ABSTRACT

Much research in child speech development suggests that young children coarticulate more than adults. There are multiple, not mutually-exclusive, explanations for this pattern. For example, children may coarticulate more because they are limited by immature motor control. Or they may coarticulate more if they initially represent phonological segments in larger, more holistic units such as syllables or feet. We tested the importance of several different explanations for coarticulation in child speech by evaluating how four-year-olds’ language experience, speech practice, and speech planning predicted their coarticulation between adjacent segments in real words and paired nonwords. Children with larger vocabularies coarticulated less, especially in real words, though there were no reliable coarticulatory differences between real words and nonwords after controlling for word duration. Children who vocalized more throughout a daylong audio recording also coarticulated less. Quantity of child vocalizations was more predictive of the degree of children’s coarticulation than a measure of receptive language experience, adult word count. Overall, these results suggest strong roles for children’s phonological representations and speech practice, as well as their immature fine motor control, for coarticulatory development.

 抽象的

许多关于儿童言语发展的研究表明，幼儿比成年人有更多的共同表达能力。对于这种模式有多种但并不相互排斥的解释。例如，儿童可能会更多地进行共同表达，因为他们受到不成熟的运动控制的限制。或者，如果它们最初以更大、更整体的单位（例如音节或脚）代表语音片段，那么它们可能会进行更多的联合表达。我们通过评估四岁儿童的语言经验、言语练习和言语计划如何预测他们在真实单词和配对非单词中相邻片段之间的协同发音，测试了对儿童言语中协同发音的几种不同解释的重要性。词汇量较大的儿童的协同发音较少，尤其是在真实单词中，尽管在控制单词持续时间后，真实单词和非单词之间没有可靠的协同发音差异。在一天的录音中发声较多的孩子的共同发音也较少。儿童发声的数量比衡量接受性语言体验、成人字数的指标更能预测儿童的协同发音程度。总体而言，这些结果表明儿童的语音表征和言语练习以及他们不成熟的精细运动控制对于协同发音的发展具有重要作用。