Summary: Default unstressed initial syllable? re-

[sandra Levey]

Re: Summary: Default unstressed initial syllable? re-Sharing this article re: syllable omission.



Levey, S., & Schwartz, R. G. (2002). Syllable omission by two-year-old children. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 23(4), 169-177.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Menn, Lise<mailto:lise.menn at colorado.edu> 
  To: Lynn Santelmann<mailto:santelmannl at pdx.edu> ; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org<mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org> 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:08 PM
  Subject: Re: Summary: Default unstressed initial syllable? re-


  Sorry, I've had a family emergency, or I would have been more active in this conversation!  In my  older son Stephen's case (and I'm trying to figure  out where I published it, as it was only a note in passing), the dummy syllable seemed to have been influenced by the English article; it was found before articles were used, and was normally  /tih/ (sorry, no IPA available on this e-mail, ih = small capital i) (barrette > tih'bet), but /tihm/ if there was a nasal in the target word (Melissa > tihm'lissa). However, for two words commonly found with 'some' (as in Do you want some salami/baloney?), he said /sihm'sami/ and /sihm'boni/ respectively...which is why I think the article is involved here.
          I know I used the 'dummy syllable' term pretty early, but I don't know if I made it up or got it from Smith ormaybe Ferguson (anybody have a copy of Ferguson, Peiser, & Weeks handy?)


  The 'recycling retruck' reminds me of a later isolated perseverative rhythm-based error that Stephen was very aware of but was unable to inhibit (at least for a few days): attempts at 'pencil sharpener' came out, willy nilly, as 'pencinal sharpener' /'pehnsihnal/.  His immediate awareness that it was wrong puts it on the borderline between a slip of the tongue and an isolated child phonology 'rule'.
                  
          Lise


  At 4:46 PM -0800 1/10/05, Lynn Santelmann wrote:
    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
    *******************************************************************************




-- 
Beware Procrustes bearing Occam's razor.

          Lise Menn                               office phone 303-492-1609
          Professor       of Linguistics          home fax     303-413-0017
          University of Colorado          Visiting Professor, University of Hunan
                  Office: Hellems 293                             April-May
          Secretary-elect, AAAS section Z (Linguistics)
  Mailing address:                        
          UCB 295
  University of Colorado
    Boulder, CO 80309-0295

  Lise Menn's home page
  http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/lmenn/

  "Shirley Says: Living with Aphasia"
  http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/Shirley4.pdf

  Japanese version of "Shirley Says"
  http://www.bayget.com/inpaku/kinen9.htm


  Academy of Aphasia
  http://www.academyofaphasia.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/info-childes/attachments/20050117/a5431038/attachment.htm>