Volume 6prosodic
• Number
3 • September
2002,
291
– 313
Complex
structures
in German
and
Spanish
291
The role of markedness in the acquisition
of complex prosodic structures
by German-Spanish bilinguals*
Conxita Lleó
University of Hamburg
Acknowledgments*
The bilingual data presented in this paper were collected as part of the project “Prosodic constraints
on the phonological and morphological development in bilingual acquisition,” carried out in the
Research Center on M ultilingualism in H amburg under the direction of the author, supported by
the German Science Foundation (DFG ); the monolingual data stem from the project PAIDUS, financed
by the D F G and the DAAD (Acciones Integradas) in the nineties. I want to express my gratitude
to these institutions, especially to the D FG, for their support. I would also like to thank the children
and their parents, who took part in the project.
Abstract
Key words
A tendency to limit prosodic words (PW) to the size of a metrical foot has
bilingual
often been acknowledged in early stages of acquisition and truncation has
phonological
been shown to accomplish this size constraint. Interestingly, after the oneacquisition
foot stage, children acquiring English or Dutch tend to enlarge their productions
by one foot, whereas at least for children acquiring Spanish, a stage, in which
German and
PWs comprise a foot preceded by an unfooted syllable, immediately follows
the one-foot stage. Early productions (between 1;5 and 2;2/ 2;4) of children
Spanish
acquiring G erman and Spanish in monolingual and bilingual conditions
constitute the empirical basis for this paper. The monolingual cross-linguistic
prosodic
results show quantitative differences between the truncation of the Spanishconstraints
and German-speaking children and different ways in which these two groups
of children overcome the size restriction and acquire complex words. These differences are accounted
for within Optimality Theory, couched in M etrical Phonology, by means of two different grammars,
that is, two different constraint hierarchies. The emergence of these different grammars is relevant
for the analysis of the transition to complex prosodic structures in bilinguals and for the analysis
of the relationships between their two phonological modules. An interaction of the two languages
is found, the outcome of which is mainly attributed to markedness.
1 Introduction
Children acquiring different languages tend to reduce the length of words in their early
productions. M onosyllables and disyllables stressed on the initial syllable (so-called
trochees) are generally produced target-like as regards their number of syllables. But
Address for correspondence
Institut für Romanistik, Universität Hamburg, Von-M elle-Park 6, Hamburg 20146, Germany;
e-mail: < [email protected]>.
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292
C. Lleó
disyllables stressed on the final syllable (so-called iambs) tend to keep only the stressed
syllable, and trisyllables as well as quadrisyllables, if present in the target language, lose
part of their syllables in the productions of young children (Echols, 1993; G erken, 1996).
Table 1 presents some examples for English (from Pater, 1997) and for G erman and
Spanish (from the database of the project PAID U S1; the Spanish data partly appeared
in Lleó, 1996, p. 221).
As we see in Table 1, word length is reduced in the children’s productions. The reduction of word length, analyzed as truncation in generative terms, has been described by means
of an early size constraint within Optimality Theory (OT ). That is, whereas G enerative
Phonology proposed rules in order to describe a process such as the deletion of one or
more syllables in the word, OT accounts for the outputs as a result of constraint ranking
or constraint interaction. In this particular case, prosodic words (PW ) are equated with
feet (F t), in the sense that the maximal length of a word amounts to a single foot 2 (D emuth
& Fee, 1995; Kehoe, 1999/ 2000; Lleó & D emuth, 1999; Pater, 1997). Although as just
stated, this is a general tendency among young children, it has been argued that it is
stronger for children acquiring G ermanic languages than for those acquiring Romance
languages (Lleó & Demuth, 1999; Paradis, Fonte, Petitclerc, & G enesee, 1996). F urthermore,
after the one-foot stage, children acquiring English or D utch tend to enlarge their productions by one foot (D emuth & Fee, 1995), as in (1), or by certain internal unstressed syllables
(Kehoe, 1999/ 2000), whereas at least for children acquiring Spanish, a stage, in which
PWs comprise a foot preceded by an unfooted syllable, immediately follows the one-foot
stage (D emuth, 2001; Lleó, 1997, 2001), as in (2).
