Chapter 2. Phonological categories and their manifestation in child phonology

Abstract

The nature of phonological representations and of their acquisition by language learners has been a subject of debate since at least the 1970s. Vihman & Croft (2007) recently proposed the 'Radical' Templatic approach to phonology, which formally rejects segmental features as independent units of phonological representation, in spite of their central relevance within mainstream theories of phonology since at least the 1940s. In this chapter, I emphasize that abstract categories are in fact central to our characterization of phonological systems and their acquisition by language learners. I discuss longitudinal data on the development of consonants and consonant clusters in the productions of Catootje, a Dutch-learning child. I highlight several categorical effects that are readily captured in models of phonological development which embrace abstract units such as features and syllable constituents. Running head: Phonological Categories in Child Phonology _________________________________________________ * I would like to thank several attendees at the conference Variation in First and Second Language Acquisition: Comparative Perspectives, held in Paris in June 2011, for their useful comments and questions. In particular, I am grateful to