Comparing phoneme frequency, age of acquisition, and loss in aphasia: Implications for phonological universals

ABSTRACT Phonological complexity may be central to the nature of human language. It may shape the distribution of phonemes and phoneme sequences within languages, but also determine age of acquisition and susceptibility to loss in aphasia. We evaluated this claim using frequency statistics derived from a corpus of phonologically transcribed Italian words (phonitalia, available at phonitalia,org), rankings of phoneme age of acquisition (AoA) and rate of phoneme errors in patients with apraxia of speech (AoS) as an indication of articulatory complexity. These measures were related to cross-linguistically derived markedness rankings. We found strong correspondences. AoA, however, was predicted by both apraxic errors and frequency, suggesting independent contributions of these variables. Our results support the reality of universal principles of complexity. In addition they suggest that these complexity principles have articulatory underpinnings since they modulate the production of patients with AoS, but not the production of patients with more central phonological difficulties.

[1]  D. Everett.  An Evaluation of Universal Grammar and the Phonological Mind1 , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[2]  C. Romani,et al.  Phonological simplifications, apraxia of speech and the interaction between phonological and phonetic processing , 2015, Neuropsychologia.

[3]  C. Romani,et al.  PhonItalia: a phonological lexicon for Italian , 2013, Behavior Research Methods.

[4]  Katharine Graf Estes,et al.  Learning about sounds contributes to learning about words: effects of prosody and phonotactics on infant word learning. , 2013, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[5]  I. Berent.  The phonological mind , 2012, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[6]  M. Laganaro.  Patterns of impairments in AOS and mechanisms of interaction between phonological and phonetic encoding. , 2012, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[7]  Wolfram Ziegler,et al.  Apraxia of speech: concepts and controversies. , 2012, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[8]  S. Curtin,et al.  12-month-olds' phonotactic knowledge guides their word-object mappings. , 2012, Child development.

[9]  Woo Hyeok Chang,et al.  On the Relation between Phonetics and Phonology , 2012 .

[10]  P. Viterbori,et al.  Phonology and language development in Italian children: an analysis of production and accuracy. , 2012, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[11]  Steven T. Piantadosi,et al.  The communicative function of ambiguity in language , 2011, Cognition.

[12]  M. Miozzo,et al.  Finding Levels of Abstraction in Speech Production , 2011, Psychological science.

[13]  W. Post,et al.  Phonetic and phonemic acquisition: normative data in English and Dutch speech sound development. , 2011, International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology.

[14]  Andrew Olson,et al.  Effects of syllable structure in aphasic errors: Implications for a new model of speech production , 2011, Cognitive Psychology.

[15]  Katharine Graf Estes,et al.  Phonotactic constraints on infant word learning. , 2011, Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies.

[16]  A. Olson,et al.  Phonological–lexical activation: A lexical component or an output buffer? Evidence from aphasic errors , 2011, Cortex.

[17]  P. Fikkert,et al.  The acquisition of the stop-fricative contrast in perception and production , 2010 .

[18]  John J. Ohala,et al.  The Relation between Phonetics and Phonology , 2010 .

[19]  Adam Buchwald,et al.  Minimizing and optimizing structure in phonology: Evidence from aphasia , 2009 .

[20]  S. Levinson,et al.  The myth of language universals: language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. , 2009, The Behavioral and brain sciences.

[21]  Martin Krämer.  The Phonology of Italian , 2009 .

[22]  Sabine Zerbian.  The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology , 2008 .

[23]  Robert Kirchner,et al.  Phonetically Based Phonology , 2008 .

[24]  Bridget Samuels,et al.  On Evolutionary Phonology , 2007, Biolinguistics.

[25]  René Kager,et al.  Representations of [voice]: Evidence from acquisition , 2007 .

[26]  H. Diessel.  Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change , 2007 .

[27]  John J. McCarthy,et al.  What Is Optimality Theory? , 2007, Lang. Linguistics Compass.

[28]  J. Windsor,et al.  Examining the language performances of children with and without specific language impairment: contributions of phonological short-term memory and speed of processing. , 2007, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[29]  Kersti Börjars,et al.  Markedness in phonology and in syntax: the problem of grounding , 2006 .

[30]  M. Ullman,et al.  Specific Language Impairment is not Specific to Language: the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis , 2005, Cortex.

[31]  C. Romani,et al.  Effects of syllabic complexity in predicting accuracy of repetition and direction of errors in patients with articulatory and phonological difficulties , 2005, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[32]  L. Squire.  Memory systems of the brain: A brief history and current perspective , 2004, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

[33]  P. Smolensky,et al.  Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar , 2004 .

[34]  Andrew Olson,et al.  Patterns of Phonological Errors as a Function of a Phonological Versus an Articulatory Locus of Impairment , 2002, Cortex.

[35]  H. Kolk.  Does Agrammatic Speech Constitute a Regression to Child Language? A Three-Way Comparison between Agrammatic, Child, and Normal Ellipsis , 2001, Brain and Language.

[36]  Sergey Avrutin,et al.  Language Acquisition and Language Breakdown , 2001, Brain and Language.

[37]  C. Romani,et al.  Syllabic Constraints in the Phonological Errors of an Aphasic Patient , 1998, Brain and Language.

[38]  Peter W. Culicover,et al.  Principles and Parameters: An Introduction to Syntactic Theory , 1997 .

