Use of phonetic specificity during the acquisition of new words: differences between consonants and vowels. Nazzi, T. Cognition, 98(1):13–30, 2005.
abstract   bibtex   
The present study explores the issue of the use of phonetic specificity in the process of learning new words at 20 months of age. The procedure used follows Nazzi and Gopnik [Nazzi, T., & Gopnik, A. (2001). Linguistic and cognitive abilities in infancy: When does language become a tool for categorization? Cognition, 80, B11-B20]. Infants were first presented with triads of perceptually dissimilar objects, which were given made-up names, two of the objects receiving the same name. Then, word learning was evaluated through object selection/categorization. Tests involved phonetically different words (e.g. [pize] vs. [mora], Experiment 1), words differing minimally on their onset consonant (e.g. [pize] vs. [tize], Experiment 2a), and conditions which had never been tested before: non-initial consonantal contrasts (e.g. [pide] vs. [pige], Experiment 2b), and vocalic contrasts (e.g. [pize] vs. [pyze]; [pize] vs. [paze]; [pize] vs. [pizu], Experiments 3a-c). Results differed across conditions: words could be easily learnt in the phonetically different condition, and were learnt, though to a lesser degree, in both the initial and non-initial minimal consonant contrast; however, infants' global performance on all three vocalic contrasts was at chance level. The present results shed new light regarding the specificity of early words, and raise the possibility of different contributions for vowels and consonants in early word learning.
@Article{Nazzi2005,
  author   = {Nazzi, Thierry},
  journal  = {Cognition},
  title    = {Use of phonetic specificity during the acquisition of new words: differences between consonants and vowels},
  year     = {2005},
  number   = {1},
  pages    = {13--30},
  volume   = {98},
  abstract = {The present study explores the issue of the use of phonetic specificity
	in the process of learning new words at 20 months of age. The procedure
	used follows Nazzi and Gopnik [Nazzi, T., & Gopnik, A. (2001). Linguistic
	and cognitive abilities in infancy: When does language become a tool
	for categorization? Cognition, 80, B11-B20]. Infants were first presented
	with triads of perceptually dissimilar objects, which were given
	made-up names, two of the objects receiving the same name. Then,
	word learning was evaluated through object selection/categorization.
	Tests involved phonetically different words (e.g. [pize] vs. [mora],
	Experiment 1), words differing minimally on their onset consonant
	(e.g. [pize] vs. [tize], Experiment 2a), and conditions which had
	never been tested before: non-initial consonantal contrasts (e.g.
	[pide] vs. [pige], Experiment 2b), and vocalic contrasts (e.g. [pize]
	vs. [pyze]; [pize] vs. [paze]; [pize] vs. [pizu], Experiments 3a-c).
	Results differed across conditions: words could be easily learnt
	in the phonetically different condition, and were learnt, though
	to a lesser degree, in both the initial and non-initial minimal consonant
	contrast; however, infants' global performance on all three vocalic
	contrasts was at chance level. The present results shed new light
	regarding the specificity of early words, and raise the possibility
	of different contributions for vowels and consonants in early word
	learning.},
  keywords = {Language acquisition, Word learning, Object categorization, Phonetic specificity, Consonants/vowels},
}

Downloads: 0