Question 1

How are alveolars produced?

Accepted Answer

Alveolar sounds are produced by the tongue pressing against the ridge behind the teeth. This results in sounds such as /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, and /n/. The other choices do not accurately describe the production of alveolar sounds.

Question 2

What general developmental progression does infants' sound production follow?

Accepted Answer

Infants' sound production follows a developmental progression among consonants from labials (sounds produced with the lips) and dentals (sounds produced with the tongue and teeth) to velars (sounds produced with the back of the tongue). This is known as the "velar fronting" process and is typical for infants between 1 and 3 years old.

Question 3

What type of pre-speech vocalization are 7-10-month-old infants most likely to engage in?

Accepted Answer

Canonical babbling is the stage where infants produce repetitive syllables, such as "bababa" or "dadada," which typically occurs around 7 to 10 months of age. This stage is crucial for language development as it represents the beginning of practice with the sounds that make up words in the languages they are exposed to.

Question 4

What types of words constitute most of the infant's early lexicon?

Accepted Answer

Infants' early lexicon is predominantly made up of nouns such as "mama", "dada", "ball", "dog", etc. as they learn the names of objects in their environment.

Question 5

What question best captures the immediate reference problem?

Accepted Answer

The immediate reference problem refers to the challenge of identifying what object or entity is being referred to in a particular sentence or context. Therefore, the best question to capture this problem is "What object does this word refer to?".

Question 6

What does structure dependence refer to?

Accepted Answer

Structure dependence refers to the fact that grammatical rules apply not only at the level of individual words, but also over syntactic phrases. Option A captures this definition. Option B is incorrect as it suggests that the rules of grammar only apply to words rather than phrases. Option C is incorrect as it conflates structure dependence with pragmatic rules. Option D is incorrect as it refers to the dependency of syntactic rules on a specific language, which is not directly related to structure dependence.

Question 7

Which of the following statements is true according to Chomsky's notion of a universal grammar?

Accepted Answer

Chomsky's theory of universal grammar suggests that the ability to acquire language is innate and that the specific language learned is determined by the environment. Therefore, a Chinese infant raised by a French family would learn to speak French, using French grammar.

Question 8

In adults, which part of the brain is typically associated with speech production?

Accepted Answer

Broca's area, located in the left frontal lobe of the brain, is primarily associated with speech production and language processing.

Question 9

What is the principles and parameters approach?

Accepted Answer

The principles and parameters approach is an approach in generative linguistics that posits that all languages share a set of basic rules and grammars but vary in only a restricted number of ways, called parameters. This approach suggests that each language has its own set of parameters that determine the specific ways in which the basic rules are applied.

Question 10

Which of the following statements is true about deaf infants' language acquisition?

Accepted Answer

Deaf infants who are not taught any sign language have been observed to develop signs that refer to objects, people, and actions (often called "home signs"). This suggests that deaf infants are driven to produce language even without formal instruction, and that they develop a rudimentary sign language that allows them to communicate. While the structure of these home signs may not resemble a formal sign language, they do have a consistent system of meaning and can be considered a form of early language acquisition. In fact, research has shown that early exposure to a formal sign language can have significant benefits for deaf infants' language development.

Question 11

Imagine you were a developmental psycholinguist and wanted to study the differences in language production between Chinese and American children. You are particularly interested in whether there is a common set of words that children learn first. What method could you use to study this question? What would the advantages of your chosen method be? And what would the disadvantages be?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Imagine you were a developmental psycholinguist and...

Question 12

In a study by Fernald (1993), 5-month-old children of English-speaking parents were presented with approval and prohibition vocalizations in infant-directed (ID) and adult-directed (AD) English, and in ID speech in nonsense English and unfamiliar languages. Infants showed small but significant differences in facial affect in response to ID vocalizations in every language. Infants smiled more to approvals, and when they showed negative affect, it was more likely to occur in response to prohibitions. Infants did not show differential affect in response to approvals and prohibitions in AD speech. Discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of language processing in infancy.

Accepted Answer

The answer of In a study by Fernald (1993), 5-month-old...

Quiz 9: Language Development in Infancy