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Production as a source of input for analysis: evidence from the developmental course of a word-blend*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Loekie Elbers
Loekie Elbers*
Affiliation:
Utrecht University
*
Vakgroep Psychonomie, Utrecht University, Postbus 80.140, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
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Abstract

Theoretical arguments for considering production as a source of input for analysis (the OUTPUT-AS-INPUT hypothesis) are reviewed, and empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is presented. The evidence consists of a longitudinal study of the developmental course of a self-created form, produced by one Dutch child. This form is the product of blending two words, wat and iets, to yield unitary wat-iets. In Dutch, independent wat and iets may each mean ‘some’ and/or ‘something’. Though wat-iets is not permitted by the language, and so does not occur in environmental input, the form stays in the child's repertoire for about 10 months (between 3;8 and 4;7) and is apparently subjected to processes of generalization: first the child treats wat-iets as a two-word frame that may be regularized, later as a unitary word that may be semantically extended. After the extension of wat-iets, independent synonymous wat and iets appear for the first time in the child's speech. It is argued that the child actually analysed his own creation.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 47 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was partly supported by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Research Institute for Language and Speech (OTS), Utrecht University. The paper is a revised and expanded version of a contribution to this Institute's 1990 yearbook (Elbers, 1991a). I am grateful to Ger de Haan for help and discussions during my stay, to the editors of the yearbook, anonymous referees and Frank Wijnen for useful comments on earlier versions of the paper, and to Anita van Loon for support and encouragement.

References

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