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The syllabic status of final consonants in early speech: a case study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2014

IVAN YUEN ,
KELLY MILES ,
FELICITY COX  and
KATHERINE DEMUTH
IVAN YUEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
KELLY MILES
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
FELICITY COX
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
KATHERINE DEMUTH
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University
*
Address for correspondence: Ivan Yuen, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie UniversityC5A514, Balaclava Road, North Ryde, NSW. 2109, Australia. e-mail: ivan.yuen@mq.edu.au
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Abstract

Young children's first attempts at CVC words are often realized with the final consonant being heavily aspirated or followed by an epenthetic vowel (e.g. cat /kæt/ realized as [kæth] or [kætə]). This has led some to propose that young children represent word-final (coda) consonants as an onset-nucleus sequence (CV.Cv) (e.g. Goad & Brannen, 2003), raising questions about the syllabic status of the final consonant. To address this issue, we conducted an acoustic analysis of a child's early production of CVC, CVCh, and CVCV words between the ages of 1;3 and 1;5. Aside from aspiration, the results showed that there were no significant acoustic differences between the CVC and CVCh forms. In contrast, there were systematic acoustic differences in C2 closure duration between the CVC/CVCh and CVCV target words, suggesting that at least some children learning English have early coda representations for monosyllabic CVC words, whether heavily aspirated or not.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 682 - 694
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported, in part, by Macquarie University, and the following grants: NIH R01HD057606, ARC DP110102479, and ARC CE110001021. We thank Professor Heike Behrens, the two anonymous reviewers, Jill Thorson, and Kiri Mealings for helpful comments and suggestions.

References

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