Child Language Acquisition - Phonology

Child Language Acquisition - Phonology (05/06/25)

Universal Capabilities of Children

  • Children are born human, international, and standard.
  • They possess a universal capability of hearing and producing any sound in any language.

Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) System

  • The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) provides representations of the sounds of spoken language.
  • Phonetic symbols are designed to represent how we make sounds.

Sound Production

  • Sounds are produced as air is pushed from the lungs, up through the trachea, through the vocal cords, and out.
  • Voice sounds: Produced with vibrating vocal cords.
  • Voiceless sounds: Produced without vibrating vocal cords.
  • The larynx (voice box) protects the trachea against food aspiration.
  • The larynx is involved in breathing and producing sound, and it houses the vocal cords to manipulate pitch and volume.
  • Babies have a high voice box, allowing them to breathe and swallow simultaneously.

Speech Sound Production

  • Speech sounds are produced using various parts of the mouth and throat, including:
    • Nasal cavity
    • Hard palate
    • Alveolar ridge
    • Lips
    • Teeth
    • Tongue
    • Soft palate
    • Uvula
    • Epiglottis
    • Vocal cords
    • Glottis (Larynx)

Theories of Language Acquisition (09/05/25)

Universal Grammar (Noam Chomsky)

  • Children are born with an innate knowledge about language structure.
  • This innate structure allows them to adopt any language.
  • Analogy: Designed to walk; similarly, language acquisition is inherent.
  • Children are not taught language; the ability to learn language is built into their brains.

Poverty of the Stimulus

  • The linguistic input received by young children is insufficient to explain their detailed knowledge of language.
  • Children must be born with an innate ability to learn language because linguistic experience alone isn't enough.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

  • Children possess a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) to organize and classify language, making connections and needing stimulus.
  • All children, regardless of native language, babble using the same sounds in the same way at the same times.
  • Even when corrected, babies and infants do not immediately use correct structures.
  • If exposed to language, all children will end up at the same point in language acquisition.

Usage-Based Theory (Michael Tomasello)

  • Children acquire language through social-cognitive skills.
  • Their general cognitive skills assist language development.
  • Intention reading: Deriving the right intention for any given discourse.
  • Pattern finding: Recognizing and comparing different components of language.
  • Imitation: Child copies paralinguistic features (e.g., pointing at something wanted).
  • Corrective feedback: Recasting what the child said using correct grammar instead of direct correction.
  • Child-directed speech: Higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, slow speech, short sentences.

Critical Period Hypothesis (Eric Lenneberg)

  • Environmental exposure is needed to stimulate an innate trait to use language.
  • If language is not learned before puberty, it could never be learned normally/functionally.
  • Language is formed in both brain hemispheres, and lateralization ends around 12-13 years.

Consonant Sounds

Describing Consonants

  • Voicing: Whether the vocal cords vibrate.
  • Place of articulation: Where the sound is produced.
  • Manner of articulation: How airflow is constricted.

Place of Articulation

  • Bilabial: Using both lips (e.g., p,b,m,wp, b, m, w).
  • Labio-dental: Lower lip and upper teeth (e.g., voiceless ff, voiced vv).
  • Dental: Tongue tip between teeth (e.g., voiceless - thin, voiced - there).
  • Alveolar: Tongue tip and blade close to the alveolar ridge (e.g., t,d,n,s,z,v,lt, d, n, s, z, v, l).
  • Alveolar-palatal: Tongue blade close to the back of alveolar ridge (e.g., sh,beige,chsh, beige, ch).
  • Palatal: Front of tongue and hard palate (e.g., (j)(yellow)(j) (yellow)).
  • Velar: Back of tongue and soft palate or velum (e.g., k,g,(sing)k, g, (sing)).
  • Glottal: Using the space between vocal folds (e.g., hh).

Manner of Articulation

  • Stop (plosive): Complete obstruction of the vocal tract, then released, allowing air to "explode" out (e.g., p,t,k,b,d,gp, t, k, b, d, g - voiced or voiceless).
  • Fricatives: Airflow through a narrow passage (e.g., f,v,θ,ð,s,z,ʃ,ʒ,hf, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h - voiced or voiceless).
  • Two ways air flows:
    • Through a narrow opening.
    • Forced across another area (e.g., teeth).
  • Affricate: Complete closure is made to the oral cavity, then slow release of air (e.g., tf,dʒtf, dʒ - chum, gin).
  • Nasal: Lowering of the velum allows airflow through the nasal cavity (e.g., m,n,rangm, n, rang).
  • Lateral/Approximant: Partial closure made by the blade of the tongue, so air can flow along the sides of the tongue (e.g., lemon).
  • Approximant: Speech organs come close together but not close enough that an audible turbulence is produced (semi vowel) (e.g., w,v,jw, v, j - yes, west, rest).

IPA Practice

  • Example 1: rr - (Alveolar, stop, voice), (Alveolar, Voice, approximate).
  • Example 2: VV - (Voiced, fricative, labiodental).

Vowels (08/05)

Monophthongs

  • One vowel sound (e.g., cat, sit).
  • Tongue Height: Tongue high (e.g. (i)(i)), tongue mid (e.g. bed), tongue low (e.g. hot).

Diphthongs

  • Two vowel sounds (e.g., face, boy).

Backness

  • How far front or back the tongue is.
  • Tongue forward (e.g. (i)(i)) tongue backward (e.g. (u)(u)).

Roundedness

  • Whether lips are rounded (e.g., (u)(u)).

Connected Speech Processes

Assimilation

  • Sounds change to be more like nearby sounds.
  • Nasal Consonant (n)(n): Changes in anticipation of the velar stop (k)(k).
  • Example 1: pancake → pangake
  • Example 2: handbag → hambag

Consonant Flapping/Tapping

  • Tongue makes quick tap on alveolar ridge.
  • Example: butter → budder, better → bedder

Vowel Reduction

  • Happens depending on stress.
  • Example: I dont want a stack of books. I just want a book

Ellision

  • The reduction or omission of sounds.
  • Example 1: going to → gonna
  • Example 2: interesting → intresting

Insertion

  • Adding a vowel sound.
  • Example 1: film → filum
  • Example 2: umbrella → umberella
  • Helps with difficult combinations of consonants.

Morphological Development

Some Rules

  • Noun Inflections:
    • −s-s (plural)
    • −s-s (possessive)
  • Verb Inflections:
    • −s-s (3rd person singular)
    • −en-en (past participles)
    • −ed-ed (past tense)
    • −ing-ing (Present participle)
  • Adjective/Adverb Inflections:
    • −er-er (comparative)
    • −est-est (superlative)
  • Past Tense: Appears around 26-48 months.
  • Words are seen as separate lexical items.
  • Plurals appear around 27-33 months.