Intervocalic consonants in the speech of English-speaking Canadian children with phonological disorders.

Acquisition of intervocalic consonants has been insufficiently studied, both in terms of subject numbers, and in terms of differentiating syllabification patterns from those involving vowel feature assimilation. The question has remained: are English intervocalic consonants syllable-initial (onsets), syllable-final (codas) or ambisyllabic? This study addresses these issues in the speech of 44 English-speaking Canadian children with phonological disorders. Intervocalic consonants resembled word-initial onsets in that they were deleted less often than word-final consonants. When there was no deletion, intervocalic consonants were more likely to be segmentally unique (ambisyllabic?) than like onsets or codas. In segmental inventories, segments rarely appeared only in intervocalic position, and showed an equal affinity to onsets and codas, with two exceptions. Sonorant continuants and, to a lesser extent, fricatives showed patterns in intervocalic position that may have reflected assimilation. For children with less severe disorders, velars and fricatives occurred intervocalically only if they also occurred in codas, suggesting a coda-like (ambisyllabic?) status.