The acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl
Date
2002-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Calgary
Abstract
The acquisition of English onsets by one English-learning child is examined in close detail, with particular focus on the acquisition of /s/ and /s/-clusters. The observation that target /s/ in harmony environments is sensitive to the feature [labial] as opposed to [coronal] and [dorsal] provides support for a feature geometry model in which [labial] versus [lingual] is a possible distinction, e.g. Brown (1997). Further, the unique behavior of target /s/ in the developing phonology motivates the proposal that physiological factors, such as articulatory difficulty, can have consequences in the grammatical system. In particular, it is proposed that a constraint against lingual continuants, which require a precise physical coordination that may not have yet developed, can account for the patterns in the child's acquisition of /s/ clusters. A
comparison with the acquisition of /f/, a non-lingual continuant, and that of /l/, another lingual continuant, provides further support for this proposal. The conclusions reached here are consistent with notion of a phonological system grounded in independent, functional principles as argued for in, for example, Goad (1997).
Description
Keywords
Linguistics, Language acquisition, Phonology, Phonetics, Distinctive features (Linguistics), Constraints (Linguistics)
Citation
Hanson, R. (2002). The acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl. Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, 24(Fall), 33-75.