Grammar Categories in the Construction of Phonological Knowledge in Language Acquisition - the case of Obstruents Consonants

Carmen Lúcia Barreto Matzenauer,
Ana Ruth Moresco Miranda
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Abstract

The focus of the paper is on the creation of grammar categories as part of the construction of phonological knowledge in the language acquisition process. It involves the construction of segmental categories, particularly obstruent consonants, in the phonological acquisition of children who are native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. It gives special attention to the occupation of gapped phonological spaces in the class of obstruent segments, as part of the gradual construction process of the segmental inventory. In observing the different behavior between stops and fricatives, going beyond phonological acquisition data, examples of phonological inventories from different linguistic systems are presented. In examining the passage from the continuum of sounds to the status of phonological grammar categories in acquisition, the interaction between linguistic comprehension and production and the interaction between phonetics and phonology are considered. In the analysis, the theoretical support is in distinctive features and in the Bidirectional Model of L1 Processing, proposed by Boersma (1998, 2000, 2007, 2011) and Boersma & Hamann (2009).

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