ERIC Number: EJ835635
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Mar
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
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Available Date: N/A
The Longitudinal Development of Clusters in French
Demuth, Katherine; McCullough, Elizabeth
Journal of Child Language, v36 n2 p425-448 Mar 2009
Studies of English and German find that children tend to acquire word-final consonant clusters before word-initial consonant clusters. This order of acquisition is generally attributed to articulatory, frequency and/or morphological factors. This contrasts with recent experimental findings from French, where two-year-olds were better at producing word-initial than word-final clusters (Demuth & Kehoe, 2006). The purpose of the present study was to examine French-speaking children's longitudinal acquisition of clusters to determine if these results replicate developmentally. Analysis of spontaneous speech productions from two French-speaking children between one and three years confirmed the earlier acquisition of initial clusters, even when sonority factors were controlled. The findings suggest that French-speaking children acquire complexity at the beginnings of words before complexity appears word-finally. The role of frequency, morphological, structural and input factors is discussed.
Descriptors: Speech Communication, Speech, Phonemes, Phonology, French, Articulation (Speech), Morphology (Languages), Language Acquisition, Word Frequency, English, German, Toddlers, Child Language, Comparative Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
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Language: English
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