ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY SCHOOL OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS
The Acquisition of Greek Liquids /r/ and /l/ by Pre-school and Primary School Children
MA THESIS by Charta Melpomeni
Supervisor: Katerina Nicolaidis SEPTEMBER 2015 Charta 2
To my beloved family, for their constant
support and encouragement.
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Acknowledgements
The completion of the present research was difficult and demanding, but it was definitely worth it. It was an enlightening and unique experience, which offered me a better insight on the subject of phonetics and phonology, as well as on the development of phonological skills.
I would like to deeply thank my supervisor, Dr. Katerina Nicolaidis, for her invaluable contribution to the thesis. I have been amazingly fortunate to have an advisor who was always there to listen and give advice. I am very grateful for her guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and high standards, which have improved this thesis significantly. Her passion for phonetics and phonology, her overwhelming knowledge and incredible patience are an inspiration. I could have not imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my MA thesis.
I would also like to thank the staff members of the Phonetics Laboratory of the School of English Language and Literature for providing me with the equipment to carry out the recordings for my research.
My sincere thanks also goes to Tasos Paschalis, the technician of the English department, who helped me analyze the results of my data.
Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to the children who participated in the study, as well as the children’s parents and teachers for their cooperation and for making the procedure of data collection easier and more enjoyable.
Finally, I am truly grateful to my family and friends for their endless love and patience, for their tremendous support, and for always believing in me and not letting me give up on my dreams.
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Contents
Abstract……………………..…………………………………………. 14 1. Introduction …………………………………………….…………... 15 1.1. The Greek Consonants………………………………………… 15 1.2. Liquids ………………………………………………….………... 17 1.2.1. Rhotics ……………………………………………………… 17 1.2.2. Laterals ……………………………………………………… 18 1.3. Some Types of Rhotics ………………………………………….. 18 1.3.1 Tap and Flap ………………………………………………… 18 1.3.2. Trill ………………………………………………………..... 19 1.3.3. Retroflex …………………………………………………..... 20 1.3.4. Approximant ………………………………………………... 20 1.4. Some Types of Laterals …………………………………………. 21 1.4.1. Lateral Approximant ………………………………………. 21 1.4.2. Lateral Fricative ……………………………………………. 21 1.4.3. Other Types of Laterals ……………………………………. 22 1.5. Phonological Development ……………………………………… 22 1.5.1. Generative Phonology ……………………………………… 24 1.5.2. Natural Phonology …………………………………………. 24 1.5.3. Optimality Theory ………………………………………….. 25 1.5.4. Child-Centered Theories …………………………………… 27 1.5.5. Biological Theories ………………………………………… 29 1.5.6. Usage-Based Phonology …………………………………… 30 1.5.7. Phonotactics and Language Acquisition ………………….. 31 1.5.8. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness ………………….. 32 1.5.9. Competence vs. Performance ……………………………… 34 1.6. Research Questions ……………………………………………… 35 2. Methodology ……………………………………………………….. 36 2.1. Participants ………………………………………………... 36 2.2. Recording Procedure ……………………………………… 37 2.3. Speech Material …………………………………………… 37 2.4. Types of Liquids and Duration Measurements in the Study …………………………………………………….....39 3. Results ……………………………………………………………… 40 3.1. Words with Target /r/: Correct Production…..………………... 40 3.2. Words with Target /r/: Incorrect Production..………………… 41 3.3. Words with Target /l/: Correct Production.…………………… 41 3.4. Words with Target /l/: Incorrect Production…….……………. 42 3.5. Words with both /r/ and /l/ ……………………………………. 43 3.5.1. Words with both /r/ and /l/ Correct ………………………………… 43 Charta 5
3.5.2. Words with both /r/ and /l/ Wrong ……………………………….… 44 3.5.3. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ preceding /l/ ……………………… 45 3.5.4. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ following /l/ ………………….…… 46 3.5.5. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ preceding /r/ ……………………… 48 3.5.6. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ following /r/ ……………………… 48 3.6. Word with Three Liquids (One /l/ and Two /r/ Sounds) ……… 49 3.6.1. Word with Three Liquids: All Liquids Correct …………………. 49 3.6.2. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong /l/, Both /r/ Correct ………….. 50 3.6.3. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong Middle /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Final /r/.……………………………………………………….. 51 3.6.4. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong Final /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Middle /r/ ……………………………………………………… 52 3.6.5. Word with Three Liquids: Problem with more than One Liquid…. 53 3.7. Types of /r/ and /l/ in the Study ………………………………. 55 3.7.1. Types of /r/ in the Study ………………………………………….… 55 3.7.2. Types of /l/ in the Study ………………………………………….… 60 3.7.3. Types of /r/ in Each Word Position ………………………………… 62 3.7.4. Types of /l/ in Each Word Position ………………………………… 66 3.8. Average Durations of /r/ and /l/ in Total ……………………… 67 3.8.1. Average Durations of All Types of /r/ in Total …………………….. 68 3.8.2. Average Durations of All Types of /l/ in Total ……………….…….. 72 3.9. Average Durations of /r/ and /l/ in Each Word Position …….. 74 3.9.1. Average Durations of /r/ in Each Word Position …………………… 74 3.9.2. Average Durations of /l/ in Each Word Position …………………… 85 3.10. Closure & Release in /r/ and /l/ ……………………………… 90 3.10.1. Closure & Release in /r/ …………………………………………… 90 3.10.2. Closure & Release in /l/ …………………………………………… 92 3.11. Phonological Processes ……………………………………… 94 3.11.1. Deletion of /r/ ……………………………………………………… 96 3.11.2. Substitutions of /r/ ……………………………….………………… 97 3.11.3. Metathesis of /r/ …………………………………………………....101 3.11.4. Epenthesis in Words with /r/ ……………………………………….102 3.11.5. Deletion of /l/ ………………………………………………………104 3.11.6. Substitutions of /l/ ………………………………………………….105 3.11.7. Metathesis of /l/ …………………………………………………….109 3.11.8. Epenthesis in Words with /l/ ……………………………………….111 3.11.9. Reversed Position of /r/ and /l/ ……………………………………..112 3.12. Vocoids ………………………………………………………115 3.12.1. Counting Vocoids (Voiced Vocoids /r/) ………………………….. 118 3.12.2. Counting Vocoids (Voiceless Vocoids /r/) ………………………...119 3.12.3. Counting Vocoids (Voiced Vocoids /l/) …………………………...120 3.12.4. Counting Vocoids (Voiceless Vocoids /l/) ………………………...120 3.12.5. Voiced Vocoids /r/ (Average Durations) …………………………..121 3.12.6. Voiceless Vocoids /r/ (Average Durations) ………………………..123 Charta 6
3.12.7. Voiced Vocoids /l/ (Average Durations) ………………………125 3.12.8. Voiceless Vocoids /l/ (Average Durations) ………………………...126 4. Discussion ………………………………………………………….. 128 4.1. Children’s Phonological Acquisition ……………………….. 128 4.2. Phonological Processes and Substitution Patterns …… ……. 130 4.3. /r/ and /l/ Perception and Production in Other Languages ……. 131 4.4. Types of /r/ and Rhotic Durations in Other Languages ……. 132 4.5. /l/ Studies in Other Languages ……………………………….. 133 4.6. Vocoids ……………………………………………………….. 134 5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………. 135
Appendix A: Word List …………………………………...…………………….. 137
Appendix B: Percentages & Averages ………………………….………………. 140
Works Cited …………………………………………………………... 168
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List of Graphs
Graph 1: Words with Target /r/: Correct Production……………………………….. 40
Graph 2: Words with Target /r/: Incorrect Production..……………………………..41
Graph 3: Words with Target /l/: Correct Production.………………………………..42
Graph 4: Words with Target /l/: Incorrect Production..……………………………...43
Graph 5: Words with Both /r/ and /l/ Correct ……………………………………….44
Graph 6: Words with Both /r/ and /l/ Wrong ………………………………………..45
Graph 7: Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ precedes /l/ ………………………………46
Graph 8: Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ following /l/ ……………………………..47
Graph 9: Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ precedes /r/ ………………………………48
Graph 10: Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ follows /r/ ………………………………49
Graph 11: Word /kalorifer/: All Liquids Correct ……………………………………50
Graph 12: Word /kalorifer/: Wrong /l/, Both /r/ Correct …………………………….51
Graph 13: Word /kalorifer/: Wrong Middle /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Final /r/ …...52
Graph 14: Word /kalorifer/: Wrong Final /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Middle /r/……53
Graph 15: Word /kalorifer/: Problem with More than One Liquid ………………….54
Graph 16: Tap /r/ with Release (Average Durations in Total) ………………………68
Graph 17: Tap /r/ without Release (Average Durations in Total) …………………...69
Graph 18: Approximant /r/ (Average Durations in Total) …………………………..69
Graph 19: /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations in Total) ………………………70
Graph 20: Trill /r/ (Average Durations in Total) …………………………………….71
Graph 21: Gliding /r/ (Average Durations in Total) ………………………………...72
Graph 22: /l/ with Release (Average Durations in Total) …………………………...73
Graph 23: /l/ without Release (Average Durations in Total) ……………………...... 73
Graph 24a: Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position) …………….75 Charta 8
Graph 24b: Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position) ……………75
Graph 24c: Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) ……………...75
Graph 24d: Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters) …………………76
Graph 25a: Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position) ………….77
Graph 25b: Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position) ………...77
Graph 25c: Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) …………..77
Graph 25d: Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters ………………78
Graph 26a: Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position) …………………78
Graph 26b: Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position) ………………..79
Graph 26c: Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) …………………..79
Graph 26d: Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters) ……………………...79
Graph 27a: /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position) …………..80
Graph 27b: /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position) ………..81
Graph 27c: /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) …………...81
Graph 27d: /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters) ……………...81
Graph 28a: Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position) …………………………..82
Graph 28b: Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position) …………………………83
Graph 28c: Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) ……………………………83
Graph 28d: Trill (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters) …………………………….…83
Graph 29a: /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Initial Position) ……………….85
Graph 29b: /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Middle Position) ……………..86
Graph 29c: /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Final Position) ……………….86
Graph 29d: /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ in Clusters) …………………..86
Graph 30a: /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Initial Position) ……………88
Graph 30b: /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Middle Position) …………..88 Charta 9
Graph 30c: /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Final Position) …………….88
Graph 30d: /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ in Clusters) ………………..89
Graph 31: Tap /r/: Closure/Release (Average Durations) …………………………...91
Graph 32: Lateral /l/: Closure/Release (Average Durations) ………………………..93
Graph 33: Voiced Vocoid /r/ (Initial Position) ……………………………………..121
Graph 34: Voiced Vocoid /r/ (Final Position) ……………………………………...122
Graph 35: Voiceless Vocoid /r/ (Initial Position) …………………………………..123
Graph 36: Voiceless Vocoid /r/ (Final Position) …………………………………...123
Graph 37: Voiced Vocoid /l/ (Initial Position) ……………………………………..125
Graph 38: Voiced Vocoid /l/ (Final Position) ……………………………………...125
Graph 39: Voiceless Vocoid /l/ (Initial Position) …………………………………..127
Graph 40: Voiceless Vocoid /l/ (Final Position) …………………………………...127
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List of Tables
Greek Consonants Table …………………………………………………………….15
Table 1: Tap with Release …………………………………………………………...55
Table 2: Tap without Release ………………………………………………………..55
Table 3: Approximant /r/ …………………………………………………………….57
Table 4: /r/ with Assibilation ………………………………………………………...58
Table 5: Trill …………………………………………………………………………59
Table 6: Gliding ……………………………………………………………………..60
Table 7: /l/ with Release ………………………………………………………….….62
Table 8: /l/ without Release ………………………………………………………....62
Table 9: Tap with Release in All Word Positions ……………………………….…..63
Table 10: Tap without Release in All Word Positions …………………………...…63
Table 11: Approximant in All Word Positions ……………………………………...64
Table 12: /r/ with Assibilation in All Word Positions ………………………………64
Table 13: Trills in All Word Positions ………………………………………………65
Table 14: /l/ with Release in All Word Positions ……………………………………66
Table 15: /l/ without Release in All Word Positions ………………………………...67
Table 16: /r/ Deleted …………………………………………………………………96
Table 17a: Substitutions of /r/: Stopping …………………………………………….98
Table 17b: Substitutions of /r/: Frication ……………………………………………98
Table 17c: Substitutions of /r/: Nasalization ………………………………………..99
Table 17d: Substitution of /r/ by /l/ ………………………………………………...100
Table 17e: Substitution of /r/: Vowelization ……………………………………….101
Table 18: Metathesis of /r/ …………………………………………………………102
Table 19: Epenthesis of /o/ in Words with /r/ ……………………………………...103 Charta 11
Table 20: /l/ Deleted ………………………………………………..………………104
Table 21a: Substitutions of /l/: Stopping …………………………………………...106
Table 21b: Substitutions of /l/: Frication …………………………………………...107
Table 21c: Substitutions of /l/: Nasalization ……………………………………….108
Table 21d. Substitution of /l/ by /r/ ………………………………………………...108
Table 22: Metathesis of /l/ ………………………………………………………….110
Table 23: Epenthesis of /e/, /i/, /l/ in Words with /l/ ……………………………….111
Table 24: Reversed Position of /r/ & /l/ ……………………………………………113
Table 25: Voiced Vocoids /r/ ……………………………………………………...118
Table 26: Voiceless Vocoids /r/ …………………………………………………...119
Table 27: Voiced Vocoids /l/ ……………………………………………………...120
Table 28: Voiceless Vocoids /l/ …………………………………………………...120
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List of Spectrograms
Spectrogram 1: Tap with Release…………………………………………………….56
Spectrogram 2: Tap without Release ………………………………………………..56
Spectrogram 3: Approximant ………………………………………………………..57
Spectrogram 4: Assibilation . …………………………………………..……………58
Spectrogram 5: Trill ………………………………………………………………...59
Spectrogram 6: /l/ with Release……………..………..……………………...... 61
Spectrogram 7: /l/ without Release ………………………………………………….61
Spectrogram 8: /r/ Deletion ………………………………………………………….96
Spectrogram 9: Stopping: /p/ Instead of /r/ ………………………………………….97
Spectrogram 10: Stopping: /t/ Instead of /r/ ……………………………………….. .97
Spectrogram 11: Nasalization: /n/ Instead of /r/ ………………………………….....99
Spectrogram 12: Substituion: /l/ Instead of /r/ ……………………………………..100
Spectrogram 13: Metathesis of /r/ ………………………………………………….102
Spectrogram 14: Epenthesis of /o/ after /r/ …………………………………………103
Spectrogram 15: /l/ Deletion ………………………………………………………. 104
Spectrogram 16: Stopping: /t/ Instead of /l/ ……………………………………….. 105
Spectrogram 17: Stopping: /k/ Instead of /l/ ………. ………………………………106
Spectrogram 18: Substitution: /s/ Instead of /l/ …………………………………….107
Spectrogram 19: Nasalization: /n/ Instead of /l/ …………………………………....108
Spectrogram 20: Substitution: /r/ Instead of /l/ ……………………………………. 109
Spectrogram 21: Metathesis of /l/ …………………..……………………………... 110
Spectrogram 22: Epenthesis of /i/ before /l/ ………………………………………..112
Spectrogram 23: Epenthesis of /l/ or Reduplication ………………………………..112
Spectrogram 24: Reversed Position of /r/ and /l/ ………………………………….. 114 Charta 13
Spectrogram 25: Voiced Vocoid /r/ ……………………………………………….. 116
Spectrogram 26: Voiceless Vocoid /r/ …………………………………………….. 117
Spectrogram 27: Voiced Vocoid /l/ ……………………………………………….. 117
Spectrogram 28: Voiceless Vocoid /l/ …………………………………………….. 118
Charta 14
Abstract
The present study examines the acquisition of Greek liquids /r/1 and /l/ by Greek children as well as the phonological processes children go through in order to acquire these two liquids. Another topic of the research is the presence, the number and the average durations of voiced and voiceless vocoids in both liquids. The experiment described in the present paper was conducted using data collected from recordings of
56 children (aged 2 to 9) native speakers of Greek. The results showed that both /r/ and /l/ are acquired around the age of 5. However, complete mastery of both phonemes is not achieved until later on. Children produce correctly the words that contain /l/ earlier than the words that contain /r/. The words that contain both liquids are produced later and words that contain three liquids are produced even later. In the study we found six types of /r/ and two types of /l/. The most common types of /r/ were the approximants and the taps with presence of a stop-like burst. Trills were also frequent around the age of 5. The most common type of lateral was the /l/ without presence of a release on the acoustic signal. The younger groups of children usually had the longest average durations due to slower speech. As for the phonological processes, the most common ones were deletion, stopping, metathesis, epenthesis and different types of substitution. The results of the present study offer new insights concerning the age at which children are considered to have reached complete mastery of the two liquids in their native language.
1 The symbol /r/ is used for the Greek rhotic throughout the text for practical reasons.
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1. Introduction
1.1. The Greek Consonants
The consonant system of Greek comprises voiced and voiceless plosives (or stops), fricatives, nasals and liquids (rhotics and laterals) in five places of articulation
(Arvaniti 1999a: 167).
Greek Consonants Table
Bilabial Labiodental Interdental Alveolar Velar Plosive p b t d k Fricative f v θ s z x Nasal m n Tap Lateral l Approximant Arvaniti (2007: 103)
Greek has voiceless plosives in bilabial, alveolar and velar places of articulation. Arvaniti (2007) argues that Greek voiced stops (b, d, ) have often been treated in several studies (Newton 1961; 1972) as sequences of homorganic clusters of nasal+ voiceless stop, where the plosives and the nasals assimilate with each other, whereas in some other studies (Mirambel 1959; Householer 1964), Greek voiced plosives have been treated as phonemes (102).
Less is known about the Greek fricatives. The fricative that has drawn the attention of the researchers is the fricative [s]. Arvaniti notes that the impressionistic descriptions of the articulation of Greek [s] vary a lot (2007: 106). Panagopoulos
(1991) compared the acoustics of Greek [s], [z] and the English postalveolar pair [],
[] and found that the Greek fricatives [s] and [z] are retracted alveolars because of the difference in KHz. Nicolaidis (1994, 2001) has found that in spontaneous speech Charta 16
[s] shows variability due to coarticulation. As for the rest of the Greek fricatives,
Arvaniti (2007) points out that there is little information about their articulation and acoustics except for the duration data of Fourakis (1986) and the information regarding the perception of the Greek fricatives in clusters by Tserdanelis (2001,
2002).
Greek has only two nasal phonemes. These are the bilabial /m/ and the alveolar /n/. Arvaniti observes that when nasals are found in clusters they share the place of articulation of the plosives and the fricatives they precede (1999a: 168). The two nasals are shortened at a fast speaking rate (Arvaniti 1999b) and [n] is frequently lenited in spontaneous speech (Nicolaidis 2001).
Arvaniti (1999a) mentions that Greek has one rhotic sound that is pronounced as an alveolar tap [] when it is in word initial position and intervocally, or when it is followed by another consonant. In fast speech it may be pronounced as an alveolar approximant (168). There are some other realizations of the Greek rhotic as well. In
Baltazani (2005) three different realizations of the Greek rhotic in intervocalic position are reported. It is found as a tap, as an approximant and as a trill. Although the Greek /r/ is mostly pronounced as a tap, Arvaniti (1987) found that it is pronounced as a short trill in clusters especially when it is preceded by a plosive or a fricative.
Regarding the Greek lateral [l], it is usually produced as an alveolar approximant (Arvaniti 2007: 112). In Nicolaidis (2003) it is shown that there is some degree of variability in its place of articulation. It can be produced as an alveolar, as a retracted alveolar and can also be produced with complete median closure. Arvaniti also notes that in northern varieties of Greek it is velarized before the back vowels [a], Charta 17
[o], [u] and in many southern varieties, including varieties spoken in Crete and
Peloponese it is patalatized before [i] and [e] (2007: 112).
1.2. Liquids
Liquid is a cover term given for many /l/ and /r/ sounds in the languages of the world. The thing that liquids have in common is that they are produced with unhindered airflow but they involve some kind of obstruction in the oral tract. Liquids are sonorants and are usually voiced. Davenport & Hannahs note that there are some voiceless liquids such as in Scottish Gaelic which has a voiceless /r/ (2005: 31).
The perception of the liquids is enhanced if the formant transitions remain at their onset formant frequencies for some 30 milliseconds or so before the transitions begin moving toward the steady-state formant frequencies of the vowel (Lieberman &
Blumstein 1988: 226). Laterals and rhotics are grouped together because they share certain phonetic and phonological similarities. Phonetically they are among the most sonorous of oral consonants (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 182).
1.2.1. Rhotics
Rhotics is a general term for R-like sounds (Hayward 2000: 202).
Phonologically rhotics tend to behave in similar ways. They often occupy
“privileged” places in the syllable structure in different languages. They are allowed as second members of clusters in the syllable onset, or as first members of clusters in codas. Frequently, they share this “privileged” position with lateral approximants and nasals (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 216).
Charta 18
1.2.2. Laterals
A lateral is an oral speech sound in which there is an air passageway over one or both sides of the tongue and not over the center (Bickford & Floyd 2006: 77). In the production of laterals there is contact between the tongue which is considered to be the active articulator and the roof of the mouth which is considered to be the passive articulator. In this contact between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, only the central part of the tongue is involved. There is no contact at the sides of the tongue and the air exits freely along the channels down the sides of the oral tract (Davenport
& Hannahs 2005: 31).
Acoustically, the laterals resemble the vowels more than any other consonants.
If they are pronounced in isolation or if they are considered without regard to a neighboring vowel, laterals do not have a clear acoustic definition and they cannot be distinguished unambiguously from a vowel sound (Jessem 1962: 126).
1.3. Some Types of Rhotics
1.3.1 Tap and Flap
A tap or a flap is caused by a single contraction of the muscles so that the one articulator is thrown against the other. It is often just a very rapid stop gesture.
Ladefoged and Johnson (2011) believe that it is useful to distinguish between taps and flaps.
A tap is a type of /r/ that its articulation is rapid and one articulator is thrown against another in a ballistic action. It is characterized by a single contact (Marchal
2009: 148). In the case of a tap, the tip of the tongue moves up to contact the roof of the mouth in the dental or alveolar region and then moves back to the floor of the mouth along the same path. In the case of a flap, the tip of the tongue is first curled up Charta 19 and back in a retroflex gesture and then strikes the roof of the mouth in the post- alveolar region as it returns to its position behind the lower front teeth […] Flaps are distinguished from taps by the direction of the movement-from back to front for flaps, up and down for taps” (Ladefoged and Johnson 2011: 176). We could say then that the distinction between a tap and a flap concerns the place of articulation.
