6–month–olds are sensitive to English morphology
6–month–olds are sensitive to English morphology
复制标题
6个月大的孩子对英语形态很敏感
DOI：
10.1111/desc.13089
复制
发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Sundara, Megha
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kim, Yun Jung;Sundara, Megha
每种语言都有其独特的标记语法信息的方式，如性别、数字和时态。例如，带有形态后缀的英语标记数字和时态/方面信息(例如，-SOR-ED)。这些形态后缀对语言习得至关重要，因为它们是句法、编码关系和传达意义的基本构件。以前的研究表明，学习英语的婴儿在一岁结束时就能识别出与随机词相连的词形后缀，尽管即使是8个月大的婴儿，当它们与已知的单词相连时也能识别出它们。这些结果支持一种习得轨迹，即意义的发现指导婴儿习得形态后缀。在这篇文章中，我们重新评估了英语学习的婴儿在一岁时对形态后缀的知识。我们发现6个月大的婴儿成功地切分了后缀为-S、-ing、-ed和伪语素-sh的随机数词。此外，它们还与偶数词有关，后缀为-S，而不是-ing，-ed或伪语素-Shand词干。到了8个月大的时候，婴儿也能把带有-和词干后缀的临时单词联系起来。我们的结果表明，婴儿在习得的最早阶段就表现出了形态相关的知识。即使在没有获得意义的情况下，他们也会这样做。基于这些结果，我们提出了词法习得至少与语音和意义习得同时进行的发展时间表。
Each language has its unique way to mark grammatical information such as gender, number and tense. For example, English marks number and tense/aspect information with morphological suffixes (e.g., ‐sor ‐ed). These morphological suffixes are crucial for language acquisition as they are the basic building blocks of syntax, encode relationships, and convey meaning. Previous research shows that English‐learning infants recognize morphological suffixes attached to nonce words by the end of the first year, although even 8‐month‐olds recognize them when they are attached to known words. These results support an acquisition trajectory where discovery of meaning guides infants' acquisition of morphological suffixes. In this paper, we re‐evaluated English–learning infants' knowledge of morphological suffixes in the first year of life. We found that 6–month–olds successfully segmented nonce words suffixed with–s,–ing,–edand a pseudo‐morpheme ‐sh. Additionally, they related nonce words suffixed with–s, but not ‐ing, ‐edor a pseudo‐morpheme–shand stems. By 8–months, infants were also able to relate nonce words suffixed with–ingand stems. Our results show that infants demonstrate knowledge of morphological relatedness from the earliest stages of acquisition. They do so even in the absence of access to meaning. Based on these results, we argue for a developmental timeline where the acquisition of morphology is, at least, concurrent with the acquisition of phonology and meaning.