This article examines whether children alter a variable phonological pattern in an artificial language towards a phonetically-natural form. We address acquisition of a variable rounding harmony pattern through the use of two artificial languages; one with dominant harmony pattern, and another with dominant non-harmony pattern. Overall, children…

Analysis of 12 Scottish and 12 American 3- to 6-year-olds interacting with adults indicated that, because Scottish adults use the present perfect tense more frequently in their speech to children than American adults do, Scottish children use the tense in their speech long before American children do. (Author/CB)

Examined the pattern of deletion of final "/t/" and "/d/" in word final consonant clusters in 3- and 4-year-old children (n=16) and their degree of mastery of phonological and grammatical constraints. Results indicate that children as young as three had mastered the phonological constraints on (-t, d) deletion and that the…