A gestural account of a child-specific neutralisation in strong position

Abstract

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0952675711000297How to cite this article: Tara McAllister Byun (2011). A gestural account of a child-specic neutralisation in strong position. Phonology, 28, pp 371-412The child-specific phenomenon of preferential neutralisation in initial position, which reverses a positional bias attested across adult grammars, represents a long-standing problem for formal models of developmental phonology. In a phonetically based model of phonology, child-specific phonological patterns may emerge as the consequence of physical differences between child and adult speech. This paper presents new case-study data suggesting that a child-specific pattern of fricative neutralisation in initial position has its roots in children's articulatory limitations. Coarticulated fricative and vowel gestures are shown to require independent control of the tongue and jaw, known to be problematic for developing speakers. Substitution errors affecting fricatives are analysed as a phonologised reflex of this phonetic pressure to avoid overlapping vowel and fricative gestures. The positional asymmetry emerges as the consequence of the differing degrees of gestural overlap permitted in syllable-initial vs. syllable-final position, as encoded in the framework of Articulatory Phonology (Browman & Goldstein 1986).

Speech Sound Disorders in Children: An Articulatory Phonology Perspective

“…These arguments also have support from longitudinal observational data on positional lateral gliding in children (/l/ is realized as [j]; Inkelas and Rose, 2007). Positional lateral gliding in children is said to occur when the greater gestural magnitude of prosodically strong onsets in English interacts with the anatomy of the child's vocal tract (Inkelas and Rose, 2007;McAllister Byun, 2011. Within the AP model, reducing the number of required gestures (simplification) and poor tongue differentiation issues would likely have their origins at the level of Tract Variables while issues in relative timing between the tongue gestures are likely to arise at the level of the Gestural Score (Table 1).…”

“…However, we chose to focus on the AP framework, as it directly addresses issues related to phonology and articulation using DST principles related to relative stable patterns of behaviors (attractor states), that emerge when multiple components (neural, muscular, biomechanical) underlying these behaviors interact through time in a given context (self-organization) as shown in the time varying nature of the relationship between coupled structures (synergies) that express those behaviors (Saltzman and Munhall, 1989;Browman and Goldstein, 1992). Some examples of studies using this AP/DST approach can be found in papers on child-specific neutralizations in primary stress word positions (McAllister Byun, 2011), articulation issues related to /r/ production , apraxia of speech (van Lieshout et al, 2007), studies on motor speech processes involved in stuttering (Saltzman, 1991;Jackson et al, 2016), phonological development (Rvachew and Bernhardt, 2010), SSDs (Gildersleeve-Neumann and Goldstein, 2015), and in children with repaired cleftlip histories (van Lieshout et al, 2002). In the next few sections we will review the concept of synergies and the development of speech motor synergies, which are directly related to DST principles of self-organization and coupling, followed by how the AP model uses these concepts to discuss linguistic/phonological contrast.…”

“…Such complex couplings between multi-frequency oscillators may be found at different levels in the speech system such as between slower vowel production and faster consonantal movements (Goldstein et al, 2007), or between shorter-time scale gestures and longer-time scale rhythmic units (moras, syllables, feet and phonological phrases; Tilsen, 2009). Experimentally, the interaction between gestural and rhythmic systems have been identified by a high correlation between inter-gestural temporal variability and rhythmic variability (Tilsen, 2009), while behaviorally, such gesture-rhythm interactions are supported by observations of systematic relationships between patterns of segment and syllable deletions, and stress patterns in a language (Kehoe, 2001; for an alternative take on neutralization in strong positions using constraint-based theory and AP model see McAllister Byun, 2011). Issues in maintaining the stability of complex higher order ratios in multi-frequency couplings (especially at faster speech rates) between slower vowel production and faster consonantal movements have also been implicated in the occurrence of speech sound errors in healthy adult speakers (Goldstein et al, 2007).…”

“…For example, the tendency to overshoot is greater in initial positions where a more forceful gesture is favored for prosodic reasons. This allows the hard to produce fricative to be replaced by a ballistic tongue-jaw gesture that does not violate the MOVE-AS-UNIT constraint (Inkelas and Rose, 2007;McAllister Byun, 2011 as described in the "Introduction Section." McLeod and Baker, 2017).…”

“…There have been several theoretical attempts at integrating phonetics and phonology in clinical S-LP. In this context, the characterization of speech patterns in children either solely as the product of performance limitations (i.e., challenges in meeting phonetic requirements arising from motor and anatomical differences) or purely as a consequence of phonological/grammatical competence has been challenged (Inkelas and Rose, 2007;Bernhardt et al, 2010;McAllister Byun, 2012). McAllister Byun (2011 and McAllister Byun and Tessier (2016) suggest a "phonetically grounded phonology" approach where individual-specific production experience and speech-motor development is integrated into the construction of children's phonological/grammatical representations.…”