Word Initial Clusters in Acquisition

Abstract

In this paper, I study the acquisition of consonant clusters by testing the production of Greek-speaking children. Using a non-word repetition task, I tested the order of acquisition of word initial and word medial s-obstruent (sT), obstruent-obstruent (TT) and obstruent-sonorant (TR) clusters in 59 children. The data presented here shed new light on the nature of word initial clusters that violate the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation (sT and TT). The experimental results provide evidence against any analysis that assigns identical syllabic status to word initial sT and word initial TT, such as models of extrasyllabicity. For example, there is a clear tendency for sT clusters to be produced before TT clusters. Moreover, sT clusters were produced before TR by some children and after TR by others, in line with findings from other languages, while TT clusters were acquired later. A comparison of the initial clusters with their word medial counterparts also shows differential behaviour. Specifically, word initial TT was produced after word medial TT, while no such difference was found in sT acquisition. In the light of these findings, I explore an alternative analysis of initial cluster acquisition, based on Lowenstamm’s (1999) initial ON hypothesis