The dynamical landscape: phonological acquisition and the phonology–phonetics link

Abstract

During acquisition children internalise adult-based phonological patterns and alternately adopt and discard child-specific patterns reflecting their unskilled production. The child-specific patterns are often assumed to be low-level phonetic effects, and so, in a classical modular feedforward grammar, they should not interfere with the higher-level adult-based phonology. This paper reports an interaction in which the application of a categorical adult-based process (Voice Assimilation) is conditioned by a gradient child-specific process (fricative devoicing). Acoustic analyses of longitudinal data from a Polish-speaking child reveal variable Voice Assimilation effects in target voiced fricative–stop/stop–fricative clusters (voicing and devoicing), correlated with the extent of voicing in fricatives in non-assimilatory contexts. I analyse this phonology–phonetics trade-off by appealing to symbol-like dynamical representations, expressed in the language of non-linear mathematics. Such representations offer a non-derivational link between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of speech. Variability ensues as a natural consequence of grammar change.