I investigate the acquisition of affrication in Québec French (QF), where affricates are in complementary distribution with coronal stops, being realized before high front vowels and glides. Previous research on other languages shows that affricates are acquired before branching onsets, which supports the idea that complexity at the level of the segment is acquired before complexity at the level of the syllable (Lleó & Prinz, 1997). In contrast, I hypothesize that affricates are acquired after branching onsets in QF, as learners are required to understand the constraints on their distribution. I examine longitudinal data from two QF-speaking children for whom the acquisition of branching onsets has been previously analyzed (Rose, 2000). Results show that affricates are indeed acquired after branching onsets, consistent with the hypothesis. Overapplication errors indicate that children make generalizations about the phonological constraints on affrication from an early age, which is expected for the acquisition of rules.

我研究了魁北克法语 (QF) 中塞擦音的习得，其中塞擦音与冠状塞音互补分布，在高前元音和滑音之前实现。先前对其他语言的研究表明，塞塞音是在分支开始之前获得的，这支持了片段级别的复杂性在音节级别的复杂性之前获得的想法（Lleó＆Prinz，1997）。相比之下，我假设塞擦音是在 QF 的分支发作后获得的，因为学习者需要了解其分布的限制。我检查了两个讲 QF 的儿童的纵向数据，之前已经分析了他们获得的分支起始点 (Rose, 2000)。结果表明，塞塞音确实是在分支开始后获得的，这与假设一致。