Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T21:40:55.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Asymmetries in the Acquisition of Consonant Clusters in Spanish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Jessica A. Barlow
Jessica A. Barlow*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article considers three children’s acquisition of tauto- and heterosyllabic consonant clusters in Spanish within the framework of Optimality Theory. Each child presents with a unique phonological system with respect to the cluster types. One child, BL4 (female, aged 2;8), reduces tautosyllabic clusters to the least sonorous singleton, but preserves both segments in production of heterosyllabic clusters. A second child, SD1 (female, aged 3;4), preserves both segments of tautosyllabic clusters, but reduces heterosyllabic clusters to the least sonorous singleton. Finally, a third child, SD2 (female, 3;9), reduces both types of clusters, maintaining the least sonorous segment; however, a different pattern is observed with the nasal + voiced stop clusters, which reduce to the most sonorous segment. The inter- and intra-child variation is accounted for by an appeal to general markedness and faithfulness constraints that have been motivated elsewhere in the literature in accounting for syllabic and segmental phenomena in acquisition and beyond.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article se penche sur l’acquisition de groupes consonantiques tautosyllabiques et hetérosyllabiques de l’espagnol chez trois enfants, et ce dans le cadre de la théorie de l’optimalité. Chaque enfant présente un système phonologique particulier relativement à ces types de regroupements. Un des enfants, BL4 (fille, 2;8), réduit les groupes tautosyllabiques en ne prononçant que la consonne la moins sonore, mais conserve les deux segments lors de la production des groupes hetérosyllabiques. Un autre enfant, SD 1 (fille, 3;4), conserve les deux segments des groupes tautosyllabiques, mais réduit les groupes hetérosyllabiques à leur consonne la moins sonore. Enfin, le troisième enfant, SD2 (fille, 3;9), réduit les deux types de groupes au segment le moins sonore; on remarque cependant un patron différent en ce qui concerne les groupes nasale + occlusive voisée, qui sont réduits au segment le plus sonore. La variation observée pour chacun des enfants et entre les enfants est expliquée par des contraintes générales de marque et de préservation, lesquelles ont auparavant été motivées par l’explication, entre autres, de phénomènes syllabiques et segmentaux en acquisition et dans les langues adultes.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 48 , Issue 3-4 , December 2003 , pp. 179 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2003

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.)

References

American National Standards Institute. 1991. American national standard specifications for audiometers (ANSI S3.6–1969). New York: American National Standards Institute.Google Scholar
Anderson, Raquel, and Smith, Bruce L.. 1987. Phonological development of two-year-old monolingual Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children. Journal of Child Language 14:57–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Raquel T. 2002. Onset clusters and the sonority sequencing principle in Spanish: A treatment efficacy study. In Investigations in clinical phonetics and linguistics, ed. Windsor, Fay, Kelly, M. Louise, and Hewitt, Nigel, 213–224. Mahwah: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Archangeli, Diana, Moll, Laura, and Ohno, Kazutoshi. 1998. Why not *NC. In Papers from the 34th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. Gruber, M. Catherine, Higgins, Derrick, Olson, Kenneth S., and Wysocki, Tamra, 1–26. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Avery, J. Peter. 1996. The representation of voicing contrasts. Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Baca, Leonard. 1976. Del Rio Language Screening Test. Modern Language Journal 60: 475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakovic, Eric. 1994. Strong onsets and Spanish fortition. In Proceedings of the 6th Annual Student Conference in Linguistics, University of Rochester [MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 23], ed. Giordano, Chris and Ardron, Daniel, 21–39. Department of Linguistics and Philosphy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Bakovic, Eric. 1998. Spanish codas and overapplication. In Romance linguistics: Theoretical perspectives, ed. Schwegler, Armin, Tranel, Bernard, and Uribe-Etxebarria, Myriam, 13–23. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 1997. A constraint-based account of syllable onsets: Evidence from developing systems. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 2001. The structure of /s/-sequences: Evidence from a disordered system. Journal of Child Language 28:291–324.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 2003a. Constraint conflict in medial cluster reduction in Spanish phonological acquisition. Paper presented at the 8th Southwestern Workshop on Optimality Theory, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 2003b. Variation in cluster production patterns by Spanish-speaking children. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 2003c. Phonological change and the representation of consonant clusters in Spanish: A case study. Ms., San Diego State University.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A. 2003d. The stop-spirant alternation in Spanish: Converging evidence for a fortition account. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 22:51–86.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jessica A., and Dinnsen, Daniel A.. 1998. Asymmetrical cluster development in a disordered system. Language Acquisition 7:1–49.Google Scholar
