Intraword Variability in French-Speaking Monolingual and Bilingual Children.

Purpose This study examines intraword variability in 40 typically developing French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children, aged 2;6-4;8 (years;months). Specifically, it measures rate of intraword variability and investigates which factors best account for it. They include child-specific ones such as age, expressive vocabulary, gender, bilingual status, and speech sound production ability, and word-specific factors, such as phonological complexity (including number of syllables), phonological neighborhood density (PND), and word frequency.

The Relationship Between Lexical and Phonological Development in French-Speaking Children: A Longitudinal Study.

Purpose This study examines the influence of lexical and phonological factors on expressive lexicon size in 40 French-speaking children tested longitudinally from 22 to 48 months. The factors include those based on the lexical and phonological properties of words in the children's lexicons (phonetic complexity, word length, neighborhood density [ND], and word frequency [WF]) as well as variables measuring phonological production (percent consonants correct and phonetic inventory size). Specifically, we investigate the relative influence of these factors at individual ages, namely, 22, 29, 36, and 48 months, and which factors measured at 22 and 29 months influence lexicon size at 36 and 48 months.

The acquisition of nuclei: a longitudinal analysis of phonological vowel length in three German-speaking children.

Studies of vowel length acquisition indicate an initial stage in which phonological vowel length is random followed by a stage in which either long vowels (without codas) or short vowels and codas are produced. To determine whether this sequence of acquisition applies to a group of German-speaking children (three children aged 1;3-2;6), monosyllabic and disyllabic words were transcribed and acoustically analysed. The results did not support a stage in which vowel length was totally random.

Intervocalic consonants in the acquisition of German: onsets, codas or something else?

This study examines the behaviour of five phonemes /f, [symbol: see text], ts, k, l/ in word-initial, word-final, and intervocalic positions in the productions of five German-speaking children (age 1;3 to 3;3 years) in order to determine the patterning of those intervocalic consonants--do they behave more like onsets or codas? The study also contrasts the behaviour of intervocalic consonants after short versus long vowels in view of the stance taken in the theoretical literature that intervocalic consonants after short vowels are ambisyllabic but not after long vowels. Findings show that out of 25 conditions (5 phonemes x 5 children), nine yield support for the patterning of intervocalic consonants as codas, two as onsets, and five as unique (neither coda nor onset). Three conditions yield support for the dual patterning of intervocalic consonants.

Prosodic Patterns in Children's Multisyllabic Word Productions.

This paper reviews results from a series of studies that examined the influence of metrical and segmental effects on English-speaking children's multisyllabic word productions. Three different approaches (prosodic structure, trochaic template, and perceptual salience) that have been proposed in the literature to account for children's prosodic patterns are presented and evaluated. An analysis of children's truncation or syllable deletion patterns revealed the following robust findings: (a) Stressed and word-final unstressed syllables are preserved more frequently than nonfinal unstressed syllables, (b) word-internal unstressed syllables with obstruent onsets are preserved more frequently than word-internal syllables with sonorant onsets, (c) unstressed syllables with non-reduced vowels are preserved more frequently than unstressed syllables with reduced vowels, and (d) right-sided stressed syllables are preserved more frequently than left-sided stressed syllables.