Rhythm and semantics in the selection of linking elements

Neijt, A.H.; Krebbers, Lose; Fikkert, Paula

doi:10.1075/avt.19.14nei

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…The main finding of our study was that both children's and adults' interpretations of novel compounds was related to high-frequency relations in the compound families. This finding is consistent with other studies showing item-based effects in compounding for children (Krott & Nicoladis, 2005 ;Neijt, Krebbers & Fikkert, 2002 ;Nicoladis & Krott, 2007) and adults (Krott et al, 2001). Taken together, these studies support the following account of compound acquisition.…”

Section: G E N E R a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

2008

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This study explores different frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel noun-noun compounds (e.g. egg bag as 'bag FOR eggs'). We investigated whether four- to five-year-olds and adults use their knowledge of related compounds and their modifier-head relations (e.g. sandwich bag (FOR) or egg white (PART-OF)) when explaining the meaning of novel compounds and/or whether they are affected by overall frequency of modifier-head relations in their vocabulary. Children's interpretations were affected by their experience with relations in compounds with the same head, but not by overall relation frequency. Adults' interpretations were affected by their experience with relations in compounds with the same modifier, suggesting that children and adults use similar but different knowledge to interpret compounds. Furthermore, only children's interpretations revealed an overuse of visually perceivable relations.

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Section: G E N E R a L Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

2008

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“…Additional evidence for a relation between the linking en and the plural - en in Dutch is reported by Neijt et al (2002) who undertook a picture naming task with Dutch children. When the participants were presented a picture of a balloon with bananas on it, they responded more often with a linking en , pronounced as [ᵊ] or [ᵊn] (e.g., banaan + en + ballon , ‘banana+en+balloon, banana balloon’) and the first part of the compound thus corresponding to the Dutch plural for banana ( banaan + en , ‘bananas’) than when they were presented a picture of a balloon shaped as a banana.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Empirical support for the claim that Dutch linking en can be interpreted as a plural form has been frequently found (Hanssen, Banga, Schreuder, & Neijt, in press; Neijt, Krebbers, & Fikkert, 2002; Neijt, Schreuder, & Baayen, 2004; Schreuder et al, 1998). For instance, Schreuder et al (1998) investigated the function of Dutch linking en in written nominal compounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Similarity of Plural Endings and Linking Elements in Regional Speech Variants of Dutch

et al. 2011

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The plural suffix -en (noot+en, 'nuts') is pronounced differently by speakers coming from different regions of the Netherlands. In this study, we compared the pronunciation of the plural suffix -en in phrases (noot+en kraken, 'to crack nuts') with linking en in compounds (noot+en+kroker, 'nutcracker'), because some claim that both are similar (Schreuder, Neijt, van der Weide, & Baayen, 1998), whereas others claim that they are not (Verkuyl, 2007). The pronunciations of 109 participants coming from five regions of the Netherlands were therefore compared in a picture naming task. A systematic relation between the pronunciations of plural -en and linking en was detected: Speakers from the Northern and Eastern regions produced [(upside-down e)n] most often for both the linking elements and plural endings, while speakers from the Middle and Western regions produced [upside-down e] most often for both. For speakers from the Southern region, we found no preference to pronounce either [upside-down e] or [upside-down e n] in compounds or phrases. It is concluded that Dutch speakers often do not distinguish plural -en from linking en in their speech production. Possibly, speakers of Dutch consider linking en and plural -en as the same morpheme.

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“…There is evidence that constituent families are not only important for adults but already for preschool children. Neijt, Krebbers & Fikkert (2002) showed in post hoc analyses of a compound production experiment that Dutch-speaking four-year-olds are partly guided by constituent families when they create novel compounds. Dutch compounds often contain interfixes (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

Large constituent families help children parse compounds

Krott

Nicoladis

2005

J. Child Lang.

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A B S T R A C TThe family size of the constituents of compound words, or the number of compounds sharing the constituents, has been shown to affect adults' access to compound words in the mental lexicon. The present study was designed to see if family size would affect children's segmentation of compounds. Twenty-five English-speaking children between 3;7 and 5; 9 were asked to explain the meaning of existing compounds with constituents of varying family size to an alien puppet. The results showed that children were more likely to mention the modifier of compounds if they came from large constituent families than if they came from small constituent families. Other variables were also shown to have some, but smaller effects on children's parsing, including the frequency of the constituent words and the compounds, whether the compounds were already known, and age. These results suggest that children's segmentation of compounds might be facilitated by analogy with other compounds already in their vocabularies.

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Rhythm and semantics in the selection of linking elements

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

How the parts relate to the whole: Frequency effects on children's interpretations of novel compounds

The Similarity of Plural Endings and Linking Elements in Regional Speech Variants of Dutch

Large constituent families help children parse compounds

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