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Epenthesis in children’s consonant cluster production: a perceptual and acoustical study

University of British Columbia

The purpose of the present study was to examine epenthesis in children's consonant cluster productions from phonological and phonetic perspectives. The following questions were investigated: (1) Do consonant clusters produced with an epenthetic vowel differ in duration from those without? (2) Is the epenthetic vowel in the consonant cluster consistent in length and quality, or do co-articulatory effects occur? (3) Is the epenthetic vowel dependent in terms of duration on the phrasal context or the duration of the syllable nucleus? The subjects, S1 (Charles) and S2 (Blair), were two of six subjects in a doctoral research study investigating the application of a nonlinear phonological framework to the assessment and remediation of phonological disorders. Consonant cluster data were transcribed from the original data. Acoustic measurements included the duration of consonant clusters with and without epenthesis and the duration of the epenthetic vowel. Results of the investigation show that consonant clusters with an epenthetic vowel are significantly longer in duration than those without. No coarticulatory effects were seen between the epenthetic vowel and the syllable nucleus suggesting that the epenthetic vowel is part of the consonant cluster unit which is governed by its own timing system. Prosodically, ^syllabification of the word occurs as a result of epenthesis in the consonant cluster. The implication of these results appears to be that the consonant cluster containing the epenthetic vowel needs to be considered as a separate timing unit and representationally attributed unitary status.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-02-11

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4496

Audiology and Speech Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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