Barton, David, Miller, Ruth, and Macken, Marlys. 1980. Do children treat clusters as one unit or two? In Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, ed. Clark, Eve V., 105–137. Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Bedore, Lisa M. 1999. The acquisition of Spanish. In Language acquisition across North America: Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspectives, ed. Taylor, Orlando L. and Leonard, Lawrence B., 157–208. San Diego: Singular.Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 1995. The syllable in phonological theory. In The handbook of phonological theory, ed. Goldsmith, John A., 206–244. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul. 1998. Functional phonology: Formalizing the interactions between articulatory and perceptual drives. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, and Hayes, Bruce. 2001. Empirical tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry 32:45–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borowsky, Toni. 1986. Topics in the lexical phonology of English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Carreira, María M. 1996. Spanish clusters: Coronals, hi, and syllable structure conditions. In Aspects of Romance linguistics: Selected papers from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages XXIV, ed. Parodi, Claudia, Quicoli, Carlos, Saltarelli, Mario, and Luisa Zubizarreta, Maria, 123–134. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Chervela, Nirmala. 1981. Medial consonant cluster acquisition by Telugu children. Journal of Child Language 8:63–73.Google Scholar
Chin, Steven B. 1996. The role of the sonority hierarchy in delayed phonological systems. In Pathologies of speech and language: Contributions of clinical phonetics and linguistics, ed. Powell, Thomas W., 109–117. New Orleans: International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association.Google Scholar
Chin, Steven B., and Dinnsen, Daniel A.. 1992. Consonant clusters in disordered speech: Constraints and correspondence patterns. Journal of Child Language 19:259–285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clements, George N. 1990. The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In Papers in laboratory phonology I: Between the grammar and physics of speech, ed. Kingston, John and Beckman, Mary E., 283–333. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Stuart. 1990. Italian onset structure and the distribution of il and lo . Linguistics 28:43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demuth, Katherine. 1995. Markedness and the development of prosodic structure. In Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 25, ed. Beckman, Jill, 13–25. Amherst: Graduate Linguistic Student Association.Google Scholar
de Zuluaga, Tina. 1979. Procesos en la sistematización de los sonidos del español en niños de corta edad. Revista Lenguaje 10:93–121.Google Scholar
Dinnsen, Daniel A. 1996. Context-sensitive underspecification and the acquisition of phonemic contrasts. Journal of Child Language 23:57–79.Google Scholar
Dinnsen, Daniel A. 2002. A reconsideration of children’s phonological representations. In Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development 26, ed. Skarabela, Barbora, Fish, Sarah, and Do, Anna H.-J., 1–23. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. 1963. Assumptions about nasals: A sample study in phonological universals. In Universals of language, ed. Greenberg, Joseph H., 43–47. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. 1977. New directions in phonological theory: Language acquisition and universals research. In Current issues in linguistic theory, ed. Cole, Roger W., 247–299. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Fikkert, Paula. 1994. On the acquisition of prosodic structure. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Gierut, Judith A. 1999. Syllable onsets: Clusters and adjuncts in acquisition. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42:708–726.Google Scholar