(1)
[[F t] [F t]]PW
(2)
[ s [F t]]PW
The usual analyses of truncation in terms of Alignment (all feet being aligned to the
Left with the PW) are not sufficient to account for these different patterns of development. That is, the constraint A LIG N (F t, L, PW, L), as in Pater (1997), by requiring that
all feet be aligned to the Left with a PW, limits the child’s prosodic structures to one single
foot. This constraint, though, is violated by both prosodic structures (1) and (2), that
appear in the subsequent stages of development: structure (1) for children acquiring a
G ermanic language, as well as structure (2) for children acquiring Spanish. In structure
(1) the second foot is not aligned to the Left with the PW, from which it is separated by
the first foot, whereas in structure (2) it is a syllable that separates the single foot from
the Left margin of the PW. If these two types of enlargement of the basic prosodic structure of the initial stage represent two different patterns of development for the two groups
of children, it is important for the respective grammars to be able to distinguish them. The
present analysis will distinguish the two grammars by means of an OT account.
1
PAID US was a crosslinguistic project, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and carried out simultaneously in Hamburg and Madrid, to analyze the phonological and morphological development of monolingual
German and Spanish children. See Lleó and Prinz (1996) for some details.
2
This terminology refers to Prosodic Phonology (Nespor & Vogel, 1986), from which we will be only using the lower
constituents, beginning with the Syllable ( s ). The concepts relevant to the analysis will be briefly defined below.
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
293
Table 1
Exam ples of truncation in three child languages
a. Truncation in English child language (from Pater, 1997)
gorilla
spaghetti
tomorrow
[’go:w{]
Trevor (1;11,2)
[’wö:ga:]
Trevor (1;11,14)
[’dIbi]
Julia (1;9,7)
[’gEbi]
Julia (1;10,8)
[’skEbi]
Julia (1;11,19-2;3,8)
[’sketi]
Julia (2;0,29)
[’mowo]
Julia (1;7,16-2;0,17)
[’moro]
Trevor (1;8,12-2;1,14)
apart
[part]
Trevor (1;9,29)
Denise
[dis]
Trevor (1;1,17-2;2,15)
enough
[nöf]
Trevor (1;10,5-1;11,25)
b. Truncation in G erman child language (from the projects BIDS-PAID U S database)
Fasan
‘pheasant’
/fa:’za:n/
[’zán]
Thomas (1;8,2)
kaputt
‘broken’
/ka’pUt/
[’pUth] [’gu:ts]
Britta (1;7,11)
[’puth]
Britta (1;10,9)
[’pO:t] [’put]
Britta (1;11,29)
[’puX]
M arion (1;10,5)
Karton
‘cardboard box’ /kar’tOÎ/
[’tOÎ]
Thomas (1;9,0)
Kakao
‘cocoa’
/ka’ka:o/
[’gOX] [’gO:X]
Johannes (1;8,1)
Banane
‘banana’
/ba’na:n@/
[’nAnI]
M arion (1;8,3)
[’nAnE] [’nAn@]
M arion (1;10,5)
[’ba:ne]
Johannes (1;8,1)
Geburtstag
‘birthday’
/g@’bu:á7tstak/
[’budzA] [’budas]
M arion (1;11,25)
Kartoffel
‘potato’
/kar’tOfl)/
[’tofEl]
Johannes (1;9,21)
M elone
‘melon’
/me’lo:n@/
[’jojo]
M arion (1;8,3)
c. Truncation in Spanish child language (from the project BID S-PAID U S database)
conejo
‘rabbit’
/ko’nexo/
[’DeÒo]
M iguel (1;8,23)
pelota
‘ball’
/pe’lota/
[’bOdA]
M iguel (1;6,7)
[’lOda]
M iguel (1;10,18)
mariposa
‘butterfly’
/maQi’posa/
[’boza]
M iguel (1;8,23)
ardilla
‘squirrel’
/aQ’Diùa/
[’zijá] [’dihû]
José (1;7,27)
m
A lberto
‘name’
/al’ÂeQto/
[’ b{to] [’bEtou
7]
José (1;9,2)
espada
‘sword’
/es’paDa/
[’paDá:] [’padá] [’palá]
José (1;11,23)
The International Journal of Bilingualism
294
C. Lleó
It is thus important to show the different treatment given to polysyllabic words by
children of different language groups, namely G erman and Spanish, and how the enlargement of the basic prosodic structure is undertaken by monolingual children acquiring
G erman and Spanish, respectively. To show these differences will constitute the first aim
of the paper, namely, to empirically substantiate the claims made by D emuth & Fee (1995)
for English and D utch and by Lleó (1997) for Spanish. The former proposed the acquisition of two feet after the one-foot stage as a universal development, basing their evidence
on D utch and English early acquisition, whereas the latter argued that on the basis of Spanish
early acquisition, unfooted syllables should represent a possible developmental step after
the one-foot stage.
