How does Place fall into place? The lexicon and emergent constraints in children's developing phonological grammar

In this paper we address the acquisition of place of articulation (PoA) features in words by Dutch children. We show that there is a particular developmental pattern, repeated across children. This pattern can be accounted for by (a) assuming that the child’s underlying phonological representation in the lexicon becomes gradually more specified, (b) the emergence of segmental markedness constraints, and (c) referring to the distribution of PoA patterns in the target language. Consonant harmony is an epiphenomenon of this general developmental pattern of PoA organization in words. Generalizations that the child makes over his or her own productive lexicon are grammaticalized as high-ranking markedness constraints, which force PoA features to be linked to certain positions in the word.

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