A study of the phonological structure and representation of first words in Arabic
This research studies the phonological structure and representation of first words in Hijazi Arabic. It investigates the representational nature of early words and the developmental stages of their syllable and word internal structure within the framework of the Prosodic Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1986, 1990). The issues raised relate to the relation between child and adult phonology, and whether the subjects follow a universal path or influenced by their language-specific phonology (Ferguson & Farewell, 1975; Vihman, 1991; Fikkert, 1994; Demuth, 1995; Ota, 2003; Lleo, 2006). The discussion has been accompanied by considering child-adult differences and cross-linguistic comparisons between child Arabic and child Germanic languages (English, Dutch), child Romance languages (French, Spanish, and Catalan), and child Japanese. Cross-sectional spontaneous data were collected from twenty two monolingual children (aged from 1;0 to1;9) living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia by recording their speech using the object-naming technique in near natural settings and analyzed using a qualitative approach. The results show that the subjectsâ segmental inventories are very limited at the onset of speech, which determines the shape
Abdoh, Eman Mohammed Abdulrahman
A study of the phonological structure and representation of first words in Arabic. This research studies the phonological structure and representation of first words in Hijazi Arabic. It investigates the representational nature of early words and the developmental stages of their syllable and word internal structure within the framework of the Prosodic Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1986, 1990). The issues raised relate to the relation between child and adult phonology, and whether the subjects follow a universal path or influenced by their language-specific phonology (Ferguson & Farewell, 1975; Vihman, 1991; Fikkert, 1994; Demuth, 1995; Ota, 2003; Lleo, 2006). The discussion has been accompanied by considering child-adult differences and cross-linguistic comparisons between child Arabic and child Germanic languages (English, Dutch), child Romance languages (French, Spanish, and Catalan), and child Japanese. Cross-sectional spontaneous data were collected from twenty two monolingual children (aged from 1;0 to1;9) living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia by recording their speech using the object-naming technique in near natural settings and analyzed using a qualitative approach. The results show that the subjectsâ segmental inventories are very limited at the onset of speech, which determines the shape
study phonological structure representation first word arabic study phonological structure representation first word arabic investigate representational nature early word developmental_stage syllable word internal_structure within_framework prosodic theory and prince issue_raise relate relation child_adult phonology whether subject follow universal path influence language_specific phonology and farewell discussion accompany consider child_adult difference cross_linguistic comparison child arabic child germanic languages english dutch child romance language french spanish catalan child japanese cross_sectional spontaneous data_collect monolingual_child age living saudi_arabia record speech use object naming technique near natural setting analyze use qualitative approach show subject segmental inventory limit onset speech determines shape