Non-adjacent consonant sequence patterns in English target words during the first-word period

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate non-adjacent consonant sequence patterns in target words during the first-word period in infants learning American English. In the spontaneous speech of eighteen participants, target words with a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (C1VC2) shape were analyzed. Target words were grouped into nine types, categorized by place of articulation (labial, coronal, dorsal) of initial and final consonants (e.g. mom, labial-labial; mat, labial-coronal; dog, coronal-dorsal). The results indicated that some consonant sequences occurred much more frequently than others in early target words. The two most frequent types were coronal-coronal (e.g. dad) and labial-coronal (e.g. mat). The least frequent type was dorsal-dorsal (e.g. cake). These patterns are consistent with phonotactic characteristics of English and infants' production capacities reported in previous studies. This study demonstrates that infants' expressive vocabularies reflect both ambient language characteristics and their own production capacities, at least for consonant sequences in C1VC2 word forms.

On the emergence of the in–out effect across trials: two items do the trick

“…This pattern resembles the unfolding of any fluency effect over the course of an experiment, where no absolute standards to compare the stimulus with are available, but participants develop an internal standard given the relative differences of the stimuli they are being presented with (cf., Dechêne et al, 2009 ; Garcia-Marques et al, 2019 ; Hansen et al, 2008 ; Unkelbach et al, 2012 ; Wänke & Hansen, 2015 ). Most importantly, this pattern would be predicted by both the fluency/frequency (e.g., Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ; Godinho & Garrido, 2021 ; Ingendahl et al, 2021 , 2022a , 2022b , 2022c , 2022d ; Körner et al, 2019 ) and the letter-position (Ingendahl & Vogel, 2022b ; Maschmann et al, 2020 ) accounts of the in–out effect.…”

“…A more specialized version of a fluency account focusing directly on motor constraints is easy first in language acquisition Topolinski et al, 2022), stating that from ontogenetically early speech production on, front consonants are produced more often and are thus motorically easier to pronounce than back consonants, and individuals prefer processing easy before harder motor components. Since this well-established labial-coronal effect emerges very early in language acquisition and seems to be linguistically universal (for a recent review, see Aoyama & Davis, 2016), it should maintain a very strong internal standard during word processing.…”

“…The processing fluency and language frequency account (Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ; Godinho & Garrido, 2021 ; Ingendahl et al, 2021 , 2022a , 2022b , 2022c , 2022d ; Körner et al, 2019 ) states that inward relative to outward words are easier to articulate (cf., Silva et al, 2017 ; Song & Schwarz, 2009 ; Topolinski & Strack, 2010 ), because their consonantal sequence structure imitates real words in natural language more closely. Indeed, in corpus analyses it was found that inward consonant sequences are slightly more frequent than outward sequences in real language (Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ). However, since real words rarely feature pure inward or outward sequences of consonants, but rather language shows a slight bias toward inward sequences across many words at best (Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ), this internal language-based standard should be rather weak and subtle.…”

“…Indeed, in corpus analyses it was found that inward consonant sequences are slightly more frequent than outward sequences in real language (Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ). However, since real words rarely feature pure inward or outward sequences of consonants, but rather language shows a slight bias toward inward sequences across many words at best (Bakhtiari et al, 2016 ), this internal language-based standard should be rather weak and subtle. Thus, a fluency/frequency account would predict the absence of an in–out effect in one-trial between-subjects designs.…”

Phonological Motivation for the Acquisition of Onomatopoeia: An Analysis of Early Words

“…This selective approach to early lexical acquisition is noted in a number of studies. Drawing on observations from Stoel-Gammon (2011), Aoyama andDavis (2017, p.1085) conclude that "lexical development [is] influenced by productive phonology at early stages of…language development". This is supported by numerous findings in the literature.…”