Cantonese consonantal development: towards a nonlinear account.
Descriptions of the development of prosodic and segmental tiers of children's phonological systems have been derived from investigations of the development of English. This paper provides a preliminary description of phonological tier development in Cantonese-speaking children. Eight children, (two each at 1;7, 2;6, 3;5, and 4;2 years) named 95 pictures. The data were analysed for word, syllable, onset-rime, skeletal, and segmental tiers. The results suggested a developmental order in the acquisition of hierarchical features. Decreasing order of accuracy of the tiers was word = syllable > onset-rime = skeletal > segmental. A model of feature geometry was adopted to describe the acquisition of features. An interesting finding is the way the laryngeal feature (aspiration) was combined with place contrasts one at a time rather than all at once.
Wong
W W
WW
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Stokes
S F
SF
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior