The most striking – and apparently universal – variability is in what can be called “degree of babyishness”. Changes in the degree of babyishness may reflect the age of the addressee, thenature of the situation, the speaker’s estimate of the linguistics abilities of the child, the strength of the affetive bound between the interactants, and so on.
Standardized
The most striking – and apparently universal – variability is in what can be called “degree of babyishness”. Changes in the degree of babyishness may reflect the age of the addressee, thenature of the situation, the speaker’s estimate of the linguistics abilities of the child, the strength of the affetive bound between the interactants, and so on.
Keywords
baby talk
Domain
discourse
Type
unconditional
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
27 lgs, high in IE, low in African and Oceanic lgs: Bengali, Marathi (both Indic, IE), Dutch, English, German (all Germanic, IE), Greek (Greek, IE), Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish (all Romance, IE), Serbo-Croatian (Slavic, IE), Latvian (Baltic, IE), Syrian Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Maltese (all Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Berber (Berber, Afro-Asiatic), Cocopa, Pomo (both Hokan), Comanche (Uto-Aztecan), Hidatsa (Siouan), Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Kannada (Havyaka) (Dravidian), Kipsigis (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), Luo (Eastern Sudanic, Nilo-Saharan), Nivkh (Isolate), Samoan (Oceanic, E. Malayo-Polynesian), Tzeltal (Mayan)
