peter W. Jusczyk sentential processes in early child language - evidence from the perception and production of function morphemes, LouAnn Gerken learning to hear speech as spoken language, Howard C. Nusbaum and Judith C. Goodman.

On Continuity and the Emergence of Functional Categories in Bilingual First-Language Acquisition

A variety of positions have been proposed to explain the ontological development of functional categories. These positions follow either a Maturation or Continuity perspective. We examined the acquisition of inflectional phrase and determiner phrase in children acquiring French and English simultaneously in order to evaluate the descriptive adequacy of the two perspectives. Crosslinguistic comparisons are essential to testing Maturation versus Continuity, and bilingual children are excellent participants in crosslinguistic research because the two languages reside within one individual. We collected naturalistic production data from two bilingual children ages 1;9 to 2;11 and 1;11 to 3;0 who were at Brown's Stage I (mean length of utterance < 2.00). Our analyses indicate that the use of function morphemes associated with Inflection Oat) appeared at different times in the children's languages, whereas the use of determiners appeared at the same time. The between-language discrepancy in the emergence of Infl-associated items demonstrates the influence of external factors, such as specific language input, on the acquisition of functional categories. Thus, we argue that our results are most consistent with a Continuity perspective.

The Influence of Lexical Familiarity on Children's Function Morpheme Omissions: A Nonmetrical Effect?

Previous research on children's production of function morphemes demonstrated an effect of meter, such that syllabic morphemes that fit a Strong–weak metrical template were omitted less frequently than morphemes not fitting such a template. The current research addressed the question of whether all omissions of syllabic function morphemes occur when a syllable does not fit a metrical template, or whether other factors, such as lexical familiarity, also play a role. Two experiments demonstrated that 2-year-olds are more likely to omit object articles from sentences containing novel nouns or verbs than sentences containing well-known words. Furthermore, familiarity appears to influence omissions independent of meter, suggesting that function morpheme omissions are caused by at least two mechanisms. One possible mechanism, control over utterance timing, is discussed.

A metrical template account of children's weak syllable omissions from multisyllabic words.

Young children learning English as well as many other languages frequently omit weakly stressed syllables from multisyllabic words. In particular, they are more likely to omit weak syllables from word-initial positions than from word-internal or -final positions. For example, the weak syllable of a weak-strong (WS) word like giraffe is much more likely to be omitted than the weak syllable of a SW word like tiger. Three hypotheses for this omission pattern have been offered. In two, children's weak syllable omissions reflect innate perceptual biases either to ignore initial weak syllables or to encode word-final syllables. In contrast, the SW Production Template Hypothesis states that children have a template for producing a strong syllable followed by an optional weak syllable. When they apply a series of SW templates to their intended utterances, weak syllables that do not fit the templates are more likely to be omitted than those that do. To compare the three hypotheses, young two-year-olds were asked to say four-syllable SWWS and WSWS nonsense words. Children's pattern of weak syllable preservations was highly consistent with the SW production template hypothesis, but not with the perception-based hypotheses. Implications of this research for children's function morpheme omissions and for the relation of metrical and segmental production templates are discussed.

Surface cues and robust inference as a basis for the early acquisition of subcategorization frames

How could children possibly acquire their first subcategorization frames? The hypothesis that they directly observe the syntactic structures of the utterances they hear raises two questions. First, how can children parse input utterances reliably without already knowing the syntactic properties of all the words in them? Second, how do children survive the ungrammatical or misconstrued utterances they inevitably encounter? This paper suggests a specific inference algorithm that substantially reduces the effects of ungrammatical or misconstrued input. Since children must have some such inference procedure, they can use approximate cues to determine syntactic structure. In particular, they can use string-local surface cues rather than global constraints. Such cues make it possible to discover relevant syntactic structure in an utterance without already knowing all the words in it. This paper suggests a possible set of cues for English subcategorization frames that assumes only the ability to detect the ends of utterances and knowledge of a few function morphemes and proper names. Simulation experiments on naturally occuring, child-directed English show that these cues, combined with the proposed inference mechanism, do surprisingly well at discovering subcategorization frames.

