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Prosody and melody in vowel disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 1999

JOHN HARRIS ,
JOCELYNNE WATSON  and
SALLY BATES
JOHN HARRIS
Affiliation:
University College London
JOCELYNNE WATSON
Affiliation:
Royal College for Sick Children, Edinburgh
SALLY BATES
Affiliation:
University College of St Mark & St John, Plymouth
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Abstract

The paper explores the syllabic and segmental dimensions of phonological vowel disorder. The independence of the two dimensions is illustrated by the case study of an English-speaking child presenting with an impairment which can be shown to have a specifically syllabic basis. His production of adult long vowels displays three main patterns of deviance – shortening, bisyllabification and the hardening of a target off-glide to a stop. Viewed phonemically, these patterns appear as unconnected substitutions and distortions. Viewed syllabically, however, they can be traced to a single underlying deficit, namely a failure to secure the complex nuclear structure necessary for the coding of vowel length contrasts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , November 1999 , pp. 489 - 525
Copyright
1999 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourth Symposium of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, New Orleans, November 1994. An abridged draft appeared in UCL Working Papers in Linguistics9 (1997). Our thanks are due to the following for helpful comments: Nigel Hewlett, Jim Scobbie, Neil Smith and two anonymous JL referees. Thanks also to Geoff Lindsey for his contribution to the case-study research.