rhoticizm

[Marilyn Vihman]

I can offer a few comments on the acquisition of trilled /r/ -

Estonian also has a trilled /r/, both long and 'extra-long', as well
as a single tap-r (like the two-r pair in Spanish). I can say
anecdotally that some Estonians have a speech defect consisting of
uvular r production instead of the expected apical trill; I knew a
father and son who shared this defect, and i have very occasionally
heard it in others.

Of my two children, who grew up bilingual in Estonian and English, my
daughter was trilling her r's quite appropriately before she was
three (I remember her nursery school teacher trying in vain to
imitate this feat!), while my son was first able to produce a trilled
r just short of his 5th birthday. He substituted the American English
glide-r for a while, but mainly [l]. The other Estonian children I
have seen described, and the one other child I followed in California
(Stanford Papers and Reports in Child Language Development, 3, 1971),
also typically substitute [j] or [l]. I know of no cases of [w] being
substituted for either Est. [r] or [l]. I don't kow of any cases of
[v] or [h] either.

-marilyn vihman

>
>
>I am writing a paper about a nonstandard pronunciation of apical trill
>in Czech. It involves retracted articulation resulting in a
>French-sounding 'r'. Retracted pronunciation is perceived as defective
>and is treated by speech therapists. It is a relatively frequent
>defect, which even has its folk name. According to some
>older sources, approximately 22% of reported speech defects among
>Czech school children concern rhotacizms. From informal reports I
>learned that retracted pronunciation of tongue tip trill is quite
>common across languages (Italian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Russian, Polish,
>and Indonesian). I am looking for crosslinguistic information about
>acquisition of apical trill. I have the following questions:
>
>1. Czech speech therapists say that children who substitute a
>non-rhotic sound for /r/ are more likely to get rid of the
>substitution. On the other hand, children who substitute a back rhotic
>often keep this pronunciation till adulthood. Could anyone confirm
>this for another language (other languages)?
>2. /r/ is a difficult sound to acquire and children use all sorts of
>substitutes before they can produce it properly around the age 4.
>Prototypical variants are [j], [v], [w], [h], and in the later stage
>most frequently [l]. It seems to me that children who grow up to
>speak without an apparent defect rarely substitute a back trill.
>There are not many longitudinal studies of phonological development of
>Czech children, which I could use to verify this idea. I wonder
>whether anyone might know about relevant data from e.g. Italian,
>Spanish, Finnish, etc.
>3. The defective pronunciation of /r/ in Czech is often characterized
>by excessive trilling. Is this the case in other languages?
>4. Speech pathologists, who recognize several types of rhotacizm,
>describe the retracted /r/ as a velar trill (the rear edges of the
>velum are vibrating or the edges of the back of the tongue). They
>point out that velar trill is the most frequent type of rhotacizm in
>Czech and that it is different from the uvular trill which is quite
>rare. I wonder whether the velar variant of the trill is also
>described in other languages.
>5. Do children acquiring French or German have a hard time with the
>uvular 'r'? Do speech therapists have to pay special attention to
>'r'? Is rhotacizm a common speech defect?
>
>I will be glad to make a summary of your responses and send them to
>the list. Thank you for your help.
>
>Sarka Simackova
>Dept. of English and American Studies
>Palacky University Olomouc
>Krizkovskeho 10
>772 00 Olomouc


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   Marilyn M. Vihman		       |
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