Polish has two types of flapped [r]. Intervocalically a flapped [r] is represented be a single segment that lasts about 20-25 m/s. The other type of a flapped [r] consists of two segments and has all the features of a neutral, i.e. schwa-like, vowel except that it is usually rather short and lasts about 20-50 m/s (Jassem 1962: 127).
Taps often occur dialectally in England as tokens of rhotics in many parts of
Northern England such as Liverpool, Manchester and Yorkshire. Ogden also observes that many speakers who do not normally produce [r] as a tap, they use a voiceless tap in the cluster as in the word “three” (2009: 115).
1.3.2. Trill
A trill is characterized by a series of brief complete closures followed by immediate release (Marchal 2009: 147). In a trill, an articulator is made to vibrate by placing it near an articulatory surface and letting air flow through the gap (Hayes
2009: 7). Trills are more easily produced if the vibrating articulator has relatively small mass, hence the most common trills involve the tongue tip vibrating against a contact point in the dental or the alveolar region, or the uvula vibrating against the back of the tongue, so the most common type of trill is the one that involves the tip of the tongue.
Finnish and Russian are languages with apical trills. Typically, apical trills consist of two to three periods of vibration but may contain only one or have more Charta 20 than three. Each period consists of a closed phase during which the articulators are in contact, succeeded by an open phase in which they are slightly apart (Ladefoged &
Maddieson 1996: 218).
1.3.3. Retroflex
In retroflex sounds the tip of the tongue is curled back from its normal position to a point behind the alveolar ridge (Hayes 2009: 9). In retroflex sounds, the underside of the blade of the tongue acts as the active articulator against the alveolar ridge. The retroflex /r/ is like an alveolar /r/. The only difference between the two is that when the retroflex is produced the underside of the tongue blade forms a momentary stricture of complete closure with the alveolar ridge (Carr 1993: 3). Usually alveolar
[] shares some degree of this curling at back of the tongue tip, which distinguishes it from other alveolars. Some English Speakers lack the alveolar approximant [] and instead have a retroflex one (Hayes 2009: 9).
1.3.4. Approximant
There are two cases according to the degree of constriction when a consonant is produced. When the constriction is weak, the airflow remains laminar and this configuration is favorable to resonance and the term “approximant” is often used. Not all consonants realized with this degree of approximation of the articulators are necessarily voiced, but they are not perceptually accompanied by the sound of friction. This is true for liquids such as /l, r, / (Marchal 2009:141). Approximants, like fricatives, do not have complete closure in the vocal tract. Approximants though are sonorants and do not have a stricture narrow enough to cause a rise in air pressure
(Ashby & Maidment 2005: 57). Charta 21
An alveolar approximant rhotic is very common in many Southern British
English parts. This type of rhotic may appear only in prevocalic positions. In most varieties of American English there is also an approximant rhotic. In Standard
German there is another type of rhotic approximant which is the uvular approximant and is usually found in no word-initial positions (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996:
233).
1.4. Some Types of Laterals
1.4.1. Lateral Approximant
The majority of laterals are approximants. An approximant is a sound by two articulators coming close to each other (Bickford & Floyd 2006: 77). Lateral approximants are defined by the fact that the airstream is diverted from the center of the vocal tract and is made to flow along one or both sides of the tongue. The airstream is not impeded sufficiently to produce audible turbulence between the articulators, thus they are not fricatives (Hayward 2000: 199).
1.4.2. Lateral Fricative
In the production of lateral fricatives the tip of the tongue contacts the alveolar ridge and there is constriction between one or both sides of the tongue and the alveolar ridge which causes a fricative sound (Bickford & Floyd 2006: 77). The best- known example of a language with a lateral fricative is Welsh. A voiceless alveolar lateral fricative alternates with a voiced alveolar lateral approximant under specific morphological conditions (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 203).
Charta 22
1.4.3. Other Types of Laterals
As mentioned earlier, the most common type of lateral is the lateral approximant. There are some other types of laterals that although they are rare, they exist in some languages.
Voiced laryngealized lateral continuants occur in several languages, such as
Tiddim Chin, Nez Perce, Chemehuevi, Haida, Sedang, Klamath (Ladefoged &
Maddieson 1996: 200). Zulu has a velar lateral ejective affricate which is an unusual sound for most languages of the world (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 206) and
Navaho has a voiceless lateral affricate with a long period of frication which is considered to be equivalent to aspiration (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 208).
1.5. Phonological Development
Phonological development refers to the processes by which children acquire and use the sound patterns of their native language in communication (Snowing &
Hulme 1994: 21). A significant part of acquiring language is the learning of specific sound patterns that are specific to a language. While learning sound patterns, the child also develops the necessary skills to judge the admissibility of the new patterns and to create novel sound patterns (Morehead 1971:279). According to Jakobson’s model,
“the sound inventory of a language is constructed based on a universal hierarchy of oppositions, with the child coming to the task of acquisition without any contrasts and successively acquiring a set of contrasts according to the universal hierarchy of oppositions” (Rice & Avery 1994:26). This set of oppositions accounts for all possible phonological oppositions in the world’s languages (Atkinson 1982:27), hence children gradually acquire “a system of phonemic contrasts contributed to the Charta 23 tendency to construe the infant’s first task as one of learning to distinguish phonetic segments of one another” (Jusczyk 1997: 48).
In the words of Gerken “infants might begin the language acquisition process by learning to perceive and produce the repertoire of sound segments used in their language. Once having acquired this repertoire, they employ it consistently to recognize and to produce isolated words. In the end, they acquire the principles that allow them to combine words into sentences” (1994: 271). A number of researchers have observed and classified the sounds produced by infants at their various stages of development. Infants’ development towards speech was viewed as progression towards their “first word” and according to Jakobson is considered to be prelinguistic
(McLaughlin 1998: 183). The various stages or time lines that show the infants’ progress to language are called “milestones” and are the following ones: vegetative sounds, cooing, babbling, vocal play, echolalia and jargon.
Some investigators (Stoel-Gammon & Cooper 1984; Vihman et al. 1985;
Vihman & Miller 1988) have reported that the repertoire of sounds and sound combinations used by children in late babbling and in early word production are closely related. Thus, they claim that there is little support for the notion of discontinuity in the sounds that appear in babbling and those that occur in the production of the first words. Therefore, they believe that it is more reasonable to treat babbling behavior as a stage of language development, rather than accept Jakobson’s claims that babbling is prelinguistic.
Sadler (1989) claims that phonological development is not complete at school entry, but is normally completed between 5 and 7 years of age, with the perfection of sounds such as “r” and “th” and some consonant clusters may take some time to become accurate (14). Charta 24
1.5.1. Generative Phonology
In the 1950s Noam Chomsky adopted the term generative from mathematics and introduced the term generative grammar. Chomsky (1972) proposed the existence of Universal Grammar (UG), which is a set of restrictions on the possible structure of language based on an innate language device. The ability to acquire language according to his view, involves “an innate mental endowment” that allows children to discover the structure of their language with relatively little data from the adult data
(Stoel-Gammon & Sosa 2007: 247).
Generative Phonology is based on the idea that “linguistic structures are made by assembling small letter-like atoms into larger structures” (Port & Leary 2005:
958). Chomsky and Halle (1968) proposed a phonological theory based on the idea that there are abstract underlying phonological representations which are surfaced only after they have been transformed by the application of a set of ordered rules.
Generative Phonology was “unique in its time for its rule-based account of phonology. The rules described how phonemes or classes of phonemes were produced under specified circumstances” (Velleman & Vihman 2007: 40).
1.5.2. Natural Phonology
The basic thesis of natural phonology is that “the living sound patterns of languages, in their development in each individual as well as in their evolution over the centuries are governed by forces implicit in human vocalization and perception”
(Donegan & Stampe 1979: 126). Stampe argues that “the phonological system of a language is largely the residue of an innate system of phonological processes, revised in certain ways by linguistic experience (1979: 7), so the children are assumed to be born with a predetermined, universal set of phonological processes that dictate the Charta 25 form of their productions. A certain amount of linguistic knowledge is presumed to be innate. The phonological processes are innate and universal in the sense that they are natural responses to the phonetic difficulties encountered in speaking. Also, they are universal because the human vocal and perceptual apparatus is universal (Donegan &
Stampe 2009: 6).
In Natural Phonology all processes are required to have a physiological basis.
The theory of Natural phonology was based upon the idea that “perceptual and articulatory physiology constrains human phonologies in predictable ways. In order to communicate effectively, a child must overcome some of these physiological limitations” (Velleman & Vihman 2007: 41). Every child is born with the same set of innate processes and in order to acquire a language-specific phonology they need to learn the constraints a language imposes on these phonological processes. Children must learn to suppress, limit and reorder the processes according to the phonology of their native language (Stoel-Gammon & Sosa 2007: 248). Natural Phonology shared with Generative Phonology the assumption that the child’s underlying representations or target forms are the same as the adult’s (Velleman & Vihman 2007: 41).
1.5.3. Optimality Theory
Optimality Theory (OT) was first introduced by Prince and Smolensky (1993) and stands in contrast to rule-based theories of phonology due to the fact that such an overuse of rules was impractical. This dissatisfaction led to the development of alternative frameworks in which constraints play the principal or only role (Holt,
2003:10). Optimality Theory dictates that an optimal output form is selected from a set of candidates based on a ranking of violable well-formedness constraints. The Charta 26 candidate that minimally violates the constraints in the given ranking is selected as the optimal candidate.
The recent advancement of OT has offered a new view of generative phonology and how grammars yield surface representation from mental representations. Whereas previous frameworks were largely derivational in nature,
OT provides a different organization of grammar. Mental and surface representations are considered to exist, but they are referred to as input and output representations, respectively. Velleman and Vihman argue that “OT has the advantage for child phonologists of focusing on what the system does do, and on what is achieved by non- adult changes in the output, rather than on errors” (2007: 41). This is because OT is organized in such a way to optimize certain output forms, thus it is outcome-oriented rather than process-oriented (Archangeli, 1997).
All languages have a given constraint in their grammar, that constraint may be violated if necessary to obey a higher-ranked constraint. This means that constraints are violable and ranked. Constraint ranking and constraint violability allow language variation while using universal constraints. When two constraints make conflicting demands, languages differ in how the conflict is resolved (Lombardi 2001:2).
Therefore, as Linda Shockey puts it, “the ranked constraints determine which of the input form is the winner, and there is only one winner” (2003:62). In order to decide which one is the “winner”, we have to take into consideration the two general forces.
One of the forces (constraints) is faithfulness and the other one is markedness (Jacobs
2001:47). Faithfulness constraints make sure that output representations resemble input representations and markedness constraints have to do with well-formedness.
Within Optimality Theory, sound patterns are treated as the consequence of interacting markedness and faithfulness constraints, where all constraints are Charta 27 considered to be universal and violable (Prince and Smolensky 1993; Kager 1999;
McCarthy 2002). According to OT learning a language involves learning language- specific constraint ranking and treating constraints as violable, which means that cross-linguistic tendencies can be captured by cross-linguistic differences in constraint ranking (Blevins 2004: 241).
1.5.4. Child-Centered Theories
According to child-centered theories, child phonology must be addressed on its own terms, rather than in relation to the adult system (Stoel-Gammon & Sosa
2007: 249).
One of the child-centered theories is prosodic theory. Vihman (1996) states that Waterson’s prosodic phonology focuses on whole words rather than segments as the relevant unit for early phonologies and derives from the following theory “It is whole-unit or holistic approach of prosodic phonology which brought to light the patterned relationships between a child’s hardly recognizable words and the adult models and thus made it possible to explain the somewhat bizarre forms of early words, as well as why sounds that children are capable of producing are not used in all the contexts in which they occur in adult forms” (Waterson 1987: 2). A few years earlier, Waterson had made a study of her son’s phonological development. The main goals of this study were to illustrate the value of discovering the child’s phonological system on its own terms, to demonstrate that the patterns of the child’s forms was best understood as holistic rather than based on segment substitutions for adult sounds and to support the belief that the child’s perception is different from the adult’s (Waterson
1971). Charta 28
What is more, Stoel-Gammon and Sosa observe that according to Waterson, perception develops gradually along with production and the underlying child’s representations are not assumed to be adult like, since perception is not the same as the adult’s in the earliest stages (2007: 249). Moreover, Queller (1988) acknowledges the child’s active role in constructing and systematizing a lexicon, but characterizes
Waterson’s model as “embryological”. Queller also points out that “Waterson wants to explain phonological development in terms of a gradual loosening of constraints on the complexity of internal lexical representations. Permitted complexity constraints are in turn assumed to reflect limitations on what the child is capable of perceiving linguistically, at any given time” (1988: 465).
Another child centered theory is Cognitive theory, according to which children play an active role in acquiring the phonology of their native language (Stoel-
Gammon & Sosa 2007: 250). Ferguson and Farwell (1975) provided a study on the development of initial consonant categories in three children in order to illustrate the cognitive theory of phonological development. One of the most important observations of this study is that some words were pronounced in different ways by the same child at the same point of time. Ferguson and Farwell claim that children
“construct their own phonologies” (437). They also highlight the importance of the lexicon in phonological acquisition and emphasize the word as a central unit in phonological development. Vihman observes that although Ferguson and Farwell’s model emphasizes individual variation among children, it also incorporates the notion of universal phonetic tendencies which result from the human vocal tract and central nervous system (1996: 29).
Charta 29
1.5.5. Biological Theories
In opposition to the Child-centered theories that emphasize the role of the child in the process of phonological acquisition, biological theories embrace the idea that child’s phonological development lies mostly on biological development.
Locke believed that a child’s phonological system may not be acquired until after the appearance of its early words (1983: 2). He also considered the repertoire of babbling as a universal pool of possibilities out of which early word productions will be shaped. Locke’s model includes a physiological component with regard to the preexisting match between the universal repertoire of infant phonetic capacities and the universal core of adult language inventories (Vihman 1996: 32). Moreover,
Vihman (1993) asserts that “high individual variation across children early in the period of transition to speech, whatever its origins (in brain or vocal tract structure or other), can be accommodated within a biological model” (62). MacNeilage and Davis
(1990) claimed that the acquisition of motor representation and control for speech is derived from the rhythmic alternation between open and closed jaw that leads to canonical babbling which is the first adult-like syllable production.
Kent’s approach of “autoorganization” is another biological approach to phonological development. According to this approach, speech motor control is acquired in a continuous process where certain neural, environmental or cognitive changes combine and the child’s performance and reorganization come to surface
(1981: 136). A few years later, Kent proposes some basic principles related to speech development and observes that the anatomy of the vocal tract changes a lot over the first year of the child’s life. As a consequence, the range of possible infant sounds is affected directly and maturation appears to involve a control of the central nervous system over vocalization (1984: R. 889). One more self-organizing model is that of Charta 30
Lindblom who assumes that the child’s “genetic program” and the environmental processes interact with each other and give rise to child’s self-organization of phonological development (1992: 135).
1.5.6. Usage-Based Phonology
Usage-based linguistics, assumes a close relationship between language use and language structure, where structure is seen as both a generator and a product of language use (Kemmer & Barlow, 2000). Usage-based models of grammar are characterized as “maximalist” because they believe that a great deal of learning is based on the part of the speaker during language acquisition. On the contrary, generative models of grammar are characterized as “minimalist” because they try to minimize both the role of learning in language acquisition and the number of rules in language structure (Clark & Watson 2011: 526).
As for usage-based phonology, it is believed that phonology is not acquired independently of other aspects of grammar, but it is linked to the individual words that are present in the lexicon. Two characteristics of the lexicon are considered to play an important role in usage-based phonology. The two characteristics are word frequency and neighbor density of individual words. Word frequency has two effects: the reductive effect and lexical strength. One the one hand, the reductive effect facilitates the perception and the production of words. Words and phrases that are used more often undergo compression and reduction and move to automate speech.
On the other hand, lexical strength is facilitated through repetition, so frequently used words become more entrenched and conventionalized. The greater entrenchment leads to greater strength of storage in memory and easier access (Bybee 1999: 223).
Neighbor density may influence the reorganization of phonological representations Charta 31 during children’s language development. To be more specific, words that reside in dense neighbors (they differ from one another by one phoneme addition, deletion or substitution), may need more detailed phonological representations due to potential confusion with other phonologically similar words (Stoel-Gammon & Sosa 2007:
252).
1.5.7. Phonotactics and Language Acquisition
Languages differ in their sound patterns not only in terms of which sounds they use to form words but in other ways as well. One such difference has to do with the kinds of restrictions that are imposed on how phones can be ordered to form words or syllables. This property of language sound patterns is known as phonotactics
(Jusczyk 1997: 9). A speaker who knows the phonotactics of a language knows its legal sequences and structures. In Optimality Theory, the phonotactics of a language is just like the system of contrasts, defined exclusively by constrained ranking. In particular, the legal sequences are those for which the faithfulness constraints that protect them outrank the markedness constraints that forbid them (Hayes 2004: 163).
It is quite common to find that different ranges of consonants can be used in onset and coda positions (a common pattern is for there to be a wide range of choice in the onset position, but just a few possibilities for the coda) and if sequences of consonants are permitted in the onset or the coda, their length and composition is likely to be restricted (Ashby & Maidment 2005: 146).
Several studies have examined the relation between phonotactics and language development in children. These studies suggest that knowledge of the phonotactically permissible sequences can affect phoneme processing (Pitt 1998). They also suggest that young children are sensitive to acoustic-phonetic information in the developing Charta 32 lexicon but also that sensitivity to all aspects of the sound structure increases over development (Coady & Aslin 2004).
What is more, phonotactic probability appeared to influence the formation of semantic representations and the association between semantic and lexical representations (Storkel 2001). Phonotactic studies demonstrate how phonotactic patterns influence infant word learning and how this influence is modulated by vocabulary size. As a consequence, they provide evidence that infants’ knowledge of native language sound patterns influences their word learning (Estes, Edwards &
Saffran 2001).
1.5.8. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
Stanovich (1993) defines phonological awareness as the ability to deal explicitly and segmentally with sound units smaller than the syllable. According to
Snowling and Hume, phonological awareness “refers to the ability to reflect upon the sound structure of spoken words. It is a metalinguistic skill that emerges relatively late, once much of the child’s language development is complete” (1994: 24). A child with strong phonological awareness should be able to recognize and use rhyme, break words into syllables, blend phonemes into syllables and words, identify the beginning and ending sounds in a syllable and see smaller words within larger words.
There is a debate whether phonological awareness is a cause or a consequence of reading acquisition. Castles and Coltheart (2004) concluded that no study till then had provided indisputable evidence of a causal link between phonological awareness and reading success because none of the studies had properly accounted for all the relevant orthographic skills that participants may have had. Castles and Coltheart believed that in order to assess the causal link between phonological awareness and Charta 33 reading skills, it is necessary to identify children who show no knowledge of letter sounds or any reading ability at the start of longitudinal studies. On the contrary,
Hulme et al. (2005) argued that children can show explicit phonological awareness even when they have no letter knowledge at all.
Phonemic awareness is just one aspect of phonological awareness. While phonemic awareness also involves an understanding of the ways that sounds function in words, it deals with only one aspect of sound, the phoneme. Phonemic awareness
“refers to the ability to be aware of and manipulate speech sounds inside syllables. It is often measured by asking students to count, delete, or rearrange sounds within spoken syllables” (Wise et al. 1997: 211). Phonemic awareness skills enable children to use letter-sound correspondences to read and spell words. Children have to blend sounds together when they use letter-sound correspondences to read words they have never seen before. The emphasis on phoneme awareness may also reflect the assumption that phoneme awareness is a prerequisite for learning an alphabetic script
(Vandervelden & Siegel 1997: 64). Similarly to phonological awareness, the relationship between phonemic awareness and learning to read can be interpreted in two different ways: that phonemic awareness is a consequence of learning to read and that phonemic awareness is a prerequisite of learning to read. Yopp believes that “the relationship between phonemic awareness and learning to read is most likely to one of reciprocal causation” (1992: 697).
The development of phonological processing is an important precursor to the acquisition of early reading skills. Phonological processing refers to the use of the sounds of one’s language in processing written and oral language (Lonigan et al.
1998: 294). Experiences with oral language play an important role in developing phonological awareness. Children in linguistic environments where spoken syllables Charta 34 are highly salient (Greek, Italian), as determined by a number of factors including clarity of boundaries between syllables, develop syllable awareness sooner than children in linguistic environments where syllables are less salient (English, French).
Saliency and complexity of onsets in spoken language may influence the development of phoneme awareness (Anthony & Francis 2005: 256).
1.5.9. Competence vs. Performance
The competence-performance dichotomy was initially formulated by
Chomsky. The investigation of the acquisition of speech production is characterized by two theoretical approaches: the competence-related approach and the performance- related approach (Vihman 1996).
The competence-related approach is the approach of generative phonology. It is mainly based on the belief that phonological knowledge is innate, specific to humans and is also considered to be a component of Universal Grammar (UG). The performance-related approach is in the center of phonetics and according to Davis et al. (2002) “can be characterized as a predominantly biological or functional approach.
It is an attempt to understand speech production in terms of the motor, perceptual and cognitive properties derived from studies of speech related actions and from the evolutionary heritage of the vocal-auditory system” (75).
In many studies (Benedict 1979; Snyder et al. 1981; Reznick & Goldfield
1992) that compared the competence and the performance of children it was reported that there was a comparable asymmetry between comprehension (competence) and production (performance). The children generally understood many more words than they could produce. Although there was no specific explanation for this discrepancy,
Huttenlocher (1974) suggests that one possible explanation could be that children may Charta 35 be able to perceive sound patterns which they cannot produce yet and “the determining factor in which words the child produces first could be the sound-patterns they involve; that is, the early words might involve only those sounds that babies make spontaneously” (365).
1.6. Research Questions
The present study is an effort to find answers to a series of questions regarding the acquisition of the Greek liquids /r/ and /l/. More specifically, those questions are the following:
1) At what age approximately do children acquire the correct production of /r/?
2) At what age approximately do children acquire the correct production of /l/?
3) At what age can children produce correctly words that include both liquids (/r/ and
/l/)?
4) At what age can children produce correctly words that include three liquids?
5) What types of /r/ and /l/ are found in the study and which types of /r/ and /l/ are the most common in each group of children?
6) What types of /r/ and /l/ are the most common in each group of children for each word position (initial, middle, final, in clusters)?
