title: Vowel and diphthong development in Cantonese-speaking children.
abstract: Spontaneous speech samples were collected from 40 Cantonese-speaking children aged between 10 and 27 months. Over 7,000 vowels and diphthongs were transcribed and analysed to determine the accuracy of production of Cantonese vowels and diphthongs. A model of feature complexity was derived from the distinctive features of vowels to predict the route of development of vowels and diphthongs. Two factors were found to affect development: a linguistic factor (frequency of occurrence in the ambient language) and an articulatory factor (feature complexity). Early dependence on the feature complexity of segments at 15-18 months is superseded by ambient language influences by 24 months of age.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK. s.stokes@unn.ac.uk
authors.forename: Stephanie F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Stokes
authors.forename: I Man
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010700:Phonetics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior