The acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl
| dc.contributor.author | Hanson, Rebecca | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-06-24T20:17:10Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-06-24T20:17:10Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2002-09 | |
| dc.description.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). | en_US |
| dc.description.refereed | Yes | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Hanson, R. (2002). The acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl. Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, 24(Fall), 33-75. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/28972 | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2371-2643 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51458 | |
| dc.language | English | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | University of Calgary | en_US |
| dc.publisher.department | Linguistics | en_US |
| dc.publisher.faculty | Arts | en_US |
| dc.publisher.institution | University of Calgary | en_US |
| dc.subject | Linguistics | en_US |
| dc.subject | Language acquisition | en_US |
| dc.subject | Phonology | en_US |
| dc.subject | Phonetics | en_US |
| dc.subject | Distinctive features (Linguistics) | en_US |
| dc.subject | Constraints (Linguistics) | en_US |
| dc.title | The acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl | en_US |
| dc.type | journal article |