Usage-based account of the acquisition of liaison: evidence from sensitivity to plural / singular orientation of nouns

Résumé En

This study investigates whether the production and the recognition of liaison sequences in children depend on the singular/plural orientation of nouns. Certain nouns occur more frequently in the plural (e.g., arbre "tree") whereas others are found more often in the singular (e.g., arc-en-ciel "rainbow"). In the input, children more frequently encounter these plural-oriented nouns after determiners which indicate plurality (e.g., les, des, "the", deux, "two", etc.) and which are often associated with a /z/ liaison [døzarbr],"two trees". In experiment 1, 122 children (aged from 3;2 to 6;3) were asked to produce nominal phrases with either /z/ liaisons (i.e., in plural contexts like deux ours [døzurs],"two bears") or with /n/ liaisons (i.e., in singular contexts like un ours [oenurs],"one bear"). We found correlations between the plural-orientation of the nouns and (1) the probability that they will be preceded by an incorrect /z/ liaison in singular contexts (2) the probability that they will be preceded by a correct /z/ liaison in the plural context. This result was however restricted to the younger children. In experiment 2, 20 children (aged from 5;5 to 6;3) were asked to monitor target words in auditorily presented sentences. The results showed shorter responses times for singular-oriented nouns when preceded by singular determiners than when preceded by plural determiners. Conversely, plural-oriented nouns were responded to faster when preceded by a plural determiner than by a singular determiner. Results are discussed within the framework of a two-stage model of liaison acquisition recently proposed by Chevrot, Chabanal and Dugua (2007) and Chevrot, Dugua and Fayol (2009).