@article {61, title = {Searching for a new method to study the use of lexicosyntactic and intonational cues in turn projection by Dutch and English children}, year = {2013}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands}, abstract = {

Children learn language in the context of conversations. Successful coordination and comprehension of conversations relies heavily on the ability to anticipate upcoming speaker changes (turn-transitions). Two linguistic cues that are used to anticipate such turn-transitions are lexicosyntactic and intonational information. This study will address if we can disentangle these two cues in natural dialogues and if so, how Dutch and English toddlers weight these cues in their anticipation of upcoming turn-transitions. Because children receive rich intonational input and are very sensitive to intonation from an early age (Fernald \& Thomas, 1984; Moon \& Cooper-Panneton, 1993), children may rely more on intonational than on lexicosyntactic cues. This would contrast adult behaviour, as adults seem to rely more on lexicosyntactic cues (de Ruiter et al., 2006). In this talk I will demonstrate the materials that will be used for this study. The current study is the first developmental study that will address the potential different roles of lexicosyntactic and intonational cues in natural dialogues. Previous developmental turn- taking experiments always used materials with flattened intonational contour to get rid of the intonational content or band-pass filtered speech to get rid of lexicosyntactic content. In contrast, our materials consist of dialogues between puppets in which natural speech is used. To control for the linguistic cues, each dialogue includes four different target conditions. These target conditions are manipulated for lexicosyntactic completion (incomplete declarative vs. complete interrogative) and intonational completion (incomplete intonational contour vs. interrogative contour). Possible advantages and disadvantages of this new approach will be discussed. Also, first pilot results of Dutch adults will be presented.\ 

}, author = {Imme Lammertink and Titia Benders and Marisa Casillas and Brechtje Post and Paula Fikkert} } @article {329, title = {Early lexical representations: evidence from perception and production.}, year = {2004}, publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen}, address = {Nijmegen, The Netherlands}, abstract = {

Central in our investigation are the shape of early lexical representations. What do early words look like? Are they stored with detailed phonetic information, or are they more abstract and perhaps holistic at first? Although most researchers favor the idea that words are stored with phonetic detail (Werker \& Fennell 2004, Swingley 2004), the evidence so far is inconclusive.

Our research on early speech production has led us to believe that representations are not phonetically detailed at first. Rather, they start out being holistic, and become segmentalized in the course of development. Once words are segmentalized, children may generalize over the phonological characteristics of their lexical forms, which is the beginning of an abstract phonological system consisting of wellformedness or markedness constraints. Moreover, there are certain significant asymmetries with respect to place of articulation: coronal is behaving differently from other places of articulation, and hence assumed to be underspecified.

These claims have repercussions for early word perception. If words are stored as highly abstract units, then the prediction is that for word recognition detailed phonetic information is not used either. If certain features are underspecified, asymmetry in behavior is expected to show up in perception as well. To test these claims, we replicated and expanded previous research by Werker and colleagues (1997, 2001, 2004, to appear). In addition, we collected and analyzed production data and CDI scores for both production and perception. The results of our (still ongoing) investigations are highly interesting.

In a first experiment using the switch paradigm, we tested whether children prefer to listen to the switch condition when tested with newly learned words (bin or din). Like the English infants, Dutch 14 month old infants do not listen significantly longer to the new words than to the {\textquoteleft}old{\textquoteright} words, indicating that the difference between bin and din is not picked up. In a second experiment we used the switch procedure to test the difference between bon and don. In this case, infants listened significantly longer to the new forms than to the {\textquoteleft}old{\textquoteright} ones, suggesting that the bon-don contrast is perceived. It is, however, not as simple as that. In both experiments, children listened significantly longer to the new words if they are able to produce an initial labial-coronal contrast, which suggests that the child{\textquoteright}s productive lexicon indeed plays a role.

}, author = {Paula Fikkert} }