Abstract
This paper examines the acquisition of the variable rules constraining Spanish syllable-final/s/-lenition in Chilean Spanish-speaking children, and whether adult-to-adult speech differs from child-directed speech in the production of s-lenition. The data of 10 children (ages 2;04-5;09) and their caregivers is presented. Tokens of syllable final/s/were coded for pronunciation and a variable-rule analysis examining the effect of various linguistic and extralinguistic constraints was carried out. The results show that child and caregiver use of s-lenition is similar to that found in adult-to-adult speech; however, two of the youngest children showed near-categorical behavior. This paper highlights the important role of caregiver input on acquisition of s-lenition and proposes that production of s-lenition in utterance-final position in the input (caregiver's speech) is linked to young children's acquisition of s-lenition; young children exposed to an input with high rates of [s] in utterance-final position acquire s-lenition earlier.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 311-340 |
Number of pages | 30 |
Journal | Language Variation and Change |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2013 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Language and Linguistics
- Education
- Linguistics and Language