Phonological Constraints on Children’s Production of English Third Person Singular – s

• DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2008/07-0258)
• Publication Date: 2008-10-25T01:10:20Z
• Authors: Jae Yung Song; Megha Sundara; Katherine Demuth
• Keywords: Utterance; Phonological development

Purpose Children variably produce grammatical morphemes at early stages of development, often omitting inflectional in obligatory contexts. This has typically been attributed to immature syntactic or semantic representations. In this study, the authors investigated hypothesis that children’s variable production 3rd person singular morpheme – s interacts with phonological complexity verb stem which it is attached. Method To explore possibility, examined longitudinal data from spontaneous speech 6 English-speaking children between ages 1;3 and 3;6 (years;months) elicited imitations a cross-sectional study 23 two-year-olds (mean age 2;2). Results The results showed produced third more accurately phonologically simple coda contexts (e.g., see ) as compared complex nee ds ). addition, –s utterance-final position utterance-medial position. Conclusions provide strong support for role explaining some variability . finding suggests future research will need consider multiple factors, including positional effects, constructing comprehensive developmental theory both competence processes planning production.