If these differences can be substantiated for the group of G erman children as opposed
to the group of Spanish children, such results would constitute an optimal tool to measure
the treatment of polysyllabic words by young G erman-Spanish bilingual children. That
is, establishing a clear difference between the monolingual acquisition of G erman and that
of Spanish would allow us to ask whether young G erman-Spanish bilinguals treat the two
languages as the monolinguals do or whether there is influence of one of the languages
on the other one. In that case, it would be important to ascertain which one of the languages
influences the other one and why. Such an analysis could shed light on a long standing
issue regarding bilingual acquisition. In the seventies and beginning of the eighties
researchers working on bilingual acquisition tended to interpret the phonological data of
the bilingual as exponents for a single or mixed system (Vihman, 1985; Vogel, 1975). Later
on, other researchers pointed out that language mixing by young bilinguals does not
necessarily mean that they go through a stage in which only a single system is available
(G enesee, 1989; Ingram, 1981/ 82). N owadays, several researchers have clearly established
the presence of two distinct systems (D euchar & Clark, 1996; Johnson & Lancaster, 1999;
Schnitzer & K rasinsky, 1994, 1996). But the fact that two systems are acknowledged does
not preclude that there might be interaction between them. Paradis & G enesee (1996,
p. 3) propose that in bilingual acquisition the development of two languages can be
autonomous or interdependent. The latter implies that there is “systemic influence of the
grammar of one language on the grammar of the other language during acquisition.” Such
interdependence can manifest itself as transfer, acceleration or delay. “Transfer consists
of the incorporation of a grammatical property into one language from the other.” On
the other hand, “acceleration means that a certain property emerges in the grammar
earlier than would be the norm in monolingual acquisition.” Tracy (1995) and G awlitzekM aiwald & Tracy (1996) have found acceleration of one of the systems by means of a positive
influence of one system onto the other, which they term “bilingual bootstrapping.” F inally,
by “delay” Paradis & G enesee (1996, p. 4) refer to a possible slowing down of the “overall
rate of acquisition” due to the “burden of acquiring two languages.” These issues will be
examined on the basis of the truncation data in G erman and Spanish.
The paper begins by presenting an analysis of truncation and the transition to
complex words and to complex prosodic structures by monolingual children acquiring
G erman and by monolingual children acquiring Spanish. The developmental difference
between these two groups will be analyzed by different constraint hierarchies according
to the tenets of Optimality Theory, couched in M etrical Phonology terms, and these data
will constitute the tertium comparationis for the analysis of bilingual data. The paper
The International Journal of Bilingualism
Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
295
then turns to the analysis of the prosodic structures and prosodic development by bilingual
children acquiring G erman and Spanish simultaneously. The question of the emergence
of two different grammars is crucial for the analysis of the bilingual data. D ifferent paths
of the transition from truncation to complex prosodic structures can be used as diagnostics for (a) autonomy of the two phonological modules for bilinguals, and (b) possible
phonological interactions between the two lexicons and the two phono-prosodic structures. Once a developmental quantitative difference has been established between monolingual
German and monolingual Spanish children, if the development of one or of both languages
of the bilinguals differs from that of the monolinguals, this difference will be interpreted
as being caused by an interdependent development, in Paradis & G enesee’s (1996) terms.
M oreover, if the two languages of the bilinguals resemble one another, in the sense that
the quantitative difference is reduced, this will be interpreted as resulting from one language
influencing the other one. Whether this influence corresponds to acceleration or to delay,
will depend on the specific situation.
2 Monolingual data and analysis
Early productions (between 1;3 and 2;2) of three children acquiring G erman and three
children acquiring Spanish in monolingual conditions constitute the basis of analysis.
