Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:54:46.584Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A phonetic analysis of consonantal devoicing in children's speech*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Bruce L. Smith
Bruce L. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A number of phonologists have observed the frequent occurrence of ‘devoiced’ obstruents in word-final position in children's utterances. Although such transcription-based accounts have provided evidence of the phenomenon, physical phonetic properties of devoiced consonants have not been described. Therefore, characteristics of voicing control for ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ stops produced by five English-speaking children aged 2; 6–3; 0, five aged 4; 0–4; 6, and five adults were investigated in terms of (1) the percentage of all stop productions evidencing ‘devoicing’ during consonant closure, and (2) in the case of devoiced stops, the proportion of consonant closure evidencing voicing. Both groups of children revealed substantial amounts of consonantal devoicing when compared with the adults; in addition, the proportion of stop closure evidencing voicing was considerably less for the children than for the adults. It was also observed, however, that the children's ‘devoiced’ stops revealed significantly more voicing than their phonemically ‘voiceless’ stop productions.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 19 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, research Contract NIH-NICHD-NO1-HD-3-2793. The author would like to thank Carol Stoel-Gammon for her Constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper and Philip Dale for his advice in the area of statistical analyses. Requests for reprints should be sent to the author at CDMRC 393 WJ-10, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.

References

REFERENCES

Bernthal, J. E. & Beukelman, D. R. (1976). A comparison of intraoral air pressure generated by children and adults. Paper presented at the American Speech and Hearing Association Convention, Houston.Google Scholar
Ingram, D. (1976). Phonological disability in children. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Löfqvist, A. (1975). A study of subglottal pressure during the production of Swedish stops. JPhon 3. 175–89.Google Scholar
Major, R. C. (1977). Phonological differentiation of a bilingual child. Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 22. 88–122.Google Scholar
Menn, L. (1976). Pattern, control, and contrast in beginning speech: a case history in the development of word form and word function. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Naeser, M. A. (1970). The American child's acquisition of differential vowel duration. The Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning, Technical Report 144.Google Scholar
Nooteboom, S. G. (1972). Production and perception of vowel duration: a study of durational properties of vowels in Dutch. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. J. (1974). Phonetic explanation in phonology. In Bruck, A., Fox, R. & La Galy, M. (eds), Papers from the Parasession on Natural Phonology. Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Oller, D. K. (1974). Simplification as the goal of phonological processes in child speech. LL 24. 299–303.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, M. (1968). The breath-stream dynamics of simple-released-plosive production. Bibliotheca Phonetica 6. Basel: Karger.Google Scholar
Shipp, T. (1973). Intraoral air pressure and lip occlusion in midvocalic stop consonant production. JPhon 1. 167–70.Google Scholar
Siegel, S. (1956). Nonparametric statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Slis, I. H. (1970). Articulatory measurements on voiced, voiceless and nasal consonants. Phonetica 21. 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, B. L. (1978). Temporal aspects of English segment duration: a developmental perspective. JPhon 6. 37–67.Google Scholar
Smith, B. L. & Westbury, J. R. (1975). Temporal control of voicing during occlusion in plosives. Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,Austin, Texas.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, N. V. (1973). The acquisition of phonology: a case study. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Stampe, D. (1969). The acquisition of phonetic representation. Papers of the Chicago Linguistic Society 5. 443–54.Google Scholar
Stampe, D. (1972). A dissertation on natural phonology. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Velten, H. (1943). The growth of phonemic and lexical patterns in infant language. Lg 19. 281–92.Google Scholar
Vogel, I. (1975). One system or two: an analysis of a two-year-old Romanian-English bilingual's phonology. PRCLD 9. 43–62.Google Scholar
Warren, I. B. (1975). The development of phonological processes in the young child. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington.Google Scholar