Abstract

This paper provides an overview of constraint-based nonlinear phonological theories (Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998) in clinical application to German. Tenets of the theories are briefly introduced, and then illustrated with longitudinal data from a 3-year-old German-speaking child with variable and protracted phonological development. The child's consonant system showed both improvement and regression over time. Fricatives and /l/ decreased in accuracy and prevalence over time, whereas dorsal (velar) stops increased in accuracy and prevalence over time, replacing both /l/ and fricatives. The analysis proposes that the child showed an unusual ranking of constraints in which the feature [Dorsal] (velar) became a secondary default place feature whenever the global default [Coronal] place feature was ruled out by other constraints. The relevance of these data is discussed for variants of constraint-based theories.

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