Positional Neutralization: A Case Study from Child Language

Abstract

A new longitudinal diary study of a child (E) learning American English reveals two patterns of segmental neutralization: velar fronting, in which /k/ and /g/ are realized as [t] and [d], and lateral gliding, in which /l/ is realized as [j]. Both phenomena are restricted to prosodically strong positions, affecting only consonants in word-initial position or in the onsets of stressed syllables. An explanation for positional velar fronting that combines phonetic and grammatical considerations is proposed to account for the occurrence of the effect in children but not adults: the greater gestural magnitude of prosodically strong onsets in English interacts with the anatomy of the young child’s vocal tract to produce coronalization of prosodically strong velars. E extended the resulting pattern to lateral gliding, which developed later and has similar grammatical conditioning but less direct phonetic motivation.*

A phonetic approach to consonant repetition in early words

“…Thus, coronal repetitions for dorsal-coronal target words may include cases of segmental-level patterns, termed 'velar fronting'. For example, [tat] for "cat" may be considered to be velar fronting in the phonological literature (e.g., Ingram, 1974;Inkelas & Rose, 2007), as well as coronal repetition by our definition. Because our goal is to evaluate movement-based mechanisms of sequential consonant patterns found in early speech forms, it is not necessary to assume two separate 'mental representations' for a speech behavior (e.g., velar fronting and coronal repetition for the case of [tat] for "cat").…”

The Acquisition of Sign Language: The Impact of Phonetic Complexity on Phonology

“…After considering various alternative hypotheses, Kirk argued that children produced such forms because they are articulatorily simpler. Inkelas and Rose (2008) produced a detailed case study of a child ("E") aged 1;0 to 2;2 whose speech was characterised by two phonological processes, velar fronting (whereby /j/ and /f/ are realised as [s] and [c]) and lateral gliding (whereby /k/ is realised as [j] gestural magnitude of prosodically strong onsets in English interacted with the anatomy of the child's vocal tract (specifically, children have tongues that are relatively large for their mouth, and palates that are relatively short, compared to adults) so that E produced coronals rather than velars in these positions. E then extended this pattern to lateral gliding, which developed later and showed similar prosodic conditioning, even though its existence had less direct articulatory motivation.…”

Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology

“…Chiat 1983, Inkelas & Rose 2008. Trevor is generally faithful to initial velars, as seen in words like cow, cows, go and goes.…”

“…While this is typical of child harmony in several languages, this kind of harmony is not attested in natural adult languages (Vihman 1978, Pater 1997b, Hansson 2001, Pater & Werle 2001. U-shaped development has also been discussed in the context of other child-specific harmonies (Kiparsky & Menn 1977, Menn 1983; see also Fikkert & Levelt 2008), velar fronting (Bleile & Tomblim 1991, Inkelas & Rose 2008) and other processes (Moskowitz 1970, Ferguson & Farwell 1975, Bernhardt & Stemberger 1998.…”