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Title:
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Phonological Theory and the Acquisition of Prosodic Structure: Evidence from child Japanese
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Author:
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Mitsuhiko Ota
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Degree Awarded:
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Georgetown University
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1999
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Phonology
Psycholinguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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Japanese
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Director(s):
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Donna Lardiere
Laura Benua
Katherine Demuth
Elizabeth Zsiga
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Abstract:
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This dissertation investigates the acquisition of Japanese syllable structure and word structure based on longitudinal data collected from three children between the ages of 1;0 and 2;6. The main goal of the study is to develop an analysis of prosodic acquisition that brings together the following hypotheses formulated within the framework of Optimality Theory: (i) the basic architecture of the grammar and the fundamental principles of linguistic representations do not change from the initial state to the adult state; (ii) the developing system and the adult system differ in the rankings of the same set of constraints; (iii) the overall path of development is outlined by the initial ranking, by the mechanism of reranking, and by certain inherent restrictions on possible rankings.
In support of fundamental continuity between child and adult grammars, examination of the data shows that early Japanese words are organized in terms of adult-like prosodic units (namely, the prosodic word, foot, syllable and mora) and principles that regulate the hierarchical relation among those constituents. In particular, compensatory lengthening, syllable size restrictions and the development of geminates provide systematic evidence for early moraic phonology. Furthermore, the bimoraic minimality and disyllabic maximality of word production show that early words are structures that minimally satisfy the well-formedness conditions of the prosodic word.
Building on these findings, the thesis presents a stage-wise analysis of the development of syllable-internal and word-internal structures in Japanese. Child-specific properties of rhyme structure and word structure are shown to derive from the interaction between markedness constraints that force output requirements on codas, foot structure, and the sonority of moraic segments, and faithfulness constraints that demand identical mapping between the target form and the child form.
This analysis also demonstrates that Optimality Theory correctly predicts the overall course of syllable-internal and word-internal prosodic development. The hypothesis that the process of acquisition reflects demotion of markedness constraints from their initial-state ranking is supported by the stage-wise changes attested in the child data and also by the continuing roles the same markedness constraints are shown to play in adult Japanese.
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