7) What are the total average durations of /r/ and /l/ in each group of children?
8) What are the average durations of /r/ and /l/ in each group of children for each word position (initial, middle, final, in clusters)?
9) What are the average durations of closure and release in taps with release and laterals with release in each group of children? Charta 36
10) What types of phonological processes are found in the study and which phonological processes are the most common in each group of children?
11) How many voiced and voiceless vocoids (/r/ and /l/) are found in initial and final position in each group of children?
12) What are the average durations of voiced and voiceless vocoids (both /r/ and /l/) in initial and final position in each group of children?
2. Methodology
The present study was conducted within the framework of the Master’s Degree in
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
2.1. Participants
The participants in the study were fifty-six children. The children’s ages ranged between two and nine. More specifically, the children were divided into seven age groups (2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 and 8-9 years old), based on their grade in the school system in Greece each of which included eight children.. With the use of a questionnaire distributed to the parents of the children who participated, it was confirmed that all of the participants were monolingual, native speakers of Greek, while their parents are also monolingual, native speakers of Greek, born and raised in
Greece. Data of the youngest groups of children was collected from children attending a private nursery school and a public kindergarten, while that for the older children data was collected from children attending a public elementary school. All of the schools are located in Western Thessaloniki. Charta 37
Before the initiation of the research, consent forms and letters were distributed to the parents of the children, including information on the goals and methodology of the study, as well as its potential benefit to the field of Phonetics and Phonology.
The parents had to sign the consent forms in order to give permission to their children to participate in the study. They also had to answer a brief questionnaire about the hearing and speaking abilities of their children, as well as their ethnicity and their ability to speak Greek.
2.2. Recording Procedure
For the purposes of the study, recordings were made with the use of a Marantz recorder and a rode nt1 microphone. The recordings took place in quiet rooms in the schools the children attended and in some cases (especially for the youngest children) at the children’s houses. The participants were presented with a power point presentation with pictures and recordings of the target words they were expected to produce in isolation. In the beginning of each session, it was explained to the participants that they would have to repeat the word they hear. All the participants were recorded twice. The distance from the microphone was about 20 cm.
2.3. Speech Material
The participants were asked to produce one hundred and twenty-nine words
(see Appendix A). Fifty-six of them included only the phoneme /l/, fifty-seven words included the phoneme /r/, fifteen words included both phonemes (/l/ and /r)/ and one word included one /l/ phoneme and two /r/ phonemes.
The phonemes that were included in the words of the study were in initial, medial, final position and in clusters. In the case of clusters the liquids followed the Charta 38 stops (/p/, /t/, /k/). Also, the phonemes were in stressed and unstressed positions as well as in bisyllabic and trisyllabic words and there was only one word with four syllables (see Appendix A).
In more details, the 56 words that included only the /l/ phoneme consisted of
10 words with singleton /l/ in initial position (5 stressed, 5 unstressed), 21 words with singleton /l/ in medial position (11 stressed, 10 unstressed), 10 words with singleton
/l/ in final position (5 stressed, 5 unstressed) and 15 words with /l/ in clusters. The majority of the words were bisyllabic, except for the words where /l/ was in medial position. In this group of words, in the case of the stressed words, 6 were bisyllabic and 5 were trisyllabic and in the case of the unstressed words, 5 were bisyllabic and 5 were trisyllabic (see Appendix A).
The 57 words that included only the /r/ phoneme consisted of 10 words with singleton /r/ in initial position (5 stressed, 5 unstressed), 20 words with singleton /r/ in medial position (10 stressed, 10 unstressed) 10 words with singleton /r/ in final position (5 stressed, 5 unstressed) and 17 words with /r/ in clusters. Most of these words were bisyllabic, apart from the words where the /r/ was in medial position. In this group of words, in the case of the stressed words, 5 were bisyllablic and 5 were trisyllabic and in the case of the unstressed words, 5 were bisyllabic and 5 were trisyllabic (see Appendix A).
As for the 15 words that included both /l/ and /r/, 8 of them were bisyllabic and 7 were trisyllabic. Also, in 7 of these 15 words the phoneme /r/ preceded the phoneme /l/, whereas in 8 of them the phoneme /l/ preceded the phoneme /r/.
Finally, in the total of the one hundred and twenty-nine words there was one word with four syllables that included one /l/ in medial position, one /r/ in medial position as well and one /r/ in final position (see Appendix A). Charta 39
The total number of the recordings was 185, but it should be noted at this point that from the 185 recordings, data was analysed in only 112, due to poor quality of sound and other technical problems. In total, due to inability of the younger participants to produce some words, 14421 out of 14448 tokens were analysed.
To be more specific, the data collected from the recordings was segmented and annotated in PRAAT, so with the use of this software each word and phoneme was categorized and analyzed separately. Also, duration measurements of phonemes and vocoids were easily extracted in order to estimate their average duration. Finally, the percentages of the measurements and durations were estimated with the use of
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software.
2.4. Types of Liquids & Duration Measurements in the Study
In our study we found six types of rhotics and two types of laterals. The types of rhotics were: taps with release (spectrogram 1), taps without release (spectrogram
2), approximants (spectrogram 3), /r/ with assibilation (spectrogram 4), trills
(spectrogram 5) and glides. The types of laterals were: /l/ with release (spectrogram 6) and /l/ without release (spectrogram 7).
In order to measure the duration of the liquids (both rhotics and laterals) and estimate their average durations we counted from the onset of each liquid till the onset of the following vowel. It is important to note that in the case of the taps with release the stop-like interval and the following acoustic burst were both included in the measurement of the duration (spectrogram 1). Similarly, in the case of the lateral with release the acoustic burst that follows after the production of the /l/ sound was also included in the measurement of the duration (spectrogram 6). This is important to be stated because as we are going to see in more details in the results of the study, the Charta 40 average durations of rhotics and laterals with release were longer than the other types of rhotics and laterals respectively.
3. Results
3.1. Words with Target /r/: Correct Production
From all the words that children had to repeat, 57 words included only the liquid /r/. Graph (1) shows the percentages of the correctly produced words with /r/ per age group.
Correct /r/
100% 92% 92% 94% 94% 90% 79% 80% (2-3) yrs 70% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 30% 18% 20% (7-8) yrs 20% (8-9) yrs 10% 0% Age Groups
Graph 1. Words with Target /r/: Correct Production
As expected, the younger children produced less correct words than the older ones. Especially the ages (2-3) and (3-4) produced the least correct answers of all.
There is also a big increase at the number of correct productions between the ages 4 to
5 years old. From the age of 5 till the age of 9, the percentage of correct answers is almost the same for all ages and children seem to make very few errors.
Charta 41
3.2. Words with Target /r/: Incorrect Production
In the 57 words that were mentioned before, the wrong answers were also measured. Graph (2) shows the percentages of the wrong productions per age group.
Wrong /r/
100% (2-3) yrs 77% 77% 80% (3-4) yrs
60% (4-5) yrs (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs 17% Percentages 20% (7-8) yrs 4% 5% 4% 2% (8-9) yrs 0% Age Groups
Graph 2. Words with Target /r/: Incorrect Production
As far as the production of /r/ is concerned, the first two age groups appear to have the most wrong productions. From the age of 4, the number of wrong productions is decreased significantly and from age 5 the percentage of wrong answers is almost insignificant.
3.3. Words with Target /l/: Correct Production
In the speech material, the 56 words included only the liquid /l/. Graph (3) shows the correct productions of /l/ in 56 words for all age groups. Charta 42
Correct /l/
100% 88,50% 89% 91,40%91,90% 90% 85,80% 76,20% 80% (2-3) yrs 70% (3-4) yrs 56,40% 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 30% (7-8) yrs 20% (8-9) yrs 10% 0% Age Groups
Graph 3. Words with Target /l/: Correct Production
The younger children produced less correct words than the older ones. In more details, the group of children between 2 to 3 years old produced the least correct words and we could say that they produced half of the target words correctly. The next age group (3-4 year olds) produced almost 20% more correct words than the younger ones. As for the rest five age groups (4 to 9 year olds), they did not show many differences between each other.
3.4. Words with Target /l/: Incorrect Production
Apart from the correctly produced words with /l/, the words that included /l/ and were produced wrongly were also measured and the percentages of each age group are shown in graph (4). Charta 43
Wrong /l/
100%
80% (2-3) yrs (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 35,20% 40% (5-6) yrs 16,70% (6-7) yrs Percentages 20% 7% 4,50% 3,90% (7-8) yrs 1,70% 1,11% 0% (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 4. Words with Target /l/: Incorrect Production
The 2 to 3 year olds had the most wrong productions. The percentage of the wrongly produced words drops to the half in the next age group (3-4) and from the age of 4 till the age of 9 the wrongly produced words are very few. It is important to note that although there are wrongly produced words in both groups of words (/r/ and
/l/), the percentages in the case of words that contain only the liquid /r/ are higher than the percentages of words that contain only the liquid /l/. This means that children master the production of /l/ earlier than the production of /r/.
3.5. Words with both /r/ and /l/
3.5.1. Words with both /r/ and /l/ Correct
As it was mentioned earlier, in the speech material there were also 15 words that contained both /r/ and /l/ in the same word. Graph (5) shows the percentages of the correct productions of these words for each age group. Charta 44
Both /r/ & /l/ Correct
95% 97,50% 100% 90,40% 90% 79,20% (2-3) yrs 80% 70% (3-4) yrs 62,90% 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 30% 20,00% (7-8) yrs 20% 13,30% (8-9) yrs 10% 0% Age Groups
Graph 5. Words with Both /r/ and /l/ Correct
From the graph it is obvious that these words caused problems to the younger children. Especially the ages (2-3) and (3-4) seemed to have a difficulty in the production of these words. The children that are 4 to 5 years old managed to produce correctly a little bit more than half of the words and the next two age groups (5-6, 6-7) produced about 80-90 percent of the words correctly. The last two age groups which were the older ones had the highest scores of all age groups.
3.5.2. Words with both /r/ and /l/ Wrong
As in the previous groups of words (the ones which contained only /r/ and the ones that contained only /l/) so here also we counted the number of words with both
/r/ and /l/ that produced wrongly. The percentages of each group are shown in graph
(6). Charta 45
Both /r/ & /l/ Wrong
100% 90% 80% (2-3) yrs 70% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs
50% 40% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 30% 17,90% (7-8) yrs 20% 5% (8-9) yrs 10% 2% 0,40% 0,40% 0,00% 0% Age Groups
Graph 6. Words with Both /r/ and /l/ Wrong
As it was expected the most wrong productions were produced by the younger ages and especially ages (2-3) and (3-4). Although these two age groups had the highest percentages of all, their percentages were not that high. In other words, although these words contained both liquids (/r/ and /l/) they did not really make the production of these words more difficult. The same happens in the next two age groups (4-5, 5-6) where the percentages of the wrong productions are insignificant. As for the last three group ages (6-7, 7-8, 8-9), the percentages of the wrong productions are almost non-existent.
3.5.3. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ preceding /l/
In the previous paragraph we saw that although words that contain both /r/ and
/l/ are considered more difficult in their production, children did not seem to have that many difficulties. The most possible explanation is that children might have more problems with only one of the two liquids than with both of them. From the total number of words that contain both liquids, in seven of them /r/ precedes /l/. Graph (7) Charta 46 shows the results of the words that contain both liquids and children have problems with the production of /r/. Also in these words /r/ precedes /l/.
Problem with /r/ /r/ precedes /l/
100% 92,90% (2-3) yrs 75% 80% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 40% (5-6) yrs 25,90% 14,30% 10,70%
Percentages 20% (6-7) yrs 2,70% 2,70% 0% (7-8) yrs Age Groups (8-9) yrs
Graph 7. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ precedes /l/
From the above graph we can see that in ages (2-3) and (3-4), the liquid /r/ causes problems in the production of the words. The fact that 3 to 4 year olds have a higher percentage of wrong productions than younger children is vey interesting. This does not necessarily mean that they could not produce liquid /r/ at all, but they might have replaced it with another sound or they might have gone through some other phonological phenomena such as metathesis or epenthesis as we are going to see later
(see section 3.11). From the age of 4 there is an apparent reduction in the number of wrong productions and from age 5 the percentage is even more reduced. In ages (7-8) and (8-9) the wrong productions do not exceed 2,7%.
3.5.4. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ following /l/
In the group of the 15 words that contained both liquids, in 7 of these words /r/ followed /l/. In graph (8) we can see the percentages of the wrong productions of /r/ in these words where /r/ follows /l/. Charta 47
Problem with /r/ /r/ following /l/
100% 82,80% (2-3) yrs 80% (3-4) yrs 60,90% 60% (4-5) yrs (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 14,80% 20% (7-8) yrs 3,90% 3,90% 0% 0% (8-9) yrs 0% Age Groups
Graph 8. Problem with /r/ Production: /r/ following /l/
The results in graph (8) are similar to the results in graph (7). Especially for the younger age groups the case is almost the same. They have the most wrong productions and the group of 3 to 4 year olds has more wrong productions than the group of 2 to 3 year olds. From the age of 4 to 5 they do not have many wrong productions. The wrong productions in the age groups (5-6) and (6-7) are insignificant, whereas the age groups (7-8) and (8-9) produced correctly every word in this group of words.
If we compare the last two graphs with each other we can see that they are very similar. Nevertheless there are some differences that would be interesting to note. In graph (8), the percentages for every age group are lower than the percentages in graph (7). One possible explanation would be that when /r/ precedes /l/ it is easier for children to produce the word in contrast to the words where /r/ follows /l/. One more thing that would be interesting to observe is that age groups (7-8) and (8-9) do not have any wrong productions in graph (8), whereas in graph (7) they have some although they are almost non-existent. The explanation to this phenomenon would be the same as the previous one. Charta 48
3.5.5. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ preceding /r/
Apart from the problem in the production of /r/ in the words that contained both /r/ and /l/, there were also problems in the production of the liquid /l/. Graph (9) shows the percentages of the wrong productions for every age group. In this case /l/ precedes /r/.
Problem with /l/ /l/ precedes /r/
100%
80% (2-3) yrs (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 40% (5-6) yrs 17,90% 13,30% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 20% 1,60% 2,30% 0% 2,30% 1,60% (7-8) yrs 0% (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 9. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ precedes /r/
According to the graph, the age groups (2-3) and (3-4) had the most wrong productions. Although they had the most problems in the production of /l/, their percentages are not that high as in the case of wrong productions of /r/ that were found in graphs (7) and (8). The percentages of the other five age groups are very low and group (6-7) had no problem at all. In contrast to the previous two graphs (8, 9) we can see here that the age group (3-4) had less problems than group (2-3).
3.5.6. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ following /r/
In the same group of words as it was mentioned earlier, in some of these words /l/ followed /r/. The problems in the production of /l/ in this case are shown in graph (10). Charta 49
Problem with /l/ /l/ following /r/
100% 82,80% (2-3) yrs 80% (3-4) yrs 60,90% 60% (4-5) yrs (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages (7-8) yrs 20% 14,80% 3,90% 3,90% (8-9) yrs 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 10. Problem with /l/ Production: /l/ follows /r/
As in the above three graphs so here too, the two younger age groups (2-3 and
3-4) hava the most wrong productions as it was expected. There is also a significant drop in the percentage of wrong productions at the age 4 to 5. For the age groups (5-6) and (6-7) the percentage of mistakes is very low, whereas for age groups (7-8) and (8-
9) the percentage of wrong productions drops to zero.
3.6. Word with Three Liquids (One /l/ and Two /r/ Sounds)
3.6.1. Word with Three Liquids: All Liquids Correct
In this study, one of the target words that the children had to repeat was the word /kalorifer/ which means heater. This word includes one /l/ and two /r/ segments and is the only word in the speech material that includes three liquids. Graph (11) shows the percentages of the children’s answers where all three liquids are correct. Charta 50
/kalorifer/ Correct
100% 93,80%87,50%93,80% 81,30% (2-3) yrs 80% (3-4) yrs
60% (4-5) yrs (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages (7-8) yrs 20% 6,25% (8-9) yrs 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 11. Word /kalorifer/: All Liquids Correct
The word /kalorifer/ is a difficult word for children to produce, especially for the younger ones. This is obvious in the above graph where we can see that ages (2-3) and (3-4) could not produce correctly all three liquids in this word. The age group (4-
5) has a very small amount of correct productions and from the age of 5 we could say that the majority of children have mastered the production of a difficult word as this one. From the age of 6 the percentages of the correct answers are above 90%, although there is a small drop in the percentage at the age group (7-8). The next age group (8-9) had the same percentage as the age group (6-7).
3.6.2. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong /l/, Both /r/ Correct
Due to the fact that the word /kalorifer/ was the only one with three liquids, it was examined extensively. Apart from the case where the word was correctly produced there were also other cases of wrong productions of the word. One of the possible wrong productions was that children could not produce the lateral /l/, but they could produce both /r/ correctly. In graph (12) we can see the percentages of this specific case. Charta 51
/kalorifer/ Problem with /l/
100% (2-3) yrs 80% (3-4) yrs
60% (4-5) yrs (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages (7-8) yrs 20% 6,30% 12,50% (8-9) yrs 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 12. Word /kalorifer/: Wrong /l/, Both /r/ Correct
If we take a careful look at the graph we can see that the only age groups that had problems in the production of /l/ but produced both /r/ correctly were age groups
(2-3) and (4-5). Their percentages are very low. This of course does not mean that they had only a few wrong productions, but they had wrong productions of other types as well, as we are going to see in the next graphs. Graph (12) also shows that the rest of the age groups do not have any wrong productions of this type. One explanation could be that the liquid /l/ does not seem to be as difficult as the liquid /r/, so most of the children did not have any problems in its production.
3.6.3. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong Middle /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Final /r/
Another type of wrong production is the case where children could produce liquid /l/ and final /r/ correctly, but they could not produce middle /r/. The results of this type of wrong production are shown in graph (13). Charta 52
/kalofifer/ Problem with Middle /r/
100% 90% (2-3) yrs 80% 70% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs
Percentages 30% (7-8) yrs 20% 6,30% (8-9) yrs 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 13. Word /kalorifer/: Wrong Middle /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Final /r/
The only age group that had problems with the production of middle /r/ whereas could produce correctly /l/ and final /r/ was the group of 6 to 7 year olds. The results of this type of wrong production are interesting because the production of /r/ is considered to be difficult, so we would expect more groups to have problems.
Since this graph shows only the wrong productions of middle /r/, one way to explain the results would be that younger children have problems with the production of final /r/ or with more than one liquid as we are going to see in the following graphs.
3.6.4. Word with Three Liquids: Wrong Final /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Middle /r/
One more type of wrong production was the case where children could produce correctly /l/ and middle /r/, but they could not produce final /r/. Graph (14) shows the results of this type of wrong production. Charta 53
/kalorifer/ Problem with Final /r/
100% 90% (2-3) yrs 80% 70% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs 30% Percentages (7-8) yrs 20% (8-9) yrs 6,30% 12,50% 6,30% 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 14. Word /kalorifer/: Wrong Final /r/, Correct /l/ and Correct Middle /r/
The results that we observe in the graph are not the ones we would expect since we can see that the older age groups (7-8) and (8-9) had problems with the production of final /r/ and not the younger ones, except for the case of 3 to 4 year olds. Once again the most suitable or logical explanation to these results would be that younger age groups had problems with the production of more than one liquid and this is something that is going to be shown in the next graph.
3.6.5. Word with Three Liquids: Problem with more than one Liquid
Apart from the separate wrong productions of each liquid, there were some cases were children had problems with the production of more than just one liquid.
The results of these cases are shown in graph (15). Charta 54
/kalorifer/ Problem with More than One Liquid
100% 93,80% 93,80% 90% 80% (2-3) yrs 70% (3-4) yrs 60% (4-5) yrs 50% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs 25%
Percentages 30% (7-8) yrs 18,80% 20% (8-9) yrs 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% Age Groups
Graph 15. Word /kalorifer/: Problem with More than One Liquid
Graph (15) shows that the four younger age groups had problems with the production of more than just one liquid. We can see that the percentages of the age groups (2-3) and (3-4) are very high. This is something that is expected, since the production of this specific word is considered to be very difficult for young children due to the fact that it contains three liquids. So children are expected to have problems with the production of two or even all of the liquids that are contained in this word.
Age groups (4-5) and (5-6) had also some problems but their percentages are much lower than the first two age groups.
Finally, age groups (6-7), (7-8) and (8-9) which are the older ones did not have any problems with the production of more than one liquid. As we saw in the previous graphs and to be more specific in graphs (13) and (14), the older age groups had problems with the production of final and middle /r/, whereas they had no problems with the production of /l/.
Charta 55
3.7. Types of /r/ and /l/ in the Study
In the first section of the results we examined the number of correct and wrong productions of /r/ and /l/ for each group of words of every group of children. In this section we are going to examine the number of different types of /r/ and /l/ in total and then we are going to examine the number of different types of /r/ and /l/ for each word position separately (i.e. if they are word initial, in the middle of the word, in a cluster or in word final position).
3.7.1. Types of /r/ in the Study
The first type of /r/ that was found in our study was the tap. In the tables below we can see two different types of tap. Table (1) shows the percentages of taps with release, whereas table (2) shows the percentages of taps without release.
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 7% (3-4) yrs 11% (4-5) yrs 28% (5-6) yrs 40% (6-7) yrs 44% (7-8) yrs 65% (8-9) yrs 50% Table 1. Tap with Release
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 2,40% (3-4) yrs 1,00% (4-5) yrs 7,70% (5-6) yrs 8,20% (6-7) yrs 9,90% (7-8) yrs 11,30% (8-9) yrs 20,80% Table 2. Tap without Release Charta 56
If we compare the two tables we can see that all children produced more taps with release than without. We can also see that older children produced more taps than the younger ones in both tables.
The two spectrograms below show an example of a tap with release
(spectrogram 1) and an example of a tap without release (spectrogram 2). In the first type of tap there is a stop-like interval followed by acoustic burst, whereas in the second type of tap there is stop-like interval, but there is no acoustic burst.
Spectrogram 1. Tap with Release
Spectrogram 2. Tap without Release Charta 57
The next type of /r/ was the approximant. As it is shown in spectrogram (3) in this type of rhotic there is presence of high amplitude formant structure during the constriction phase. The percentages for each age group are shown in table (3) below spectrogram (3).
