Is Infants' Learning of Sound Patterns Constrained by Phonological Features?

@article{citeulike:2939103, abstract = {Phonological patterns in languages often involve groups of sounds rather than individual sounds, which may be explained if phonology operates on the abstract features shared by those groups (Troubetzkoy, 1939/1969; Chomsky \& Halle, 1968). Such abstract features may be present in the developing grammar either because they are part of a Universal Grammar included in the genetic endowment of humans (e.g., Hale, Kissock and Reiss, 2006), or plausibly because infants induce features from their linguistic experience (e.g., Mielke, 2004). A first experiment tested 7-month-old infants' learning of an artificial grammar pattern involving either a set of sounds defined by a phonological feature, or a set of sounds that cannot be described with a single feature—an “arbitrary” set. Infants were able to induce the constraint and generalize it to a novel sound only for the set that shared the phonological feature. A second study showed that infants' inability to learn the arbitrary grouping was not due to their inability to encode a constraint on some of the sounds involved.}, author = {Cristi\`{a}, Alejandrina and Seidl, Amanda }, citeulike-article-id = {2939103}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475440802143109}, journal = {Language Learning and Development}, keywords = {general-language-acquisition}, number = {3}, pages = {203--227}, posted-at = {2008-06-28 12:55:03}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Psychology Press}, title = {Is Infants' Learning of Sound Patterns Constrained by Phonological Features?}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475440802143109}, volume = {4}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2939103 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2939103 TI - Is Infants' Learning of Sound Patterns Constrained by Phonological Features? JF - Language Learning and Development VL - 4 IS - 3 SP - 203 EP - 227 PB - Psychology Press N2 - Phonological patterns in languages often involve groups of sounds rather than individual sounds, which may be explained if phonology operates on the abstract features shared by those groups (Troubetzkoy, 1939/1969; Chomsky & Halle, 1968). Such abstract features may be present in the developing grammar either because they are part of a Universal Grammar included in the genetic endowment of humans (e.g., Hale, Kissock and Reiss, 2006), or plausibly because infants induce features from their linguistic experience (e.g., Mielke, 2004). A first experiment tested 7-month-old infants' learning of an artificial grammar pattern involving either a set of sounds defined by a phonological feature, or a set of sounds that cannot be described with a single feature—an “arbitrary” set. Infants were able to induce the constraint and generalize it to a novel sound only for the set that shared the phonological feature. A second study showed that infants' inability to learn the arbitrary grouping was not due to their inability to encode a constraint on some of the sounds involved. KW - general-language-acquisition AU - Cristià, Alejandrina AU - Seidl, Amanda PY - 2008/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475440802143109 ER -