Os processos fonológicos na fala da criança de cinco anos: tipologia e frequência

The goal of this study is to describe the type and frequency of the phonological processes that characterize the speech of 5-year-old European Portuguese learners. 43 children (boys and girls) with ages between 5:00 and 5:11, all native speakers and kinder-garden attendants from the Mafra district, have participated in the study. The evaluation tool used was a version of “Avaliação Fonológica da Criança” (Yavas; Hernandorena & Lamprecht 2002), specifically adapted for this study. 7027 lexical words were analyzed, taken from two types of speech samples: isolated words and connected speech. The results show that the segmental phonological processes (segment substitutions and changes) have very low frequency. Within this class of processes, only the semivocalization of liquids shows a higher frequency. The results further show that structure-changing processes that lead to a simplification of the complex syllable structures ‘branching onset’ (CCV) and ‘branching rhyme’ (CVC) are the dominant processes in the speech of 5-year olds. In particular, the omission of liquids in word-medial codas and the reduction of consonantal clusters are prevalent within subjects. The structure-changing processes related with the CCV and CVC structures are also the most frequent ones across subjects.