Department of Linguistics

Un aspecto de importancia central para el conocimiento de la historia de los pueblos
amerindios y sus lenguas es el estudio de las primeras descripciones léxicas y gramaticales
que se hicieron de estas. La elaboración de artes y vocabularios de las lenguas
vernáculas durante el periodo colonial americano es, como se sabe, una empresa
desarrollada en el marco de la evangelización de los indígenas. Sus responsables
fueron religiosos, principalmente frailes de distintas órdenes, predominantemente
jesuitas para el caso de las descripciones del quechua y del aimara. Estos trabajos son
el resultado del reconocimiento de la insoslayable necesidad de aprender las lenguas
aborígenes para usarlas como medio de instrucción y transmisión de las verdades
cristianas. Para el caso peruano, desde 1560 —año en que aparecen los primeros
trabajos descriptivos del quechua, por cierto, antes inclusive de que varias lenguas
europeas hayan sido objeto de descripción (Oesterreicher, 2009a)— se inaugura un
fructífero periodo de producción léxica y gramatical, que incluirá también al aimara,
y que se extenderá hasta aproximadamente mediados del siglo XVII.

This study investigates effects of lexical and sublexical properties on the temporal organization of children's real word production. In adults, structural, frequency, and probabilistic characteristics of words have been shown to influence word production both at the planning (prior internal organization) and the articulation stage (actual production). Some properties were found to have a facilitative impact and others revealed inhibitory effects. While the role of these parameters has been investigated in children's word learning and comprehension, little is known about their effects on children's word production and its planning, as well as about how these may change with increasing language practice. Focusing on speech planning, a simple versus delayed picture naming paradigm was employed to compare reaction times (RTs) of 6 German preschoolers aged 4 with those of an adult control group. The paradigm allows for a differentiation between lexical and postlexical effects, measuring RTs of both processes in the simple but only of postlexical processes in the delayed condition. Various factors were manipulated: Structure of the initial syllable (VC, CV, CCV), first segment (/k, t, ʃ, i, a, u/), phonotactic probability, neighborhood density, word frequency, and syllable frequency. The main goals were to test whether each factor shows inhibitory or facilitative effects on the production planning, and to temporally locate their impact within the process (i.e. lexical vs. postlexical). Our first results indicate that children display longer RTs than adults in both conditions possibly due to limited language experience. As expected, RTs of both groups are longer in the simple than in the delayed naming condition probably because the task captures the time required for both lexical access and articulatory planning. Further analyses on how the amount of language practice affects the investigated parameters' influence on the RTs are currently being conducted.

The present study investigates the development of coarticulation in German children between 3 and 7 years of age. To quantify coarticulation degree, we will not only apply the commonly used method of Locus Equations (LE) on the acoustic signal, but also on the articulation recorded with ultrasound, which so far has been rarely done in children (Noiray et al., 2013).

The study aims to investigate the development of coarticulation in 5-year old German children.
The main goal was to examine the way different aspects of consonant production vary on a
quantitative coarticulation -invariance scale as a function of age. To achieve this goal, we
employed Mutual Information (MI), a method that has been used to measure coarticulation degree by quantifying independence between two variables (Iskarous et al., 2013).

This study investigates lingual V-to-V anticipatory coarticula-tion in German preschoolers and adults using ultrasound measures. In light of conflicting results in the literature, the aim was to study effects in large cohorts and with a widespread set of vowels. Results provide evidence for V-to-V coarticulation in children as well as adults, independent of the intervocalic consonant. Interestingly, coarticulation magnitude decreases with age.

This study investigates lingual V-to-V anticipatory coarticula-tion in German preschoolers and adults using ultrasound measures. In light of conflicting results in the literature, the aim was to study effects in larger cohorts and with a widespread set of vowels. Results provide evidence for V-to-V coarticulation in children as well as adults, independent of the intervocalic consonant. Interestingly, coarticulation degree decreases with age.