Influence of geminate structure on early Arabic templatic patterns
Résumé
This chapter reports on the early development of phonology during the one-word stage in five Lebanese children, paying particular attention to the influence of the adult phonology as well as to the children's individual journeys towards adultlike patterns. The study contributes to two of the main aims of this volume: first, it shows that early word shapes by Lebanese-speaking children do not follow a straightforward developmental track from simple to complex structures; rather, individual preferences in early productions and the frequency or prominence of particular structures in the adult phonology play a major role in shaping the phonological structure of words in the second year of life. Second, the study sheds more light on the so-called U-shaped curve in development whereby children may have accurate forms in their production at an early stage of development but later "regress"; in this study this is scrutinized from the point of view of the acquisition of phonological length in consonants and it is suggested that accurate forms before and after a "regression" stage may be qualitatively different, with only the latter showing "real" acquisition of adultlike phonological structure.
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