Summary: Default unstressed initial syllable? re-

[Lynn Santelmann]

Thank you to all you responded to my query.

It appears that the use of a type of default syllable for unstressed 
syllables is relatively common (just unfamiliar to me). The use of [ri] for 
all unstressed syllables was documented by Neil Smith (1973) for his son 
Amahl (pp. 172-173). In addition,  Gnanadesikan (2004) reports a child 
using fi as a replacement syllable in much the same contexts. Several 
people reported that they have seen this commonly in clinical practice and 
in child phonology research.  Joe Stemberger noted that many children show 
restrictions on initial unstressed syllables when they first appear, noting 
that reduplication is more common than default syllables such as my son is 
using. (Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998).

What appears to be uncommon is my son's earlier use of "recycling retruck". 
I still haven't a clue as to where that came from. Johanne Paradis noted 
that her French/English bilingual son overused re, as in re-see, re-put, 
but that use is at least semantically appropriate! This earlier use of 're' 
was definitely epenthetic, and opened up a new slot. I wonder if he was 
making the words in the phrase parallel in structure?

As for the choice of re- [ri], Patricia Donegan also speculates that these 
might be idiosyncratic based on the initial unstressed syllables of a 
child's favorite or perhaps first word, e.g., Ross's [mA] appeared to occur 
first in [mAgini] 'Lamborghini' (a toy car). This is definitely true for my 
son's re [ri] – recycling trucks were (and still are) a favorite topic of 
conversation!

The choice of 'default' syllable does seem to vary, as can be seen by the 
variety of examples that I received that have not been reported in the 
literature:
Sharon Glennen reported that her son had a similar phenomenon at age 3, but 
used "buh" ([b+schwa], I'm assuming).
Brenda L. Beverly reported that her son (same age as mine) is using 
[b+schwa] (the syllable of 'before') in words like 'bagot'.
Karin Pollock reported her daughter using 'kuh' [k+schwa]
Eve Clark wrote: "D doing something very similar, and opting for a single 
unstressed prefix on words that required that. His was based on the first 
syllable of 'forget' I think, and it turned up as 'fe-' (no 'r') on a 
variety of words as the 'default prefix'.
Patricia Donegan wrote: "Two other cases I'm aware of are John (son of 
David) Stampe's use of
[tu] or [tA] for an initial unstressed syllable ([tutar] for guitar, 
[tAkAmbAs tuhaido] for Columbus Ohio, etc.), and John Ross' son's use of 
[mA] in similar contexts.  Neither is, as far as I know, reported in the 
literature, though."

References:
Bernhardt, B.H., & Stemberger, J.P. (1998). Handbook of Phonological 
Development: From the Perspective of constraint-based nonlinear phonology. 
San Diego: Academic Press.

Gnandesikan, Amalia. 2004. Markedness and faithfulness constraints in
child phonology. In R, Kager, J. Pater and W. Zonneveld, eds.
Constraints in Phonological Acquisition. CUP. 73-108.

Peters, A.M. & L. Menn. (1993). False starts and filler syllables: ways to 
learn
grammatical morphemes. Language 69, 742-777

Smith, Neilson V. 1973. The Acquisition of Phonology: A Case Study. CUP.




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