Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T16:18:09.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The syllabic status of final consonants in early speech: a case study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2014

IVAN YUEN ,
KELLY MILES ,
FELICITY COX  and
KATHERINE DEMUTH
IVAN YUEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
KELLY MILES
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
FELICITY COX
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
KATHERINE DEMUTH
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
*
Address for correspondence: Ivan Yuen, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityC5A514, Balaclava Road, North Ryde, NSW. 2109, Australia. e-mail: ivan.yuen@mq.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Young children's first attempts at CVC words are often realized with the final consonant being heavily aspirated or followed by an epenthetic vowel (e.g. cat /kæt/ realized as [kæth] or [kætə]). This has led some to propose that young children represent word-final (coda) consonants as an onset-nucleus sequence (CV.Cv) (e.g. Goad & Brannen, 2003), raising questions about the syllabic status of the final consonant. To address this issue, we conducted an acoustic analysis of a child's early production of CVC, CVCh, and CVCV words between the ages of 1;3 and 1;5. Aside from aspiration, the results showed that there were no significant acoustic differences between the CVC and CVCh forms. In contrast, there were systematic acoustic differences in C2 closure duration between the CVC/CVCh and CVCV target words, suggesting that at least some children learning English have early coda representations for monosyllabic CVC words, whether heavily aspirated or not.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 682 - 694
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported, in part, by Macquarie University, and the following grants: NIH R01HD057606, ARC DP110102479, and ARC CE110001021. We thank Professor Heike Behrens, the two anonymous reviewers, Jill Thorson, and Kiri Mealings for helpful comments and suggestions.

References

REFERENCES

Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2005). Praat: doing phonetics by computer. Online: <http://www.praat.org/>..>Google Scholar
Botma, B. & van Oostendorp, . (2012). The return of the Silbenschnittkorrelation: re-examining the Dutch vowel system. Paper presented at the 20th Manchester Phonology Meeting, May.Google Scholar
Davis, B. L. & MacNeilage, P. F. (1990). The acquisition of correct vowel production: a quantitative case study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 33, 16–27.Google Scholar
Davis, B. L., MacNeilage, P. F. & Matyear, C. L. (2002). Acquisition of serial complexity in speech production: a comparison of phonetic and phonological approaches to first word production. Phonetica 59, 75–107.Google Scholar
Demuth, K. (1995). Markedness and the development of prosodic structure. In Beckman, J. (ed.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 25, 13–25. Amherst, MA: GLSA, University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Demuth, K., Culbertson, J. & Alter, J. (2006). Word-minimality, epenthesis and coda licensing in the early acquisition of English. Language and Speech 49, 137–74.Google Scholar
Demuth, K. & Johnson, M. (2003). Truncation to subminimal words in early French. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 48, 211–41.Google Scholar
Fey, M. & Gandour, J. (1982). Rule discovery in phonological acquisition. Journal of Child Language 9, 71–81.Google Scholar
Fikkert, P. (1994). On the acquisition of prosodic structure. Doctoral Dissertation 6, Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics, Leiden University, Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Goad, H. (2002). Markedness in right-edge syllabification: parallels across populations. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 47, 151–86.Google Scholar
Goad, H. & Brannen, K. (2003). Phonetic evidence for phonological structure in syllabification. In van de Weijer, J., van Heuven, V. & van der Hulst, H. (eds), The phonological spectrum, vol. 2, 3–30. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
House, A. & Fairbanks, G. (1953). The influence of consonant environment upon the secondary acoustical characteristics of vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 25, 105–13.Google Scholar
Imbrie, A. K. K. (2005). Acoustical study of the development of stop consonants in children. Unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, MIT, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1941/1968). Child language, aphasia, and phonological universals. The Hague & Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
Kaye, J. (1990). ‘Coda’ licensing. Phonology 7, 301–30.Google Scholar
Kehoe, M. & Stoel-Gammon, C. (2001). Development of syllable structure in English-speaking children with particular reference to rhymes. Journal of Child Language 28, 393–432.Google Scholar
Kirk, C. & Demuth, K. (2006). Accounting for variability in 2-year-olds’ production of coda consonants. Language Learning and Development 2, 92–118.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1993). A course in phonetics, 3rd ed.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Lehiste, I. (1972). The timing of utterances and linguistic boundaries. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 51, 2018–24.Google Scholar
Lleó, C. & Demuth, K. (1999). Prosodic constraints on the emergence of grammatical morphemes: crosslinguistic evidence from Germanic and Romance languages. In Greenhill, A., Littlefield, H. & Tano, C. (eds), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 407–18. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Prieto, P. & Bosch-Baliarda, M. (2006). The development of codas in Catalan. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 5, 237–72.Google Scholar
Pulgram, E. (1970). Syllable, word, nexus, cursus. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Repp, B. (1984). Closure duration and release burst amplitude cues to stop consonant manner and place of articulation. Language and Speech 27, 245–54.Google Scholar
Repp, B. & Williams, D. (1985). Influence of following context on perception of the voiced-voiceless distinction in syllable-final stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 78, 445–57.Google Scholar
Roark, B. & Demuth, K. (2000). Prosodic constraints and the learner's environment: a corpus study. In Howell, S. C., Fish, S. A. & Keith-Lucas, T. (eds), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 597–608. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Snow, D. (1994). Phrase-final syllable lengthening and intonation in early child speech. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 37, 831–40.Google Scholar
Song, J. Y., Demuth, K. & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2012). The development of acoustic cues to coda contrasts in young children learning American English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 131, 3036–50.Google Scholar
Stevens, K. N. (2002). Toward a model for lexical access based on acoustic landmarks and distinctive features. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 111, 1872–91.Google Scholar
Stites, J., Demuth, K. & Kirk, C. (2004). Markedness versus frequency effects in coda acquisition. In Brugos, A., Micciulla, L. & Smith, C. E. (eds), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 565–76. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Stoel-Gammon, C. (1998). Sounds and words in early language acquisition: the relationship between lexical and phonological development. In Paul, R. (ed.) Exploring the speech-language connection, 25–52. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Treiman, R. & Zukowski, A. (1990). Toward an understanding of English syllabification. Journal of Memory and Language 29, 66–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turk, A. & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2007). Multiple targets of phrase final lengthening in American English words. Journal of Phonetics 35, 445–72.Google Scholar
Vihman, M. M. & Velleman, S. L. (1989). Phonological reorganisation: a case study. Language and Speech 32, 149–70.Google Scholar
Zamuner, T. S., Gerken, L. A. & Hammond, M. (2004). Phonotactic probabilities in young children's speech production. Journal of Child Language 31, 515–36.Google Scholar
Zamuner, T. S., Gerken, L A. & Hammond, M. (2005). The acquisition of phonology based on input: a closer look at the relation of cross-linguistic and child language data. Lingua 115, 1403–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar