acquisition and language change

[Jaye Padgett]

Dear info-childes recipients,

I'm thinking about some issues involving sound change and
markedness, and I'm wondering how they might connect up with facts of
phonological
acquisition. I was hoping somone might be able to point me to some
relevant research
or data, if any exists.

Proto-Slavic experienced velar palatalizations causing velars to front to
palato-alveolars before front vowels and [j]. Specifically, k,g,x > tS, dZ, S,
respectively (the initial sounds in 'cheese', 'judge', and 'shout'). The usual
assumption is that the velars were already pronounced in a rather fronted,
or palatal, manner before this change, just as they are in most or
all languages.
In fact, they may have been strongly palatalized, i.e., kj, gj, xj.
This is a very
common kind of sound change across languages. Something interesting about
it is that it never happens in the other direction: tS --> (fronted)
k is not an attested
sound change in any language. There are various well known sound changes that
are common and unidirectional in this sense. Yet the reason for the
unidirectionality
of this one isn't clear.

What I'm wondering is whether we know about the sequence of acquisition
by children of palato-alveolars on the one hand, and fronted or
palatalized velars
on the other. I'm wondering whether the directionality of this sound
change might
follow from fronted or palatalized velars being dispreferred in
acquisition compared to
palato-alveolars. (Note that the question here concerns specifically
fronted or palatalized velars.)

Do children pronounce words like 'keys' as 'cheese', or vice versa?
Does anyone know
of good literature or a source of data on this, or on the acquisition
of Russian phonology,
ones that might help me with these questions?

I'd be grateful for any help.

Jaye Padgett

***********************

Jaye Padgett
Department of Linguistics
Stevenson College
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064

(831) 459-3157
padgett at cats.ucsc.edu