title: Production of /sh/ in trochaic and nontrochaic weak contexts.
abstract: This study examined whether young children produce an emerging sound (/s/) more accurately in a weak syllable if the syllable is trochaic (i.e., in a strong-weak syllable pattern) than if it is nontrochaic (i.e., either preceding a strong syllable or following another weak syllable). Eight typically-developing 28- to 32-month-old children who sometimes misproduced /s/ imitated three-syllable nonwords with /s/ as the onset in five syllable types: (a) word-medial stressed, (b) word-medial unstressed following a stressed syllable (i.e., trochaic), (c) word-initial nontrochaic, (d) word-medial nontrochaic, and (e) word-final nontrochaic. As predicted, /s/ was more accurate in trochaic than nontrochaic contexts. Among nontrochaic contexts, /s/ was more accurate in word-final position than in word-initial or word-medial positions. Production of /s/ in word-final nontrochaic syllables was similar to that in word-medial trochaic syllables. Metrical structure and final syllable prominence together predicted which weak syllables are most likely to contain consonant errors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences and Disorders, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA.
authors.forename: Shari Baron
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Sokol
authors.forename: Marc E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Fey
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior