Acquisition of Japanese V–V Compounds in Child Japanese: A Cue for Properties of Baby Talk

Abstract

This paper investigates the following two questions: (i) why adults tend to use V–V compounds which involve geminate consonants to children of low age, and (ii) why geminate consonants are included in the first appearance of V–V compounds by Japanese-speaking children. To solve these questions, we analyzed naturalistic data using the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000). As a result, we reported that the lower the age of children, the more V–V compounds with geminate consonants adult used. In addition, we reported that all children first produced V–V compounds which involve geminate consonants. These findings have two main theoretical implications. First, the phonological characteristics of baby talk promote vocabulary acquisition from the point of view of V–V compounds. Second, the acquisitional characteristics of Hebrew compound nouns and Chinese resultative V–V compounds shown by Berman (2009) and Chen (2008) also apply to those of Japanese V–V compounds.