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12 First language acquisition of Romance phonology

  • Johanna Stahnke
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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of monolingual first language phonological acquisition studied in typically developing children in several Romance languages, including Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Findings on babbling as well as on segments, syllables, stress, rhythm, and intonation are presented. In a cross-linguistic comparison, it is shown that the acquisition of segments follows universal paths whereas the acquisition of syllable structure, stress, rhythm, and intonation is largely language-specific. Another important aspect is that prosodic phenomena are (universally) acquired before segments. These results indicate from an acquisition perspective that segmental and suprasegmental phenomena are independent from each other. Research gaps and areas for further research are identified.

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of monolingual first language phonological acquisition studied in typically developing children in several Romance languages, including Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Findings on babbling as well as on segments, syllables, stress, rhythm, and intonation are presented. In a cross-linguistic comparison, it is shown that the acquisition of segments follows universal paths whereas the acquisition of syllable structure, stress, rhythm, and intonation is largely language-specific. Another important aspect is that prosodic phenomena are (universally) acquired before segments. These results indicate from an acquisition perspective that segmental and suprasegmental phenomena are independent from each other. Research gaps and areas for further research are identified.

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