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Typological predictions in developmental phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2002

DANIEL A DINNSEN  and
KATHLEEN M O'CONNOR
DANIEL A DINNSEN
Affiliation:
Indiana University
KATHLEEN M O'CONNOR
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Abstract

Two common and seemingly independent error patterns, namely CONSONANT HARMONY and GLIDING, are examined for their typological characteristics based on cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from young children's developing phonologies. Data are drawn from the published literature and from the developmental phonology archives at Indiana University. An asymmetry is observed such that the occurrence of harmony is found to imply the occurrence of gliding, but not vice versa. While this finding would be unexpected within contemporary derivational theories, it can be shown to follow within optimality theory from a fixed universal ranking relationship among certain constraints. Optimality theory is also argued to offer a viable developmental account with clinical implications that can serve as a further test of the theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 2001 , pp. 597 - 628
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Some aspects of this work were presented at the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association in Montreal in May 1999 and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in December 1999. We are most grateful to Judith Gierut and Laura McGarrity for their ongoing discussions with us about all aspects of this work. We also wish to thank Stuart Davis, Matt Goldrick, Greg Iverson, Peter Jusczyk, Geraldine Legendre, and Paul Smolensky for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We are especially grateful to two anonymous reviewers and the Editors of the Journal of Child Language for their detailed commentaries. This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health DC01694 to Indiana University.