The data belong to the monolingual project PAID U S and were collected naturalistically
in the children’s homes; the G erman data were collected every two weeks during the first
year, and once a month thereafter; the Spanish data were collected approximately once a
month. All data were transcribed in H amburg by G erman- and Spanish-speaking transcribers. For the present analysis two aspects are relevant: number of syllables of the
child’s utterance as compared to the number of syllables of the target and stress. There
are sometimes difficulties in transcribing stress in utterances by young children, because
they often produce the phonetic parameters of stress separately; that is, children often treat
the phonetic correlates of stress (F0 , length, and intensity) differently than specified in the
target language. Consequently, some doubtful utterances were digitized and acoustically
analyzed. This way it was possible to distinguish (unstressed) unfooted syllables from
(primarily or secondarily) stressed syllables possibly constituting a foot. If a syllable that
had not been transcribed with stress had a reduced vowel, it could not constitute a foot;
in the case that the vowel was unreduced, it could. Also, some doubtful cases, which in
the transcription did not bear stress, were considered as stressed if some acoustic correlate, amplitude, duration or a higher F0, manifested itself to a high degree. Only spontaneous
utterances were analyzed; that is, imitations or repetitions of adult utterances immediately
preceding the child utterance were disregarded.
Before going into the presentation and discussion of the data, a few terminological
clarifications of the relevant constituents of Prosodic Phonology are in order. The smallest
unit considered is the syllable ( s ), which for the purpose of this paper will not be further
analyzed in its subcomponents. The following constituent over the syllable is the Foot
(F t), understood as the “minimal bracketed unit” of metrical theory (H ayes, 1995, p. 40).
Feet are disyllabic, with the most prominent syllable to the left (i.e., trochees) or with the
prominent syllable to the right (i.e., iambi). They can also comprise one single syllable, in
which case it is a heavy syllable, containing a long vowel, or it is closed by a consonant.
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C. Lleó
The next higher constituents considered here are the Prosodic Word (PW ) and the
Phonological Phrase (PPh ). The PW may correspond to the morphosyntactic word, but
it does not need to. It can comprise a root and its suffixes, as defined by N espor and Vogel
(1986) for Italian, and it can be provided with a clitic. Thus, for example, the N oun pelota
‘ball’ constitutes a PW, and so does the definite article la plus the N oun, as in la pelota
‘the ball’. The PPh does not necessarily coincide with a syntactic phrase, either, but it
generally contains its head plus a preceding complement or a nonbranching following one,
for example, muy bueno ‘very good’, come pan ‘(he / she) eats bread’ are PPhs in Spanish.
(For more details see N espor & Vogel, 1986; Selkirk, 1978, 1986; and the by now abundant literature on Prosodic Phonology.)
Table 2
Truncation of target unfooted syllables and percentages of production of com plex prosodic structures:
unfooted syllables and two-feet by m onolingual Spanish children (José, María, Miguel)
Spanish
Truncation of unfooted syllables
% (out of target n)
AGE
Child productions n
unfooted syllables
Jo s é
M a ría
M ig u el
1;3–1;4
–
33% (17)
1;5–1;6
22% (28)
1;7–1;8
two-feet
Jo s é
M a ri
M ig
Jo sé
M a ri
M ig
33% (3)
–
7
2
–
0
0
34% (32)
39% (18)
23
26
11
1
1
1
17% (23)
41% (29)
26% (34)
33
16
27
1
3
12
1;9–1;10
3% (175)
24% (82)
2% (54)
177
71
61
47
20
45
1;11–2;0
3% (229)
18% (45)
17% (42)
204
37
35
296
5
35
2;1–2;2
–
5% (65)
4% (69)
–
61
68
–
24
113
Table 3
Truncation of target unfooted syllables and percentages of production of com plex prosodic structures: unfooted syllables and two-feet by m onolingual Germ an children (Bernd, M arion, Thom as)
German
Truncation of unfooted syllables
% (out of target n)
AGE
Child productions n
unfooted syllables
B e rn d
M a rio n
Thom as
B e rn
M a rn
Thom
1;3–1;4
–
100% (1)
–
–
0
1;5–1;6
100 % (2)
100% (1)
–
1
1;7–1;8
100% (2)
100% (3)
57% (7)
1;9–1;10
100% (1)
40% (15)
1;11–2;0
87% (15)
2;1–2;2
71% (17)
two-feet
B ern d
M a rn
–
–
0
–
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
2
3
6
3
57% (7)
8
8
0
14
27
20
53% (19)
78% (8)
2
8
3
25
84
133
0% (2)
50% (2)
6
–
–
42
–
–
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Thom
Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
297
Tables 2 and 3 offer information about the treatment of an unstressed syllable
preceding the stressed one in initial position by monolingual Spanish and G erman children.
