Fricative acquisition in English- and Icelandic-speaking preschoolers with protracted phonological development

Abstract

Few studies have directly compared fricative development across languages. The current study examined voiceless fricative production in Icelandic- versus English-speaking preschoolers with protracted phonological development (PPD). Expected were: a low fricative match (with age effect), highest match levels for /f/ and non-word-initial fricatives, developmentally early mismatch (error) patterns including deletion, multiple feature category mismatches or stops, and developmentally later patterns affecting only one feature category. Crosslinguistic differences in phonetic inventories were predicted to provide different options for mismatch patterns, e.g. affricates in English, [+spread glottis] segments in Icelandic. For each language, native speakers audio-recorded and transcribed single-word speech samples for thirteen 3-year-olds and ten 4-year-olds. Predictions regarding mismatches were generally confirmed. Accuracy data were partially confirmed, /f/ having a lower match than /s/ overall for the Icelandic children. Other results reflected language or group differences. The data provide confirmation that phonological acquisition reflects crosslinguistic, language-specific and child-specific influences.

Ultrasound and acoustic analysis of sibilant fricatives in preadolescents and adults

“…This measure may be useful in future studies of fricative differentiation in young children and in disordered speech (cf. Bernhardt et al, 2015;Holliday et al, 2015;Neumeyer et al, 2015), where direct information on tongue shape may indicate the nature of immaturities in fricative production.…”

Language and Learner Specific Influences on the Emergence of Consonantal Place and Manner Features

“…In this context, Bernhardt et al (2015), who compare the development of fricatives by English, German and Icelandic learners, observe that English and German children use affricate outputs more prominently than Icelandic children do. These scholars relate this observation to the absence of the phonological feature relevant to affrication in Icelandic, given that this language, as opposed to English and German, does not display affricates in its inventory.…”

Kuwaiti Arabic: acquisition of singleton consonants

“…The long variants of the articulatorily complex geminate /rː/ and uvular /qː/ showed higher mastery levels than their short variants. Researchers studying a variety of languages have observed earlier mastery of long consonants, positing that having a longer time to produce a challenging consonant (i.e., a WM geminate) may make it easier to produce: for Lebanese Arabic (Khattab andAl-Tamimi 2013), Finnish (Savinainen-Makkonen 2000) and Icelandic (Bernhardt et al 2015b).…”