Cover not available
Part of
The Acquisition of Referring Expressions: A dialogical approach
Edited by Anne Salazar-Orvig, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan and Annie Rialland
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 28] 2021
► pp. 41–80

Chapter 2
Filler syllables as precursors of referring expressions

ORCID logo | Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie
ORCID logo | Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
ORCID logo | Université de du Québec à Montréal
ORCID logo | Université de Lille
ORCID logo | Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie
In this chapter, we examine the properties of filler syllables as transition forms in the development of referring expressions. In particular, we hypothesize that fillers are precursors of referring expressions. We focus on the distribution, the phonological form and the referential function of fillers in prenominal and/or preverbal positions, in comparison to others forms in these positions. Results show that first, the substantial presence of fillers does not lie in lexical factors, and that they are used in combination with other prelexical forms. Second, their variable realizations are not due to a phonological deficit, and they also exhibit paradigmatic patterning with the use of specific consonants. Fillers also share some of the functional characteristics of grammatical units, since their distribution and presence suggest that they play a role in the construction of the verbal and nominal categories. Moreover, in the preverbal position, children’s use of fillers varies according to the topic of the utterance. In conclusion, filler syllables exhibit the formal and functional characteristics of a transitional category and an adult-like paradigm of referring expressions at the same time, and should be studied as such.
Keywords: filler syllables, referential expressions, prenominal position, preverbal position, first grammatical units, phonological form, distributional factors, referential function
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Fillers in the context of the development of referring expressions
    • 1.2Construction of the pronoun and determiner categories
      • 1.2.1Positional and distributional factors in the emergence of pronouns and determiners
      • 1.2.2Semantic and pragmatic factors in the emergence of pronouns and determiners
    • 1.3Corpora used and outline of this chapter
  • 2.Prenominal and preverbal forms at the onset of language production
    • 2.1Identifying the forms
    • 2.2Results
    • 2.3Discussion and tentative conclusion
  • 3.Formal and distributional properties of filler syllables
    • 3.1Specific phonological properties of fillers
      • 3.1.1Method
      • 3.1.2Results
        • 3.1.2.1Accurate realizations of consonants and consonant harmonies
        • 3.1.2.2Inaccurate realizations of consonants in lexemes and in prelexical forms
      • 3.1.3Discussion and tentative conclusion
    • 3.2Are fillers lexically specific?
      • 3.2.1Coding
      • 3.2.2Results
    • 3.3Tentative conclusion
  • 4.Functional dimensions of filler syllables
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.28.02yam
References (77)
References
Allen, S. E. M., Hughes, M. E., & Skarabela, B. (2015). The role of cognitive accessibility in children’s referential choice. In L. Serratrice & S. E. M. Allen (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 123–153). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Avery, P., & Rice, K. (1989). Segment structure and coronal underspecification. Phonology, 6, 179–200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bassano, D. (2000). Early development of nouns and verbs in French: Exploring the interface between lexicon and grammar. Journal of Child Language, 27, 521–559. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015). The acquisition of nominal determiners. In L. Serratrice & S. E. M. Allen (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 25–49). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bassano, D., Maillochon, I., & Mottet, S. (2008). Noun grammaticalization and determiner use in French children’s speech: A gradual development with prosodic and lexical influences. Journal of Child Language, 35(2), 403–438. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, E. (1990). Language about me and you: Pronominal reference and the emerging concept of self. In D. Cicchetti & M. Beeghly (Eds.), The self in transition: Infancy to childhood (pp. 165–182). Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Belzil, I. (2007). L’asymétrie des clitiques sujets/objets chez les enfants francophones: retour aux origines. In Proceedings of the 2007 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. [URL]