Such syllables are here analyzed as unfooted syllables, that is, not belonging to the foot,
as in (2) above. Words with an unfooted syllable in initial position correspond to a) disyllables with the stress on the second syllable (so-called “iambs” in the metric tradition)
and to b) trisyllables consisting in a left-headed foot (a trochee) preceded by the unstressed
or unfooted syllable (called “amphibrachs” in traditional metrics)3. The numbers in the
first column refer to percentages of truncation of unfooted syllables, with absolute numbers
of target unfooted syllables in parentheses. The data correspond to three Spanish children
(José, M aría, and M iguel) in Table 2 and to three G erman children (Bernd, M arion, and
Thomas) in Table 3. The sum of iambic- and amphibrachic-shaped words of the target
language gives the number of target unfooted syllables for each particular child, and these
constitute the denominator for truncation, that is, deletion of the unfooted syllable. The
following two columns refer to child utterances and show the number of unfooted syllables and two-feet utterances produced by each individual child. U nfooted syllables were
calculated exclusively for monomorphemic lexical items, that is, referring to a syllable
such as the first one in a noun like pelota ‘ball’, in case it is reproduced by the child. F iller
syllables, often corresponding to protoarticles and articles, which in the Spanish children’s
early productions are very numerous (see, for instance, Lleó, 2001) were not counted in
these measurements. In some cases, especially in the Spanish data, the number of unfooted
syllables produced by a child is higher than the number of target unfooted syllables. This
is particularly due to target quadrisyllables stressed on the penultima being reduced to trisyllables by the child, as in for example, mariposa [ "maQi’posa] produced as [ pa’ bOta] (see
below); this word has an unfooted syllable in the child’s but not in the adult’s pronunciation. The last column, showing the numbers of ‘two-feet’ uttered by each child, disregards
whether they belong to single words or to combinations of words. In the case of the
Spanish children, the words of the last column generally are monomorphemic quadrisyllables such as mariposa ‘butterfly’ or elefante ‘elephant’, and for the G erman children
they generally correspond to morphologically complex words, often trisyllabic (either
derived, comprised of prefix plus verb as for instance zumachen ‘close’ or ausziehen ‘put
off ’) or to compounds, like Eisenbahn ‘train’.
From Tables 2 and 3 it is obvious that a) Spanish children have many more target
words with unfooted syllables in their vocabularies, and b) G er man children, besides
having lower numbers of such words, have much higher rates of truncation or deletion
of the unfooted syllables. The general difference in this respect between the two groups
of children is summarized in F igure 1, which adds together the data for the three children
in both languages and thus comparatively shows the different rates of truncation of
unfooted syllables in the two language groups. The data exhibit a very different profile in
the prosodic development of G erman and Spanish children. This difference is maintained
during the whole time span for which data has been presented, that is, from 1;3 up to 2;2.
3
The pretonic syllable of “iambs” is also analyzed as unfooted, because the basic foot in Spanish as well as in
German is the trochee, that is, with the stressed syllable to the left. This places a syllable preceding the stressed
one outside the foot. Alternatively pretonic syllables could be treated as “degenerate feet”; we will not pursue this
treatment, because it raises several theoretical problems (see Hayes, 1995, p. 86ff).
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C. Lleó
Figure 1
Percentages of unfooted syllable truncation by Spanish and G erm an m onolinguals
The rate of truncation of unfooted syllables in G erman is at all points (with one small
exception) higher than 50%; in Spanish, after the first point at 1;3, it hardly reaches 30%
and after 1;8 it is gradually reduced to very low values. As regards two-feet utterances,
considered in general, as in the last columns of Tables 2 and 3, all children, Spanish as
well as G erman, begin simultaneously, at about 1;10, to produce substantial numbers of
them. This means that the difference between the two groups of children does not lie in
the onset of two-feet utterances, but in the fact that at the point two-feet utterances
emerge, Spanish children have already produced many unfooted syllables, whereas German
children have only produced single feet.
In spite of these differences in truncation rates, it is certainly not the case that G erman
children do not produce or attempt long words. The trisyllabic words attempted by the
G erman children generally correspond to the complex words mentioned above, either derived
as zumachen ‘open’ or compounded as Eisenbahn ‘train’, which comprise two feet, the first
foot being primarily stressed and the second one secondarily stressed in the target language.
These have been analyzed separately in Table 4, which shows the numbers of such target words
(called “dactyls” in the table) attempted by each particular G erman child in parentheses
and the percentages of truncation applied. Truncation rates are very high at first, and are
substantially reduced at 1;10 in Bernd’s productions, at 1;11 in Thomas’and at 2;0 in Marion’s.
