First and second graders, given CVC singulars (e.g., NAR) orally and asked to choose between two plurals (NARF-NARK), preferred final sounds sharing with /z/ the stridency or continuance features. This suggests that their pluralization rules are formulated in terms of distinctive features rather than sound segments. Kindergarten children and adults showed no such preferences.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anisfeld, M. and Tucker, G.R. ( 1967). The English pluralization rules of six-year-old children . Child Developm., 38, 1201.
2.
Chomsky, N. ( 1964). Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (The Hague) .
3.
Chomsky, N. and Halle, M. (in press). The Sound Patterns of English (New York).
4.
Ervin, S.M. ( 1964). Imitation and structural change in children's language . In New Directions in the Study of Language, E. H. Lenneberg (ed.) (Cambridge).
5.
Francis, W.N. ( 1958). The Structure of American English (New York).
6.
Halle, M. ( 1964). On the bases of phonology. In The Structure of Language, J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz (eds.) ( Englewood Cliffs ).
7.
Halle, M. ( 1961). On the role of simplicity in linguistic descriptions . In Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects, R. Jakobson (ed.) (Providence).
8.
Jakobson, R., Fant, C.G.M. and Halle, M. ( 1965). Preliminaries to Speech Analysis (Cambridge).
9.
Miller, G.A. and Nicely, P.E. ( 1955). An analysis of perceptual confusions among some English consonants. J. acoust. soc. Amer., 27, 338.
10.
Snow, K. ( 1964). A comparative study of sound substitutions used by " normal " first grade children. Sp. Monogrs., 31, 135.
11.
Templin, M.C. ( 1957). Certain Language Skills in Children : Their Development and Interrelationships (Minneapolis).
12.
Wickelgren, W.A. ( 1966). Distinctive features and errors in short-term memory for English consonants. 7. acoust. soc. Amer., 39, 388.
