Transitional Phenomena Revisited: Insights into the Nominal Insight

Abstract

The title of this paper “Transitional Phenomena Revisited” refers to a paper by John Dore and his colleagues (Dore et al., 1976) entitled “Transitional Phenomena in Early Language Acquisition.” Dore describes a type of vocalization intermediate between pre-linguistic babbling and early words. These vocalizations are called phonetically consistent forms (PCFs, abbreviated). They are characterized as follows:”(1) PCFs are readily isolable units, which are bounded by pauses (unlike babbling); (2) they occur repeatedly as items in a child’s repertoire of sounds; (3) PCFs can be partly correlated with specifiable, recurring conditions — thus, their production is neither random in the sense ascribed to babbling nor do they conform to rules governing words; and (4) they exhibit what might be described as a ‘protophonemic’ structure in so far as their phonetic elements are more stable than in babbling though less stable than in words.” (Dore et al., 1976:15–16) So, PCFs can be roughly characterized as clusters of consistent sounds exhibiting a functional content.