On the acquisition of rhyme structure in Dutch

Abstract

In this paper I focus on developmental patterns in the acquisition of rhyme structure in Dutch.1 Rhyme structure in Dutch has several characteristics that children have to learn. First, Dutch syllables can be closed by any consonant except /h/. Second, Dutch has both long and short vowels. Third, the vowel length contrast only exists in closed syllables; in open syllables only long vowels occur. This is captured by the minimal rhyme constraint which states that Dutch rhymes are minimally bipositional (Trommelen 1983, Kager & Zonneveld 1986, Kager 1989, among others). In addition to this language-specific minimal rhyme constraint Dutch rhymes also obey the universal maximal rhyme constraint, which states that rhymes are maximally bipositional (Kaye & Lowenstamm 1981, Kager 1989). However, at the end of words an extra consonant is allowed, which I will refer to as the extrarhymal consonant.2 Word-finally we thus find syllables ending in -VVC and -VCsonCobst.3 Section 1 gives a description of the developmental stages in the acquisition of rhymes. We will see that at the first stage children only produce open syllables, and that vowel length distinctions are not mastered at this stage. Since the vowel length contrast in Dutch only exists in closed syllables, I hypothesise that children first have to acquire final consonants before they can learn the vowel length contrast.4 This hypothesis is confirmed in section 1. However, the matter is slightly more complicated. We will see that when final consonants first appear, they are exclusively realised as obstruents (stage 2). Moreover, I will show that not only are sonorants acquired later (at stage 3), but they also behave differently from obstruents in another respect. Sonorants show a strong relationship with the preceding vowel, while no such relationship exists for obstruents. I will argue in section 2 that obstruents are in the coda; sonorants in the nucleus. I will further show that at stage 3 children begin to represent vowel length in some, but not all environments. I will argue that, since at this stage rhymes are maximal bipositional, reflecting the faxt that the maximal rhyme constraint is important at the early stages of acquisition, the vowel length contrast does not show up before obstruents. Moreover, long vowels never show up before sonorants in the child’s output forms. At stage 4 the vowel length contrast is represented in all environments. I argue that at this stage the extrarhymal position is available in the child’s template. Section 3 summarises the main results and conclusions that can be drawn from them.