A Developmental Hierarchy of Syllabic Difficulty

Abstract

The syllable has been investigated as a basic unit in theoretical phonology (Morgan 1984, Harris 1983), the acquisition of phonology (Macken 1979, 1978, Ingram 1978), and printed-word recognition (Katz and Baldasare 1983, Katz and Feldman 1981). In theoretical phonology, the syllable and its structure are studied because it is there, native speakers demonstrate some sort of competence with syllables, and syllable structure interacts with other aspects of linguistic organization (Harris 1983:4). The syllable has been shown to play various functions in phonological development. In a review of research on the role of the syllable in child language development, Ingram (1978) showed that phonological processes operate at the level of the syllable, children develop canonical word shapes based on syllable structure, and the acquisition of segments affects syllable development. For printed word recognition of alphabetic orthographic systems, Katz and Baldasare (1983) showed that children (native language English) at the fifth grade level and below use syllable structure in order to name novel words and access lexical infor-