This paper investigates the possible patterns of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of young children. Speech samples were elicited from three groups of children between 3 and 6 years of age and one comparison group of adults. The utterances were recorded online in a quiet room environment using high quality microphones and direct analog-to-digital conversion to computer disk. Formant frequency measures (F1, F2, and F3) were extracted from a centralized and unstressed vowel (schwa) spoken prior to two different sets of productions. The first set of productions consisted of the target vowel followed by a series of real words containing an initial CV(C) syllable (voiceless obstruent–monophthongal vowel) in a range of phonetic contexts, while the second set consisted of a series of nonword productions with a relatively constrained phonetic context. An analysis of variance was utilized to determine if the formant frequencies varied systematically as a function of age, gender, and phonetic context. Results will also be discussed in association with spectral moment measures extracted from the obstruent segment immediately following the target vowel. [Work supported by research funding from Brigham Young University.]
Many studies have examined the patterns of speech coarticulation in adults and younger speakers; however previous findings have not established a consistent developmental perspective. There are contrasting views on whether children at early stages of development demonstrate more, less, or about the same amount of anticipatory coarticulation than adults. This study will focus on describing the patterns of anticipatory lingual coarticulation in the obstruent productions of three groups of children between 3 and 6 years of age (N=42) and one comparison group of adults (N=14). Frequency measures for the first and second formants were extracted from multiple tokens of a centralized and unstressed vowel (schwa) spoken prior to two different sets of productions. The first set of productions consisted of the target vowel followed by a series of real words containing an initial CV(C) syllable, while the second set consisted of nonword productions with a relatively constrained phonetic context. Formant values were transformed to a perceptually normalized scale (ERB) prior to statistical analysis. Analysis of variance was utilized to determine if the formant frequencies varied systematically as a function of age, gender, and phonetic context. [Work supported by research funding from Brigham Young University.]
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