title: Durations of young children's word and nonword vocalizations.
abstract: The duration of word (W) and nonword (NW) forms was examined in the monthly vocalizations of seven children between 8 and 26 months of age. The W (i.e., glossable "adultlike") forms and NW (i.e., nonglossable but phonetically transcribable) forms occurring in each child's consonant+vowel (CV) vocalizations were measured. The results were that W durations significantly decreased as a function of increasing chronological age. On the other hand, NW durations were not correlated with increasing age. The meaningfulness corresponding to W forms is hypothesized to account for the results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269, USA.
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Robb
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Tyler
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors; D014825:Vocabulary