Benveniste, E. (1966). La nature des pronoms. In Problèmes de linguistique générale (Vol. 1, pp. 251–257). Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bottari, P., Cipriani, P., & Chilosi, A. M. (1993/1994). Protosyntactic devices in the acquisition of Italian free morphology. Language Acquisition, 3(4), 327–369. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Budwig, N., & Wiley, A. (1995). What language reveals about children’s categories of personhood. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1995(69), 21–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christofidou, A., & Kappa, I. (1998). Pre-and protomorphological fillers in Greek language acquisition. In S. Gillis (Ed.), Studies in the acquisition of number and diminutive marking. Antwerp Papers in Linguistics, 95, 193–214.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1978). From gesture to word: On the natural history of deixis in language acquisition. In J. Bruner & A. Garton (Eds.), Human growth and development: Wolfson College lectures 1976 (pp. 95–120). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Coene, M. (2006). On the acquisition of the indefinite article: A cross-linguistic study of French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish child speech. In S. Vogeleer, (Ed.), Bare plurals, indefinites and weak-strong distinction (pp. 121–146). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Culbertson, J., & Legendre, G. (2008). Qu’en est-il des clitiques sujet en français oral contemporain? Presented at Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française – CMLF’08, Paris, France. [URL]. DOI logo
da Silva-Genest, C., Marcos, H., Salazar Orvig, A., Caët, S., & Heurdier, J. (2021). Young children’s uses of referring expressions. In A. Salazar Orvig, G. de Weck, R. Hassan, & A. Rialland (Eds.), The acquisition of referring expressions: A dialogical approach (pp. 81–113). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dale, P. S., & Crain-Thoreson, C. (1993). Pronoun reversals: Who, when, and why? Journal of Child Language, 20(3), 573–589. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Cat, C. (2005). French subject clitics are not agreement markers. Lingua, 115, 1195–1219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007). French dislocation. Interpretation, syntax, acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
de Weck, G., Hassan, R., Heurdier, J., Klein, J., & Salagnac, N. (2021). Activities and institutional contexts: their role in the use of referring expressions. In A. Salazar Orvig, G. de Weck, R. Hassan, & A. Rialland (Eds.), The acquisition of referring expressions: A dialogical approach (pp. 261–286). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, W., & Pechmann, T. (1978). lhr, dir, or mir? On the acquisition of pronouns in German children. Cognition, 6(2), 155–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K. (2001). A prosodic approach to filler syllables. Journal of Child Language, 28(1), 246–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demuth, K., & Tremblay, A. (2008). Prosodically-conditioned variability in children’s production of French determiners. Journal of Child Language, 35, 99–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
dos Santos, C. (2007). Développement phonologique en français langue maternelle: une étude de cas (PhD dissertation). Université Lyon 2, Lyon, France. [URL]
Dressler, W. U., & Karpf, A. (1995). The theoretical relevance of pre- and protomorphology in language acquisition. In G. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.), Yearbook of morphology 1994 (pp. 99–122). Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feldman, A., & Menn, L. (2003). Up close and personal: A case study of the development of three English fillers. Journal of Child Language, 30(4), 735–768. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
François, F., François, D., Sourdot, M., & Sabeau-Jouannet, E. (1977). La syntaxe de l’enfant avant cinq ans. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
Gerken, L. (1994). A metrical template account of children’s weak syllable omissions from multisyllabic words. Journal of Child Language, 21(3), 565–584. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996). Prosodic structure in young children’s language production. Language, 72, 683–712. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gerken, L., Landau, B., & Remez, R. (1990). Function morphemes in young children’s speech perception and production. Developmental Psychology, 26, 204–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gerken, L., & McIntosh, B. J. (1993). Interplay of function morphemes and prosody in early language. Developmental Psychology, 29(3), 448–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Girouard, P. C., Ricard, M., & Gouin Décarie, T. (1997). The acquisition of personal pronouns in French-speaking and English-speaking children. Journal of Child Language, 24(2), 311–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goad, H. (1997). Consonant harmony in child language: An optimality theoretic account. Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 16, 113–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001). Assimilation phenomena and initial constraint ranking in early grammars. In Proceedings of the 25th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 307–318). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Grégoire, A. (1937). L’apprentissage du langage: Les deux premières années. Paris: Alcan.Google Scholar
