Development of voice onset time in standard-Greek and Cypriot-Greek-speaking preschoolers

Abstract

The current investigation examined the development of voice onset time (VOT) in Standard-Greek (SG) and Cypriot-Greek (CG)-speaking children at age levels 2;0-2;5, 2;6-2;11, 3;0-3;5, and 3;6-4;0 years. SG presents with a two-way voicing contrast (voiced and voiceless unaspirated stops) whereas CG is a three-way contrast dialect containing voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and pre-voiced stops. A cross-sectional design was used. The main goals were: (1) to determine the age at which Greek and Cypriot Greek children acquire voicing contrasts, and (2) to examine the mechanism used during the process of acquisition. Stimuli included pseudo words in minimal pair contrasts differing in stop voicing (e.g. ['gaga] vs ['kaka]). Children were taught the target words using fast mapping procedures. Each member within a word pair referred to an unfamiliar object. Audio-recorded samples were analysed from wide-band spectrograms. Results indicated a greater overall variation of voicing patterns for children than adults, in both Greek and Cypriot VOT contrasts. Greek children acquired consistent pre-voicing and short lag aspiration patterns very early on, achieving adult values for VOT contrasts for alveolar and for velar places of articulation as early as 2;0-2;5 years old. On the contrary, a developmental lag in the acquisition of voicing contrasts was noted for Cypriot children as compared to the Greek counterparts. Accounts about the developmental differences among Greek and Cypriot children with respect to the adult VOT contrasts are discussed.

Voice onset time is necessary but not always sufficient to describe acquisition of voiced stops: The cases of Greek and Japanese

“…Conversely, Greek word-initial voiced stops almost always have lead VOT values as in Spanish or French (Botinis, Fourakis & Prinou, 2000; Arvaniti, 2007). However, Okalidou, Petinou, Theodorou, & Karasimou (2010) found that 2-year-old Standard Greek-speaking children could produce adult-like lead VOT. Perhaps, in these two languages, the age of mastery of voiced stops cannot be predicted by VOT alone.…”

“…Greek-speaking children master voiced stops at very young ages (Okalidou et al, 2010; Kollia, 1987; Beckman & Edwards 2010). We speculate that this early mastery pattern of voiced stops in Greek might be due to their amplitude characteristics, which cannot be captured by VOT.…”

Voice onset time in Swedish children and adults

“…Several studies of other languages show the same tendency with higher standard deviations in children when compared to adults (Koenig, 2001;Okalidou, Petinou, Theodorou and Karasimou, 2010).…”

Voiced stop prenasalization in two dialects of Greek

“…In particular, it would be of interest to examine the acquisition of voiced stops in the Cretan dialect. Several studies (Kong et al, 2007;Okalidou et al, 2010) have shown relatively early acquisition of voiced stops in dialects of Greek with prenasalization of voiced stops. Kong et al (2007) found that many productions of so-called "voiced" stops by children were, in fact, fully nasalized.…”