Spectrogram 3. Approximant
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 12,30% (3-4) yrs 10,00% (4-5) yrs 41,20% (5-6) yrs 57,30% (6-7) yrs 42,40% (7-8) yrs 51,00% (8-9) yrs 55,40% Table 3. Approximant /r/
What we see here is that all age groups used more approximants than taps and especially the younger ages from 2 to 6 years old. As for the ages 7 to 9 did not show many differences, as the percentages between taps with release and approximants are almost the same. Charta 58
In spectrogram (4) there is another type of rhotic in which there is assibilation or in other words there is some kind of noise or breathiness during the constriction phase during the production of /r/. In table (4) we see the percentages for each age group for this type of rhotic. The percentages of all age groups are very low. This means that assibilation is not very common at least among children.
Spectrogram 4. Assibilation
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 0,80% (3-4) yrs 1,50% (4-5) yrs 4% (5-6) yrs 2,30% (6-7) yrs 5,40% (7-8) yrs 4,60% (8-9) yrs 4% Table 4. /r/ with Assibilation
One more type of /r/ is shown in spectrogram (5). This type of /r/ is called trill and it is usually produced more often by children than adults. In the production of Charta 59 trills there are multiple constrictions and typically the first contact is more constricted than the others.
Spectrogram 5. Trll
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 0,40% (3-4) yrs 0,50% (4-5) yrs 28,40% (5-6) yrs 18,90% (6-7) yrs 27,70% (7-8) yrs 2,00% (8-9) yrs 3,80% Table 5. Trill
Table (5) shows the percentages of trill production for each age group. The results are of great interest. We observe that the ages (2-3) and (3-4) had a very low percentage, but this is not surprising since these ages had problems with the production of /r / in general, so their percentages are expected to be low.
Usually from the age of 4 most children have managed the production of /r/ and they tend to emphasize its production with the use of this specific type of /r/. If Charta 60 we look at the table, we can see that age groups (4-5), (5-6) and (6-7) have the highest percentages. We could say that the results support the belief above, according to which most children have managed the /r/ production and they emphasize its production with a trill sound.
In the last two age groups (7-8, 8-9) the percentages drop significantly. The production of trills is more rare. We can say that children do not use trills and their speech becomes more similar to that of adults.
Gliding was the last type of /r/ that was found in the study. In this type of /r/ there is little or incomplete constriction. Gliding was only found in the youngest age group (2-3) and as table (6) shows its percentage was almost insignificant.
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0% (4-5) yrs 0% (5-6) yrs 0% (6-7) yrs 0% (7-8) yrs 0% (8-9) yrs 0% Table 6. Gliding
3.7.2. Types of /l/ in the Study
Although in the case of /r/ we found six different types of /r/ productions, in the case of /l/ there is not much variety. We found only two different types. The two spectrograms below show an example of a lateral with release (spectrogram 6) and an example of of a lateral without release (spectrogram 7). In the first type of lateral there is acoustic and visual burst after the production of the /l/ sound and before the production of the vowel that follows, whereas in the second type of lateral there is no such acoustic or visual burst. Charta 61
Spectrogram 6. /l/ with Release
Spectrogram 7. /l/ without Release
In table (7) we can see the productions of /l/ with release (presence of a release on the acoustic signal), whereas in table (8) we can see the productions of /l/ without release (without presense of a release on the acoustic signal) .
Charta 62
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 17% (3-4) yrs 41% (4-5) yrs 42% (5-6) yrs 41% (6-7) yrs 46% (7-8) yrs 56% (8-9) yrs 38% Table 7. /l/ with Release
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 65% (3-4) yrs 68% (4-5) yrs 79% (5-6) yrs 83% (6-7) yrs 82% (7-8) yrs 73% (8-9) yrs 92% Table 8. /l/ without Release
If we compare the two tables, it is obvious that most children produced /l/ without release. The percentages in table (8) are higher than the percentages in table
(7) for every age group.
In table (7), the age group that produced more /l/ with release was the group of 7 to 8 years olds. The percentages of age groups (3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7) are very similar to each other. In table (8), the age group that produced more /l/ without release was the group of 8 to 9 year olds who were the oldest children of all, so we could say that their production resembles the production of the adults.
3.7.3. Types of /r/ in Each Word Position
Now that we have seen the total number of different types of /r/ and /l/ in our study, we are going to see the number of different types of /r/ and /l/ for each word Charta 63 position. In the following table we can see the number of taps with release for each group of children in four different word positions.
Age Initial Middle Final Position In Group Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 6,30% 11,30% 4,40% 4,40% (3-4) yrs 9,40% 18,40% 1,30% 8,80% (4-5) yrs 28,80% 28,10% 29,30% 21,70% (5-6) yrs 46,30% 44,70% 21,30% 36,40% (6-7) yrs 42,50% 53,40% 35,60% 34,90% (7-8) yrs 70,60% 73,80% 53,80% 50,70% (8-9) yrs 54,40% 53,40% 36,20% 46,30% Table 9. Tap with Release in All Word Positions
Table (9) shows the percentages of taps with release in all possible word positions. The possible word positions are: word initial, middle, final position and in clusters. In the case of clusters the liquids followed the stops (/p/, /t/, /k/).
The group of children that used this type of rhotic more often was the group of
7 to 8 year olds. Their percentages are the highest in all word positions. The age groups (5-6), (6-7) and (8-9) had similar percentages, although the percentages of the last group are a little higher. As for the two youngest groups, they had the lowest percentages of all. In table (10) bellow, there are the percentages of taps without release.
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 0,60% 2,80% 1,90% 3,30% (3-4) yrs 1,90% 0,90% 0,60% 0,70% (4-5) yrs 6,90% 8,10% 8,80% 6,60% (5-6) yrs 9,40% 9,40% 8,80% 5,10% (6-7) yrs 7,50% 11,90% 11,90% 7% (7-8) yrs 10,60% 11,60% 17,50% 7,70% (8-9) yrs 25% 21,30% 21,30% 16,20% Table 10. Tap without Release in All Word Positions Charta 64
The percentages here are not as high as in the previous table. Although the type of /r/ is the same since it is a tap, almost all children produced more taps with release than without. In table (10) the group of children that produced the highest percentages was the group of 8 to 9 year olds, whose percentages are the highest in every word position.
The rest of the groups had very low percentages. The groups (6-7) and (7-8) had slightly increased percentages than the younger ones, especially when the tap was in medial or final position. The next type of /r/ is the approximant, whose percentages are shown in table (11).
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 10% 23,80% 4,40% 4,80% (3-4) yrs 11,30% 14,70% 6,30% 7,70% (4-5) yrs 43,10% 58,40% 29,40% 24,60% (5-6) yrs 51,90% 78,40% 61,90% 32% (6-7) yrs 41,30% 60,60% 38,10% 21,30% (7-8) yrs 54,40% 64,40% 43,40% 33% (8-9) yrs 52,50% 73,10% 55% 32,70% Table 11. Approximant in All Word Positions
In this table we observe that the percentages are high for the majority of groups. The highest ones are found when the approximant is in initial or middle position of a word. We could also say that the percentages in final position are quite high as well. In the next table we can see the percentages of /r/ with assibilation.
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 0% 0,60% 2,50% 0,40% (3-4) yrs 1,30% 1,60% 2,50% 0,70% (4-5) yrs 2,50% 2,80% 10,60% 1,80% (5-6) yrs 0,60% 6% 10% 0,70% (6-7) yrs 4,40% 3,80% 13,80% 2,90% (7-8) yrs 1,90% 3,40% 12,50% 2,60% (8-9) yrs 4,40% 1,90% 12,50% 0,70% Table 12. /r/ with Assibilation in All Word Positions Charta 65
As we can see in table (12), the percentages are not very high. For most of the groups and especially when this type of /r/ is found in clusters the percentages are almost insignificant. In this type of /r/, final position seems to be the one with the highest percentages of every other word position. This becomes apparent if compare all word positions with each other. The age groups (4-5), (6-7), (7-8) and (8-9) have the highest percentages in this position. Table (13) below shows the percentages of trills in all possible word positions.
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 0% 0,30% 0% 1,10% (3-4) yrs 0% 0,30% 0% 1,50% (4-5) yrs 28,80% 31,90% 18,10% 29% (5-6) yrs 23,80% 15,60% 10,60% 23,90% (6-7) yrs 40,60% 23,10% 13,80% 32,70% (7-8) yrs 1,30% 0,30% 1,90% 4,40% (8-9) yrs 3,10% 5,30% 0,60% 3,70% Table 13. Trills in All Word Positions
If we look carefully at table (13) we will see that the age groups (4-5), (5-6) and (6-7) have the highest percentages in every word position. This is the age that the majority of children have acquired the production of /r/ so they tend to overproduce and emphasize its production. One way to do this is with the use of trills which are usually the longest of all types of /r/.
The youngest two age groups have a very insignificant percentage of trills in middle position and in clusters, whereas in initial and final position the percentages for these groups (2-3, 3-4) are 0%. As for the two older groups (7-8, 8-9) their percentages are very low in every word position and especially when trills are found in final position. Charta 66
The last type of rhotic that was found in this study was the /r/ with gliding. As it has already been mentioned this type was found only at the age group (2-3) and its percentage was 0,10%. The position in which it was found was the medial one and since there were no other productions of such type of /r/ there is no related table.
If we want to make a small summary in relation to the different types of /r/ and the different word positions we could say that the types that were “preferred” by children are the approximants and the taps with release. The percentages of these two types seem to exceed all the other types in most if not all word positions. In fact, in the case of clusters the approximants are the ones that surpass every other type. Trills are mainly produced by children who are around the age of 5, whereas assibilation and gliding are two cases that were not very common in the results of our study.
3.7.4. Types of /l/ in Each Word Position
Apart from the different word positions for each type of /r/, we also counted the different word positions for each type of /l/. In table (14) there are the percentages of /l/ with release in all possible word positions for all groups of children.
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 21,30% 25% 8,80% 7,08% (3-4) yrs 51,90% 57,70% 9,40% 31,30% (4-5) yrs 50,60% 54,20% 11,30% 40% (5-6) yrs 55% 53% 10,60% 33,30% (6-7) yrs 53,10% 59,20% 20,60% 38,30% (7-8) yrs 76,20% 69,30% 20% 47,90% (8-9) yrs 51,30% 44% 20,60% 32,90% Table 14. /l/ with Release in All Word Positions
Charta 67
It seems that children produced more /l/ with release when the /l/ was in initial or middle position and this is true for all groups of children. The percentages of the other two word positions of course are not insignificant. In fact when the /l/ was in clusters, its percentages were higher than when it was in final position. Table (15) below shows the percentages of /l/ without release in every word position.
Age Initial Middle Final In Group Position Position Position Clusters (2-3) yrs 82,50% 95% 30,60% 34,60% (3-4) yrs 87,50% 88% 23,10% 58,30% (4-5) yrs 99,40% 95% 63,80% 51,70% (5-6) yrs 98,10% 98,50% 76,20% 56,70% (6-7) yrs 98,80% 96,40% 60,60% 60% (7-8) yrs 80% 87,20% 71,90% 50,80% (8-9) yrs 99,40% 99,40% 74,40% 66,30% Table 15. /l/ without Release in All Word Positions
The results here look similar to the results in table (14). Children produced more /l/ segments without release when /l/ was in the initial or medial position of a word. If we compare the percentages between final position and clusters in table (15), we will see that they are very similar and quite high as well, since for most of the groups the percentages are above 50%. Finally, the comparison of tables (14) and (15) leads us to the conclusion that all children produced more /l/ segments without release than /l/ segments with release, although the percentages in table (14) are high.
3.8. Average Durations of /r/ and /l/ in Total
In this part of the study we are going to examine the average durations of each type of /r/ and /l/ for each group of children in total and then we are going to examine the average durations of each type of /r/ and /l/ for each group of children in each word position (initial, medial, final or in clusters). Charta 68
3.8.1. Average Durations of All Types of /r/ in Total
In graph (16) we can see the average durations of taps with release for all groups of children.
Tap /r/ with Release
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 27,4 29,92 22,71 24,73 (6-7) yrs 30 Average m/s Average 22,01 23,25 20,93 (7-8) yrs 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 16. Tap /r/ with Release (Average Durations in Total)
The average durations do not show great difference between the age groups. The durations range from 20 m/s to 30 m/s. The average durations of the two younger groups (2-3, 3-4) are the ones with the longest durations and this is due to the fact that children and especially younger children usually speak slower than older children and adults. As the children’s age grows, the average duration becomes shorter. This is true in graph (16), where the group of 8 to 9 year olds had the shorter average duration of all age groups. We could say that since they are the oldest group of children in our study, their speech production tends to resemble that of adults. The next graph shows the average durations of taps without release.
Charta 69
Tap /r/ without Release
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 24,68 24,22 (6-7) yrs 30 18,25 18,29 20,45 18,1
Average m/s Average 18 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 17. Tap /r/ without Release (Average Durations in Total)
The average durations in graph (17) are a little shorter than the average durations in graph (16). The durations here range from 18 m/s to 25 m/s. This is logical because in the case of taps with release, the duration of the release is included in the duration of the tap. The youngest two groups of children produced the longest
/r/, whereas the older ones produced shortest /r/. The next type of /r/ whose average durations are shown in the graph below is the approximant.
Approximant /r/
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 24,91 24,15 23,13 25,44 23,21 (6-7) yrs 30 27,34 23,97
Average m/s Average 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 18. Approximant /r/ (Average Durations in Total)
Charta 70
In graph (18) the average durations are very similar to each other and the durations range from 23 m/s to 27 m/s. The age group whose average durations are closer to 27 m/s is the one with the 2 to 3 year olds which is the youngest group of all.
The next type of /r/ is the /r/ with assibilation and its average durations are shown in graph (19).
/r/ with Assibilation
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 25,28 23,22 23,23 23,28 (6-7) yrs 30 20 Average m/s Average 20,42 21,81 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 19. /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations in Total)
In graph (19) the average durations range from 20 m/s to 25 m/s. Although the youngest group of children had the longest average duration, the group that had the shortest average duration was not the group with the oldest children, but the group with 3 to 4 year olds. In the following graph are shown the average durations of trills.
(For the total number of tokens see Appendix B). Charta 71
Trill /r/
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 65,75 65,6 71,06 (3-4) yrs 70 55,8 59,39 56,94 60 (4-5) yrs 49,65 50 (5-6) yrs 40 (6-7) yrs 30 Average m/s Average 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 20. Trill /r/ (Average Durations in Total)
In our study the average durations of trills range from 49 m/s to 71 m/s. The duration of the trills is generally longer than other types of /r/ because “a trill is characterized by a series of brief complete closures followed by immediate release”
(Marchal 2009: 147).
Graph (20) is different from the previous four graphs, in the sense that there is not a continuous decrease in the duration of the trills as we move from the youngest to the oldest groups of children. Also the youngest groups were not the ones who had the longest durations of trills but the group of 6 to 7 year olds. The only thing that seems to be similar to the previous graphs is the fact that the oldest group of children (8-9) had the shortest average duration of all.
The final type of /r/ is the gliding, which as it has already been mentioned, it was found only in one group of children and its average duration is shown in graph
(21) below.
Charta 72
Gliding /r/
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 51 50 (5-6) yrs 40 (6-7) yrs 30 Average m/s Average 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Age Groups
Graph 21. Gliding /r/ (Average Duration in Total)
The only thing that we can say about graph (21) is that the average duration for this type of /r/ is 51 m/s. This average duration belongs to the youngest group of children.
The rest of the groups did not produce any /r/ with gliding, so there are no average durations for them. (For the total number of tokens see Appendix B).
3.8.2. Average Durations of All Types of /l/ in Total
After examining the average durations of all types of /r/ for all groups of children, we are going to examine the average durations of the two types of /l/ that were found in our study for all groups of children. Graph (22) shows the average durations of /l/ with release.
Charta 73
Lateral /l/ with Release
120 103,73 110 105,41 100,47 102,11 92,87 94,42 100 (2-3) yrs 90,27 90 (3-4) yrs 80 (4-5) yrs 70 60 (5-6) yrs 50 (6-7) yrs 40
Average m/s Average 30 (7-8) yrs 20 (8-9) yrs 10 0 Age Groups
Graph 22. /l/ with Release (Average Durations in Total)
The average durations of /l/ with release range from 90 m/s to 105 m/s. There is not much difference in the durations between the groups of children. The group with the shortest average duration was the youngest one (2-3) and the group with the longest average duration was the group of 5 to 6 six year olds. The strange thing in this graph is that the average durations do not have an increased or a decreased continuity. In the following graph we can see the average durations of /l/ without release.
Lateral /l/ without Release
120 111,3 110 (2-3) yrs 100,51 94,89 99,5 98,34 100 90,4 89,24 90 (3-4) yrs 80 (4-5) yrs 70 60 (5-6) yrs 50 40 (6-7) yrs
Average m/s Average 30 (7-8) yrs 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 23. /l/ without Release (Average Durations in Total)
Charta 74
In graph 23 the average durations of /l/ range from 89 m/s to 111 m/s. The average durations do not differ significantly with each other. The longest durations belong to the two youngest groups and the shortest durations belong to the two oldest groups of children. The explanation here could be similar to the explanation that was given in the case of /r/. Younger children have slower speech so the durations of /l/ are longer. On the contrary, oldest children tend to speak more adult-like, so their speech is faster and the durations of /l/ in this case are longer.
We would expect the average durations of /l/ in graph (22) to be longer than the average durations of /l/ in graph (23) because of the included duration of the release in the durations of /l/. This is true for most of the groups. To be more specific, our prediction is valid for the following groups of children: (4-5), (5-6), (6-7), (7-8) and (8-9), whereas the average durations of the two youngest groups (2-3, 3-4) do not seem to agree with our prediction.
3.9. Average Durations of /r/ and /l/ in Each Word Position
Now that we have already seen the average durations of /r/ and /l/ for each group of children in total, we are going to examine the average durations of each type of /r/ and /l/ for each group of children in each word position (initial, medial, final or in clusters).
3.9.1. Average Durations of /r/ in Each Word Position
The first type of /r/ whose average durations we are going to examine in each word position is the tap with release. In the following four graphs we see the average durations for each group of children in each word position. Charta 75
Tap with Release /r/ Initial Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 26,7 32,13 24,87 (6-7) yrs 30 22,3422,4120,75 20,51 Averagem/s 20 (7-8) yrs 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 24a. Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position)
Tap with Release /r/ Middle Position
100 90 80 (2-3) yrs 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 (5-6) yrs 28,13 30,86 23,9 24,69 25,44 21,39 30 22 (6-7) yrs
20 Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 24b. Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position)
Tap with Release /r/ Final Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 26,28 26,21 (5-6) yrs 30 28,5 25,36 24,95 22,67 20 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs Age Groups (8-9) yrs
Graph 24c. Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position)
Charta 76
Tap with Release /r/ in Cluster
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 30 25,75 25,45 19,35 20,29 20,49 22,71 19,17 (5-6) yrs 20 (6-7) yrs
10 Averagem/s 0 (7-8) yrs Age Groups (8-9) yrs
Graph 24d. Tap with Release (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters)
The average durations of taps with release in initial position range from 20 m/s to 32 m/s, in medial position from 21 m/s to 30 m/s, in final position from 20 m/s to
28 m/s and when the tap is in clusters it ranges from 19 m/s to 25 m/s. There was not much difference between the average durations in the different word positions.
The shortest durations are found in clusters, whereas the longest durations are found when the tap is in the medial position of a word. The two youngest groups (2-3,
3-4) are the ones that had the longest durations in all word positions. The oldest group
(8-9) produced the shortest durations of all groups in all word positions except for the final position. The four graphs below show the average durations of taps without release in all possible word positions. Charta 77
Tap without Release /r/ Initial Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 30 (6-7) yrs 30 22,66 16,36 17,06 19,83 21,29 17,1 (7-8) yrs Averagem/s 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 25a. Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position)
Tap without Release /r/ Middle Position
100 90 80 (2-3) yrs 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 25 (5-6) yrs 30 27,33 19,88 18,44 20,18 19,08 (6-7) yrs
20 19,93 Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 25b. Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position)
Tap without Release /r/ Final Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 (5-6) yrs 30 25,66 22
20 18,57 17,71 17,42 20,53 18,23 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 25c. Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position) Charta 78
Tap without Release /r/ in Cluster
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 26,5 (5-6) yrs 30 21,11 20 16,66 15,85 17,1 20,14 17,59 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 25d. Tap without Release (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters
The average durations of taps without release in initial position range from 16 m/s to 30 m/s/, in medial position from 18 m/s to 27 m/s, in final position from 17 m/s to 25 m/s and when the tap is in clusters it ranges from 15 m/s to 26 m/s.
In this type of /r/ the shortest durations are found in clusters as in the previous type of /r/, whereas the longest durations are found when the /r/ is in initial or medial position. In three out of four word positions, the age group of 2 to 3 year olds had the longest durations. As for the shortest durations, in this case it was not the oldest group that produced them but the middle groups with (4-5) and (5-6) year olds. The next type of /r/ whose graphs we are going to examine is the approximant.
Approximant /r/ Initial Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 22,62 24,1 23,33 (5-6) yrs 30 25,88 24,53 24,68 22,53 20 (6-7) yrs Aeragem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs Age Groups (8-9) yrs
Graph 26a. Approximant (Average Durations : /r/ Initial Position)
Charta 79
Approximant /r/ Middle Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 28,57 24,11 23,28 23,54 (5-6) yrs 30 25,55 24,48 26,15 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs Age Groups (8-9) yrs
Graph 26b. Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position)
Approximant /r/ Final Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 24,14 23,12 (5-6) yrs 30 22,9 24,52 22,21 25,37 24,43 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 26c. Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position)
Approximant /r/ in Cluster
100 90 80 (2-3) yrs 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 (5-6) yrs 27,69 23,66 23,11 23,44 23,41 24,14 30 21,66
20 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 26d. Approximant (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters)
Charta 80
The average durations of approximant in initial position range from 22 m/s to
25 m/s/, in medial position from 23 m/s to 28 m/s, in final position from 22 m/s to 25 m/s and when the approximant is in clusters it ranges from 21 m/s to 27 m/s. If we look at the graphs we can see that there was not much difference between the average durations in the different word positions.
In the case of the approximant /r/ we cannot say for sure which group had the longest and which one had the shortest average durations, since it was not always the case that the youngest groups had produced longer approximants or the oldest ones who produced the shortest approximants. For example, according to graphs (26a) and
(26c), when the approximant was in initial and final position the average durations of the youngest (2-3) and the oldest (8-9) group of children were very similar. The following four graphs show the average durations of /r/ with assibilation.
