DESCRIPTORS

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of initial consonants, especially./s/, on the pluralization of English nouns by both native English- a d native Spanish-speaking first grade pupils. A test ' instrument con sting of nonsense syllable trigrams was constructed based on lin ' is descriptions of English noun pluralization. Accompanied by v sual stimuli, this instrument was administered to 120 six-year-o children in the El Paso area. Results of the data anal is indi dte that there is no significant effect of initial /s/'on su ul noun pluralizatiop, although /s/ is more frequently associated `with misarticulations in both singular and plural responses Results are discussed in terms of linguistic rules for pluralization, differences between pluralization strategies of native English and native Spanish speakers, And sources of /s/ misarticulations. (Author