Padrões iniciais na aquisição do sistema de sons do português: características universais e específicas

Abstract

Adopting a strictly motor approach to linguistic organization, the theoretical proposal called Molde e Conteúdo (Davies & Macneilage 1995; Macneilage & Davies 1966) argues that the first child production akin to adult speech – canonical babbling – can be seen as a motor correlate of the molde silábico. Moldes constitute a rhythmic basis catalyzing specific syllabic or segmental sequences. The independent motor control of such elements emerges gradually from jaw/tongue synergies with which the child initiates a type of vocal production similar to the adult’s. In the acquisition of speech production skills, then, changes in the quality of sounds in an utterance are initially based in changes in the amplitude of the jaw opening/closing cycle, i.e., they determine intra-syllabic organization. Syllables sequences, in turn, comprise vocalic and consonantal qualities produced in homorganic articulation places (i.e. front consonants with front vowels; back consonants with back vowels), as demonstrated child data derived from six different linguistic communities – English, Swedish, French, Japanese (in the Stanford database), Brazilian Portuguese (Teixeira & Davies 1999) e Equatorial Quichua (Gildersleeve-Neumann, doctoral dissertation in preparation, U. Texas, Austin). In general, the data on Brazilian Portuguese acquisition are comparable to production universal patterns reported for children in different languages, but also show specific characteristics due to the ambient language pressure.