scholarly journals Initial Consonant Cluster Epenthesis in Turkish and its Implications to EFL

Author(s):  
Namık ÜLKERSOY ◽  
Bilal GENÇ ◽  
Volkan DARMAZ
Keyword(s):  
1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Powell

This paper describes a 64-item clinical screening task designed to assess the accuracy of children's consonant cluster productions. This procedure is designed to help speech-language pathologists develop intervention programs to improve children's production of clusters by facilitating the identification of error patterns. Once such patterns have been identified, individualized treatment programs designed to maximize generalization may be developed. The task was administered to 100 4- and 5-year-old subjects to assess the technical adequacy of the procedure. Internal consistency reliability of the task was high, and the procedure was also shown to assess an appropriately diverse array of word-initial and word-final consonant clusters. Finally, the construct validity of the task was supported by factor analytic procedures.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
DMITRY IDIATOV

L2 speakers of Nigerian English in parts of northeastern Nigeria occasionally insert an alveolar coronal stop [t] or fricative [s] following another alveolar coronal pre-pausally and phrase-internally. The article discusses this typologically unusual phenomenon for the Nigerian English of speakers whose L1 is the Adamawa language Bena (ISO 639-3: yun). I also consider comparable cases of word-final consonant epenthesis in several other varieties of English, both the so-called New Englishes and Inner Circle varieties, and provide an account of the details of epenthesis with respect to which they differ. At first sight, hypercorrection of the tendency for word-final consonant cluster simplification in Bena English may seem an obvious explanation. However, I argue that hypercorrection alone falls short of explaining the observed pattern. In addition, we need to call on phonetic properties of Bena L1 such as pre-pausal glottalisation and lengthening of consonants to be able to account for both the actuation of the hypercorrection and the phonologisation of the epenthesis. Although the availability of a clear phonetic explanation makes this sound pattern conceivable as a natural rule, its typological rarity in non-contact lects highlights the positive bias induced by hypercorrection as a necessary part of the mix in creating the conditions for a reanalysis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 164-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Russo ◽  
Shanti Ulfsbjorninn

Autosegmentalism invariably represents geminates in a symmetrical one-to-many relationship — as feature bundles or root nodes attached to two structural units: x-slots, moras, or C-slots. This symmetry, however, is often not reflected in their diachronic origin. For instance, in Blevins’ (2008) Type 1 pathway, only the second C of a consonant cluster (CC) ever determines the geminate: CxCy > CyCy, *CxCx (e.g. Latin > Italian). Moreover, although most synchronic processes identify geminates as symmetrical, there is an exception: geminate integrity. Unlike CCs and long vowels (LVs), geminates never ‘break’ by epenthesis: *CyCy > CyVCy. We propose that this is central to understanding the true nature of geminates, and present analyses in two frameworks. The first is ‘control by contiguity’, which uses head-dependent ‘control chains’ (Russo 2013). A control relation applies between a specified and an unspecified position: -C. Inalterability and integrity result from the asymmetry of the geminate’s positions. The second is based on Strict CV. This restricts a geminate’s melody to one of its two skeletal positions. Unlike CC and LVs, geminates do not involve a ‘trapped’ empty V position that could host epenthesis and cause breaking; the difference between LVs and geminates follows from framework-internal forces and suggests that melodic branching always requires licensing. These two approaches share the insight that the representation of geminates is not symmetrical, like that of long vowels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1237-1248
Author(s):  
Eman M. Al-Yami ◽  
Anwar A. H. Al-Athwary

This study investigates the pronunciation difficulty of selected English consonant clusters (CCs) encountered by Saudi EFL learners. The sample consisted of 134 female Saudi EFL students in their freshman year in the English Department at Najran University. Two instruments were used: a pronunciation test that assessed participants’ CC pronunciations in the onset and coda positions and a questionnaire that explored participants’ attitudes towards their CC pronunciations. This study provides detailed data on the participants’ pronunciation difficulties using Optimality Theory (OT). The results showed that the participants encountered CC pronunciation difficulties in both the onset and coda positions. However, most errors occurred in the coda position, especially for the four-consonant pattern (-CCCC). Participants used different strategies to simplify their CC pronunciations: epenthesis, deletion, substitution, or some combination thereof. Questionnaire data indicated that the participants attributed their pronunciation difficulties to inadequate knowledge of the pronunciation rules, insufficient language instruction, and native-language influence. The participants proffered some remedies to their difficulties, which included doing more pronunciation drills and offering a new course focused primarily on correct pronunciation. OT analysis revealed that onset clusters were mainly influenced by L1 ranking constraints whereas coda clusters were more influenced by universal Markedness constraints. OT indicated that the tendency to satisfy Markedness constraints over the Faithfulness constraints led the participants to use the above-mentioned simplification strategies.


Author(s):  
Thora Másdóttir ◽  
Sharynne McLeod ◽  
Kathryn Crowe

Purpose This study investigated Icelandic-speaking children's acquisition of singleton consonants and consonant clusters. Method Participants were 437 typically developing children aged 2;6–7;11 (years;months) acquiring Icelandic as their first language. Single-word speech samples of the 47 single consonants and 45 consonant clusters were collected using Málhljóðapróf ÞM (ÞM's Test of Speech Sound Disorders). Results Percentage of consonants correct for children aged 2;6–2;11 was 73.12 ( SD = 13.33) and increased to 98.55 ( SD = 3.24) for children aged 7;0–7;11. Overall, singleton consonants were more likely to be accurate than consonant clusters. The earliest consonants to be acquired were /m, n, p, t, j, h/ in word-initial position and /f, l/ within words. The last consonants to be acquired were /x, r, r̥, s, θ, n̥/, and consonant clusters in word-initial /sv-, stl-, str-, skr-, θr-/, within-word /-ðr-, -tl-/, and word-final /-kl̥, -xt/ contexts. Within-word phonemes were more often accurate than those in word-initial position, with word-final position the least accurate. Accuracy of production was significantly related to increasing age, but not sex. Conclusions This is the first comprehensive study of consonants and consonant cluster acquisition by typically developing Icelandic-speaking children. The findings align with trends for other Germanic languages; however, there are notable language-specific differences of clinical importance.


Author(s):  
Wenckje Jongstra

AbstractThis article reports on between-individual and within-individual variation in consonant cluster reduction strategies (where C1C2 is realised as C( or C2) among young children. The empirical base of the study is a Dutch database with over 9,000 instances of C1 and C2 realisations of 23 word-initial consonant clusters from 45 children aged between two and three years old. The study finds that within-child variation is very limited, whereas between-child variation occurs. It is also shown that there are typological implications; that is, realising C2 in cluster y, implies realising C2 in cluster y, but not vice versa. The data provide support for the position that variation can be accounted for by a finer grained notion of sonority where the sonority distance between the two consonants in a cluster plays a crucial role in establishing prosodic constituency.


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