ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate sub-lexical segmentation in Spanish-speaking children based on the perception of regular syllables (pseudomorphemes), as well as their association with a visual referent. Both of these skills are the precursors to learning morphology for language acquisition. Twenty-three 12-month-old children participated; they were evaluated with three experimental tasks which tested their skill at segmenting pseudomorphemes from a set of pseudowords when they did and did not appear in the final position, as well as the association between them and a visual referent. The results showed that the children were able to segment the pseudomorphemes at the end of the pseudowords and tended to associate them with a visual referent. We also found that when the morpheme did not necessarily appear in the final position, the children who preferred that position looked at the referent for a longer time. These results reveal the skills that the children are developing on their way to learning morphology.

摘要

本研究的目的是基于对常规音节（假语素）的感知，以及它们与视觉指示物的关联，研究西班牙语儿童的亚词汇分割。这两种技能都是学习语言习得的形态学的先驱。23 名 12 个月大的儿童参加；他们用三个实验任务进行了评估，这些任务测试了他们从一组假词中分割假词素的技能，当它们出现和没有出现在最终位置时，以及它们与视觉指示物之间的关联。结果表明，孩子们能够在伪词末尾分割伪词素，并倾向于将它们与视觉指示物联系起来。我们还发现，当语素不一定出现在最终位置时，更喜欢那个位置的孩子看着所指对象的时间更长。这些结果揭示了孩子们在学习形态学的过程中正在发展的技能。