Hamann, C. (2002). From syntax to discourse: Pronominal clitics, null subjects and infinitives in child language. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamann, C., Rizzi, L., & Frauenfelder, U. H. (1996). On the acquisition of subjects and object clitics in French. In H. Clahsen (Ed.), Generative perspectives on language acquisition (pp. 309–334). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, M. (2003). Children’s discourse: Person, time and space across languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hosmer, D. W., Lemeshow, S., & Sturdivant, R. X. (2013). Assessing the Fit of the Model. In D. W. Hosmer, S. Lemeshow & R. X. Sturdivant (Eds.), Applied logistic regression (pp. 153–226). New York, NY: John Wiley & Son. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hughes, M. E., & Allen, S. E. M. (2006). A discourse-pragmatic analysis of subject omission in child English. In D. Bamman, D. T. Magnitskaia, & C. Zaller (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 293–304). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
(2013). The effect of individual discourse-pragmatic features on referential choice in child English. Journal of Pragmatics, 56, 15–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huxley, R. (1970). The development of the correct use of subject personal pronouns in two children. In G. B. Florès d’Arcais & W. J. M. Levelt (Eds.), Advances in psycholinguistics (pp. 141–165). Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1941). Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A functional approach to child language: A study of determiners and reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kilani-Schoch, M., & Dressler, W. U. (2000). Are fillers as precursors of morphemes relevant for morphological theory? A case story from the acquisition of French. In W. U. Dressler, O. E. Pfeiffer, M. A. Pöchtrager & J. R. Rennison (Eds.), Morphological analysis in comparison (pp. 89–111). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klein, J., Jullien, S., & Fox, G. (2021). Explorations in the relations between reference, syntactic constructions and prosody. In A. Salazar Orvig, G. de Weck, R. Hassan, & A. Rialland (Eds.), The acquisition of referring expressions: A dialogical approach (pp. 163–199). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Le Mené, M. (2017). L’acquisition d’un paradigme: Éclairage multidimensionnel sur la mise en place des déterminants chez quatre enfants entre 1;6 et 3;5 (PhD dissertation). Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Paris, France. [URL]
Le Mené, M., & Yamaguchi, N. (2017). Determiner’s emergence in early French at the crossroads of phonology and pragmatics. Paper presented at 14th International Congress for the Study of Child Language , Lyon, France.
Lleó, C. (2001). Early fillers: Undoubtedly more than phonological stuffing. Journal of Child Language, 28(1), 262–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
López Ornat, S. (2001). Fillers: How much do they generalize? Journal of Child Language, 28, 266–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003). Learning earliest grammar: Evidence of grammar variations in speech before 22 months. In S. Montrul & F. Ordóñez (Eds.), Linguistic theory and language development in Hispanic languages (pp. 254–274), Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Loveland, K. A. (1984). Learning about points of view: spatial perspective and the acquisition of ‘I/you’. Journal of Child Language, 11(3), 535–556. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maratsos, M. P. (1976). The use of definite and indefinite reference in young children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marcos, H., Salazar Orvig, A., da Silva-Genest, C., & Heurdier, J. (2021). The influence of dialogue in young children’s uses of referring expressions. In A. Salazar Orvig, G. de Weck, R. Hassan, & A. Rialland (Eds.), The acquisition of referring expressions: A dialogical approach (pp. 203–232). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgenstern, A. (2009). Eclosion de la morphosyntaxe: Le rôle des fillers pré-nominaux dans un corpus longitudinal. Rééducation Orthophonique, 238, 63–82.Google Scholar
Nashawati, S. (2010). Le développement des expressions référentielles chez le jeune enfant: Noms et pronoms dans des dialogues mère-enfant (PhD dissertation). Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Paris, France. [URL]
Paradis, C., & Prunet, J.-F. (Eds.). (1991). The special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Peters, A. M. (2001). Filler syllables: What is their status in emerging grammar? Journal of Child Language, 28, 229–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peters, A. M., & Menn, L. (1993). False starts and filler syllables: Ways to learn grammatical morphemes. Language, 69(4), 742–777. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M., Freudenthal, D., Krajewski, G., & Gobet, F. (2013). Do young children have adult-like syntactic categories? Zipf’s law and the case of the determiner. Cognition, 127(3), 345–360. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M., & Lieven, E. (1997). Slot and frame patterns and the development of the determiner category. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 123–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ricard, M., Girouard, P. C., & Gouin Décarie, T. (1999). Personal pronouns and perspective taking in toddlers. Journal of Child Language, 26, 681–697. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rose, Y. (2000). Headedness and prosodic licensing in the L1 acquisition of phonology (PhD dissertation). McGill University, Montreal, Canada. [URL]
