babbling

[Alison Crutchley]

Wasn't it Dwight Bolinger who claimed that his daughter's first word was 'Dvorak'?
 
 
............................................................................
Dr Alison Crutchley
a.crutchley at hud.ac.uk
http://www.hud.ac.uk/mh/english/research/ac.htm
............................................................................

________________________________

From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Lise Menn
Sent: Tue 12/09/2006 3:23 PM
To: kampen
Cc: a.karmiloff at ich.ucl.ac.uk; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: Re: babbling


Except, of course, that Jakobson had no independent data on the neural control of any aspect of articulation - and we still don't, to my knowledge - so his explanation is better considered as a speculation. 
Lists of 'first words'  in English include 'byebye' - which fits the babble-like pattern - and 'no', which clearly has motivation from sources other than ease of articulation.
Reportage of first words has the problems that adults have expectations about what the 'first word' is culturally supposed to be, and that observers can differ greatly as to 'what counts' as an attempt at a word, depending on how clear the context is. 
Lise Menn 

On Sep 12, 2006, at 2:34 AM, kampen wrote:


		Someone has asked me whether it is true that babies' first word is 
		Daddy and whether this is because the articulation position of D is 
		easiest?  not sure either is true but would appreciated comments 
		from those who study this area.  Are the words for Daddy/Papa etc. 
		and Mummy/Maman etc. easier because there is no change of place of 
		articulation?  All thoughts on the topic most appreciated.
		thanks
		Annette K-S



	Jakobson (1942) already noticed this and had an analysis in terms of
	feature-oppositions and hierarchy in learning steps due to neural control
	of the articulation apparatus. Jakobson developed the thesis that the
	hierarchy in language acquisition manifested itself as well in language
	history, as in a downward movement in aphasia as in the spread of
	typological features. 

	Jacqueline


	http://www.let.uu.nl/~Jacqueline.vanKampen/personal/

	Postal address:
	UiL OTS
	Janskerkhof 13
	3512 BL Utrecht
	The Netherlands
	phone: +31 30-2536054
	fax: +31 30-2536000 







Lise Menn                      Office: 303-492-1609
Linguistics Dept.           Fax: 303-413-0017
295 UCB                         Hellems 293
University of Colorado
Boulder CO 80309-0295

Professor of Linguistics, University of  Colorado, University of Hunan
Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]

Lise Menn's home page
http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/lmenn/


"Shirley Says: Living with Aphasia"

http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/Shirley4.pdf


Japanese version of "Shirley Says"
http://www.bayget.com/inpaku/kinen9.htm


Academy of Aphasia

http://www.academyofaphasia.org/




This transmission is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you receive it in
error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and remove it from your system. If 
the content of this e-mail does not relate to the business of the University of
Huddersfield, then we do not endorse it and will accept no liability.