how do you think both children above, BL4 and SD1, would pronounce the Spanish word for ‘star’, whose adult input form would be /estreja/?
Syllables in Child Spanish Here are data from two children learning Spanish: it includes adult pronunciations of these words, taken to be the ‘input’ to the children’s phonology, and their own output 1 Both kids do something systematic, but different, with these words, and syllable shape is relevant. Note that [tʃ] in Spanish, as in English, should be considered a single segment, an affricate. SD1’s Spanish at age 3;4 adult input child output gloss adult input child output gloss
/plato/ [plato] plate /kampanas/ [kapanas] bells
/bloke/ [bloke] block /fuente/ [fuete] water fountain
/fresa/ [fresa] strawberry /gantʃo/ [gatʃo] hook
/tren/ [tren] train /dulses/ [duses] sweets
/tʃikles/ [tʃikles] pieces of
gum (pl.)
/tʃaɲklas/ [tʃaklas] sandals
Q1) Assume that both of these children, and Spanish more generally, syllabifies all the segment sequences you see here the same that English would. With that in mind: give syllabification trees for the adult, target pronunciation of the words meaning ‘strawberry’, ‘piece of gum, singular’, ‘sweets’, ‘sombrero’ and ‘sandals’.
Q2) Given just the adult data you’ve seen in this table: describe using phonological features the natural classes of consonants which can appear in Spanish Onset and Coda positions. If there can be more than one segment in a position, describe their individual properties:
Q3) With those syllabifications in mind: describe how each child changes the adult target Spanish inputs. That is: compared to your answers in Q2, which adult Spanish syllable pattern does each child appear to NOT allow, and how do they go about avoiding that structure? Hint: you will need to say
1 Note: some segmental changes have been suppressed here for clarity’s sake.
BL4’s Spanish at age 2;8
adult input child output gloss adult input child output gloss
/plato/ [pato] plate /manzana/ [manzana] apple
/bloke/ [boke] block /dulses/ [dulses] sweets
/fresa/ [fesa] strawberry /falda/ [falda] skirt
/tren/ [ten] train /arbol/ [arbol] tree
/tʃikle/ [tʃike] piece of
gum (sg.)
/kumpleaɲos/ [kumpeaɲos] birthday
/negro/ [nego] black /sombrero/ [sombero] hat
something both about the syllable shape and WHERE in the word it occurs. You can do all of this just with words, and with reference to just Cs and Vs in different syllable positions.
Q4) Write phonological rules, as simple as you can make them, to capture each child’s pattern. If you can get away with just Cs and Vs, do so. If you need to make reference to some phonological features, do so. Remember that your rules cannot reference syllable positions – e.g. we have no way of saying
/A/ [B] / ‘in an onset’.
Q5) We discussed in class that one way in which Spanish syllable structure differs from English is that it does not allow s+stop onset clusters. With that in mind: how do you think both children above, BL4 and SD1, would pronounce the Spanish word for ‘star’, whose adult input form would be /estreja/? Make sure you refer to the adult word’s syllabification in your ans