LINGUIST List 3.726

Sat 26 Sep 1992

Qs: Acquisition; French Dictionary

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1. John Varden, phoneme inventory acquisition
2. "Marc TORZYNSKI", Request for french dictionary file

 I'm wondering if any other parents/caregivers/siblings/etc. out there have
witnessed an inventory acquisition sequence like my daughter's -
specifically, laryngeal fricatives as (one of) the first segment(s) actively
produced by a baby. From the age of about 3-4 months to 5 months, she spent
what seemed like way too much time playing with her larynx as an active
articulator, even though she was being exposed to only Japanese (which has
no laryngeal or heavily laryngealized segments) and the fact that mother and
father were constantly bombarding her with 'mama's and 'papa's. Her physical
exams ruled out congenital defect.
 I have heard of one other child who produced any quantity of laryngeal
segments at such an early age - a child of Semitic language-speaking parents
who participated in a study with Dr. Carol Stoel-Gammon here at the UW
(anecdote by Stoel-Gammon in a UW colloquium; results of the study reported in
Stemberger & Stoel-Gammon 1991).
 Has anyone else out there an experience like this? If so, could you
also tell me what languages the child was being exposed to?
 Incidentally, my daughter hasn't produced a laryngeal segment in I don't
know how long - she has a very normal Japanese phonology that some
English is just starting to break through now that I've been using
only English with her (she's just turning 2).

reference:

Stemberger, Joseph & Carol Stoel-Gammon (1991) "The underspecification of
 coronals: Evidence from language acquisition and performance error". In
 Catherine Paradis & Jean-Francois Prunett (eds.) _The Special Status of
 Coronals: Internal and External Evidence_. New York: Academic Press.

Kevin Varden, University of Washington
vardenu.washington.edu

I am looking for a french dictionary in form of an ASCII file.
Please answer to my personal E-mail below (I'm not registrated in this
list).

Many thanks
M.T

 -------------------
Marc Torzynski
ENSPS E-mail U97102FRCCSC21
7, rue de l'Universite Tel +33 88.35.51.50
67000 Strasbourg Fax +33 88.35.31.76
FRANCE Telex ULP 870 260 F