Abstract
The earliest period of phonological development is similar cross-linguistically, because it is strongly constrained by infant capacities for neuromotor control. Nevertheless, infants are sensitive to the rhythmic patterns of their ambient language from birth and begin to show effects of those patterns, and of the broad distributional patterns of both vowels and consonants, already in the prelinguistic period. For English, the key influence is stress timing, with its concomitant vowel reduction, and the dominance in the input of both monosyllables (a facilitating factor) and codas (the primary challenge). Accordingly, monosyllables are generally the most frequent word shape in the single-word period, with CVC occurring within this period for most children; disyllabic codas are considerably more challenging and are commonly produced with consonant harmony. Clusters are not so frequent in English that they cannot be largely avoided in the single-word period. Vowels show the low-high internal patterning common to many languages, apparently reflecting neuromotor rather than prosodic constraints; diphthongs present no real difficulty for most typically developing children.
Fricatives often emerge first in coda position; the frequent occurrence of coda sibilants in English morphology leads to their common overuse in a pre-morphological period. The interdentals, voiced fricatives and rhotic approximant are typically the last consonants to be acquired, with differing pathways leading to differing orders of acquisition. Achieving the rhythmic pattern of English takes considerably longer than does accurate production of most segments: Final syllable lengthening is consistently seen only after word combination has begun, while vowel reduction takes some years longer. The production of the full range of English consonant cluster types is also seen only after most English consonants have begun to be accurately produced.
Fricatives often emerge first in coda position; the frequent occurrence of coda sibilants in English morphology leads to their common overuse in a pre-morphological period. The interdentals, voiced fricatives and rhotic approximant are typically the last consonants to be acquired, with differing pathways leading to differing orders of acquisition. Achieving the rhythmic pattern of English takes considerably longer than does accurate production of most segments: Final syllable lengthening is consistently seen only after word combination has begun, while vowel reduction takes some years longer. The production of the full range of English consonant cluster types is also seen only after most English consonants have begun to be accurately produced.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Handbook of English Pronunciation |
| Editors | Marnie Reed, John Levis |
| Place of Publication | Malden, MA |
| Publisher | Wiley-Blackwell |
| Pages | 333-349 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-118-31447-0 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |