Consonant and syllable frequency effects in stop and fricative acquisition in preschool Drehu-and French-acquiring children

International audiencePhonological development is often described as reflecting universal constraints, with some consonants or some consonant-vowel sequences assumed to be mastered earlier than others. Differences in order of acquisition are commonly ascribed to universal constraints on production or perception, reflecting biological specificities. Recent studies suggest, however, that language-specific patterns are also observed. To disentangle universal from language-specific constraints, the present study examines Drehu and French acquisition data on stop and fricative consonants (/t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /s/, /tʃ/), followed by vowels /i, a, u/. Results show that the relative accuracy of stops and fricatives in [i, a, u] contexts in Drehu and French reflect the modulatory influence of language-specific phonotactics on the perceptual and biomechanical constraints claimed to govern the production of consonant and consonant-vowel combinations