McGregor K K, Johnson A C
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 1997 Dec;40(6):1220-31. doi: 10.1044/jslhr.4006.1220.
The speech of twenty normally developing children whose linguistic development spanned four MLU stages was recorded. The weak syllable productions in their spontaneous and elicited words and phrases were examined. The children demonstrated more frequent use of weak syllables that occurred in trochaic (strong + weak) than iambic (weak + strong) patterns. The constraint on iambs was not absolute; even children in MLU Stage I produced weak syllables in iambs occasionally. Also, it was not a constraint on lexical representations as the same pattern was evinced for word combinations. Weakly stressed articles were omitted significantly more often from noun phrases that were iambic than from those that were trochaic. These data suggest that a pattern of the form strong syllable + optional weak syllable [S(W)] serves as a template for multisyllabic productions, whether mono- or multimorphemic. With increasing MLU, S(W) template use declined and control of timing distinctions between weak and strong syllables became more adult-like. We conclude that the trochee may function as either an optimal representational unit or as an optimal timing unit for early syllable sequences. The trochaic template is invoked when the complexity of an intended utterance exceeds the child's resources for planning and production.
记录了20名语言发展处于四个平均语句长度（MLU）阶段的正常发育儿童的言语。研究了他们在自发及诱发的单词和短语中弱音节的产生情况。儿童表现出，与抑扬格（弱+强）模式相比，他们在扬抑格（强+弱）模式中更频繁地使用弱音节。对抑扬格的限制并非绝对；即使是处于MLU第一阶段的儿童也偶尔会在抑扬格中产生弱音节。此外，这并非对词汇表征的限制，因为单词组合也呈现出相同的模式。与扬抑格的名词短语相比，抑扬格名词短语中弱重音的冠词被省略的频率明显更高。这些数据表明，强音节+可选弱音节[S(W)]的模式可作为多音节产生的模板，无论是单语素还是多语素。随着MLU的增加，S(W)模板的使用减少，强弱音节之间的时间区分控制变得更像成人。我们得出结论，扬抑格可能作为早期音节序列的最佳表征单元或最佳时间单元发挥作用。当预期话语的复杂性超出儿童的计划和产生能力时，就会调用扬抑格模板。
