PHONOLOGICAL

DEVELOPMENT:
Learning the Sounds of
Language
Palacio, May Antonette M.

We are hiring a new

SEAGH
Who is
specialized in
cooking GHOTI

Speech Sounds?
acoustic signals languages use to express
meaning
200 used in languages
also differ in how sounds are used (ex.
Mandarin)
/ba/
- eight
- to pull

Phonological Structures
Phonemes the smallest segment of a sound
Phones the different sounds a language uses
Allophones variant forms of a phoneme
Ex: /l/ in lip and pill
/p/ in pill and spill
Phonotactics the knowledge of constraints of sequencing
sounds
* wbter

* sgteal

zloty

In English, a word which begins with three consonanttype phonemes ALWAYS obey three strict rules:

The first phoneme must be /s/.

The second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/.
The third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/ or /j/.
SPRING

STEW

STRING

SKY

SQUEAL

SPLENDID

Phonological Rules
bugs vs. bikes
voicing vibration of vocal cords
s is pronounced as /s/ after all voiceless consonants, and
pronounced as /z/ after all voiced sounds
voicing assimilation - when two consonants are together
in a word, they match in terms of voicing.
Ex: biscuit, trickster
bugsy, gangster

Describing Speech Sounds

Place of Articulation

 Bilabials sounds formed using both (= bi) upper and lower

lips (= lips)
/p/ as in purse and rap
/b/ as in back and cab
/m/ as in mad and clam

Dentals sounds are formed with the tip of the tongue on the
back of the upper front teeth
// as is thick and bath
// as in the and then

Labiodentals sounds are formed with the upper teeth and

lower lip
/f/ as in fro and cough
/v/ as in vine and have

Alveolars - sounds are created when you raise your tongue to the
alveolar ridge so as to block/constrict airflow
/n/ as in no and man
/t/ as in tab and rat
/d/ as in dip and bad
/s/ as in suit and bus
/z/ as in zit and jazz
/l/ as in luck and fully

Palatal - sounds are created when you raise your tongue to the roof
your mouth so as to block/constrict airflow
// as in shoot or brash
// as in vision or measure
/t/ as in chick or match
/d/ as in jam or badge

/j/ as in yes

Velars sounds are created when you raise the back of

your tongue to the velumso as to block or restrict
airflow

// as in going and uncle

/k/ as in kite and back
/g/ as in good and bug

Glottals sound is produced without the active use of

the tongue and other parts of the mouth. Glottis is the
space between the vocal cords in the larynx.
/h/ as in hi and Bahamas
/?/ the silent syllables
dropped

as in wha(t) time is it? the /t/ in what is

Manner of Articulation
Stops sounds are produced by some form of stopping of the
air stream then letting it go abruptly. Ex: / p, b, t, d, k, g /
Fricatives involves blocking of the air stream and having the
air push through the very narrow opening. As the air is pushed
through, a type of friction is produced, resulting to fricative
sounds. Ex: /s, , z, , /
Affricates - commonly described as a complex combination of a
brief stop plus fricative, because of obstructed release which
causes friction. Ex: /t, d/
Nasals velum is lowered, allowing the air stream to flow out
through the nose. Ex: / m , n, /

 Approximants one articulator is close to another, but

without the vocal tract being narrowed. Theres a
frictional closeness, but no actual friction occurs.
Liquids / l, r/
Glides - / w, h, r, j /

Prelinguistic Speech
Sound
Development

Stages of Prespeech Vocal Development

(Stark, 1986)
Reflexive crying and Vegetative Sounds vocal cords vibrate
Cooing and Laughter social interaction elicit cooing
- quality of coos changes with age
- babies produce their first laughter around the age of 16
weeks
Vocal Play between 16 30 weeks of age
- infants gain more control over the production of
growing sound repertoires

-they could produce friction noises

Canonical babbling arounds 6-9 months of age, infants start
to babble
- not meant for communicating their needs
- the landmark in the infants speech development
- it is the first development that distinguishes vocal
developments of hearing children from that of deaf ones

Variegated babbling the range of consonant and vowel

sounds infants produce expands further
- prosody becomes noticeable

Transition from Babbling to Words

children can produce their own invented words
their use tends to be tightly bound to particular context or
to serve particular function
protowords, quasiwords, phonetically consistent forms,
sensorimotor morphemes
At the end of first year, children typically have not really
begun to talk, but what they need to produce words in a
language is already in place.

Processes Underlying Infants

Development of Speech Sounds
Biological Processes physical growth

- growth of facial skeleton gives the tongue more room and

contributes to the variety of sounds; muscles and sensory
receptors in vocal tracts are changing
Experience experience of hearing the speech adults
produce.

- experience of hearing their own vocal output

- social feedback (Maternal response study by
Goldstein & Schwades, 2010)

Phonological
Development Once
Speech Begins

Word Recognition
children have only rough representations, even of
words they know
lacks phonetic details and lack distinct phonemic
segments
other evidence suggests that children do represent
words they know in phonetic detail (Swingly & Aslin,
2000)
consonants appear to be more important to word
identification than vowels

Word Learning and Development

childrens first words have a simple syllable structure
they become more consistent in how they produce
different sounds
different phonological processes take place
- reducing consonant clusters (school to [kul])
- glides substituted for liquids (rabbit to [wbIt])
- final consonant deletion
- idiosyncratic form

Word recognition and learning depend on

the ability to detect critical phonetic
differences among similar- sounding words.
Learning of speech sounds may vary
depending on the target language and
individual differences.

Phonological Awareness will be

seen around 2 years of age. The
development of PA is the central
importance in considering the
relation between oral language
and literacy.

Explanations of
Phonological
Development

Behaviorist Theory

using behaviorist
reinforcement

mechanism

of

imitation

and

however, the development of phonology is more than

just the development of a repertoires of sounds
because of insufficiency, behaviorist accounts were not
taken very seriously for long

Universalist Approach
Universal Grammar that it provides a child sets of
phonetic features and properties that are present in all
languages.
replaced by Optimality Theory saying that
phonological properties of words must be described at
multiple levels

Biologically Based Theories

biological factors underlying the human capacity to
produce speech shape phonological development and world
languages
sound production is shaped by the development of motor
capacity
the sounds that appear early in infants vocal productions
are also the common sounds among worlds languages
(Ex: /m/ and /r/)
biological roles are not enough; these must interact with
language learning experiences

Usage- Based Phonology

it is shaped by properties of inputs children hear
it is contrary with Universal Grammar approach

Connectionist Approach
Phonological knowledge is represented using constructs of
neural networks
Rules are not necessary to describe the regularities of
human behavior
the process of making connections