Influences of Phonological Context on Tense Marking in Spanish-English Dual Language Learners.

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Influences of Phonological Context on Tense Marking in Spanish-English Dual Language Learners.

J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2017 Aug 16;60(8):2199-2216

Authors: Combiths PN, Barlow JA, Potapova I, Pruitt-Lord S

Abstract
Purpose: The emergence of tense-morpheme marking during language acquisition is highly variable, which confounds the use of tense marking as a diagnostic indicator of language impairment in linguistically diverse populations. In this study, we seek to better understand tense-marking patterns in young bilingual children by comparing phonological influences on marking of 2 word-final tense morphemes.
Method: In spontaneous connected speech samples from 10 Spanish-English dual language learners aged 56-66 months (M = 61.7, SD = 3.4), we examined marking rates of past tense -ed and third person singular -s morphemes in different environments, using multiple measures of phonological context.
Results: Both morphemes were found to exhibit notably contrastive marking patterns in some contexts. Each was most sensitive to a different combination of phonological influences in the verb stem and the following word.
Conclusions: These findings extend existing evidence from monolingual speakers for the influence of word-final phonological context on morpheme production to a bilingual population. Further, novel findings not yet attested in previous research support an expanded consideration of phonological context in clinical decision making and future research related to word-final morphology.

PMID: 28750415 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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