An Articulatory Phonology Account of Preferred Consonant-Vowel Combinations

Certain consonant/vowel combinations (labial/central, coronal/front, velar/back) are more frequent in babbling as well as, to a lesser extent, in adult language than chance would dictate. The “Frame then Content” (F/C) hypothesis (Davis & MacNeilage, 1994 Davis, B. L. and MacNeilage, P. F. 1994. Organization of babbling: A case study. Language and Speech, 37: 341–355. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) attributes this pattern to biomechanical vocal-tract biases that change as infants mature. Articulatory Phonology (AP; Browman & Goldstein, 1989 Browman, C. P. and Goldstein, L. M. 1989. Articulatory gestures as phonological units. Phonology, 6: 151–206. [Google Scholar]) attributes preferences to demands placed on shared articulators. F/C implies that preferences will diminish as articulatory control increases, while AP does not. Here, babbling from children at 6, 9, and 12 months in English, French, and Mandarin environments was examined. There was no developmental trend in CV preferences, although older ages exhibited greater articulatory control. A perception test showed no evidence of bias toward hearing the preferred combinations. Modeling using articulatory synthesis found limited support for F/C but more for AP, including data not originally encompassed in F/C. AP thus provides an alternative biomechanical explanation.