TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of Lexical familiarity on children's function morpheme omissions
T2 - A nonmetrical effect?
AU - Boyle, Mary K.
AU - Gerken, Lou Ann
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by NSF Grant SBR9411185. Thanks to Kerry Green, Lise Menn, Mary Peterson, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and discussion. Thanks also to Ann Case, Heather Parmalee, Sharon Levinsky, and Aileen Worden for data collection and to the parents and children who participated in the research. Address correspondence and reprint requests to LouAnn Gerken, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail: [email protected].
PY - 1997/1
Y1 - 1997/1
N2 - Previous research on children's production of function morphemes demonstrated an effect of meter, such that syllabic morphemes that fit a Strong-weak metrical template were omitted less frequently than morphemes not fitting such a template. The current research addressed the question of whether all omissions of syllabic function morphemes occur when a syllable does not fit a metrical template, or whether other factors, such as lexical familiarity, also play a role. Two experiments demonstrated that 2-year-olds are more likely to omit object articles from sentences containing novel nouns or verbs than sentences containing well-known words. Furthermore, familiarity appears to influence omissions independent of meter, suggesting that function morpheme omissions are caused by at least two mechanisms. One possible mechanism, control over utterance timing, is discussed.
AB - Previous research on children's production of function morphemes demonstrated an effect of meter, such that syllabic morphemes that fit a Strong-weak metrical template were omitted less frequently than morphemes not fitting such a template. The current research addressed the question of whether all omissions of syllabic function morphemes occur when a syllable does not fit a metrical template, or whether other factors, such as lexical familiarity, also play a role. Two experiments demonstrated that 2-year-olds are more likely to omit object articles from sentences containing novel nouns or verbs than sentences containing well-known words. Furthermore, familiarity appears to influence omissions independent of meter, suggesting that function morpheme omissions are caused by at least two mechanisms. One possible mechanism, control over utterance timing, is discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0030639873&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0030639873&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1006/jmla.1996.2478
DO - 10.1006/jmla.1996.2478
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0030639873
SN - 0749-596X
VL - 36
SP - 117
EP - 128
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
IS - 1
ER -