THE ACQUISITION OF PROSODIC STRUCTURE - AN INVESTIGATION OF CURRENT ACCOUNTS OF CHILDRENS PROSODIC DEVELOPMENT

This article examines four different approaches to prosodic acquisitio n: Gerken's S(W) production template; Fikkert's and Archibald's theori es of stress acquisition, and Demuth and Fee's prosodic hierarchy acco unt. The predictions of prosodic circumscription, template mapping, an d development according to the stages of the prosodic hierarchy are ev aluated using a database of English-speaking children's multisyllabic word productions. The results show that current approaches are unable to account for robust findings in the data such as the increased prese rvation of final over nonfinal unstressed syllables, segmental and pro minence effects on truncation rate, and the relative infrequency of ep enthesis and stress error patterns. Findings reveal a complex interact ion between prominence, edge-based factors, and segmental effects in p honological development. The discussion explores how these findings ma y be accounted for within a constraint-based theoretical framework.