Assibilation /r/ Initial Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 23,75 (5-6) yrs 30 23,28 25 23,71 20 20 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 11 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 27a. /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position)
Charta 81
Assibilation /r/ Middle Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 23,22 22,16 23,63 25,33 (5-6) yrs 30 20,5 18,6 20 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 27b. /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position)
Assibiliation /r/ Final Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 (5-6) yrs 30 27 22,88 23,55 23,25 21,06 21,4 20 20,25 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 (7-8) yrs (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 27c. /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position)
Assibilation /r/ in Cluster
100 90 80 (2-3) yrs 70 (3-4) yrs 60 50 (4-5) yrs 40 (5-6) yrs 30 28 23,5 24 21,12 20,5
20 19,71 16 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 27d. /r/ with Assibilation (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters)
Charta 82
The average durations of /r/ with assibilation in initial position range from 11 m/s to 25 m/s, in medial position from 18 m/s to 25 m/s, in final position from 20 m/s to 27 m/s and when the /r/ is in clusters it ranges from 16 m/s to 28 m/s.
If we compare the last four graphs with the graphs in the previous types of /r/ we could say that the average durations here are more “flexible”. To be more specific, the youngest group of children (2-3) had the longest productions of /r/ with assibilation only when the rhotic was in final position or in clusters, whereas the same group of children had zero productions of /r/ with assibilation when the rhotic was in initial position as it is shown in graph (27a). Also, although we would expect the oldest group of children (8-9) to have the shortest productions, this happens only when the /r/ is found in clusters. The strange thing here is that the groups of (3-4) and
(5-6) year olds were the ones whose productions were the shortest in most cases such as in graphs (27a), (27b) and (27c). The graphs (28a-28d) that follow show the average durations of trills in each word position.
Trill /r/ Initial Position
90 73,3 81,03 80 (2-3) yrs 70 62,92 60 55,5 (3-4) yrs 47,6 50 (4-5) yrs 40 30 (5-6) yrs 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 0 0 (7-8) yrs (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 28a. Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Initial Position)
Charta 83
Trill /r/ Middle Position
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 64 (3-4) yrs 70 69,62 54 60 57,65 57,04 (4-5) yrs 46 51,35 50 (5-6) yrs 40 (6-7) yrs 30 (7-8) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 28b. Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Middle Position)
Trill /r/ Final Position
90 84 80 73,44 76,18 68,47 (2-3) yrs 70 60 (3-4) yrs 49 50 (4-5) yrs 40 30 (5-6) yrs 20 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 10 0 0 0 (7-8) yrs (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 28c. Trill (Average Durations: /r/ Final Position)
Trill /r/ in Cluster
100 90 (2-3) yrs 80 66,33 68,56 63,26 (3-4) yrs 70 56,87 60 58,25 (4-5) yrs 50,66 45,8 50 (5-6) yrs 40 (6-7) yrs 30 (7-8) yrs Averagem/s 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 28d. Trill (Average Durations: /r/ in Clusters)
Charta 84
The average durations of trills in initial position range from 47 m/s to 81 m/s/, in medial position from 46 m/s to 69 m/s, in final position from 49 m/s to 84 m/s and when the trill is in clusters it ranges from 45 m/s to 68 m/s.
With a careful look at the last four graphs we observe that the two youngest age groups (2-3) and (3-4) had no production of trills when the /r/ was in initial or in final position. The longest durations were not produced by the youngest groups. For example, in graphs (28a) and (28b) the group (6-7) had the longest durations in trill productions. As for the shortest durations, they were produced in most of the times by the oldest group of children as it is shown in graphs (28a), (28c) and (28d) where the trill was in initial and final position and in clusters.
The final type of /r/ that was found in our study was the gliding. As it was mentioned in the previous section it was found only in the youngest group of children in medial position and its average duration was 51 m/s. The rest of the groups did not produce any /r/ of this type, so there are no related graphs to compare.
The results show that, when taps were in clusters they had the shortest durations, whereas when they were in initial or medial position they had the longest durations. In the case of the approximant there was not much diversity in the duration between the different word positions. When /r/ was produced with assibilation, its shortest durations were found in initial position and its longest durations in clusters.
Finally, trills were not produced by the two youngest groups when trills were in the middle and final position. On the contrary, the longest durations of trills were in initial and final position. As for the group of children that had the longest durations in the production of /r/, in most of the cases it was the youngest one (2-3) such as in the case of the taps and approximants. The age group with the shortest durations was not always the same. In many cases (taps and trills) it was the oldest group (8-9) as it was Charta 85 expected, but in other cases (approximants and assibilation) the middle groups (4-5, 5-
6) were the ones that had the shortest productions of all groups.
3.9.2. Average Durations of /l/ in Each Word Position
After examining the average durations of each type of /r/, we are going to examine the average durations of each type of /l/ for each group of children in each word position. As it has already been mentioned the types of /l/ that were found in our study were only two, so the first type of /l/ whose average durations we are going to examine is the /l/ with release. In the following four graphs we see the average durations for each group of children in every possible word position.
Lateral with Release /l/ Initial Position
110 94,44 96,07 100 90 82,43 85,54 89,74 (2-3) yrs 77,16 80 (3-4) yrs 70 59,76 60 (4-5) yrs 50 40 (5-6) yrs 30
20 (6-7) yrs Averagem/s 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 29a. /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Initial Position)
Charta 86
Lateral with Release /l/ Middle Position
130 117,36 117,64 120 115,19 116,01 (2-3) yrs 110 105,59 103,52 105,5 100 (3-4) yrs 90 80 (4-5) yrs 70 60 (5-6) yrs 50 (6-7) yrs 40 30 (7-8) yrs Averagem/s 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 29b. /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Middle Position)
Lateral with Release /l/ Final Position
120 110 100 (2-3) yrs 90 88,3 80 71 77,76 68,45 78,25 (3-4) yrs 70 60 53,21 55,66 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 30 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 29c. /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ Final Position)
Lateral with Release /l/ in Cluster
117,42 120 110 91,57 99,74 96,16 96,92 100 83,13 (2-3) yrs 90 81,08 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 30 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 29d. /l/ with Release (Average Durations: /l/ in Clusters) Charta 87
The average durations of /l/ with release in initial position range from 59 m/s to 96 m/s, in medial position from 103 m/s to 117 m/s, in final position from 53 m/s to
88 m/s and when the /l/ is in clusters it ranges from 81 m/s to 117 m/s. When the /l/ is in initial or final position we see that there is a big range between the durations, whereas when the lateral is in medial position or in clusters the durations between the different groups of children are close to each other.
The graphs here are different from the graphs that showed the average durations of different types of /r/. The group of children that had the longest durations in the production of /l/ was the middle group (5-6) when the /l/ was in initial or medial position. When the /l was in final position the oldest group of children (8-9) produced the longest /l/, whereas in the case of /l/ in clusters the group that had the longest durations was the youngest one (2-3).
The surprising thing here is the fact that the youngest group of children (2-3) had the shortest durations when the /l/ was in initial, medial and final position. Only in the case of /l/ in clusters the same group of children had the longest productions of all the other groups. The most possible explanation would be that clusters are by their nature difficult to produce, so the youngest children whose speech production had not been fully developed had some difficulty when they had to produce the lateral in a cluster so their speech became slower in order to produce the target word correctly.
The next type of lateral whose graphs we are going to examine is the /l/ without release.
Charta 88
Lateral without Release /l/ Initial Position
110 100,48 93,2 100 93,3 (2-3) yrs 90 86,14 (3-4) yrs 80 75,25 77,63 78,76 70 (4-5) yrs 60 (5-6) yrs 50 40 (6-7) yrs 30 (7-8) yrs Averagem/s 20 10 (8-9) yrs 0 Age Groups
Graph 30a. /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Initial Position)
Lateral without Release /l/ MIddle Position
140 130 124,02 120 107,27 106,52 107,09108,06 (2-3) yrs 110 99,12 98,65 100 (3-4) yrs 90 80 70 (4-5) yrs 60 50 (5-6) yrs 40 30 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 30b. /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Middle Position)
Lateral without Release /l/ Final Position
110 95,87 100 83,89 90 83,25 (2-3) yrs 79,95 80 79,5 75,37 80,87 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 40 (5-6) yrs 30 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 30c. /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ Final Position) Charta 89
Lateral without Release /l/ in Cluster
117,42 120 109,66 110 100 96,65 97,81 97,86 (2-3) yrs 90 82,92 85,11 80 (3-4) yrs 70 60 (4-5) yrs 50 (5-6) yrs 40 30 (6-7) yrs
Averagem/s 20 10 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs Age Groups
Graph 30d. /l/ without Release (Average Durations: /l/ in Clusters)
The average durations of /l/ without release in initial position range from 75 m/s to 100 m/s, in medial position from 98 m/s to 124 m/s, in final position from 75 m/s to 95 m/s and when the /l/ is in clusters it ranges from 82 m/s to 117 m/s. In this type of lateral we see that when the /l/ is in clusters there is a bigger range between the durations, whereas when the lateral is in final position the durations between the different groups of children are closer to each other.
The results of the youngest group of children (2-3) are of great interest since they had the longest durations when the /l/ was in final position or when it was in clusters, whereas when the /l/ was in initial or medial position the durations of the same group of children were close to the durations of the oldest group of children (8-
9).
From the comparison of the two types of /l/ we observe that when the /l/ is produced with release its duration is longer than when it is produced without release.
This is expected because when the /l/ is produced with release, the duration of the release is included in the total duration of the lateral. Charta 90
If we want to compare the two liquids (/r/ and /l/) with each other, we could say that in the case of rhotics the youngest groups of children had longer productions than the oldest ones, whereas in lateral this is not the case in most word positions.
Actually, in some word positions the average durations of the youngest group (2-3) were very close to the average durations of the oldest group of children (8-9) such as in graphs (29b) and (30a). In some others, the average durations of the youngest group
(2-3) were shorter than the average durations of the oldest group of children (8-9) such as in graphs (29a) and (29c).
3.10. Closure & Release in /r/ and /l/
3.10.1. Closure & Release in /r/
In one of the previous sections we analyzed all types of /r/ that were found in our study. One of the types that we mentioned was the tap with release. In this type of rhotic there is complete constriction and there is a stop-like pattern with a burst. From all these tap productions with release we counted the duration of the closure and the duration of the post-release interval till the onset of the vowel separately for each group of children. Then we estimated their average durations which are shown in the following graph.
Charta 91
Tap /r/ Closure/Release
35 30,7 27,5 29,32 28,92 30 27 23,34 23,77 25 20
m/s 15 10 4,07 3,57 3,61 3,64 3,92 3,82 5 3,5 0 c v c v c v c v c v c v c v
(2-3) (2-3) (3-4) (3-4) (4-5) (4-5) (5-6) (5-6) (6-7) (6-7) (7-8) (7-8) (8-9) (8-9) Age Groups
Graph 31. Tap /r/: Closure/Release (Average Durations)
Graph (31) shows the average durations of closure and release for each group of children in the production of taps with release. The horizontal axis shows the groups of children. For each group of children there are two columns that are denoted as “c” and “v”. The letter “c” stands for “closure”, whereas the letter “v” stands for the post-release interval till the onset of the vowel. We refer to “v” as “release” for practical reasons. The vertical axis shows the average durations of closure and release in m/s. The average duration of closure ranges between 23 m/s and 30 m/s and the average duration of release ranges between 3, 5 m/s and 4 m/s.
There is not much variety in the durations of closure or in the durations of release between the different groups of children. Nevertheless, if we would like to compare them, we could say that the longest average durations of closure are produced by the groups (3-4), (6-7) and (7-8) whose durations are near 30 m/s and the longest average durations of release are produced by the (2-3) year old group.
What is interesting in this graph is the fact that the average duration of closure of the youngest group of children (2-3) is almost the same as the average duration of Charta 92 closure of the oldest group (8-9). Both of these groups’ average durations are near 23 m/s. Also, one more thing that is interesting and important to note is the fact that although the youngest group of children (2-3) had the shortest average duration of closure, the same group had the longest average duration of release of all groups.
3.10.2. Closure & Release in /l/
Apart from the /r/ types that we analyzed in one of the previous sections, we also analyzed the types of /l/ that were found in our study. The types of /l/ that we found were only two and one of them was produced with release. Maybe we could say that its pattern was similar to a stop with a burst, or a tap /r/ with release. Of course a
/l/ is much longer than a stop or a rhotic. From all these lateral productions with release we counted the duration of closure and the duration of post-release interval till the onset of the vowel separately for each group of children and then we estimated their average durations. Graph (32) below shows the average durations of all groups of children.
Charta 93
Lateral /l/ Closure/Release
100 96,18 86,87 93,2 93,65 92,52 90 80,33 82,02 80 70 60
50 m/s 40 30 20 3,57 3,7 3,7 4,01 3,88 4,08 4,84 10 0 c v c v c v c v c v c v c v
(2-3) (2-3) (3-4) (3-4) (4-5) (4-5) (5-6) (5-6) (6-7) (6-7) (7-8) (7-8) (8-9) (8-9) Age Groups
Graph 32. Lateral /l/: Closure/Release (Average Durations)
Graph (32) shows the average durations of closure and release for each group of children in the production of laterals with release. The horizontal axis shows the groups of children. As in the previous graph, for each group of children there are two columns that are denoted as “c” and “v”. The letter “c” stands for “closure”, whereas the letter “v” stands for post-release interval till the onset of the vowel, but we refer to
“v” as “release” for practical reasons. The vertical axis shows the average durations of closure and release in m/s. The average duration of closure ranges between 80 m/s and 96 m/s and the average durations release ranges between 3, 5 m/s and 4, 8 m/s.
The average durations between the different groups do not vary that much, but we can say that the longest average durations of closure were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds, whereas the shortest average durations of closure were produced by the two oldest groups of children (7-8, 8-9). Also, the average durations of closure of the middle groups of children (4-5, 5-6, 6-7) were very close to each other, they were around 93 m/s. As for the average durations of release, the longest one was Charta 94 produced by the oldest group of children (8-9) and the shortest one was produced by the youngest group of children (2-3).
If we compare the two liquids (tap and lateral with release) we observe that in the case of the tap, the youngest group of children (2-3) had the longest average duration of release, whereas in the case of the lateral the same group of children had the shortest average duration of release of all. Also, we would expect the average durations of closure of the youngest children to be the longest ones due to the fact that young children tend to have slower speech. On the contrary, as we see in both graphs
(31) and (32) the average durations of closure of the youngest children is very similar to the average durations of the oldest children. Moreover, from the comparison between the two graphs we also observe that the middle groups (4-5, 5-6, 6-7) had very similar average durations of closure and release in both liquids (/r/ and /l/).
3.11. Phonological Processes
In the second year of their life, children experience an expanded capacity for internal representation. As far as the phonological organization is concerned, children begin to accommodate adult forms by making systematic changes in the reproduction of adult segments, sequences and syllable or word shapes. These adjustments have been termed child phonological rules or processes (Vihman 1996: 217).
Phonological processes are patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they are learning to talk. When children are young, they hear the speech sounds of the language used around them, but they cannot yet produce all of them. Very young children usually do not sound like adults when they speak. They do not have the ability to coordinate the lips, tongue, palate and jaw for Charta 95 clear speech. As a consequence, certain sounds, sound combinations or transitions from one sound to another may be too difficult. So, children may therefore, simplify the production of complex words. However, these simplifications are not random in the typically developing child, but fairly predictable. When children replace one sound by another there is some common element in the formation of the two sounds.
There is generally a certain system in the sound substitutions of children. (Jespersen
1922: 106).
Ingram (1986) distinguished between syllable structure processes, assimilatory processes and substitution processes. In syllable structure processes the complexity of the adult syllable or syllable sequence is reduced in the production of the child (e.g. cluster reduction, final consonant deletion, unstressed syllable deletion, reduplication). In the assimilatory processes the sounds are affected by their phonetic environment such as voicing or consonant harmony and finally, in the substitution processes a sound segment which is within the child’s productive inventory substitutes for an adult sound which is not. Stopping, fronting and gliding are some examples of substitution processes. Goda (1970) claimed that the speech of preschool children is characterized by omissions, the speech of early elementary school children is characterized by substitutions and the speech of children beyond the third grade is characterized by distortions. Goda also argued that the two year old child produces incorrectly the majority of consonant sounds. The child of eight years has mastered essentially correct production of all sounds except for very few and the child of five and six years usually has some phonemic errors (278). In the following tables we are going to examine the different types of phonological processes that were found in our study.
Charta 96
3.11.1. Deletion of /r/
Consonant deletion is the deletion of a consonant or a consonant cluster in a syllable or word (Roach 2000: 142). Table (16) shows the percentages of the deleted
/r/ for each group of children. The words that were included in the measurement of the percentages were the ones that included only liquid /r/ and not both liquids (/r/ and
/l/). (For the total number of tokens see Appendix B).
Age Group Deletion of /r/ (2-3) yrs 28,70% (3-4) yrs 15,90% (4-5) yrs 7,00% (5-6) yrs 2,60% (6-7) yrs 3,60% (7-8) yrs 1,50% (8-9) yrs 1,80% Table 16. /r/ Deleted
In table (16) we see that the percentages of the deleted /r/ decrease as we move from the younger ages to the older ones. Young children tend to delete /r/ more often than the older children. In spectrogram (8) we see an example of /r/ deletion. In this example the target word is the word /karoto/ and the /r/ sound is in medial position.
We observe that the /r/ before the vowel /o/ is deleted.
Spectrogram 8. /r/ Deletion
Charta 97
3.11.2. Substitutions of /r/.
The following tables show the different substitutions of /r/ for all groups of children. Table (17a) shows the substitutions of /r/ by different stop consonants. This phonological process is known as “stopping”. In this table we see that the stop consonants that substituted the consonant /r/ were the following: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/ /k/. In spectrograms (9) and (10) we see two examples of stopping. In spectrogram (9) the /r/ sound is substituted by the sound /p/, whereas in spectrogram (10) the /r/ sound is substituted by the sound /t/.
Spectrogram 9. Stopping: /p/ Instead of /r/
Spectrogram 10. Stopping: /t/ Instead of /r/ Charta 98
Age p-r b-r t-r d-r k-r Group (2-3) yrs 0,30% 0,10% 3,60% 0,80% 0 (3-4) yrs 0 0 2,70% 0 0,10% (4-5) yrs 0 0 0,70% 0 0,10% (5-6) yrs 0 0 0,10% 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 0,10% 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 0,20% 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0 0 0 Table 17a. Substitutions of /r/: Stopping
In table (17a) we observe that the stop consonant that was mostly used to replace /r/ was the consonant /t/. It was used by all age groups apart from the oldest one. The rest of the stop consonants were used only by one or two groups of children.
In the next table we see the substitutions of /r/ by fricatives.
Age θ-r s-r z-r x-r Group (2-3) yrs 0 0,10% 0,30% 10% 0 0,70% (3-4) yrs 0 0 0,70% 0 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0,10% 0 0,80% 0 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 0,30% 0 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 0,10% 0 0,10% 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0 0 0,20% 0 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0,10% 0 0 0 Table 17b. Substitutions of /r/: Frication
As we see in table (17b) the fricative that was more often used to substitute /r/ was the fricative /s/ which was used be all groups of children. The other five fricatives were used only by one or two groups of children and mostly by the youngest children.
In spectrogram (11) that follows we see another type of /r/ substitution that is called
“nasalization”. The /r/ sound is substituted by a nasal consonant and more specifically by nasal /n/ so, instead of /forema/ that was the target word, the child said /fonema/. Charta 99
Spectrogram 11. Nasalization:/n/ Instead of /r/
Age Group n-r (2-3) yrs 1,20% (3-4) yrs 1% (4-5) yrs 0 (5-6) yrs 0,20% (6-7) yrs 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0,10% (8-9) yrs 0,20% Table 17c. Substitutions of /r/: Nasalization
In table (17c) we see that the percentages are not high, but this consonant is used by six out of seven groups of children. Another substitution of /r/ is shown in spectrogram (12) that follows. In this example the /r/ sound is in word initial position and is substituted by another liquid, which is the liquid /l/. Instead of /repo/ that was the target word, the child said /lepo/.
Charta 100
Spectrogram 12. Substitution: /l/ Instead of /r/
Age Group l-r (2-3) yrs 37,50% (3-4) yrs 54% (4-5) yrs 8% (5-6) yrs 0,30% (6-7) yrs 0,20% (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs 0 Table 17d. Substitution of /r/ by /l/
Table (17d) shows the percentages of the substitutions of /r/ sound by the liquid /l/. (For the total number of tokens see Appendix B). The percentages here are much higher than the previous cases of substitution. Especially the two younger groups of children substitute the one liquid with the other. The group of 3 to 4 year olds has produced more than half of the words by applying the substitution of /r/ by
/l/. As we move from the younger to the older children we observe that the percentages drop a lot and also the two oldest age groups (7-8, 8-9) do not have any productions by applying this type of substitution. The final type of substitution of /r/ that was found in our research is shown in table (17e). Charta 101
Age Group i-r (2-3) yrs 0,20% (3-4) yrs 0 (4-5) yrs 0 (5-6) yrs 0 (6-7) yrs 0 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs 0 Table 17e. Substitution of /r/: Vowelization
In this type of substitution, /r/ was replaced by a vowel and to be more specific by vowel /i/. As it is obvious from table (17e), the only group that produced this type of substitution was the youngest one (2-3) and its percentage is very low. (For the total number of tokens see Appendix B).
3.11.3. Metathesis of /r/
Metathesis is a term used in linguistics to refer to the transposition of elements in a word or sentence (Hume 1998: 148). In phonology, it is the process by which the linear ordering of segments switches. Hume (1998) believes that when the change occurs to two adjacent sounds in a word, it frequently involves the sounds /l/ or /r/ and a vowel. Velleman and Vihman argue that metathesis occurs relatively rarely in adult phonology, but it is common in children’s speech and instances of metathesis yield regular output patterns in a child’s phonology (33). In our study, liquid /r/ was reordered in different positions of different words when children produced the target words. In table (18) there are the percentages of metathesis of /r/ for all groups of children.
Charta 102
Age Group Metathesis of /r/ (2-3) yrs 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0,50% (4-5) yrs 0% (5-6) yrs 0,10% (6-7) yrs 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0% (8-9) yrs 0% Table 18. Metathesis of /r/
The percentages in table (18) may not be high, but this phonological process is found in four of the groups of children. The highest percentage belongs to the group of 3 to 4 year olds. One example of metathesis of /r/ is shown in spectrogram (13). In this example the target word was /rige/ and the child said /gire/. (For the total number of tokens in table (18) see Appendix B).