[39]  D. Rogers.  Italian , 1995, Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

[40]  H. Kolk,et al.  A Time-Based Approach to Agrammatic Production , 1995, Brain and Language.

[41]  H. Hagiwara,et al.  The Breakdown of Functional Categories and the Economy of Derivation , 1995, Brain and Language.

[42]  U. Bortolini,et al.  Word-initial voicing in the productions of stops in normal and preterm Italian infants. , 1995, International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology.

[43]  A. Caramazza,et al.  Parallels and divergences in the acquisition and dissolution of language. , 1994, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[44]  P. Jusczyk,et al.  Infants' sensitivity to phonotactic patterns in the native language. , 1994 .

[45]  R. Harald Baayen,et al.  Statistical models for word frequency distributions: A linguistic evaluation , 1992, Comput. Humanit..

[46]  C. Browman,et al.  Articulatory Phonology: An Overview , 1992, Phonetica.

[47]  D. Aram,et al.  Very-low-birthweight children and speech and language development. , 1991, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[48]  A. B. Smit,et al.  The Iowa Articulation Norms Project and its Nebraska replication. , 1991, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[49]  Myrna Gopnik,et al.  Feature Blindness: A Case Study , 1990 .

[50]  A T Dyson,et al.  Phonetic inventories of 2- and 3-year-old children. , 1988, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[51]  Ian Maddieson,et al.  Patterns of sounds , 1986 .

[52]  L. Wolk,et al.  Markedness analysis of consonant error productions in apraxia of speech. , 1986, Journal of communication disorders.

[53]  C. Stoel-Gammon,et al.  Phonetic inventories, 15-24 months: a longitudinal study. , 1985, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[54]  Marlys A. Macken,et al.  From Babbling to Speech: A Re-Assessment of the Continuity Issue , 1985 .

[55]  G D Allen,et al.  How the young French child avoids the pre-voicing problem for word-initial voiced stops , 1985, Journal of Child Language.

[56]  B. Tuller.  On categorizing aphasic speech errors , 1984, Neuropsychologia.

[57]  R. Jakobson.  Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals , 1980 .

[58]  S. Blumstein,et al.  Production deficits in aphasia: A voice-onset time analysis , 1980, Brain and Language.

[59]  T. Marquardt,et al.  Markedness analysis of phonemic substitution errors in apraxia of speech. , 1979, Journal of communication disorders.

[60]  Lise Menn,et al.  PHONOTACTIC RULES IN BEGINING SPEECH , 1971 .

[61]  Joseph H. Greenberg,et al.  Language Universals: With Special Reference to Feature Hierarchies , 1966 .

[62]  O C IRWIN,et al.  Syllabic and phonetic structure of infants' early words. , 1958, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[63]  R. W. Albright.  Differences Between the Child and the Aphasic , 1958 .

[64]  K. Ortiz,et al.  Phonological analysis of substitution errors of patients with apraxia of speech , 2010, Dementia & neuropsychologia.

[65]  J. Kingston.  The phonetics–phonology interface , 2007 .

[66]  M. Vihman,et al.  Phonology in infancy and early childhood: implications for theories of language learning , 2007 .

[67]  Paul de Lacy,et al.  Markedness: Reduction and Preservation in Phonology , 2006 .

[68]  Phonology Development in Infancy and Early Childhood: Implications for Theories of Language Learning , 2006 .

[69]  Claudio Zmarich,et al.  Phonetic inventories in Italian children aged 18-27 months: a longitudinal study , 2005, INTERSPEECH.

[70]  Jean Christophe Verstraeh.  Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure , 2005 .

[71]  Anna M. Thornton,et al.  Corpus e Lessico di frequenza dell’Italiano Scritto (CoLFIS). , 2005 .

[72]  C. Dromey,et al.  Variability in Apraxia of Speech: A Perceptual, Acoustic, and Kinematic Analysis of Stop Consonants , 2005 .

[73]  Jean-Christophe Verstraete,et al.  Review of Joan Bybee & Paul J. Hopper (2001) Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure (Amsterdam: Benjamins) , 2005 .

[74]  Ingeborg Lasser,et al.  The process of language acquisition : proceedings of the 1999 GALA Conference , 2002 .

[75]  Charles Reiss,et al.  Phonology as Cognition , 2000 .

[76]  J. Pierrehumbert.  The phonetic grounding of phonology , 2000 .

[77]  Heinrich-Heine,et al.  The Lack of Onsets in German Child Phonology * , 2000 .

[78]  Michael Barlow,et al.  Usage-based models of language , 2000 .

[79]  P. Ladefoged,et al.  The sounds of the world's languages , 1996 .

[80]  P. Fikkert.  Acquisition of phonology , 1995 .

[81]  Jean-François Prunet,et al.  THE SPECIAL STATUS OF CORONALS: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL EVIDENCE , 1991 .

[82]  Y. Grodzinsky.  Theoretical perspectives on language deficits , 1990 .

[83]  D. Ingram,et al.  Procedures for the phonological analysis of children’s language , 1981 .

[84]  D. Stampe.  A dissertation on natural phonology , 1979 .

[85]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Sound Pattern of English , 1968 .

[86]  Charles W. Kisseberth.  On the Functional Unity of Phonological Rules , 2022 .