Default unstressed initial syllable? re-

[Glennen, Sharon]

My son at age 3 also used a "default" unstressed initial syllable, except in his case the syllable was "buh."  So we ate buhsketti, and buhzagna,  about and around became "buhbout," and "buhwound"  aquarium was "buhkarium" etc.  He began by using it for unstressed schwa syllables in the initial position, but then began using it for other initial unstressed syllables.  For example museum became "buhzeum," refrigerator was "buhfidgewator," and I was a "buhfessor."  He held onto this pattern for a long time, especially for the 3-4 syllable words.

Sharon Glennen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Audiology, Speech Language Pathology & Deaf Studies
Towson University
Towson, Maryland

-----Original Message-----
From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
[mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org]On Behalf Of Lynn Santelmann
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 12:39 PM
To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: Default unstressed initial syllable? re-


First, let me confess that this is a purely personal question, inspired by 
my son's language weirdnesses --

My son (age 3 1/2) is finally acquiring unstressed initial syllables. The 
odd thing is that he seems to have a "default" unstressed syllable, namely 
"re-". So, at our house we "remember" and "reget". I am a "refessor". We go 
to "reseums".

I'm not sure if this is a resurgence of an earlier phase of "over-re" use - 
about a year ago, we talked about "recycling retrucks", "recycling rebins", 
"recycling reguys", or if it's a different thing. The earlier re- use came 
and went spontaneously in about a month, this one is hanging around a bit 
longer.

Neither use of re is something I've ever read about, and my quick lit check 
didn't reveal anything either. Does anybody have any literature on this? 
And could it be related to the somewhat sketchy representation he seems to 
have for a lot of new words - we're getting a lot of malaprops these days 
(snowflags for snowflakes, Dora the Exploder, etc.)

Thanks

Lynn

***************************************************************************************
Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Applied Linguistics
Portland State University
P.O. Box 751
Portland, OR 97201-0751
phone: 503-725-4140
fax: 503-725-4139
e-mail: santelmannl at pdx.edu (that's last name, first initial)
web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls
*******************************************************************************