LING 355 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Nasal Vowel, Nasal Consonant, Nasalization
Document Summary
Babbling occurs from about the age of 4-6 months and continues until the onset of real speech, with some overlap with first words. Sounds are vowel-like to begin with, then consonants, followed by syllables. Babbling may include sounds not in the input. Intonation patterns resemble those of the input language. More sounds can be babbled than are found at the onset of speech. There does seem to be some relationship between phonological patterns used in later babbling (from about 10 months on) and in early speech. Babbling appears to have no specific communicative intent. Babies can babble back and forth with their parents but there is no real assigned meaning to this babbling. For an expression to be considered a word: There should be a sharing of the meaning: if dada" now means. Daddy", this should be shared by at least the two people in the interaction. There should be a communicative purpose to the expression.
