La plupart des études typologiques entreprises par les linguistes s’en tiennent généralement aux trois étapes citées par Bernard Pottier (1968:300): inventaire des traits typologiques; caractérisation d’une langue par ses traits; classement des langues du monde d’après certains de ces traits. Après un survol méthodique, mais bref, de tous les traits envisageables dans une telle investigation, Pottier conclut: “Les recherches actuelles s’efforcent d’introduire la notion de hiérarchie dans le fonctionnement de la langue” (1968:318).

C’est ce dernier point que j’aimerais envisager pour le français en comparant le rôle des voyelles par rapport à celui des consonnes dans le système de la langue.

It has been argued extensively that children acquiring a second language (L2) simplify the target sounds of that language using the same phonological processes as children use in acquiring their first language (L1) (cf. Hecht and Mulford 1982; Piper, 1984a, 1984b; Garnica and Herbert 1979). Since these processes are generally thought to be universal, it is not surprising that this should be the case. Nevertheless, there are differences between L1 and L2 learners both in the simplification processes they use and in the way they use them. Some processes do not appear at all or appear unsystematically in L2 learners; some processes are retained much longer by L2 learners than would be expected given their early disappearance in L1 learners. In this paper, I take a closer look at the incidence, duration and systematicity of these processes in the developing phonology of ten ESL children, and attempt to demonstrate some ways in which normal acquisition of the L2 sound system by children differs from first language acquisition.

This article gives a formalized description of aspect within the context of Reichenbach’s (1947) model of tense structures. Reichenbach’s primitive for the event, E, is further analyzed as consisting of a beginning, an end or both. This configuration is called Aspectual Structure. Its interaction with Tense Structure is used to verify this structure independently. Aspectual Structure distinguishes clearly between perfective and imperfective constructions on the one hand and progressive and stative constructions on the other. The former exhibit aspectual structure; the latter do not. My analysis presents independent evidence for or against various insights present in purely descriptive approaches to aspect that can be found in many places in the literature.