Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/451

Rh these combinations, probably have an influence in determining what look like the capricious preferences of the child.

Such simplification of word-forms is soon opposed and largely counteracted by the growth of a feeling for the general form of the word, including the degree of its syllabic complexity, as well as the distribution of accent and the accompanying modulations of tone or pitch. The child's first imitations of the sounds, e. g., "all gone" by "a-a," or "a-ga," with rising and falling inflection, illustrate the co-operation of this feeling. Hence we find, in general, an attempt to reproduce the number of syllables with the proper distribution of accent. Thus biscuit becomes "bítchic"; cellar, "sítto"; umbrella, "nobélla"; elephant, "étteno" or (by a German child) "ewebón"; kangaroo, "kógglegoo"; hippopotamus, "ippen-pótany"; and so forth.

Along with the cutting down of the syllabic series there goes from the first a considerable alteration of the single constituent sounds. The vowel sounds are rarely omitted, yet they may be greatly modified, and these modifications occur regularly enough to suggest that the child finds certain nuances of vowel sounds comparatively hard to reproduce. Thus the short d in hat and the long i (ai) seem to be acquired only after considerable practice. Many of the consonantal sounds, as the sibilants s, sh, the liquids l, r, the aspirates h, th, and others, as j and, in rare cases at least, g, appear to cause difficulty at the beginning of the speech period. Such sounds are frequently dropped, no other sound being substituted, and this holds good especially when the difficult sound is in combination with another which can be articulated. Thus in the early stages poor becomes "poo"; look, "ook"; stair, "tair"; trocken (German), "tokko"; dance (sibilant), "dan"; schlafen (German), "lafen." Along with these omissions there go curious substitutions, presumably of easier sounds, but not necessarily of sounds which strike our ear as similar. Thus drum is changed into "gum," whereas by another child gum is given as "dam"; thread is given as "shad"; trop (French) as "crop"; pussie as "poofee"; sleepy as "feepy"; Lampe (German) as "Bampe"; bannisters as "bannicars."

These substitutions illustrate the growing feeling for