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. In press. Markedness and faithfulness constraints in child phonology. In Fixing priorities: Constraints in phonological acquisition, ed. Kager, René, Pater, Joe, and Zonneveld, Wim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goad, Heather, and Brannen, Kathleen. 2003. Phonetic evidence for phonological structure in syllabification. In The phonological spectrum II: Suprasegmental structure, ed. van de Weijer, Jeroen, van Heuven, Vincent, and van der Hulst, Harry, 3–30. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Goad, Heather, and Rose, Y van. 2000. Headedness versus sonority in cluster reduction. In Papers from the 36th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. Okrent, Arika and Boyle, John, 109–123. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Goad, Heather, and Rose, Y van. In press. Input elaboration, head faithfulness, and evidence for representation in the acquisition of left-edge clusters in West Germanic. In Fixing priorities: Constraints in phonological acquisition, ed. Kager, René, Pater, Joe, and Zonneveld, Wim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Brian A., and Cintrón, Patricia. 2001. An investigation of phonological skills in Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking 2-year-olds. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 15:343–361.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Brian A., and Iglesias, Aquiles. 1996a. Phonological patterns in normally developing Spanish-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds of Puerto Rican descent. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 27:82–90.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Brian A., and Iglesias, Aquiles. 1996b. Phonological patterns in Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children with phonological disorders. Journal of Communication Disorders 29:367–387.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Brian A., and Swasey Washington, Patricia. 2001. An initial investigation of phonological patterns in typically developing 4-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 32:153–164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Günzburger, Deborah. 1983. Acquisition of consonant clusters. In Sound structures, ed. van den Broecke, Marcel, van Heuven, Vincent, and Zonneveld, Wim, 121–128. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera F., and Kreiter, Jacqueline. 2003. Understanding child bilingual acquisition using parent and teacher reports. Applied Psycholinguistics 24:267–288.Google Scholar
Hammond, Robert M. 1976. Phonemic restructuring in Miami-Cuban Spanish. In 1975 Colloquium on Hispanic Linguistics, ed. Aid, Frances M., Resnick, Melvyn C., and Saciuk, Bohdan. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, Robert M. 2001. The sounds of Spanish: Analysis and application. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Harris, James W. 1969. Spanish phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harris, James W. 1979. “Voiced” versus [+Voice] in Spanish obstruents. Hispania 62:342–344.Google Scholar
Harris, James W. 1983. Syllable structure and stress in Spanish. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harris, John, and Gussmann, Edmund. 2002. Word-final onsets. Ms., University College London. Available: http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/575-0203/575-0203-HARRIS-0-0.PDF.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce. 1982. Extrametricality and English stress. Linguistic Inquiry 13:227–276.Google Scholar
Herbert, Robert K. 1986. Language universals, markedness theory and natural phonetic processes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández-Chávez, Eduardo, Vogel, Irene, and Clumeck, Harold. 1975. Rules, constraints and the simplicity criterion: An analysis based on the acquisition of nasals in Chicano Spanish. In Nasálfest: Papers from a Symposium on Nasals and Nasalization, ed. Ferguson, Charles A., Hyman, Larry M., and Ohala, John J., 231–248. Language Universals Project, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Hodson, Barbara W. 1986. The Assessment of Phonological Processes-Spanish. San Diego: Los Amigos Association.Google Scholar
Hualde, José Ignacio. 1991. On Spanish syllabification. In Current studies in Spanish linguistics, ed. Campos, Héctor and Martinez-Gil, Fernando, 475–494. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. 2001. On the limits of phonetic determinism in phonology: *NC revisited. In The role of speech perception phenomena in phonology, ed. Hume, Elizabeth and Johnson, Keith, 141–185. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Inkelas, Sharon. 1994. The consequences of optimization for underspecification. In Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 25, ed. Beckman, Jill, 287–302. Amherst: Graduate Linguistic Student Association.Google Scholar
Jongstra, Wenckje. 2003. Variation in reduction strategies of Dutch word-initial consonant clusters. Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Kaye, Jonathan. 1990. ‘Coda’ licensing. Phonology 7:301–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Suksan. 1990. A nonlinear analysis of reduplicating preterites in Germanic. Linguistic Analysis 20:104–118.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter. 1993. A course in phonetics. 3rd ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Lee, James F. 1989. The acquisition of syllable structure and stress patterns by monolingual Spanish-speaking children. Hispanic Linguistics 2:229–252.Google Scholar
Levine, Mel N. 1986. Leiter International Performance Scale: A handbook. Chicago: Stoelting.Google Scholar
Lleó, Conxita. 2003. Prosodic licensing of codas in the acquisition of Spanish. Probus 15:257–281.Google Scholar