Interplay of function morphemes and prosody in early language.

Previous studies have demonstrated that children are aware of the function morphemes in their language despite their failure to produce them. However, none of these studies tested whether children are aware of the linguistic contexts in which particular function morphemes occur. Only if children are aware of such co-occurrence patterns could they use function morphemes to determine the linguistic categories of words and phrases. Young 2-year-olds demonstrated their awareness of function morpheme co-occurrence patterns by performing better in a picture identification task when the target word was preceded by a grammatical article than an ungrammatical auxiliary. Children who heard the sentences produced in a female voice performed better than those who heard a male voice, and this was especially true for sentences exhibiting the most regular co-occurrence patterns

Prominence of leading functors in function morpheme sequences as evidenced by letter detection.

Our previous work indicated that the increased difficulty in detecting letters in function in comparison with content morphemes derives from the role of functors in supporting phrase structure. Presumably, letters disappear in the transition from structure to content. Here the effect was most powerful for leading functors in a sequence of function morphemes (e.g., «that» in «that from the»). This pattern was found for Hebrew function prefixes that can be appended as a sequence to a content word (e.g., SMHGN, meaning «that from the garden»; Experiments 1 & 2) and also for sequences of Hebrew and English function words (Experiments 3 & 4)

Prominence of leading functors in function morpheme sequences as evidenced by letter detection.

Prominence of leading functors in function morpheme sequences as evidenced by letter detection.

Interplay of function morphemes and prosody in early language.

Interplay of function morphemes and prosody in early language.

The metrical basis for children's subjectless sentences

Young English speakers often omit sentential subjects but infrequently omit objects. In this paper I consider five accounts for these omissions that differ in the explanation of why children make omissions (grammar versus production constraints) and what causes the asymmetry in subject and object omissions. Hyams (1986, Language acquisition and the theory of parameters, Dordrecht, Reidel; 1987 , Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, October) proposes that children are born with an innate grammar that causes them to omit pronominal subjects. Valian (1989, Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 28, 156–163) notes that subject deletion is acceptable in casual adult English: Based on these data, children omit subjects when sentence complexity puts too great a burden on the production system. On a pragmatic account ( Bates, 1976, Language and context. New York: Academic Press; Greenfield & Smith, 1976, The structure of communication in early language development. New York: Academic Press), children have limited production abilities and omit the least communicatively informative elements: Because subjects typically contain given information, they are frequently omitted. P. Bloom (1989, Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 28, 57–63) argues that processing considerations cause children to expand sentences rightward, at the expense of leftward elements. Finally, I propose a metrical hypothesis in which children omit weakly stressed syllables, including pronouns and other function morphemes, particularly from iambic (weak-strong) feet. Data from an imitation task strongly support the metrical hypothesis over the others. The results are examined in light of a model of developing speech production.

Syntactic control of letter detection: Evidence from English and Hebrew nonwords.

According to the unitization account, letters are more often missed in function words (e.g., the) than in less common content words because their higher familiarity allows access to their whole-word representations. The present study, however, replicated this pattern with nonwords. For both Hebrew and English, nonwords produced more detection errors when placed in function slots than in content slots. A similar effect was found for Hebrew prefix nonwords, where the initial letter could be interpreted as a function morpheme or as part of the stem

Effects of Frequency and Vocabulary Type on Phonological Speech Errors

Abstract Phonological speech errors only rarely occur in common function words. This paper explores whether this effect is due to these words' status as function (closed-class) morphemes, or simply their high frequency of usage. Experiments that elicit phonological speech errors revealed strong requency effects (the segments of frequent words tend not to be misordered) and no effect of vocabulary type-the segments of function morphemes (e.g. by) were as likely to slip as those of homophonic content items (e.g. buy). A spreading-activation model of lexical retrieval in production was adapted to account for the effects of frequency on phonological errors.

Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production.

Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production.

Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production.

Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production.