The late acquisition of coarticulatory patterns associated with English liquid articulation

Abstract

The late acquisition of liquids is well documented and attributed to the simultaneous anterior and posterior lingual constrictions required. But adult-like segmental production also entails the acquisition of coarticulatory patterns. Liquids are interesting in this regard because they have exceptionally strong effects on their surround, including long-distance anticipatory effects. The current study investigated the development of these effects in 5-year-old, 8-year-old, and adult speech using a previously validated perceptually based measurement technique (Redford et al., 2018). Ten participants per age-group produced minimal pair words with /r/ and /l/ onsets in sentences with several unstressed function words preceding the target liquid. Overall results indicated longer distance anticipatory effects for /r/ than /l/. Two group differences were also identified: anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ was equal to /r/ in 5-year-old speech, and greater than anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ in 8-year-old or adult speech. The results indicate distinct timing patterns for English /r/ and /l/. We suggest that the greater anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ observed in 5-year-olds’ speech may indicate its default articulation in a running speech context, and that the development of its adult-like articulation therefore requires learning to inhibit extensive pre-posturing. [Work funded by NIH grant No. R01HD087452.]The late acquisition of liquids is well documented and attributed to the simultaneous anterior and posterior lingual constrictions required. But adult-like segmental production also entails the acquisition of coarticulatory patterns. Liquids are interesting in this regard because they have exceptionally strong effects on their surround, including long-distance anticipatory effects. The current study investigated the development of these effects in 5-year-old, 8-year-old, and adult speech using a previously validated perceptually based measurement technique (Redford et al., 2018). Ten participants per age-group produced minimal pair words with /r/ and /l/ onsets in sentences with several unstressed function words preceding the target liquid. Overall results indicated longer distance anticipatory effects for /r/ than /l/. Two group differences were also identified: anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ was equal to /r/ in 5-year-old speech, and greater than anticipatory coarticulation of /l/ in 8-year-old or a...