Lleó, Conxita, and Prinz, Michael. 1996. Consonant clusters in child phonology and the directionality of syllable structure assignment. Journal of Child Language 23:31–56.Google Scholar
Lombardi, Linda. 1991. Laryngeal features and laryngeal neutralization. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Lombardi, Linda. 1999. Positional faithfulness and voicing assimilation in Optimality Theory. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 17:267–302.Google Scholar
Macken, Marlys A. 1979. Developmental reorganization of phonology: A hierarchy of basic units of acquisition. Lingua 49:11–49.Google Scholar
Macken, Marlys A. 1980. The child’s lexical representation: The ‘puzzle-puddle-pickle’ evidence. Journal of Linguistics 16:1–17.Google Scholar
Maitínez-Celdrán, Eugenio. 1991. Sobre la naturaleza fonética de los alófonos de /b, d, g/ en español y sus distintas denominaciones. Verba 18:235–253.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J., and Prince, Alan S.. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 18, ed. Beckman, Jill, Walsh Dickey, Laura, and Urbanczyk, Suzanne, 249–384. Amherst: Graduate Linguistic Student Association.Google Scholar
Nemer, Julie F. 1984. Stop formation as a process. Anthropological Linguistics 26:245–269.Google Scholar
Ohala, Diane K. 1996. Cluster reduction and constraints in acquisition. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Ohala, Diane K. 1998. Medial cluster reduction in early child speech. In Proceedings of the 30th Annual Child Language Research Forum, ed. Clark, Eve V., 111–120. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
Ohala, Diane K. 1999. The influence of sonority on children’s cluster reductions. Journal of Communication Disorders 32:397–422.Google Scholar
Pater, Joe. 1999. Austronesian nasal substitution and other NC effects. In The prosody morphology interface, ed. van der Hulst, Harry, Kager, René, and Zonneveld, Wim, 310–343. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pater, Joe, and Barlow, Jessica A.. 2003. Constraint conflict in cluster reduction. Journal of Child Language 30:487–526.Google Scholar
Piggott, Glyne L. 1999. The right edge of words. The Linguistic Review 16:143–185.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan, and Smolensky, Paul. 1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Ms., Rutgers University and University of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Rice, Keren. 1996. Default variability: The coronal-velar relationship. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 14:493–543.Google Scholar
Rose, Yvan. 2000. Headedness and prosodic licensing in the LI acquisition of phonology. Doctoral dissertation, McGill University.Google Scholar
Rūķe-Dravina, Velta. 1990. The acquisition process of consonantal clusters in the child: Some universal rules? Nordic Journal of Linguistics 13:153–163.Google Scholar
Santagada, M., and Gurlekian, J. A.. 1989. Spanish voiced stops in VCV contexts: Are they fricative variants or approximants? Revue de phonétique appliquée 91–93:363–375.Google Scholar
Senturia, Martha Baird. 1998. A prosodic theory of hiatus resolution. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Smit, Ann B. 1993. Phonologic error distributions in the Iowa-Nebraska Articulation Norms Project: Word-initial consonant clusters. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36:931–947.Google Scholar
Smith, Neil V. 1973. The acquisition of phonology: A case study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smolensky, Paul. 1996a. On the comprehension/production dilemma in child language. Linguistic Inquiry 27:720–731.Google Scholar
Smolensky, Paul. 1996b. The initial state and ‘Richness of the Base’ in Optimality Theory. Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University. Available: http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/154–1196/roa-154-smolensky-2.pdf.Google Scholar
St. Louis, Kenneth O., and Ruscello, Dennis M.. 1987. Oral Speech Mechanism Screening Examination—Revised. Austin: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1982. Greek prosodies and the nature of syllabification. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Published by Garland Press, New York, 1990.]Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1988. Reduplication and syllable transfer in Sanskrit and elsewhere. Phonology 5:73–155.Google Scholar
Stockman, Ida J., and Stephenson, Lillie Wharton. 1981. Children’s articulation of medial consonant clusters: Implications for syllabification. Language & Speech 24:185–205.Google Scholar
Timm, Leonora A. 1976. Three consonants in Chicano Spanish: /x/, /b/, and /d/. Bilingual Review 3:153–162.Google Scholar
Toronto, Allen S. 1977. Southwestern Spanish Articulation Test. Austin: National Education Laboratory Publishers.Google Scholar
Vivaldi, AnaM. 1991. Phonological process use and dissolution in the acquisition of Puerto Rican Spanish. Doctoral dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Widdison, Kirk A. 1997. Physical parameters behind the stop-spirant alternation in Spanish. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 16:73–84.Google Scholar