Spectrogram 13. Metathesis of /r/
3.11.4. Epenthesis in Words with /r/
The last phonological process that was found in our study was epenthesis.
Epenthesis is the process that a segment (an extra sound) is inserted into a word (Carr Charta 103
1993: 41). In this study the phonological process that occurred was a vowel epenthesis. The vowel /o/ was inserted in the word. Table (19) shows the percentages of this phonological process.
Age Group Epenthesis of /o/ (2-3) yrs 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0 (4-5) yrs 0 (5-6) yrs 0 (6-7) yrs 0 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs 0 Table 19. Epenthesis of /o/ in Words with /r/
According to table (19) the phonological process of vowel epenthesis was found only in one of the groups of children and to be more specific it was produced by the youngest ones. In spectrogram (14) that follows we see that the child has inserted the vowel /o/ after the production of the sound /r/ and instead of /spor/ the child said /sporo/.
Spectrogram 14. Epenthesis of /o/ after /r/
Charta 104
3.11.5. Deletion of /l/
Apart from the phonological processes that we found in the words that included the liquid /r/ the same or almost the same phonological processes were also found in the words that included the liquid /l/. The first phonological process is deletion of /l/ whose results and percentages are shown in table (20). An example of
/l/ deletion is shown in spectrogram (15) below. The child said /kino/ instead of
/klino/.
Spectrogram 15. /l/ Deletion
Age Group Deletion of /l/ (2-3) yrs 20% (3-4) yrs 8% (4-5) yrs 3% (5-6) yrs 0,80% (6-7) yrs 2% (7-8) yrs 0,80% (8-9) yrs 0,90% Table 20. /l/ Deleted
In table (20) we see that the highest percentage of deletions belongs to the youngest group of children (2-3). Similarly to the deletion of /r/, the percentages here Charta 105 also decrease as we move from the younger to the older children. Especially after the group of 4 to 5 year olds the percentages are below 2%. The difference between the two deletions is that in the case of /r/ the percentages were higher in almost every group of children than in the case of /l/.
3.11.6. Substitutions of /l/
The following tables show the different substitutions of /l/ for all groups of children. Table (21a) shows the substitutions of /l/ by different stop consonants. As it was previously mentioned in the sections of /r/ substitutions, this phonological process is called “stopping”. In table (21a) we see that the stop consonants that substituted the consonant /l/ were the following: /p/, /t/, /d/ /k/. Also, spectrograms
(16) and (17) show two examples of stopping. In spectrogram (16) the /l/ sound is substituted by the sound /t/, whereas in spectrogram (17) the /l/ sound is substituted by the sound /k/. In spectrogram (16) the child said /fatat/ instead of /fatal/ and in spectrogram (17) the child said /habok/ instead of /handbol/.
Spectrogram 16. Stopping: /t/ Instead of /l/
Charta 106
Spectrogram 17. Stopping: /k/ Instead of /l/
Age p-l t-l d-l k-l Group (2-3) yrs 0 2,30% 1,40% 0,44% (3-4) yrs 0,11% 2,10% 0 0,11% (4-5) yrs 0 0,70% 0 0,11% (5-6) yrs 0 0,20% 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0,50% 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0,20% 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0 0 Table 21a. Substitutions of /l/: Stopping
According to table (21a) the stop consonant that was mostly used to replace /l/ was the stop /t/. It was used by all groups of children apart from the oldest one. The stop consonants /p/ and /d/ were only used by one of the groups, whereas /k/ was used by the three youngest groups of children (2-3, 3-4, 4-5). (For the total number of tokens see Appendix B). Table (21b) shows the substitutions of /l/ by fricatives and spectrogram (18) shows an example of frication. In this example the /l/ sound is in initial position in the target word and the child substituted the /l/ sound with the fricative /s/. So, instead of /lora/ the child said /sora/. Charta 107
Spectrogram 18. Substitution: /s/ Instead of /l/
Age s-l z-l Group (2-3) yrs 0,20% 0,11% 0 0,33% (3-4) yrs 0 0,20% 0 0,11% (4-5) yrs 0 0 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 0,11% 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0 0 Table 21b. Substitutions of /l/: Frication
In table (21b) we observe that the groups that make the most substitutions are the youngest ones in most of the cases. The percentages of the substitutions are not high but the children show some kind of effort to apply different phonological processes in order to produce the words as close as possible to the target words.
Another type of substitution that is called “nasalization” is shown in table (21c). Also, an example of nasalization is shown in spectrogram (19), where the /l/ sound is substituted by the sound /n/. The child said /nekes/ instead of /lekes/. Charta 108
Spectrogram 19. Nasalization: /n/ Instead of /l/
Age Group n-l (2-3) yrs 4,20% (3-4) yrs 0,80% (4-5) yrs 0,11% (5-6) yrs 0,11% (6-7) yrs 0,11% (7-8) yrs 0,33% (8-9) yrs 0,11% Table 21c. Substitutions of /l/: Nasalization
Table (21c) shows the substitutions of /l/ by the nasal consonant /n/. All of the groups of children made that type of substitution, although the youngest ones (2-3) had the highest percentage of all. The last type of substitution of /l/ that was found in our study is shown in table (21d) that follows.
Age Group r-l (2-3) yrs 1,40% (3-4) yrs 0,90% (4-5) yrs 0,80% (5-6) yrs 1,90% (6-7) yrs 0,80% (7-8) yrs 0,20% (8-9) yrs 0 Table 21d. Substitution of /l/ by /r/ Charta 109
As we saw in the substitutions of /r/, in one of these substitutions, /r/ was replaced by /l/. In table (21d), we see that /l/ is also substituted by /r/. Although this would not be expected since /r/ is considered a more difficult liquid to produce than
/l/, we observe that this type of substitution happens in six out of seven groups of children. The only group that did not substitute /l/ for /r/ was the oldest one (8-9).
Spectrogram (20) that follows shows an example of /l/ substitution where the /l/ sound is substituted by the sound /r/. The child said /mariro/ instead of /malino/.
Spectrogram 20. Substitution: /r/ Instead of /l/
3.11.7. Metathesis of /l/
The phonological process of metathesis was also present in the words which included the liquid /l/. This means that when children produced words that included
/l/, they reordered the sequence of /l/ in the words. Table (22) shows the percentages of this type of phonological process for each group of children.
Charta 110
Age Group Percentage (2-3) yrs 1,50% (3-4) yrs 2,20% (4-5) yrs 0,80% (5-6) yrs 0,70% (6-7) yrs 0,11% (7-8) yrs 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0,00% Table 22. Metathesis of /l/
In table (22) we see that the process of metathesis is found in five of the children groups. The two younger groups of children (7-8, 8-9) did not have any productions of this type. The highest percentages belong to the two youngest groups
(2-3, 3-4) and the group of 3 to 4 year olds had higher percentage than the group of the 2 to 3 year olds. In spectrogram (21) we see an example of metathesis of /l/. In this example the target word /kotle/ consists of two syllables. The /l/ sound is found in the final syllable, but when the child produced the word, the /l/ sound moved to the first syllable and the produced word by the child was /klote/.
Spectrogram 21. Metathesis of /l/
Charta 111
3.11.8. Epenthesis in Words with /l/
The final phonological process that was found in the words that included /l/ was epenthesis, whose percentages are shown in next table.
Age Epenthesis of /e/ Epenthesis of /i/ Epenthesis of /l/ Group (2-3) yrs 0,11% 0,50% 0,20% (3-4) yrs 0 0,50% 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0 0 Table 23. Epenthesis of /e/, /i/, /l/ in Words with /l/
As we can see in table (23), epenthesis was found only in one or two age groups and especially the youngest ones (2-3, 3-4). We observe that we have two cases of vowel epenthesis and one case of consonant epenthesis.
The group of 2 to 3 year olds inserted the vowel /e/ in one of the cases of vowel epenthesis, whereas the age groups (2-3 and 3-4) inserted the vowel /i/ in the other case of vowel epenthesis. In the case of consonant epenthesis the consonant that was inserted was the consonant /l/. The youngest group of children (2-3), who produced these words, inserted an extra /l/ in the words that had already had a /l/.
In spectrogram (22) we see an example of vowel epenthesis and to be more specific, the vowel that is inserted in the target word is the vowel /i/. The target word is the word /patlaki/ and when the child produced the word he inserted the vowel /i/ before the /l/ sound. In spectrogram (23) we see an example of consonant epenthesis.
The consonant that was inserted in the target word /titli/ was the consonant /l/, so the Charta 112 word that was produced by the child was /tlitli/. In this case we could say that the phonological process that occurred was reduplication of the /l/ sound.
Spectrogram 22. Epenthesis of /i/ before /l/
Spectrogram 23. Epenthesis of /l/ or Reduplication
3.11.9. Reversed Position of /r/ and /l/
In the total number of words that children had to produce there were 15 words that included both /r/ and /l/. As it has already been mentioned in one of the previous Charta 113 sections, in 7 of the 15 words the phone /r/ preceded the phone /l/, whereas in 8 of them the phone /l/ preceded the phone /r/. In the production of these words there were some cases where children reversed the position of /r/ and /l/. In other words, when there was a word which included both /r/ and /l/ children produced this word by putting /l/ in the position of /r/ and /r/ in the position of /l/. This was found in words where /r/ preceded /l/, but also in words where /l/ preceded /r/. Table (24) shows the percentages of these productions.
Age Reversed Position of /r/ &/l/ Group (2-3) yrs 2% (3-4) yrs 2% (4-5) yrs 10% (5-6) yrs 7,50% (6-7) yrs 1,70% (7-8) yrs 1,30% (8-9) yrs 0 Table 24. Reversed Position of /r/ & /l/
According to table (24) all groups of children apart from the oldest one (8-9) produced this category of words by reversing the position of the two liquids. What is important to note is the fact that the middle groups that is (4-5) and (5-6) year olds had the highest percentages of all. The percentages of the rest of the groups (2-3, 3-4,
6-7, 7-8) were very close to each other. (For the total number of tokens see Appendix
B). Spectrogram (24) below shows an example of reversed position of /r/ and /l/. In this example the child produced the word /loros/ instead of the target word /rolos/. Charta 114
Spectrogram 24. Reversed Position of /r/ & /l/
If we would like to make a small summary and compare the phonological processes of /r/ and /l/ we could say that deletion was found in all groups of children.
In both /r/ and /l/ the percentages of deletion were decreased as we moved from the younger to the older groups of children. As for the substitutions, in the case of stopping, /t/ was the stop consonant that was used more often from most of the children in both words with /r/ and /l/. In substitutions by fricatives, /s/ was used by all groups of children in order to replace /r/, whereas in words with /l/ the substitutions by fricatives took place only in the production of the youngest groups.
Moreover, nazalization was found in almost every group of children in both words with /r/ and /l/. On the contrary, vowelization was found in the words that included only the liquid /r/.
One thing that is interesting to note, is the fact that although we expected children to substitute /l/ for /r/, the other way round was also found in children’s production. In other words, six out of seven groups of children substituted /r/ for /l/ and five groups substituted /l/ for /r/. (For the total number of tokens see Appendix
B). Charta 115
What is more, the phonological process of metathesis was found in four and five groups of children in both words with /r/ and words with /l/ respectively. The phonological process of epenthesis was also found in both words with /r/ and words with /l/. The only difference between the two groups of words is that in the case of the words that included the liquid /r/ there was one type of epenthesis and to be more specific there was vowel epenthesis. In the case of the words that included the liquid
/l/, there were two vowel epentheses and one consonant epenthesis.
Finally, one more interesting thing to note is the fact that six out of seven groups of children produced some of the words that included both liquids (/r/ and /l/) by reversing the position of these two liquids. Especially the group of 5 to 6 year olds had the highest percentage of all groups of children.
3.12. Vocoids
According to Crystal (2008), the vocoid is a term that was invented by the
American phonetician Kenneth Pike in order to help us distinguish between the phonetic and the phonological notions of a vowel. Phonetically, a vowel is defined as a sound that lacks any closure or narrowing sufficient to produce audible friction.
Phonologically, it is a unit which functions as the centre of syllables. In the case of /l/ and /r/ however, these criteria do not coincide since these two sounds (among others) are phonetically vowel-like, but their function is consonantal (514).
In our research the term vocoid has a different meaning. The vocoid has a vowel-like gesture that is necessary for the ballistic movement of the tongue in order to produce the sound /r/. However, we found that vocoids were also present in the production of the sound /l/. Different research has shown that vocoids can occur in different positions. For example, in consonantal clusters or sequences, a vocoid Charta 116 appears between the consonant and the rhotic constriction (Baltazani 2009; Nicolaidis
& Baltazani 2011, 2014). A vocoid is also present in phrase initial and final position
(Baltazani & Nicolaidis 2012, 2013).
Although, vocoids have been found in different positions, in our research, we counted the number of vocoids in initial and final position and we also measured their average durations. We did this for both /r/ and /l/ vocoids and we also divided them into voiced and voiceless.
The spectrograms that follow show four different examples of vocoids.
Spectrograms (25) and (26) show two examples of /r/ voocoids. The difference between these two spectrograms is that in spectrogram (25) the /r/ vocoid is voiced whereas in spectrogram (26) the /r/ vocoid is voiceless.
Spectrogram 25. Voiced Vocoid /r/
Charta 117
Spectrogram 26. Voiceless Vocoid /r/
Similarly, spectrograms (27) and (28) show two examples of /l/ vocoids. The difference between the two is that in spectrogram (27) the /l/ vocoid is voiced, whereas in spectrogram (28) the /l/ vocoid is voiceless.
Spectrogram 27. Voiced Vocoid /l/
Charta 118
Spectrogram 28. Voiceless Vocoid /l/
In these four examples all of the vocoids are in word initial position. The difference between the voiced and the voiceless vocoids is that in the case of the voiced vocoids (spectrograms 25 and 27) there is presence of high amplitude formant structure that is absent in the case of the voiceless vocoids (spectrograms 26 and 28).
3.12.1. Counting Vocoids (Voiced Vocoids /r/)
In this section we are going to examine the number of the voiced /r/ vocoids that were found in our research.
Age voiced /r/ vocoid voiced /r/ vocoid Group (initial position) (final position) (2-3) yrs 6,90% 3,10% (3-4) yrs 8,80% 1,30% (4-5) yrs 49,40% 4,40% (5-6) yrs 83,80% 18,10% (6-7) yrs 64,40% 5% (7-8) yrs 80,60% 11,90% (8-9) yrs 99,40% 13,80% Table 25. Voiced Vocoids /r/ Charta 119
Table (25) shows the number of voiced /r/ vocoids in initial and final position for all groups of children. The percentages in initial position are much higher than the percentages in final position. This happens in every group of children and especially in the older ages. When the voiced vocoids are in initial position we see that the percentages increase as we move from the younger to the older children, whereas when the voiced vocoids are in final position this is not always the case. In both cases though, the older groups of children have the highest percentages. This means that the older children produced more vocoids than the younger ones. The next table shows the number of voiceless /r/ vocoids in both initial and final position.
3.12.2. Counting Vocoids (Voiceless Vocoids /r/)
Age voiceless /r/ vocoid voiceless /r/ vocoid Group (initial position) (final position) (2-3) yrs 4,40% 5,60% (3-4) yrs 7,50% 6,30% (4-5) yrs 16,90% 50% (5-6) yrs 12,50% 61,30% (6-7) yrs 28,10% 66,90% (7-8) yrs 33,80% 78,10% (8-9) yrs 23,80% 69,40% Table 26. Voiceless Vocoids /r/
In contrast to table (25), we observe that in table (26) the percentages in the final position are higher than the percentages in the initial position. Similarly to table
(25), the two youngest groups (2-3, 3-4) had the shortest percentages of all. This of course is very logical, since the youngest children had more correct productions of /r/ and as a consequence less vocoids were produced by them. Charta 120
3.12.3. Counting Vocoids (Voiced Vocoids /l/)
After counting the voiced and voiceless /r/ vocoids in initial and final position, we are going to examine the number of voiced and voiceless /l/ vocoids. Table (27) shows the voiced /l/ vocoids in initial and final position for all groups of children.
Age voiced /l/ vocoid voiced /l/ vocoid Group (initial position) (final position) (2-3) yrs 10,60% 7,50% (3-4) yrs 5% 0,60% (4-5) yrs 4,40% 5% (5-6) yrs 5% 7,50% (6-7) yrs 1,25% 0 (7-8) yrs 2,50% 0 (8-9) yrs 5,60% 2,55% Table 27. Voiced Vocoids /l/
The percentages of the voiced /l/ vocoids are not very high neither in initial nor in the final position. The highest percentages in both positions are in the group of
2 to 3 year olds, which means that the youngest group of children produced more voiced /l/ vocoids than any other group of children. We also observe that two of the groups (6-7, 7-8) had zero productions of voiced /l/ vocoids in the final position. In table (28) below we can see the voiceless /l/ vocoids in initial and final position.
3.12.4. Counting Vocoids (Voiceless Vocoids /l/)
Age voiceless /l/ vocoid voiceless /l/ vocoid Group (initial position) (final position) (2-3) yrs 8,75% 22% (3-4) yrs 31,90% 18,10% (4-5) yrs 58,80% 48,80% (5-6) yrs 52,50% 43,10% (6-7) yrs 98,10% 46,90% (7-8) yrs 55% 55% (8-9) yrs 71,90% 44,40% Table 28. Voiceless Vocoids /l/ Charta 121
In table (28) the percentages are much higher than the percentages in the previous table. In both initial and final position the highest percentages belong to the group of 6 to 7 year olds and the lowest percentages to the group of 2 to 3 year olds.
In other words, the older children produced more voiceless /l/ vocoids than the younger children. We also observe that in most of the groups of children the voiceless
/l/ vocoids in initial position are higher than the voiceless /l/ vocoids in final position.
Now that we have counted the number of voiced and voiceless vocoids of /r/ and /l/ in both initial and final position we are going to measure the average durations of all these vocoids.
3.12.5. Voiced Vocoids /r/ (Average Durations)
In the two following graphs we can see the average durations of voiced /r/ vocoids in both initial and final position for all groups of children.
Voiced Vocoid /r/ Initial Position
70 63,54 58,99 60 2-3 yrs 46,35 48,63 48,27 46,83 50 3-4 yrs 38,07 40 4-5 yrs 30 5-6 yrs 20 6-7 yrs
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 33. Voiced Vocoid /r/ (Initial Position)
Charta 122
Voiced Vocoid /r/ Final Position
90 81,2 80 2-3 yrs 70 61,57 57,96 55,54 60 57,75 3-4 yrs 48,52 50 44 4-5 yrs 40 5-6 yrs 30 20 6-7 yrs
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 34. Voiced Vocoid /r/ (Final Position)
Graph (33) shows the average durations of voiced /r/ vocoids in initial position. The average durations range from 38 m/s to 63 m/s. The longest average durations were produced by the youngest group of children (2-3) and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of (3-4) year olds. This is surprising though, since we would expect the group of 3 to 4 year olds to have similar average durations to the 2 to 3 year olds because they are the two youngest groups and usually the younger the children the slower their speech. As for the rest of the groups, if we exclude the group of 6 to 7 year olds the other four groups of children (4-5, 5-6, 7-8,
8-9) had very similar average durations.
Graph (34) shows the average durations of voiced /r/ vocoids in final position.
The average durations range from 44 m/s to 81 m/s. As in graph (33), the longest average durations were produced by the youngest group of children (2-3) and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds. The rest of the groups do not show much difference in their average durations. We also observe that most of the voiced /r/ vocoids in final position were longer than the voiced /r/ vocoids in initial position.
Charta 123
3.12.6. Voiceless Vocoids /r/ (Average Durations)
Apart from the voiced, we also found voiceless /r/ vocoids in initial and final position. The two graphs below show the average durations of these vocoids for all groups of children.
Voiceless Vocoid /r/ Initial Position
90 85,26 75,8 80 73,51 78,26 70,75 2-3 yrs 70 65,28 60 3-4 yrs 49,91 50 4-5 yrs 40 5-6 yrs 30 20 6-7 yrs
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 35. Voiceless Vocoid /r/ (Initial Position)
Voiceless Vocoid /r/ Final Position
130 120 115,33 110 2-3 yrs 100 97,97 90 83,33 86,29 83,6 3-4 yrs 80 71,2 72,09 70 4-5 yrs 60 50 5-6 yrs 40 30 6-7 yrs 20
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 36. Voiceless Vocoid /r/ (Final Position)
Charta 124
Graph (35) shows the average durations of voiceless /r/ vocoids in initial position. The average durations range from 49 m/s to 85 m/s. The longest average durations were produced by the group of 6 to 7 year olds and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds.
In graph (36) we see the average durations of voiceless /r/ vocoids in final position. The average durations range from 71 m/s to 115 m/s. The longest average durations were produced by the youngest group of children (2-3) and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds. The rest of the groups of children did not show many differences among their average durations.
If we compare the four graphs (33, 34, 35, 36) with each other we can see that in three of them the group that had the longest average durations in both voiced and voiceless vocoids was the youngest one (2-3) as it was expected for the reasons that have already been mentioned (slower speech, longer duration of phones). What was not expected was the fact that in all four graphs the group that had the shortest average durations of all groups would be the group of 3 to 4 year olds. The reason why this was a surprising result, is due to the fact that this group of children was very close (in relation to age) to the group that had the longest average durations. It was the next youngest group of children. What is more, we could also note that both voiced and voiceless vocoids were longer when they were found in final position than in initial position.
Charta 125
3.12.7. Voiced Vocoids /l/ (Average Durations)
After having measured the average durations of /r/ vocoids we are going to measure the average durations of /l/ vocoids. First we are going to examine the voiced
/l/ vocoids in both initial and final position.
Voiced Vocoid /l/ Initial Position
100 91 90 80 2-3 yrs 70 3-4 yrs 60 50,64 44,25 4-5 yrs 50 50 43 40 34 5-6 yrs 30 28,14 6-7 yrs 20
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Groups
Graph 37. Voiced Vocoid /l/ (Initial Position)
Voiced Vocoid /l/ Final Position
100 87,08 90 87 80 2-3 yrs 70 55,91 3-4 yrs 60 4-5 yrs 50 43,75 40 5-6 yrs 30 26 6-7 yrs 20 10 7-8 yrs
AverageDurations 0 0 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 38. Voiced Vocoid /l/ (Final Position)
In the above graphs (37, 38) we can see the average durations of voiced /l/ vocoids in both initial and final position for all groups of children. Graph (37) shows Charta 126 the average durations of voiced /l/ vocoids in initial position. The average durations range from 28 m/s to 91 m/s. The longest average durations were produced by the group of 6 to 7 year olds and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 4 to 5 year olds. We can see that there is much difference in the average durations between the different groups of children.
