Phonology, Morphology and Speech Processing Development in Greek-Speaking Children
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This is a repository copy of Phonology, morphology and speech processing development in Greek-speaking children. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/149123/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Geronikou, E., Vance, M., Wells, B. et al. (1 more author) (2019) Phonology, morphology and speech processing development in Greek-speaking children. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. ISSN 0269-9206 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2019.1637460 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics on 08/07/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02699206.2019.1637460. Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. 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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics For Peer Review Only Phonology, morphology and speech processing development in Greek-speaking children Journal: Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics Manuscript ID TCLP-2019-0087 Manuscript Type: Original paper phonology < linguistics < language, morphology < linguistics < Keywords: language, psycholinguistic framework, speech processing, Greek URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tclp Email: [email protected] Page 1 of 42 Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 1 2 3 Phonology, morphology and speech processing development in Greek- 4 5 speaking children 6 7 8 9 Α psycholinguistic framework for speech processing (Stackhouse & Wells, 1997) 10 was adopted to investigate the development of phonological and morphological 11 12 skills in children learning Greek. It was investigated whether morphological 13 items pose specific challenges in terms of speech processing. Two groups of 14 15 typically developing children aged 3.0-3.5 years (N= 16) and 4.6-5.0 years 16 17 (N=22) respectivelyFor Peer were assessed Review longitudinally at threeOnly assessment points six 18 months apart. A range of phonologically-based and morphologically-based 19 20 experimental speech processing tasks were administered to address the research 21 question, along with language comprehension and production assessments to 22 23 ensure that the children were developmentally typical. Stimuli of minimal 24 phonological difference and minimal morphological difference respectively were 25 26 used. Phonologically-based experimental stimuli were used to assess 27 28 performance differences across properties such as voicing, manner and place of 29 articulation, in addition to variation in phonotactic structure. Morphologically- 30 31 based experimental stimuli were used to assess the impact of characteristics such 32 as verb tense and possessive pronouns. Stimuli were incorporated into tasks of 33 34 real word and nonword auditory discrimination and repetition, to assess input and 35 36 output processing. Items were matched across tasks, so that comparisons could be 37 made. On most of the matched tasks there was no significant difference in 38 39 performance accuracy between morphological and phonological conditions. 40 Moreover, a significant relationship was found between domains. It is suggested 41 42 that morphological items, compared to phonological items, do not pose specific 43 challenges in terms of speech processing. The clinical implications of these 44 45 findings for assessment and intervention are discussed. 46 47 48 Keywords: phonology; morphology; psycholinguistic framework; speech 49 processing; Greek 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tclp Email: [email protected] Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics Page 2 of 42 1 2 3 Introduction 4 5 6 Theoretical accounts of language development and research data from children with 7 8 speech and language difficulties point to a connection between phonological and 9 10 11 morphological skills. Investigation of language acquisition in typically developing (TD) 12 13 children may illuminate links between the two domains and reveal factors underpinning 14 15 language impairment. 16 17 From a theoreticalFor Peer point of view Review the language system Only can be considered to work 18 19 20 as a whole unit with interactions between linguistic levels (Crystal, 1987). Children 21 22 with developmental language disorders (DLD), formerly known as specific language 23 24 impairment (SLI), often exhibit considerable difficulties with morphemes of short 25 26 27 duration, encountered in weak syllables of words (Leonard, 1998). Linguistic theories 28 29 aim to account for the influence of phonetic/ phonological constraints on morphological 30 31 expression. One well-known theory of SLI, the Surface Hypothesis, puts emphasis on 32 33 34 “consideration of the important role that the physical properties of speech are assumed 35 36 to play”(Leonard, 1998, p. 247). In the same direction, the Prosodic Licensing 37 38 Hypothesis (Demuth & Tomas, 2016) attributes the omission of unstressed clitics to 39 40 phonological factors and specifically to prosodic phonology. 41 42 43 From a clinical perspective, there is a growing body of evidence from children 44 45 with speech difficulties that suggests a relationship between speech production and the 46 47 ability to realize grammatical morphemes. Speech production difficulties could explain 48 49 50 a considerable amount of morphological errors of 4-5 year old English-speaking 51 52 children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), though their limited expressive 53 54 language skills were not entirely attributed to motoric constraints (Murray, Thomas, & 55 56 57 McKechnie, 2019). The ability to produce consonant clusters correlated with the 58 59 accuracy of grammatical morpheme realization, irrespective of the phonological context 60 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tclp Email: [email protected] Page 3 of 42 Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 1 2 3 in which morphemes occurred, in 4-5 year old English-speaking children with 4 5 6 phonological impairment (PI) (Howland, Baker, Munro, & McLeod, 2019). Moreover, 7 8 4-5 year old German-speaking children with PI have been found to perform 9 10 significantly below their TD peers with respect to spontaneous use of the dative case 11 12 (Hasselaar, Letts, & McKean, 2019). Despite the fact that none of the errors observed 13 14 15 could be directly attributed to speech problems, the authors considered that 16 17 phonological inputFor processing Peer skills couldReview potentially be Only a barrier to the acquisition of 18 19 case marking. 20 21 22 Expressive language skills and interactions between phonology and morphology 23 24 have been investigated in children with co-morbid speech and language impairment. 25 26 Input processing constraints along with limitations both in phonological and 27 28 29 morphological output processing have been identified (Tyler & Mcomber, 1999). 30 31 Preschool age children with co-morbid difficulties did not differ from children with 32 33 language difficulties alone on the total number of speech sound errors; however, they 34 35 showed a greater number of omission errors, indicating a restricted linguistic system 36 37 38 (Macrae & Tyler, 2014). The morpheme production performance of children with co- 39 40 morbid difficulties was significantly poorer than that of children with language 41 42 difficulties alone (Haskill & Tyler, 2007). 43 44 45 Regarding children with language difficulties, inflectional production accuracy 46 47 has been linked to phonological factors. A relationship has been observed between final 48 49 cluster reduction in monomorphemic words and the omission of consonantal inflections 50 51 52 in Italian and English-speaking children with SLI (Bortolini & Leonard, 2000). The 53 54 production of finite morphemes, especially past tense production, was vulnerable to the 55 56 manipulation of the phonological complexity characteristics of the target words. 57 58 English-speaking children with SLI encountered greater difficulty in past tense 59 60 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tclp Email: [email protected] Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics Page 4 of 42 1 2 3 production when the verb stem (Norbury, Bishop, & Briscoe, 2001) or the past tense 4 5 6 suffix (Marshall & Van Der Lely, 2007) included a consonant cluster. Greek-speaking 7 8 children with SLI performed better in past tense formation for verbs requiring a 9 10 stressed syllabic augment for example ['γrɐfo] I write (present)- ['ɛγrɐpsɐ] (past) as 11 12 opposed to I dance (present) - (past) (Mastropavlou, Petinou, 13 [xo'ɾɛvo] ['xorɛpsɐ] 14 15 Tsimpli, & Georgiou, 2019). Moreover, investigation of the role of phonotactic cues on 16 17 the comprehensionFor of passive Peer sentences Review in English (Marshall, Only Marinis, & van der Lely, 18 19 2007) showed that typically developing controls, rather than children with SLI, benefit 20 21 22 from phonotactics to perceive a form like hugged as a particle. Based on the findings, 23 24 the authors called for studies of typical language