This study examines the acquisition of the English laryngeal system by native speakers of (Belgian) Dutch. Both languages have a two-way laryngeal system, but while Dutch contrasts prevoiced with short-lag stops, English has a contrast between short-lag and long-lag stops. The primary aim of the article is to test two hypotheses on the acquisition…

The study examined the possibility that children who omit word-final stops as a clinical entity may preserve the voicing contrast of those omitted stops by differential durations of the preceding vowel. (Author)

This collection of articles is one of a series of semiannual reports on the status of speech research at Haskins' Laboratories. The titles of the 18 articles and their authors are as follows: "The Alphabetic Principle and Learning to Read" (Isabelle Y. Liberman and others); "Language Development from an Evolutionary…

A study investigated the hypothesis that children are sensitive to functors in language and only omit them due to factors specific to speech production and after having analyzed them as separate morphemes. This hypothesis was tested as an alternative to two existing hypotheses concerning children's selective listening for content words and for…

This study of 10 intonation curves, representative of speech patterns in French, entails spectrographic analysis of the variations of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration. Discriminatory auditory tests are based on semantic oppositions caused by single intonation contrasts. The seven distinctive classes called "intonemes" are: (1) minor…

This drillbook concentrates on making the student aware of the nature of the differences between his English habits of speech and the Spanish habits he is trying to acquire. The extensive exercises are structured selectively in order of specific difficulties of pronunciation. In the major sections on intonation, vowels, and consonants, the authors…