Graph (38) shows the average durations of voiced /l/ vocoids in final position.
The average durations range from 26 m/s to 87 m/s. The longest average durations were produced by the youngest group of children (2-3) and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds. This is very similar to most
/r/ vocoids such as in graphs (33, 34 and 36) where in most if the cases the youngest group of children (2-3) had the longest average durations and the group of 3 to 4 year olds had the shortest average durations. It is important to note that as we can see in graph (38), the groups of (6-7) and (7-8) did not have any average durations which means that these two groups of children did not produce any voiced /l/ vocoids in final position.
3.12.8. Voiceless Vocoids /l/ (Average Durations)
As in the case of /r/ vocoids, so in the case of /l/ vocoids we also found voiced and voiceless /l/ vocoids. The two graphs below show the average durations of voiceless /l/ vocoids in both initial and final position. Charta 127
Voiceless Vocoid /l/ Initial Position
90 77,45 80,95 80 73,35 68,79 67,5 72 2-3 yrs 70 62,45 60 3-4 yrs 50 4-5 yrs 40 5-6 yrs 30 20 6-7 yrs
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 39. Voiceless Vocoid /l/ (Initial Position)
Voiceless Vocoid /l/ Final Position
130 120 113,18 115,03 110 2-3 yrs 100 93,39 87,58 90 79,93 79,36 3-4 yrs 80 76,21 70 4-5 yrs 60 50 5-6 yrs 40 30 6-7 yrs 20
10 7-8 yrs AverageDurations 0 8-9 yrs Age Group
Graph 40. Voiceless Vocoid /l/ (Final Position)
Graph (39) shows the average durations of voiceless /l/ vocoids in initial position. The average durations range from 62 m/s to 80 m/s. There is not much difference in the average durations between the different groups of children.
Surprisingly, the longest average durations were produced by the oldest group of children (8-9) and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds.
Graph (40) shows the average durations of voiceless /l/ vocoids in final position. The average durations range from 76 m/s to 115 m/s. In contrast to the Charta 128 previous graph, the longest average durations were produced by the group of 3 to 4 year olds and the shortest average durations were produced by the group of 5 to 6 year olds.
If we compare the voiced and the voiceless /l/ vocoids, we can see that there is much difference in the voiced average durations between the different groups of children, whereas in the voiceless average durations, the average durations are closer to each other. Although in the case of /l/ vocoids (both voiced and voiceless) we cannot say which group had the longest or the shortest average durations because there was not much consistency as in the case of /r/ vocoids, one thing that we could say is that when the /l/ vocoid (either voiced or voiceless) is in final position the group of 2 to 3 year olds tends to have very long productions. This is something that is also true for the /r/ vocoids.
4. Discussion
The present study yielded a great amount of different results. Some of the results confirm previously published studies and some of them bring new insights to the spotlight.
4.1. Children’s Phonological Acquisition
With regard to children’s phonological acquisition, the researchers have noted some differences in the order of phonemes acquisition among different languages.
For example, there is some evidence that /l/ is acquired earlier by French-speaking children as compared to English-speaking children (Vihman, 1993). Similarly, Pye,
Ingram, & List (1987) show that children acquiring Quiché (a Mayan language), Charta 129 produce both liquids and affricates in their early phoneme inventories. As for the
Greek /r/, PAL (1995) observed that Greek children often acquire two-element clusters with /r/ before they have acquired /r/ as a singleton. Mennen and Okalidou
(2006) state that this finding was confirmed by Papadopoulou (2000).
Mann & Hodson (1994) reviewed a number of studies on the phonological development of Spanish children from different parts of Mexico, the United States and Venezuela. The results showed that the majority of Spanish phonemes were acquired by the age of 4 years. Among the phonemes that were last acquired were /r, l/. This means that the phonemes /r, l/ are difficult to acquire and as we saw in our study, even at the age of 9, children still have some minor difficulty in the production of these phonemes. This is also supported by Idemaru and Holt’s study (2013), who examined the use of F2 and F3 formant in the production and perception of /l/ ad /r/ sounds in 4, 4.5, 5.5, and 8.5 year old English speaking children. The children were tested with elicitation, repetition and word recognition tasks. The results indicate that
English /l/ and /r/ categorization seems to continue to develop beyond 8 or 9 years of age.
On the contrary, Carballo and Mendoza (2000) studied the trill production of
45 Spanish children and claimed that sometimes between age 3 and 6.6 Spanish speaking children normally acquire adult-like trill production.
Fikkert (2007) observed that data from studies on child phonology have revealed three facts about child language production. “First, children do not speak like adults. Second, children’s speech often differs in a systematic fashion from that of adults’. Third, child language develops gradually towards the target language” (539).
Fikkert’s observation seems to be correct if we take a look at the results of our study.
We saw that children’s productions were different from the target words which were Charta 130 produced by an adult. Also, the number of wrong productions and phonological processes was decreased as we moved from the youngest to the oldest groups of children. So, we could say that the language of the children is developed gradually towards the target language.
4.2. Phonological Processes and Substitution Patterns
PAL (1995) reports that between the ages 2-3 the most common phonological processes are consonant deletion, final consonant deletion, metathesis, stopping, consonant harmony and cluster reduction. Between the ages 3-4 consonant deletion, stopping and consonant harmony are declining, whereas between the ages 4-5 metathesis and final consonant deletion are declining and /r/ clusters are appearing.
Moreover, Sanoudaki (2007) studied the production of consonant clusters by typically-developing Greek children using a non-word repetition test. One of the most common substitutions was the substitution of /l/ for /r/. This type of substitution was found in single consonant production but also in cluster productions. In the present study, the most common phonological process was deletion. Other phonological processes such as stopping, metathesis, epenthesis and substitution were also found.
One common substitution especially in the younger ages was the substitution of /l/ for
/r/, but as we saw in the results, the substitution of /r/ for /l/ was also present, in a lower degree though.
Similar phonological processes were found in other languages as well. In
Smith’s (1973) case study, when the child was at two years, some of the most common phonological processes related to liquids was that /l/ was deleted finally and preconsonantally. Also, post-consonantal sonorants /l, r, w, j/ were deleted and /l, r, j/ were neutralized as /l/. Also, in Mann & Hodson’s study (1994), the error patterns that Charta 131 occurred more often between one and four years of age were syllable deletion, stopping, fronting and cluster reduction, while these sounds are among the last to be acquired by English-speaking children.
4.3. /r/ and /l/ Perception and Production in Other Languages
Japanese speakers lack the /r-l/ contrast in their native language in the initial prevocalic position, so they demonstrate perceptual and productive difficulties in distinction between those two phonemes (MacKain, Best & Strange, 1981). There are several studies that support this fact. Slawinski’s study (2000) included two experiments: one perceptual and one productive. The groups that participated in the study were Japanese speakers (adults and children) some with limited and some with intensive exposure in English. The goal of the study was to explore the relationship between the perceptual ability to integrate spectral and temporal cues and a presence of these cues in spoken /r/ and /l/ sounds. The results of the study suggested that probably adults have to acquire perceptual proficiency in discriminating /r/ and /l/ in order to be able to distinguish them productively. With regard to children, in addition to their exposure to English a cognitive development probably plays a role in perceptual and productive acquisition of /r/ and /l/.
Yamada and Tohkura (1992) investigated the identification of American
English /r/ and /l/ by native adult speakers of Japanese. According to the results, the stimulus range showed a striking effect on identification consistency. The identification of /r/ and /l/ was strongly affected by the stimulus range. Dalston (1975) analyzed F1, F2 and F3 values of word initial /r/, /w/ and /l/ in adults and 3 to 4 year old children. Both adults’ and children’s formant values were reported to distinguish these three sounds acoustically. When it came to production, errors were distributed Charta 132 approximately equally in intended /r/ and /l/ productions but never occurred in /w/ productions.
Another language that seems to cause problems in the /r-l/ discrimination is
Korean. Iverson and Sohn (1994) stated that there is just one liquid phoneme in
Korean which could be represented as either /l/ or /r/ (but not both). If the lateral is taken to be the phonemic representation, then it would be necessary to convert /l/ into
/r/ syllable-initially. If the central approximant is considered as basic, on the other hand, the /r/ would need to be turned into /l/ syllable-finally. The choice between these two forms of the phoneme has usually favored /l/ over /r/.
4.4. Types of /r/ and Rhotic Durations in Other Languages
In our study we saw that in Greek there are several types of rhotics with different durations. This happens in other languages too. In the following studies the participants were adults, whereas the participants in our study were all children.
Willis and Bradley (2008) categorized the different realizations of the
Dominican Spanish tap. According to their categorization there are four different types: a non-continuant tap, an approximant tap, a perceptual tap and complete reduction or elision. Colantoni (2006) has reported assibilated /r/ for trills and Bradley
(2004) has reported different assibilated varieties of Spanish. Moreover, assibilation can be found in different types of /r/ in different languages of the world. For example,
Costa Rica has an assibilated rhotic that is an alveolar tap or trill that is phonetically realized as a strident fricative (Vasquez Carranza 2006).
In another language, Muminovic and Engstrand (2001) examined the acoustic and auditory properties of /r/ in nine Swedish dialects. The sounds were produced in intervocalic position by middle aged male speakers. The types of /r/ that were found Charta 133 were approximants, fricatives and taps. The approximants outnumbered the fricative and the taps. Also, there were found some trill variants but they rarely occurred.
As for the /r/ duration, Recasens and Espinosa (2007) note that tap duration in adults ranges between 15 m/s and 30 m/s when we take into consideration languages such as Tamil, Spanish, Greek and Catalan. In their study, they found out that
Valencian taps in adults range between 13-24 m/s and the Majorcan taps range between 18-29 m/s. In another study, Willis & Bradley (2008) state that the average duration of Spanish taps in adults is 20 m/s.
4.5. /l/ Studies in Other Languages
In the present study, young children had problems in the production of words with /l/. According to the results of our study, around the age of 6 or 7, children manage to produce about 90% of the words correctly. It has been claimed that until around the age of six, children have less stability in producing patterned speech output and their speech performance of gestural components is likely to display distinctive developmental constraints (Smith and Goffman 1996; Thelen and Smith 1994).
Possible difficulties in the production of /l/ can reside in complex tongue movements and in coordination of the articulatory gestures. Thus, the spatial coordination of /l/ in children’s speech can be different from that of adults due to motor restrictions and the difficulty of multiple coordination (Kelso 1977; Kent 1992).
Oh and Gick (2005) using ultrasound, examined how articulatory characteristics of /l/ are presented in children’s speech production. /l/ words in isolation and combination were collected from eight monolingual children aged 3;11 to 5;9. Although some children produced more similar to adult /l/, the majority of children produced /l/ using different articulatory properties. /l/ was produced with less Charta 134 detail and more variations than in the adults’ speech as movements of the tongue were simplified or modified. While articulatory performance varied across subjects as well as syllable positions, acoustic analysis of formants (F1, F2, F3) of sample tokens showed similar patterns for all subjects. This study suggested that the tendency toward late acquisition of /l/ is due to its articulation as well as its complexity.
4.6. Vocoids
There are not many studies in relation to the production of vocoids, but there are different explanations for their presence in /r/ productions and especially in the production of clusters. Ramirez (2006) sees the vocoids as epenthetic vowel-like parts, whereas, Bradley and Schmeiser (2003) believe that there is an articulatory explanation of the appearance of the vocoids. They argue that they appear as a consequence of there being less overlap between the consonantal gestures. If the tongue gesture produced in order to articulate the tap and the gesture of the preceding
(or following) consonant do not overlap tightly, a vowel-like element emerges.
According to Savu (2012), this explanation might work for Cr and Rc clusters, but according to this theory we would not expect vocoids in positions were there is a vowel before or after the /r/, since there is no other consonantal gesture for the gesture of the tap to overlap with.
In our study, we observed that vocoids were present in word initial and final position although there was no need for consonantal gestures. Also, the children produced vocoids not only in words with /r/, but also in words with /l/. Nicolaidis and
Baltazani (2011) found that in cluster production included the presence of a vocoid between the /r/ and the consonant. Also, Nicolaidis and Baltazani (2012) investigated the /r/ production in phrase initial, word initial and intervocalic position. The Charta 135 production of /r/ was found to include a vocoid preceding the constriction phase in phrase initial position. It was also observed that the quality of the vocoid depends on the nuclear vowel of the syllable with /r/. In particular, the vocoid shows similar but somewhat centralized frequencies compared to the nuclear vowel.
Apart from Greek, Recasens and Espinosa (2007) examined the presence of vocoids and reported the duration of vocoids in clusters. They stated that their duration was shorter in /Cr/ than in /rC/ clusters. It was between 30 m/s and 40 m/s for
/Cr/ and up to 50-55 m/s for /rC/ in Catalan and Spanish.
5. Conclusion
Based on the findings of our study, it seems that the younger the children the more wrong productions or misarticulations were found in the results. Between the ages 4 and 7 there is an important development in children’s production and by the age of 9, children have reached high production accuracy, but they still have some problems with the production of /r/ and /l/. The results seem to agree with Sadler’s
(1989) opinion who claimed that phonological development is not complete at school entry, but is normally completed between 5 and 7 years of age. According to our results we could also say that children master the production of /l/ a little earlier than the production of /r/. However, complete mastery of both phonemes is not achieved until later on. Words that include both liquids are more difficult for children (even to the older ones) to produce them.
The most common types of /r/ in the older ages are taps with release and approximants, whereas trills are very common between the ages 4-6. As for the two types of /l/, the one without the release is the one that seems to be most often produced by all groups of children. Charta 136
The average durations of /r/ and /l/ did not exhibit much difference between the groups, but usually the youngest children were the ones that had the longest average durations of all groups since young children tend to speak slower. Also, the average duration of release in the two types of /r/ and /l/ (tap with release and /l/ with release) did not show much difference between the different groups of children. The average duration of release of /r/ ranged between 3,5-4,5 m/s and the average duration of release of /l/ ranged between 3,5-4,8 m/s.
Different phonological processes were present in all groups of children. One of the most common phonological processes was deletion. Other phonological processes such as stopping, metathesis, epenthesis and substitution were also found in the study. Different types of substitution were also present especially in the younger ages. The common substitution was the substitution of /l/ for /r/, but as we saw in the results, the substitution of /r/ for /l/ was also present, in a lower degree though.
We also found that children produced voiceless and voiced vocoids in words with both /r/ and /l/ in initial and final position. The only exception to the results were the groups of (6-7) and (7-8) year olds, who although produced all the above types of vocoids, they did not produce any voiced /l/ vocoids in final position.
In conclusion, further research would be useful to confirm the findings of the present study. Especially the domain of vocoids requires more research on child speech in order to shed more light to this little explored domain of phonetics and phonology.
Charta 137
Appendix A
List of words used in the experiment
Words with /r/
/r/ Initial Position /r/ Clusters (stressed) ράφι ‘rafi κράνη ‘krani ρέμα ‘rema πράσα ‘prasa ρύζι ‘rizi τράβα ‘trava ρόδα ‘roa κρέμα ‘krema ρούχα ‘rua πρέπει ‘prepi τρένο ‘treno /r/ Initial Position κρίμα ‘krima (unstressed) ρακή ra’ki πρίγκιπας ‘prigipas ρεπό re’po προίκα ‘prika ριγέ ri’e τρίχα ‘trixa ρωτώ ro’to κρόκος ‘krokos ρουφά ru’fa πρόβατο ‘provato πρόβα ‘prova /r/ Middle Position τρόμος ‘tromos (stressed) ψαράς psa’ras κρούστα ‘krusta πουρές pu’res Προύσα ‘prusa τυρί ti’ri Τρούφα ‘trufa νερό ne’ro κουρού ku’ru καράβι ka’ravi μαραίνω ma’reno χαρίζω xa’rizo καρότο ka’roto γουρούνι u’runi
/r/ Middle Position (unstressed) μέρα ‘mera πάρε ‘pare ζάρι ‘zari δώρο ‘oro φάρου ‘faru πείραμα ‘pirama φόρεμα ‘forema χώρισα ‘xorisa γέροντας ‘erodas σούρουπο ‘surupo Charta 138
/r/ Final Position (stressed) ραντάρ ra’dar τρακτέρ tra’kter πυρ ‘pir σπορ ‘spor μανικιούρ mani’kiur
/r/ Final Position (unstressed) νέκταρ ‘nektar σούπερ ‘super μήτηρ ‘mitir χιούμορ ‘xiumor γκλάμουρ ‘glamur
Words with /l/
/l/ Initial Position /l/ Clusters (stressed) λάδι ‘lai κλαδί kla’i λένε ‘lene πλάκα ‘plaka λύνω ‘lino πατλάκι pa’tlaki λόφος ‘lofos κλέβω ‘klevo λούζω ‘luzo πλένω ‘pleno κοτλέ ko’tle /l/ Initial Position κλείνω ‘klino (unstressed) λαγός la’os πλοίο ‘plio λεκές le’kes τίτλοι ‘titli λινό li’no κλόουν ‘kloun λωτός lo’tos πλώρη ‘plori Λουκάς lu’kas τίτλος ‘titlos κλούβα ‘kluva /l/ Middle Position πλούσιος ‘plusios (stressed) φιλά fi’la γιαουρτλού iaur’tlu ζελέ ze’le χαλί xa’li μιλώ mi’lo Λουλού lu’lu καλάμι ka’lami μελέτη me’leti φιλέ fi’le χαλίκι xa’liki κολώνα ko’lona Charta 139
λουλούδι lu’lui
/l/ Middle Position (unstressed) μήλα ‘mila φίλε ‘file φίλοι ‘fili άλλο ‘alo μήλου ‘milu θάλασσα ‘alasa φάλαινα ‘falena μάλλινο ‘malino άλογο ‘aloo κούλουμα ‘kuluma
/l/ Final Position (stressed φατάλ fa’tal Ζιζέλ Zi’zel στιλ ‘stil γκολ ‘gol φουλ ‘ful
/l/ Final Position (unstressed) σπέσιαλ ‘spesial τούνελ ‘tunel κοκτέιλ ‘kokteil χάντμπολ ‘xadbol φάουλ ‘faul
Words with Both /r/ & /l/
/r/ before /l/ /l/ before /r/ ράλι ‘rali λίρα ‘lira ρόλος ‘rolos Λώρα ‘lora βαρέλι va’reli Λάρισα ‘larisa μαρούλι ma’ruli λέρωσα ‘lerosa ψαρίλα psa’rila κουλούρι ku’luri ρολό ro’lo κελάρι ke’lari Ραλλού ra’lu
Word with Three Liquids
/l/-/r/-/r/ καλοριφέρ kalori’fer
Charta 140
Appendix B
Percentages
Correct/Wrong
Age Group Correct /r/ Percentage (Count) (2-3) yrs 167 18% (3-4) yrs 179 20% (4-5) yrs 721 79% (5-6) yrs 841 92% (6-7) yrs 837 92% (7-8) yrs 859 94% (8-9) yrs 860 94%
Age Wrong /r/ Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 704 77% (3-4) yrs 704 77% (4-5) yrs 158 17% (5-6) yrs 39 4% (6-7) yrs 44 5% (7-8) yrs 21 2% (8-9) yrs 39 4%
