Markedness, Frequency: Can We Predict the Order of Acquisition of Consonants?

Naomi Yamaguchi (1)

1 LPP - LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018

Several recent studies have discussed the role of frequency in the acquisition of phonemic contrasts. The aim of this paper is to test two competing hypotheses on data composed of productions from 26 French-speaking children, aged from 3;07 to 4;05. The first hypothesis is that phoneme frequency determines the order of acquisition of consonants. The second one is that feature frequency determines the order of acquisition of consonants. Then, we will show that feature frequency is a better predictor than phoneme frequency in our data. Finally, we will propose that feature frequency can define the traditional notion of markedness.

Mots clés: Phonology; acquisition; consonant; French

Domaines: Linguistique

Naomi Yamaguchi. Markedness, Frequency: Can We Predict the Order of Acquisition of Consonants?. LingO 2007, the second Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, Sep 2007, Oxford, United Kingdom. pp.236-243. ⟨halshs-00472649⟩