On the structure, survival and change of consonant clusters

Abstract

This paper shows how preferability measures can help to explain the cross-linguistic distribution of consonant clusters, their acquisition, as well as aspects of their diachronic development. Phonological preferability is measured in terms of cluster size and Net Auditory Distance, which interact with morphological complexity and frequency. Predictions derived from the preferability of clusters are tested against the evidence of language specific phonotactics, language use, language acquisition, psycholinguistic processing, and language change.

Complex Natural Systems for Language

“…Next, we propose that a cluster's preferability reflects the strength of the contrasts between cluster constituents (cf. NAD -Net Auditory Principle, 1 Dziubalska- Kołaczyk, 2014Kołaczyk, , 2019. We also predict preferred clusters to be more frequent than dispreferred ones.…”

“…The studies of first language acquisition (Yavaş & Marecka, 2013;Marecka & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2014;Zydorowicz, 2010;Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2019) showed again an impact of frequency. For example, a Polish child (female, Poznań, age 1;7-3;2, a longitudinal study) produced / pʂ-/ most frequently, which is also the most frequent cluster in Polish, and the second most frequent cluster in her production was /st/, which is the third most frequent one in Polish.…”

“…The above hypotheses were tested in a series of studies on the lexica and corpora of several languages (cf. Zydorowicz et al, 2016 2 ) as well as against the data from first (Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2019;Zydorowicz, 2010) and second language acquisition , 2011Dziubalska-Kołaczyk & Zydorowicz, 2014).…”

Ikimokyklinio ir priešmokyklinio amžiaus vaikų gebėjimas ištarti priebalsių samplaikas

“…Natūralumo teorijos atstovai (Dressler et al, 2001;Marecka ir Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2014;Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, 2015) teigia, kad vaikų kalboje pirmiausia atsiranda universaliausi ir dažniausiai vartojami garsai, jų junginiai ir žodžių struktūros, nes jos vaikams yra įprastesnės ištarti. Pavyzdžiui, pirmiausia tariami priebalsis-balsis struktūros skiemenys, nes toks garsų junginys reikalauja mažiau pastangų nei ištarti kelių šalia esančių priebalsių junginį (CCV ar VCC struktūras).…”