Two Languages, One Mind: A Bilingual Speaker's Syllabification Strategies at the Beginning of Elementary School

This case study of an Italian and Portuguese speaking child in the first year of elementary school aims to compare the syllabification patterns of apparently similar words in both languages. The following structures were addressed: (1) /sC/ clusters, which may be considered tautosyllabic in Italian or heterosyllabic in Portuguese ( fe.sta vs. fes.ta [“party”]); (2) nasal codas, which can be segmentally filled in Italian or an autosegment in Portuguese ( den.te vs. deN.te [“tooth”]). For control purposes, rhotic and lateral codas were included ( ver.de [“green”] and sal.to [“jump”]). The participant was a 5-year-old child with typical cognitive development. Attending the first year of primary education, she was being taught that the consonant representing the coda was a bridge between CV syllables. The experimental study consisted of dividing words into syllables, first in Italian and later in Portuguese. The results showed an unsystematic oscillation of syllabification patterns that seem unsupported by phonological motivation. A possible explanation could be the influence of literacy involving the learning of syllables in a manner that does not align with the phonological rules of the language. Further investigation is required.