Systematicity Over the Course of Early Development: An Analysis of Phonological Networks

Area of Science:

• Developmental linguistics
• Child language acquisition
• Cognitive science

Background:

• Early vocabulary development is crucial for language acquisition.
• Understanding the structure of infants' early lexicons provides insights into cognitive processes.
• Previous research has explored vocabulary size but less on the systematicity of word production.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the systematicity of early word production in infants acquiring English and French.
• To analyze how vocabulary systematicity evolves from first word production up to 30 months of age.
• To compare the network properties of infants' actual word productions with adult target forms.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of early lexicons from nine infants (English/French).
• Generation of network graphs from first word production to 30 months.
• Calculation of mean path length and clustering coefficient to measure systematicity.

Main Results:

• Infants' early productive lexicons exhibit high systematicity compared to random networks.
• Vocabulary networks become more dispersed as lexicon size increases.
• Infants' productions show consistently higher network connectivity than adult target forms, an effect that grows over time.

Conclusions:

• Infants employ a systematic approach to early word production.
• The observed systematicity suggests underlying organizational principles in early language development.
• Production strategies may prioritize phonological similarity and ease of articulation during early lexical growth.