Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony
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Annette Hohenberger
Abstract
In a longitudinal study we found that 6- and 10-month-old monolingual Turkish infants are already sensitive to backness vowel harmony in stem-suffix sequences. Using a head-turn paradigm, listening times between 2 vowel-harmonic and 2 vowel-disharmonic lists of words for backness and rounding harmony were compared. While only main effects of age and trial were found for rounding harmony, in backness harmony a significant interaction between harmony and age was found: 6-month-olds preferred listening to harmonic words whereas 10-month-olds preferred listening to disharmonic words. This finding is reminiscent of the “familiarity-to-novelty-shift” in cognitive development, indicating that younger infants first extract the regular, harmonic pattern in their ambient language, whereas older infants’ attention is drawn to irregular, disharmonic tokens, due to violation-of-expectation.
Abstract
In a longitudinal study we found that 6- and 10-month-old monolingual Turkish infants are already sensitive to backness vowel harmony in stem-suffix sequences. Using a head-turn paradigm, listening times between 2 vowel-harmonic and 2 vowel-disharmonic lists of words for backness and rounding harmony were compared. While only main effects of age and trial were found for rounding harmony, in backness harmony a significant interaction between harmony and age was found: 6-month-olds preferred listening to harmonic words whereas 10-month-olds preferred listening to disharmonic words. This finding is reminiscent of the “familiarity-to-novelty-shift” in cognitive development, indicating that younger infants first extract the regular, harmonic pattern in their ambient language, whereas older infants’ attention is drawn to irregular, disharmonic tokens, due to violation-of-expectation.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Acquisition/processing of morphology, syntax and semantics
- Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony 29
- Turkish children’s early vocabulary 57
- Acquisition of canonical and non-canonical word orders in L1 Turkish 79
- What does online parsing in Turkish-speaking children reveal about grammar? 99
- Acquisition of scope relations by Turkish-English bilingual children 119
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Part II. Discourse
- Children’s referential choices in Turkish 153
- Learning to think, talk, and gesture about motion in language-specific ways 177
- Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages 193
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Part III. Literacy development
- Integrating cognitive and sociocultural aspects of reading in Turkish 223
- Phonological awareness in reading acquisition 243
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Part IV. Typical vs. Atypical development in monolingual and bilingual Turkish-speaking children
- Vocabulary and grammar acquisition in Turkish as assessed by the Turkish communicative development inventory 275
- Language impairment in Turkish-speaking children 295
- Language development in Turkish-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders 325
- Verbal functional categories in the speech of a Turkish speaking child with autism 341
- L2 children do not fluctuate 361
- Second language exposure in the preschool 389
- Index 413
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Acquisition/processing of morphology, syntax and semantics
- Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony 29
- Turkish children’s early vocabulary 57
- Acquisition of canonical and non-canonical word orders in L1 Turkish 79
- What does online parsing in Turkish-speaking children reveal about grammar? 99
- Acquisition of scope relations by Turkish-English bilingual children 119
-
Part II. Discourse
- Children’s referential choices in Turkish 153
- Learning to think, talk, and gesture about motion in language-specific ways 177
- Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages 193
-
Part III. Literacy development
- Integrating cognitive and sociocultural aspects of reading in Turkish 223
- Phonological awareness in reading acquisition 243
-
Part IV. Typical vs. Atypical development in monolingual and bilingual Turkish-speaking children
- Vocabulary and grammar acquisition in Turkish as assessed by the Turkish communicative development inventory 275
- Language impairment in Turkish-speaking children 295
- Language development in Turkish-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders 325
- Verbal functional categories in the speech of a Turkish speaking child with autism 341
- L2 children do not fluctuate 361
- Second language exposure in the preschool 389
- Index 413
