Disentangling Attention for Frequency and Phonological Markedness in 9- and 12-Month-Old Infants

Sita Minke ter Haar*, Clara Cecilia Levelt

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Infants are thought to be sensitive to frequency in the input as a cue for phonological development. However, linguistic biases such as phonological markedness have been argued to play a role too. Since frequency and markedness are correlated, the two assertions could be different interpretations of data that confound frequency and markedness. In this study we disentangle the two, by testing infants’ preferences for syllables contrasting in frequency, balanced for markedness, and for syllables contrasting in markedness, balanced for frequency. We expected a developmental change from frequency-independent to frequency-dependent sensitivity. In addition, we expected an early preference for unmarked structure and a later preference for marked structures, as previously found in child language productions. We find that 9-month-olds prefer phonologically unmarked homorganic patterns, independent of frequency, whereas 12-month-olds prefer marked heterorganic patterns. In contrast to what we expected, only a weak effect for frequency is found and no developmental change.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)279-296
Number of pages18
JournalLanguage Learning and Development
Volume14
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Oct 2018

Funding

This work was supported by the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition.

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