Developmental and linguistic effects on the coarticulation of fricative‐vowel productions

Abstract

Previous work (Nittrouer, Studdert‐Kennedy, and McGowan, 1989) supports the notion that children attack the acquisition of speech and language in larger‐than‐segment units, as evidenced by greater coarticulatory interactions in young children's speech that diminish with age. In this study, the experimental design from Nittrouer et al. was expanded to include familiarity versus nonfamiliarity with a stimulus item. The notion of familiarity included two factors, meaningfulness of the stimulus item, and relative amount of motor practice. Results of acoustic measurements of children's (3‐, 5‐, and 7‐year‐olds) and adult's productions confirm that children do exhibit a greater effect of a following vowel (/i/ vs /u/) on the preceding fricative (/s/ vs /∫/) when compared to adults. In addition, relative meaningfulness of a stimulus item appears to decrease the degree of coarticulatory interaction between these segments, regardless of age of the individual. These results are discussed with regard to traditional models of coarticulation and traditional theories of speech and language acquisition.