University of York, Department of Language and Linguistic Science, York, UK.
University of Zurich, Institute of Computational Linguistics, Zurich, Switzerland.
J Child Lang. 2023 Sep;50(5):1245-1273. doi: 10.1017/S0305000922000368. Epub 2022 Aug 5.
Voice onset time (VOT) of aspirated stop consonants is marked by variability and systematicity in adult speech production. The present study investigated variability and systematicity of voiceless aspirated stop VOT from 161 two- to five-year-old talkers of American English and Cantonese. Overall, many aspects of child VOT productions parallel adult patterns, the analysis of which can help inform our understanding of early speech production. For instance, VOT means were comparable between children and adults, despite greater variability. Further, across children in both languages, talker-specific VOT means were strongly correlated between [t] and [k]. This correlation may reflect a constraint of "target uniformity" that minimizes variation in the phonetic realization of a shared distinctive feature. Therefore findings suggest that target uniformity is not merely a product of a mature grammar, but may instead shape speech production representations in children as young as two years of age.
语音起始时间（VOT）是指在发浊塞音时，气流打破声门到声带开始振动之间的时间间隔。本研究调查了 161 名 2 至 5 岁讲美语和粤语的儿童的不送气清塞音的浊塞音 VOT 的可变性和系统性。总的来说，儿童的 VOT 产生在许多方面与成人模式相似，对其的分析可以帮助我们了解早期言语产生。例如，尽管儿童的 VOT 变异性较大，但 VOT 均值在儿童和成人之间是可比的。此外，在两种语言的儿童中，[t]和[k]之间的特定说话者的 VOT 均值之间存在很强的相关性。这种相关性可能反映了“目标一致性”的约束，该约束最小化了共享区别性特征的语音实现中的变化。因此，研究结果表明，目标一致性不仅仅是成熟语法的产物，相反，它可能会影响儿童的言语产生，即使是 2 岁的儿童。