Rose, Y., & MacWhinney, B. (2014). The Phonbank project: Data and software-assisted methods for the study of phonology and phonological development. In J. Durand, U. Gut, & G. Kristoffersen (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corpus phonology (pp. 380–401). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Y., & Wauquier-Gravelines, S. (2007). French speech acquisition. In S. McLeod (Ed.), The international guide to speech acquisition (pp. 364–384). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Thomson Learning.Google Scholar
Rozendaal, M., & Baker, A. (2008). A cross-linguistic investigation of the acquisition of the pragmatics of indefinite and definite reference in two-year-olds. Journal of Child Language, 35, 773–807. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salazar Orvig, A., Marcos, H., Morgenstern, A., Hassan, R., Leber-Marin, J., & Parès, J. (2008). Entre gramática y pragmática: Adquisición de los determinantes en francés. In L. Miranda (Ed.), V Congreso nacional de investigaciones lingüistico-filológicas (pp. 55–87). Lima: Cátedra Unesco para la lectura y escritura, Academia Peruana de la Lengua, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Universidad Ricardo Palma.Google Scholar
Salazar Orvig, A., Marcos, H., Caët, S., Corlateanu, C., da Silva, C., Hassan, R., Heurdier, J., Le Mené, M., Leber-Marin, J., & Morgenstern, A. (2013). Definite and indefinite determiners in French-speaking toddlers: Distributional features and pragmatic-discursive factors. Journal of Pragmatics, 56, 88–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaeffer, J., & Matthewson, L. (2005). Grammar and pragmatics in the acquisition of article systems. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 23(1), 53–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taelman, H., Durieux, G., & Gillis, S. (2009). Fillers as signs of distributional learning. Journal of Child Language, 36(2), 323–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language. A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Valian, V., Solt, S., & Stewart, J. (2009). Abstract categories or limited-scope formulae? The case of children’s determiners. Journal of Child Language, 36(4), 743–778. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Veneziano, E. (2003). The emergence of noun and verb categories in the acquisition of French. Psychology of Language and Communication, 7(1), 23–36.Google Scholar
(2014). Filler syllables and acquisition of grammatical morphemes. In P. Brooks, V. Kempe, J. G. Golson (Eds.). Encyclopedia of language development (pp. 215–216). New York, NY: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Veneziano, E., & Clark, E. V. (2016). Early verb constructions in French: adjacency on the left edge. Journal of Child Language, 43(6), 1193–1230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Veneziano, E., & Sinclair, H. (2000). The changing status of ‘filler syllabes’ on the way to grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language, 27, 461–500. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vinel, E., Salazar Orvig, A., de Weck, G., Nashawati, S., & Rahmati, S. (2021). The impact of speech genres on the use of referring expressions. In A. Salazar Orvig, G. de Weck, R. Hassan, & A. Rialland (Eds.), The acquisition of referring expressions: A dialogical approach (pp. 287–316). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamaguchi, N. (2012). Parcours d’acquisition des sons du langage chez deux enfants francophones (PhD dissertation). Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, Paris, France. [URL]
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Caët, Stéphanie, Aliyah Morgenstern, F. Neveu, S. Prévost, A. Steuckardt, G. Bergounioux & B. Hamma
2022. « Veux une tartine au chocolat pour goûter » : absence de sujet en référence à soi chez une enfant francophone. SHS Web of Conferences 138 ► pp. 09010 ff. DOI logo
da Silva-Genest, Christine, Haydée Marcos, Anne Salazar-Orvig, Stéphanie Caët & Julien Heurdier
2021. Chapter 3. Young children’s uses of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], ► pp. 82 ff. DOI logo
Salazar-Orvig, Anne & Geneviève de Weck
2021. Chapter 11. The acquisition of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], DOI logo
Salazar-Orvig, Anne, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan & Annie Rialland
2021. Chapter 1. A dialogical approach to the acquisition and usage of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], ► pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Salazar-Orvig, Anne, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan & Annie Rialland
2021. Chapter 1. A dialogical approach to the acquisition and usage of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Chapter 11. The acquisition of referring expressions: From formal factors to communicative experience. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], ► pp. 320 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.