Article published in:
Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 6:1 (2017) ► pp. 119–146

Syllable type development in toddlers acquiring Dutch

| Universiteit Antwerpen
| Universiteit Antwerpen
| Universiteit Antwerpen
| Universiteit Antwerpen
Compiling syllable type inventories from children’s spontaneous speech is all but straightforward: so far studies vary considerably in their methodologies and consequently the selection of the speech samples differs. This paper shows that different methodologies for selecting a speech sample lead to substantial differences in syllable inventories. Two main sources for this variation are explored: differences in size and content of the speech samples. Both factors influence the results significantly and this questions the comparability of previous study results. An empirical procedure to investigate syllable type development is proposed to overcome such methodological problems, and this procedure is implemented to provide an initial empirically sound assessment of the acquisition of syllable types in Dutch speaking toddlers.
Keywords: language acquisition, phonology, syllable inventories, methodology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Study 1: Comparison of different procedures
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Participants, data collection and annotation
      • 2.1.2Data collection
      • 2.1.3Data annotation
      • 2.1.4Inter and intra transcriber reliability
    • 2.2Procedure
    • 2.3Results
    • 2.4Discussion
  • 3.Study 2: The effect of sample size on the size of syllable inventories
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Bootstrapping procedure
    • 3.2Results
    • 3.3Discussion
  • 4.Study 3: Syllable inventory size, content and order of emergence: A new procedure
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Procedure
    • 4.2Results
      • 4.2.1Inventory size and content
      • 4.2.2Order of emergence
    • 4.3Discussion
  • 5.General discussion and conclusion
    • 5.1Methodological issues in syllable inventory studies
    • 5.2The relationship between amount of speech data and syllable inventory size
    • 5.3Syllable inventory size, content, and order of emergence: A new procedure
    • 5.4Theoretical implications
    • 5.5Conclusion
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 26 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.6.1.07van
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Syllable type development in toddlers acquiring Dutch
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