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The Transition from One-word to Multi-word Utterances. A Case-study of an Italian Child

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Cilibrasi L.

Studie z aplikované lingvistiky - Studies in Applied Linguistics

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2021

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vol. 12

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issue 2

26-42

EN

Previous work has suggested that infants start producing multi-word utterances while they still produce single-word utterances, and they make generalizations about the order of constituents from early stages. This article describes the transition from one-word to multi-word utterances in an Italian child recorded every two weeks for 45 minutes from the age of 1;05 to the age of 2;05, and it examines specifically whether the child’s productions respect a head–complement generalization (in Italian, the generalization that heads precede complements). The analysis was conducted on files available in the Childes database. The study shows that one-word utterances are indeed not abandoned when the child learns to combine words, and the first two-word productions reflect adult utterances, whether or not these comply with the general ordering of heads and complements. These results are compatible with approaches that see first multi-word utterances as being syntactic, but they also show that the level of generalization is not fully compatible with predictions from experimental work on head-directionality (which predicts a wider generalization than the one observed in this child).

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Second-language acquisition of the English past-tense: from rules to analogy

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Jiránková L., Cilibrasi L.

Linguistica Pragensia

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2021

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vol. 31

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issue 2

188-213

EN

The present study investigates the production of novel morphologically inflected forms in secondlanguage learners of English with Czech as L1. The study attempts to investigate which production model (single- or dual-route) best accounts for L2 learners’ morphological productivity when forming regular past forms of novel words. Additionally, it explores the possible interference effects of L1. 88 English L2 learners and 9 native speakers heard sentences in which a new activity was described with a novel word (The baby likes to dize. Look, there it is dizing. Everyday it dizes.) and past-tense forms were elicited (So yesterday it…). The results revealed that for native speakers the likelihood of a verb being produced in a regular past-tense form was inversely related to its phonological similarity to existing irregular verbs (replicating previous studies). L2 speakers showed a development in this direction: While for the A1 to B1 participants similarity to existing irregulars did not matter, B2 and C1 participants appeared to be sensitive to these similarities and behaved comparably to native speakers. In addition to the form analysis, the reaction-times results showed that the lowest language levels used their L1 as a performance facilitator (with slower performance with novel words that do not respect the phonology of the participants’ L1), while proficient learners and native speakers were not sensitive to this property of the novel words. The results suggest that the L2 acquisition of the English past-tense is characterized by a development from the mastery of mechanistic rules to the refinement of their application based on analogical patterns extracted from existing verbs, with Czech promoting the production at the earliest proficiency stages.

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The interplay of stress saliency and word beginning saliency: an experimental study

63%

Cilibrasi L., Stojanovik V.

Linguistica Pragensia

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2020

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vol. 30

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issue 2

113-126

EN

There is a robust amount of evidence (mostly from English) suggesting that, while listening to speech, the initial part of words is scrutinised with more attention. Similarly, data suggests that stressed syllables are processed with more precision than unstressed syllables. How do these two kinds of saliencies interact? In this experimental study, the issue was investigated in a group of Italian speakers. Participants were presented with minimal pairs of nonwords differing in one individual phoneme (and specifically one trait, voicing). Nonwords were created as to contain phonological clusters in either an initial or medial position, and, similarly, stress was placed in either initial or medial position. Results show that when the clusters were in word medial position, there was a large effect of stress, with stressed syllables being recognised with greater accuracy. When the clusters were in initial position, instead, accuracy was at an intermediate level and we did not observe any effect of stress. The result is discussed in relation to previous literature addressing these phenomena in English.

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2 Linguistica Pragensia

1 Studie z aplikované lingvistiky - Studies in Applied Linguistics

3 Cilibrasi L.

1 Jiránková L.

1 Stojanovik V.

2 2021

1 2020

The Transition from One-word to Multi-word Utterances. A Case-study of an Italian Child

Second-language acquisition of the English past-tense: from rules to analogy

The interplay of stress saliency and word beginning saliency: an experimental study