Age Correct /l/ Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 505 56,40% (3-4) yrs 683 76,20% (4-5) yrs 769 85,80% (5-6) yrs 793 88,50% (6-7) yrs 798 89% (7-8) yrs 819 91,40% (8-9) yrs 823 91,90%
Age Wrong /l/ Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 315 35,20% (3-4) yrs 150 16,70% (4-5) yrs 63 7% (5-6) yrs 40 4,50% (6-7) yrs 35 3,90% (7-8) yrs 15 1,70% (8-9) yrs 10 1,11%
Charta 141
Age Problematic /r/ Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 84 75% (3-4) yrs 104 92,90% (4-5) yrs 29 25,90% (5-6) yrs 16 14,30% (6-7) yrs 12 10,70% (7-8) yrs 3 2,70% (8-9) yrs 3 2,70%
Age Problematic /r/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 78 60,90% (3-4) yrs 106 82,80% (4-5) yrs 19 14,80% (5-6) yrs 5 3,90% (6-7) yrs 5 3,90% (7-8) yrs 0 0% (8-9) yrs 0 0%
Age Problematic /l/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 6 5,40% (3-4) yrs 6 5,40% (4-5) yrs 1 0,90% (5-6) yrs 3 2,70% (6-7) yrs 1 0,90% (7-8) yrs 2 1,80% (8-9) yrs 1 0,90%
Age Both /r/ & /l/ Percentage Group Correct (Count) (2-3) yrs 32 13,30% (3-4) yrs 48 20,00% (4-5) yrs 151 62,90% (5-6) yrs 190 79,20% (6-7) yrs 217 90,40% (7-8) yrs 228 95% (8-9) yrs 234 97,50%
Charta 142
Age Both /r/ & /l/ Percentage Group Wrong (Count) (2-3) yrs 96 40% (3-4) yrs 43 17,90% (4-5) yrs 12 5% (5-6) yrs 5 2% (6-7) yrs 1 0,40% (7-8) yrs 1 0,40% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Correct Percentage Group /kalorifer/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 0 0% (4-5) yrs 10 6,25% (5-6) yrs 13 81,30% (6-7) yrs 15 93,80% (7-8) yrs 14 87,50% (8-9) yrs 15 93,80%
Age /kalorifer/ Percentage Group Problematic /l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 6,30% (3-4) yrs 0 0% (4-5) yrs 2 12,50% (5-6) yrs 0 0% (6-7) yrs 0 0% (7-8) yrs 0 0% (8-9) yrs 0 0%
Age /kalorifer/ Percentage Group Problematic Middle /r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 0 0% (4-5) yrs 0 0% (5-6) yrs 0 0% (6-7) yrs 1 6,30% (7-8) yrs 0 0% (8-9) yrs 0 0%
Charta 143
Age /kalorofer/ Percentage Group Problematic Final /r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 1 6,30% (4-5) yrs 0 0% (5-6) yrs 0 0% (6-7) yrs 0 0% (7-8) yrs 2 12,50% (8-9) yrs 1 6,30%
Age /kalorifer/ more Percentage Group than one wrong (Count) (2-3) yrs 15 93,80% (3-4) yrs 15 93,80% (4-5) yrs 4 25% (5-6) yrs 3 18,80% (6-7) yrs 0 0% (7-8) yrs 0 0% (8-9) yrs 0 0%
/r/ Type Count (in total)
Age Tap with Release Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 67 7% (3-4) yrs 101 11% (4-5) yrs 253 28% (5-6) yrs 366 40% (6-7) yrs 400 44% (7-8) yrs 592 65% (8-9) yrs 457 50%
Age Tap without Release Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 22 2,40% (3-4) yrs 9 1,00% (4-5) yrs 70 7,70% (5-6) yrs 75 8,20% (6-7) yrs 90 9,90% (7-8) yrs 103 11,30% (8-9) yrs 190 20,80% Charta 144
Age Approximant Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 112 12,30% (3-4) yrs 97 10,00% (4-5) yrs 376 41,20% (5-6) yrs 523 57,30% (6-7) yrs 387 42,40% (7-8) yrs 464 51,00% (8-9) yrs 505 55,40%
Age /r/ with Percentage Group Assibilation (Count) (2-3) yrs 7 0,80% (3-4) yrs 14 1,50% (4-5) yrs 35 4% (5-6) yrs 21 2,30% (6-7) yrs 49 5,40% (7-8) yrs 42 4,60% (8-9) yrs 35 4%
Age Group Trill (Count) Percentage (2-3) yrs 4 0,40% (3-4) yrs 5 0,50% (4-5) yrs 259 28,40% (5-6) yrs 172 18,90% (6-7) yrs 253 27,70% (7-8) yrs 18 2,00% (8-9) yrs 35 3,80%
Age Gliding /r/ Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Charta 145
/l/ Type Count (in total)
Age /l/ with Release Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 152 17% (3-4) yrs 367 41% (4-5) yrs 376 42% (5-6) yrs 363 41% (6-7) yrs 409 46% (7-8) yrs 502 56% (8-9) yrs 342 38%
Age /l/ without Percentage Group Release (Count) (2-3) yrs 583 65% (3-4) yrs 613 68% (4-5) yrs 704 79% (5-6) yrs 746 83% (6-7) yrs 731 82% (7-8) yrs 658 73% (8-9) yrs 827 92%
/r/ Type Count (Each Word Position)
Age Tap with Release Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 10 6,30% (3-4) yrs 15 9,40% (4-5) yrs 46 28,80% (5-6) yrs 74 46,30% (6-7) yrs 68 42,50% (7-8) yrs 113 70,60% (8-9) yrs 87 54,40%
Charta 146
Age Tap with Release Percentage Group Middle Position (Counts) (2-3) yrs 36 11,30% (3-4) yrs 59 18,40% (4-5) yrs 90 28,10% (5-6) yrs 143 44,70% (6-7) yrs 171 53,40% (7-8) yrs 236 73,80% (8-9) yrs 171 53,40%
Age Tap with Release Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 7 4,40% (3-4) yrs 2 1,30% (4-5) yrs 47 29,30% (5-6) yrs 34 21,30% (6-7) yrs 57 35,60% (7-8) yrs 86 53,80% (8-9) yrs 58 36,20%
Age Tap with Release Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 12 4,40% (3-4) yrs 24 8,80% (4-5) yrs 59 21,70% (5-6) yrs 99 36,40% (6-7) yrs 95 34,90% (7-8) yrs 138 50,70% (8-9) yrs 126 46,30%
Age Tap without Release Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,60% (3-4) yrs 3 1,90% (4-5) yrs 11 6,90% (5-6) yrs 15 9,40% (6-7) yrs 12 7,50% (7-8) yrs 17 10,60% (8-9) yrs 40 25%
Charta 147
Age Tap without Release Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 9 2,80% (3-4) yrs 3 0,90% (4-5) yrs 26 8,10% (5-6) yrs 30 9,40% (6-7) yrs 38 11,90% (7-8) yrs 37 11,60% (8-9) yrs 68 21,30%
Age Tap without Release Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 3 1,90% (3-4) yrs 1 0,60% (4-5) yrs 14 8,80% (5-6) yrs 14 8,80% (6-7) yrs 19 11,90% (7-8) yrs 28 17,50% (8-9) yrs 34 21,30%
Age Tap without Release Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 9 3,30% (3-4) yrs 2 0,70% (4-5) yrs 18 6,60% (5-6) yrs 14 5,10% (6-7) yrs 19 7% (7-8) yrs 21 7,70% (8-9) yrs 44 16,20%
Age Approximant Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 16 10% (3-4) yrs 18 11,30% (4-5) yrs 69 43,10% (5-6) yrs 83 51,90% (6-7) yrs 66 41,30% (7-8) yrs 87 54,40% (8-9) yrs 84 52,50%
Charta 148
Age Approximant Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 76 23,80% (3-4) yrs 47 14,70% (4-5) yrs 187 58,40% (5-6) yrs 251 78,40% (6-7) yrs 194 60,60% (7-8) yrs 206 64,40% (8-9) yrs 234 73,10%
Age Approximant Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 7 4,40% (3-4) yrs 10 6,30% (4-5) yrs 47 29,40% (5-6) yrs 99 61,90% (6-7) yrs 61 38,10% (7-8) yrs 70 43,40% (8-9) yrs 88 55%
Age Approximant Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 13 4,80% (3-4) yrs 21 7,70% (4-5) yrs 67 24,60% (5-6) yrs 87 32% (6-7) yrs 58 21,30% (7-8) yrs 90 33% (8-9) yrs 89 32,70%
Age Group Assibilation Percentage Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 2 1,30% (4-5) yrs 4 2,50% (5-6) yrs 1 0,60% (6-7) yrs 7 4,40% (7-8) yrs 3 1,90% (8-9) yrs 7 4,40%
Charta 149
Age Assibilation Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 2 0,60% (3-4) yrs 5 1,60% (4-5) yrs 9 2,80% (5-6) yrs 2 6% (6-7) yrs 12 3,80% (7-8) yrs 11 3,40% (8-9) yrs 6 1,90%
Age Assibilation Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 4 2,50% (3-4) yrs 4 2,50% (4-5) yrs 17 10,60% (5-6) yrs 16 10% (6-7) yrs 22 13,80% (7-8) yrs 20 12,50% (8-9) yrs 20 12,50%
Age Assibilation Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,40% (3-4) yrs 2 0,70% (4-5) yrs 5 1,80% (5-6) yrs 2 0,70% (6-7) yrs 8 2,90% (7-8) yrs 7 2,60% (8-9) yrs 2 0,70%
Age Trill Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 0 0% (4-5) yrs 46 28,80% (5-6) yrs 38 23,80% (6-7) yrs 65 40,60% (7-8) yrs 2 1,30% (8-9) yrs 5 3,10%
Charta 150
Age Trill Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,30% (3-4) yrs 1 0,30% (4-5) yrs 102 31,90% (5-6) yrs 50 15,60% (6-7) yrs 74 23,10% (7-8) yrs 1 0,30% (8-9) yrs 17 5,30%
Age Trill Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0% (3-4) yrs 0 0% (4-5) yrs 29 18,10% (5-6) yrs 17 10,60% (6-7) yrs 22 13,80% (7-8) yrs 3 1,90% (8-9) yrs 1 0,60%
Age Trill Clusters (Count) Percentage Group (2-3) yrs 3 1,10% (3-4) yrs 4 1,50% (4-5) yrs 79 29% (5-6) yrs 65 23,90% (6-7) yrs 89 32,70% (7-8) yrs 12 4,40% (8-9) yrs 10 3,70%
Charta 151
/l/ Type Count (Each Word Position)
Age /l/ with Release Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 34 21,30% (3-4) yrs 83 51,90% (4-5) yrs 81 50,60% (5-6) yrs 88 55% (6-7) yrs 85 53,10% (7-8) yrs 122 76,20% (8-9) yrs 82 51,30%
Age /l/ with Release Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 87 25% (3-4) yrs 194 57,70% (4-5) yrs 182 54,20% (5-6) yrs 178 53% (6-7) yrs 199 59,20% (7-8) yrs 233 69,30% (8-9) yrs 148 44%
Age /l/ with Release Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 14 8,80% (3-4) yrs 15 9,40% (4-5) yrs 18 11,30% (5-6) yrs 17 10,60% (6-7) yrs 33 20,60% (7-8) yrs 32 20% (8-9) yrs 33 20,60%
Age /l/ with Release Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 17 7,08% (3-4) yrs 75 31,30% (4-5) yrs 95 40% (5-6) yrs 80 33,30% (6-7) yrs 92 38,30% (7-8) yrs 115 47,90% (8-9) yrs 79 32,90%
Charta 152
Age /l/ without Release Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 132 82,50% (3-4) yrs 140 87,50% (4-5) yrs 159 99,40% (5-6) yrs 157 98,10% (6-7) yrs 158 98,80% (7-8) yrs 128 80% (8-9) yrs 159 99,40%
Age /l/ without Release Percentage Group Middle Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 319 95% (3-4) yrs 296 88% (4-5) yrs 319 95% (5-6) yrs 331 98,50% (6-7) yrs 324 96,40% (7-8) yrs 293 87,20% (8-9) yrs 334 99,40%
Age /l/ without Release Percentage Group Final Position (Count) (2-3) yrs 49 30,60% (3-4) yrs 37 23,10% (4-5) yrs 102 63,80% (5-6) yrs 122 76,20% (6-7) yrs 97 60,60% (7-8) yrs 115 71,90% (8-9) yrs 119 74,40%
Age /l/ without Release Percentage Group Clusters (Count) (2-3) yrs 83 34,60% (3-4) yrs 140 58,30% (4-5) yrs 124 51,70% (5-6) yrs 136 56,70% (6-7) yrs 144 60% (7-8) yrs 122 50,80% (8-9) yrs 159 66,30%
Charta 153
/r/ Vocoids
Age Voiced Vocoids /r/ Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 11 6,9 3-4 yrs 14 8,8 4-5 yrs 79 49,4 5-6 yrs 134 83,8 6-7 yrs 103 64,4 7-8 yrs 129 80,6 8-9 yrs 159 99,4
Age Voiced Vocoids /r/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 5 3,1 3-4 yrs 2 1,3 4-5 yrs 7 4,4 5-6 yrs 29 18,1 6-7 yrs 8 5 7-8 yrs 19 11,9 8-9 yrs 22 13,8
Age Voiceless Vocoids /r/ Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 7 4,4 3-4 yrs 12 7,5 4-5 yrs 27 16,9 5-6 yrs 20 12,5 6-7 yrs 45 28,1 7-8 yrs 54 33,8 8-9 yrs 38 23,8
Age Voiceless Vocoids /r/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 9 5,6 3-4 yrs 10 6,3 4-5 yrs 80 50 5-6 yrs 98 61,3 6-7 yrs 107 66,9 7-8 yrs 125 78,1 8-9 yrs 111 69,4
Charta 154
/l/ Vocoids
Age Voiced Vocoids /l/ Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 17 10,60% 3-4 yrs 8 5% 4-5 yrs 7 4,40% 5-6 yrs 8 5% 6-7 yrs 2 1,25% 7-8 yrs 4 2,50% 8-9 yrs 9 5,60%
Age Voiced Vocoids /l/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 12 7,50% 3-4 yrs 1 0,60% 4-5 yrs 8 5% 5-6 yrs 12 7,50% 6-7 yrs 0 0% 7-8 yrs 0 0% 8-9 yrs 4 2,55
Age Voiceless Vocoids /l/ Percentage Group Initial Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 14 8,75% 3-4 yrs 51 31,90% 4-5 yrs 94 58,80% 5-6 yrs 84 52,50% 6-7 yrs 157 98,10% 7-8 yrs 88 55% 8-9 yrs 115 71,90%
Age Voiceless Vocoids /l/ Percentage Group Final Position (Count) 2-3 yrs 22 22% 3-4 yrs 29 18,10% 4-5 yrs 78 48,80% 5-6 yrs 69 43,10% 6-7 yrs 75 46,90% 7-8 yrs 88 55% 8-9 yrs 71 44,40%
Charta 155
Phonological Processes /r/
Age /r/ Deleted Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 262 28,70% (3-4) yrs 145 15,90% (4-5) yrs 64 7,00% (5-6) yrs 24 2,60% (6-7) yrs 33 3,60% (7-8) yrs 14 1,50% (8-9) yrs 16 1,80%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Age Substitution Percentage Group /i-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 2 0,20% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Age Substitution Percentage Group /-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 6 0,70% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Charta 156
Age Substitution Percentage Group /l-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 342 37,50% (3-4) yrs 493 54,00% (4-5) yrs 73 8,00% (5-6) yrs 3 0,30% (6-7) yrs 2 0,20% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /b-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /n-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 11 1,20% (3-4) yrs 10 1,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 2 0,20% (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 1 0,10% (8-9) yrs 2 0,20%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /d-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 7 0,80% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Charta 157
Age Substitution Percentage Group /p-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 3 0,30% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /s-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 3 0,30% (3-4) yrs 6 0,70% (4-5) yrs 7 0,80% (5-6) yrs 3 0,30% (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 2 0,20% (8-9) yrs 1 0,10%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /t-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 33 3,60% (3-4) yrs 25 2,70% (4-5) yrs 6 0,70% (5-6) yrs 1 0,10% (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 2 0,20% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /z-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 10,00% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Charta 158
Age Substitution Percentage Group /k-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0,00% (3-4) yrs 1 0,10% (4-5) yrs 1 0,10% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0,00% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 1 0,10% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /x-r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0,00% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Metathesis Percentage Group of /r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,10% (3-4) yrs 5 0,50% (4-5) yrs 0 0% (5-6) yrs 1 0,10% (6-7) yrs 1 0,10% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Charta 159
Age Epenthesis Percentage Group of /r/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,10% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Phonological Processes /l/
Age /l/ Deleted Percentage Group (Count) (2-3) yrs 175 20% (3-4) yrs 68 8% (4-5) yrs 27 3% (5-6) yrs 7 0,80% (6-7) yrs 19 2% (7-8) yrs 7 0,80% (8-9) yrs 8 0,90%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 2 0,20% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Age Substitution Percentage Group /-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 3 0,33% (3-4) yrs 1 0,11% (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Charta 160
Age Substitution Percentage Group /k-l/ Count) (2-3) yrs 4 0,44% (3-4) yrs 1 0,11% (4-5) yrs 1 0,11% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /n-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 38 4,20% (3-4) yrs 7 0,80% (4-5) yrs 1 0,11% (5-6) yrs 1 0,11% (6-7) yrs 1 0,11% (7-8) yrs 3 0,33% (8-9) yrs 1 0,11%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /d-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 12 1,40% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /r-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 12 1,40% (3-4) yrs 8 0,90% (4-5) yrs 7 0,80% (5-6) yrs 17 1,90% (6-7) yrs 7 0,80% (7-8) yrs 2 0,20% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /s-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,11% (3-4) yrs 2 0,20% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00% Charta 161
Age Substitution Percentage Group /t-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 21 2,30% (3-4) yrs 19 2,10% (4-5) yrs 6 0,70% (5-6) yrs 2 0,20% (6-7) yrs 4 0,50% (7-8) yrs 2 0,20% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /p-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0,00% (3-4) yrs 1 0,11% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 0 0,00% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Substitution Percentage Group /z-l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 0 0,00% (3-4) yrs 0 0,00% (4-5) yrs 0 0,00% (5-6) yrs 1 0,11% (6-7) yrs 0 0,00% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Age Metathesis Percentage Group of /l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 13 1,50% (3-4) yrs 20 2,20% (4-5) yrs 7 0,80% (5-6) yrs 6 0,70% (6-7) yrs 1 0,11% (7-8) yrs 0 0,00% (8-9) yrs 0 0,00%
Charta 162
Age Epenthesis Percentage Group of /e/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 1 0,11% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Age Epenthesis Percentage Group of /i/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 4 0,50% (3-4) yrs 4 0,50% (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Age Epenthesis Percentage Group of /l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 2 0,20% (3-4) yrs 0 0 (4-5) yrs 0 0 (5-6) yrs 0 0 (6-7) yrs 0 0 (7-8) yrs 0 0 (8-9) yrs 0 0
Reversed Position of /r/ & /l/
Age Reversed Percentage Group Position of /r/ & /l/ (Count) (2-3) yrs 5 2% (3-4) yrs 5 2% (4-5) yrs 24 10% (5-6) yrs 18 7,50% (6-7) yrs 4 1,70% (7-8) yrs 3 1,30% (8-9) yrs 0 0 Charta 163
Total Average Durations /r/
Age Tap with Release Group Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 27,4 (3-4) yrs 29,92 (4-5) yrs 22,01 (5-6) yrs 22,71 (6-7) yrs 23,25 (7-8) yrs 24,73 (8-9) yrs 20,93
Age Tap without Group Release Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 24,68 (3-4) yrs 24,22 (4-5) yrs 18,25 (5-6) yrs 18,29 (6-7) yrs 18 (7-8) yrs 20,45 (8-9) yrs 18,1
Age Approximant Group Average (m/s)
(2-3) yrs 27,34 (3-4) yrs 24,91 (4-5) yrs 23,97 (5-6) yrs 24,15 (6-7) yrs 23,13 (7-8) yrs 25,44 (8-9) yrs 23,21
Age Group Assibilation Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 25,28 (3-4) yrs 20 (4-5) yrs 23,22 (5-6) yrs 20,42 (6-7) yrs 21,81 (7-8) yrs 23,23 (8-9) yrs 23,28
Charta 164
Trill Age Group Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 65,75 (3-4) yrs 55,8 (4-5) yrs 65,6 (5-6) yrs 59,39 (6-7) yrs 71,06 (7-8) yrs 56,94 (8-9) yrs 49,65
Age Gliding Group Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 51 (3-4) yrs 0 (4-5) yrs 0 (5-6) yrs 0 (6-7) yrs 0 (7-8) yrs 0 (8-9) yrs 0
Total Average Durations /l/
Age Group Lateral with Release Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 90,27 (3-4) yrs 100,47 (4-5) yrs 102,11 (5-6) yrs 105,41 (6-7) yrs 103,73 (7-8) yrs 92,87 (8-9) yrs 94,42
Age Group Lateral without Release Average (m/s) (2-3) yrs 100,51 (3-4) yrs 111,3 (4-5) yrs 94,89 (5-6) yrs 99,5 (6-7) yrs 98,34 (7-8) yrs 90,4 (8-9) yrs 89,24
Charta 165
/r/ Average Durations (Each word Position)
Tap with Release Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 6,30% 11,30% 4,40% 4,40% (3-4) yrs 9,40% 18,40% 1,30% 8,80% (4-5) yrs 28,80% 28,10% 29,30% 21,70% (5-6) yrs 46,30% 44,70% 21,30% 36,40% (6-7) yrs 42,50% 53,40% 35,60% 34,90% (7-8) yrs 70,60% 73,80% 53,80% 50,70% (8-9) yrs 54,40% 53,40% 36,20% 46,30%
Tap without Release Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 0,60% 2,80% 1,90% 3,30% (3-4) yrs 1,90% 0,90% 0,60% 0,70% (4-5) yrs 6,90% 8,10% 8,80% 6,60% (5-6) yrs 9,40% 9,40% 8,80% 5,10% (6-7) yrs 7,50% 11,90% 11,90% 7% (7-8) yrs 10,60% 11,60% 17,50% 7,70% (8-9) yrs 25% 21,30% 21,30% 16,20%
Approximant Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 10% 23,80% 4,40% 4,80% (3-4) yrs 11,30% 14,70% 6,30% 7,70% (4-5) yrs 43,10% 58,40% 29,40% 24,60% (5-6) yrs 51,90% 78,40% 61,90% 32% (6-7) yrs 41,30% 60,60% 38,10% 21,30% (7-8) yrs 54,40% 64,40% 43,40% 33% (8-9) yrs 52,50% 73,10% 55% 32,70%
Assibilation Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 0% 0,60% 2,50% 0,40% (3-4) yrs 1,30% 1,60% 2,50% 0,70% (4-5) yrs 2,50% 2,80% 10,60% 1,80% (5-6) yrs 0,60% 6% 10% 0,70% (6-7) yrs 4,40% 3,80% 13,80% 2,90% (7-8) yrs 1,90% 3,40% 12,50% 2,60% (8-9) yrs 4,40% 1,90% 12,50% 0,70%
Charta 166
Trill Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 0% 0,30% 0% 1,10% (3-4) yrs 0% 0,30% 0% 1,50% (4-5) yrs 28,80% 31,90% 18,10% 29% (5-6) yrs 23,80% 15,60% 10,60% 23,90% (6-7) yrs 40,60% 23,10% 13,80% 32,70% (7-8) yrs 1,30% 0,30% 1,90% 4,40% (8-9) yrs 3,10% 5,30% 0,60% 3,70%
/l/ Average Durations (Each word Position)
Lateral with Release Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 21,30% 25% 8,80% 7,08% (3-4) yrs 51,90% 57,70% 9,40% 31,30% (4-5) yrs 50,60% 54,20% 11,30% 40% (5-6) yrs 55% 53% 10,60% 33,30% (6-7) yrs 53,10% 59,20% 20,60% 38,30% (7-8) yrs 76,20% 69,30% 20% 47,90% (8-9) yrs 51,30% 44% 20,60% 32,90%
Lateral without Release Age Initial Middle Final In Clusters Group Position Position Position (2-3) yrs 82,50% 95% 30,60% 34,60% (3-4) yrs 87,50% 88% 23,10% 58,30% (4-5) yrs 99,40% 95% 63,80% 51,70% (5-6) yrs 98,10% 98,50% 76,20% 56,70% (6-7) yrs 98,80% 96,40% 60,60% 60% (7-8) yrs 80% 87,20% 71,90% 50,80% (8-9) yrs 99,40% 99,40% 74,40% 66,30%
Charta 167
Closure/Release (Average Durations)
Tap with Release Age Closure/Release Average (m/s) Group (2-3) c 23,34 (2-3) v 4,07 (3-4) c 30,7 (3-4) v 3,57 (4-5) c 27 (4-5) v 3,61 (5-6) c 27,5 (5-6) v 3,5 (6-7) c 29,32 (6-7) v 3,64 (7-8) c 28,92 (7-8) v 3,92 (8-9) c 23,77 (8-9) v 3,82
Lateral with Release Age Closure/release Average (m/s) Group (2-3) c 86,87 (2-3) v 3,57 (3-4) c 96,18 (3-4) v 3,7 (4-5) c 93,2 (4-5) v 3,7 (5-6) c 93,65 (5-6) v 4,01 (6-7) c 92,52 (6-7) v 3,88 (7-8) c 80,33 (7-8) v 4,08 (8-9) c 82,02 (8-9) v 4,84
Charta 168
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