Stages in the acquisition of phonology: The case of Shona child phonology
Date
2018
Authors
Pereira, Laura
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Abstract
This study identifies and characterises the stages of phonological acquisition, with
specific reference to the acquisition of syllables and segments in child phonology.
Much of the research done on phonological acquisition has been on certain elements
of phonological acquisition such as syllable structures, consonants as well as the
prosodic structure of early words (Demuth & Morgan, 1996; Lleó & Prinz, 1996;
Mudzingwa, 2001; Sibanda, 2014). This study combines some of the research done on
the stages of acquisition in order to provide a consolidated set of stages of
phonological acquisition. The analysis of these stages provides an account of the
changes that occur between each stage regarding syllables and segments. The early
one word stage sees a preference for a CV (consonant-vowel) structure as only one
segment can be planned at the onset and nucleus and later at the coda position; this is
known as the core syllable (Lleó & Prinz, 1996). This is preferred until the child
progresses further (Lleó & Prinz, 1996). Children substitute segments for ease of
production. In most cases, they substitute complex segments with simple ones
(Mudzingwa, 2001). Stops have been found to be the preferred segment that children
produce, often substituting affricates or fricatives for simple stops, that is, [s] or [f]
are replaced with [p], [t] or [d] (Chiswanda, 1994; Lust, 2006; Stoel-Gammon &
Sosa, 2009). This study relates the stages of acquisition that have been identified in
previous studies to the stages in the acquisition of Shona phonology. Although much
research has been done on child phonology and morphology, the focus of this study is
the stages of acquisition of Shona in particular, in order to see how they fit into what
has been observed in other languages. The overall analysis of the data was couched
within Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky, 2004). The central idea of OT
is that linguistic variation can be accounted for in terms of the ranking and re-ranking
of constraints (Prince & Smolensky, 2004). Each stage of acquisition consists of a
hierarchy of constraints that change with age; the changes are as a result of constraint
re-ranking. This study provides an OT account of the stages of acquisition to
demonstrate the ranking and re-ranking of constraints in Shona child phonology.
Some of the stages identified in previous research was similar to stages followed in
Shona child phonology. This study found similarities between many languages and
children would progress through the same stages, no matter the linguistic community.
The error patterns seen in English or other languages were also seen in Shona.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the University of the
Witwatersrand in fulfillment of the requirements of the
degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics
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Citation
Pereira,Laura Ami (2018) Stages in the acquisition of phonology:the case of Shona child phonology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/26613>