When is a word not a word?

[Barbara Zurer Pearson]

Dear Katie,

Our lab worked/struggled with this question in
doing a concordance between two languages for
our bilingual studies.  I do not think we
can find a universal way to decide these
questions, but we always tried to be as
consistent as the different languages permitted
us to be so we could make comparisons with
the original instruments. (This might mean
perpetuating inconsistencies, but it
seemed enough justification.)

I think we have to always remember that
despite the name "inventory," the CDI lists
are not exhaustive.  There are always going
to be arbitrary choices.  Their value
is in being "standard"--almost all children have
words that aren't on them, but the CDIs are
reasonably representative, and provide
a benchmark that has appeared to be
useful, even if not exact.

As you point out, the issue (for a monolingual)is
not phonological form: a child could use the same
syllable in several well-defined contexts to
mean different things.  I think you would have
no difficulty giving a child two entries for
a homonym like money-bank and river-bank
in two different sections.
Is water that you meet in a cup distinct
enough from water that you meet at the
seashore to merit a separate "concept"?
I think the original CDIs would say yes.
I would vote for nyau in animal sounds
and as a formal name under animals.  But I
would give the child both if she clearly
used the only the sound as both a name (or
label) as well as a reenactment of the kitty's
noise. The same for yum-yum and sweet.  They are
used in different contexts or routines, so
I would vote for putting them in two places
and counting them separately.  (But I'm
sure there are others who would disagree.)

It helps to have the perspective of different languages,
where what is one "wordform" in one language
may be two in another, like "yum-yum" and
"sweet."  We found lots of little Spanish kids that
knew what "nigh-nigh" (for night-night)
was, but would never know "night"--so we
had no trouble seeing them as two entries.
(Now that I say it, I don't remember if
"night" is on the English CDI.  In either
event, if it is, I'd count them separately;
if it isn't, I'd leave it out, but I wouldn't
consider that I knew whether a "night-night"
sayer knew "night" on the basis of "night-night.")

I hope this is some help. I look forward to
seeing other opinions on the matter.

Cheers,
Barbara

On Oct 18, 2004, at 8:14 AM, Alcock, Katherine wrote:

> I am attempting to analyse CDI data from the two East African
> languages we are working on.  On the English version of the CDI there
> are several instances of words were either the same phonological form
> (if I remember correctly there is swing as a noun and as a verb) or
> even the same concept (water in food and drinks and water in outdoor
> things) occurs in different sections, and appears to be counted twice.
>
> Do people feel this is a helpful principle for such instruments? Has
> this principle been followed through to other languages? Do people
> feel parents are able to distinguish between the different uses of the
> same words?
>
> We have a duplication between noises and other uses of the same word
> in these two languages.  Cats are called "nyau", and you will find
> this name for a cat in the dictionary.  Many children, including older
> children, will call goats "mee".  And parents say "sweet, sweet" when
> they want a child to eat so "sweet, sweet" (tamu-tamu) is the
> equivalent of "yum, yum": but "sweet" (tamu) is also a word that
> parents say children know.
>
> I'm not entirely sure whether to count these both as words children
> know a) for purposes of total vocabulary, for an individual child b)
> conceptually, when examining what children as a group know by a
> certain age.  It seems as if use of the CDI in English implies a) is
> done, since the words are present as far as I can see; but I'm not
> sure about b), and both forms of these words seem to appear very early
> for these children.
>
> Summary will be posted as normal!
>
> Thanks very much
>
> Katie Alcock
>
>
>
> Katie Alcock, DPhil
> Lecturer
> Department of Psychology
> University of Lancaster
> Fylde College
> Lancaster LA1 5EB
> UK
>
>
>
>
*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D
Research Associate, Project Manager
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

Tel: 413.545.5023
Fax: 413.545.0803

http://www.umass.edu/aae/