Smith, C.
University of York, UK
Onomatopoeic forms are often disregarded from the phonological analysis of infant data (e.g., Fikkert & Levelt (2008)), seen as a temporary and irrelevant aspect of the developing lexicon which is superfluous to the adult speech model of Indo-European languages. However, synesthetic forms known as mimetics are abundant in languages such as Japanese, and have been found to facilitate novel-verb learning in Japanese amongst infants acquiring either Japanese or English as a first language (Kantartzis et al. (2011)). Onomatopoeic forms often constitute an important portion of infants` earliest word forms in a range of languages (Menn & Vihman (2011)) despite their limited role in most adult lexica. These are thought to provide a linguistic scaffold in language development through the perception of phonologically wild segments (Rhodes (1994)): wildness in the input, whereby the vocal tract`s full capacity is used in order to approximate sounds of non-human origin, is found to serve as an attention-marker, as well as aiding phonological recall in production. This study uses eye-tracking to explore the role that onomatopoeia play in language development. Infants are presented with recordings of onomatopoeic forms produced in familiar and unfamiliar languages. Forms are presented in a phonologically wild or tame manner, and infants` response times and eye movements are measured. It is hypothesised that wild onomatopoeic forms in both familiar and unfamiliar languages will elicit a quicker looking time and more accurate response than tame forms in familiar and unfamiliar languages. Results reflect the role that onomatopoeia play in early language development: cross-linguistic similarities in the prosody of onomatopoeic forms may prompt understanding and early word production, driving the infant towards further phonological development. Furthermore, the wild versus tame paradigm highlights the contrast between prosodic and phonological learning, reflecting which of the input`s linguistic queues are most relevant in early language development.