Tables 2 through 4 make clear that at the beginning both groups tend to get rid of
the material that exceeds a single foot: all children tend to limit their productions to one
foot. Very soon their productions are enlarged, but in different ways: Between 1;7 and 1;8
the G erman group begins to produce a second foot, whereas the Spanish group, as soon
as 1;3 or at 1;5 at the latest begins to produce the additional unfooted syllable to the left
of the single foot. Because feet in the Spanish children’s productions generally comprise
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
299
Table 4
Target dactylic structures and their truncation (percentages) by m onolingual Germ an children
German
AGE
Truncation of dactyls % (out of target n)
B e rn d
1;3-1;4
M ario n
–
1;5-1;6
100%
–
Th om as
(9)
–
75%
(4)
100%
(1)
1;7-1;8
67%
(6)
70%
(10)
91%
(22)
1;9-1;10
10%
(10)
69%
(16)
83%
(18)
1;11-2;0
23%
(13)
24%
(29)
17%
(41)
2;1-2;2
12%
(33)
10%
(20)
12%
(60)
two syllables, the additional syllable cannot be fitted into feet — these must be binary
according to the assumptions of M etrical Phonology— and must thus be directly attached
to the PW. Such a representation, as in (2) above, is marked, because it violates the Strict
Layer H ypothesis (N espor & Vogel, 1986, p. 7ff). According to this constraint on prosodic
structure, a prosodic constituent should dominate only constituents of the next level down
in the prosodic hierarchy. This constraint is here violated, because PW is directly dominating a syllable, although the next level down after PW is the foot. N otice that two-foot
structures are not marked from the perspective of Prosodic Phonology, because they just
introduce an additional foot, both feet being immediately dominated by the next higher
constituent, the PW.
From an OT perspective, the G erman children’s productions violate constraint (3)
and Spanish children’s productions violate constraints (4) and (5); that is, the grammars
of the initial stage contain all three constraints in a nondominated position, but they are
subsequently demoted, constraint (3) in G erman and constraint (4) and (5) in Spanish.
(3) A LIGN (F t, R , PW, R ): the right edge of all F t must be aligned with the right edge
of PW
(4) A LIGN (PW, L, F t, L): all PWs must have their left edge aligned with a F t
(5) PARSE -s :
syllables must be parsed into feet
Constraint (3) requires that all feet be aligned to the right with a prosodic word, thus
limiting the number of feet to one per prosodic word, whereas constraint (4) requires that
all prosodic words begin with a foot, thus excluding unfooted pretonic syllables. N otice
that constraint (4) does not prohibit the appearance of more than one foot per PW; the
presence of two feet does not prevent the PW from being aligned with one of them. Two
comments are noteworthy. These constraints were originally introduced and discussed by
M cCarthy & Prince (1994, p. 12ff) in relation to G arawa. Pater (1997, p. 207) has used
A LIG N (F t, L, PW, L) for child language and notices that “A LIG N R IG H T would do as
well.” M y preference for A LIGN R IGHT over A LIGN L EFT for constraint (3) is that A LIGN L EFT
is violated by both later outputs, the G erman comprised of two feet as well as the Spanish
comprised of one foot preceded by an unfooted syllable; this means that A LIG N (F t, L,
PW, L), requiring all feet to be aligned to the left with the prosodic word, cannot show
the two different developments, the G erman one characterized by two-feet productions
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C. Lleó
and the Spanish one by unfooted syllables. On the other hand, both constraints (3) and
(4) have been claimed to be part of the grammar of G erman, the former by F éry (1999)4
and the latter by Alber (1998). A further relevant constraint worth mentioning is H EAD M AX , which requires that the stressed segment of the target word (foot and syllable) be
the bearer of stress in the child’s production 5:
(6) H EAD -M AX : The (primarily) stressed foot / syllable of the Input must be maintained
with its stress in the Output
This constraint predicts that a target word composed of two feet, which undergoes
truncation will lose the unstressed or secondarily stressed foot and that the primarily
stressed one will be maintained, that is, in accordance with this constraint the target
Spanish word mariposa ‘butterfly’ maintains the second foot (’posa)F t and the target
G erman word zumachen ‘close’ becomes (’zu)F t . Other faithfulness constraints, that is,
constraints requiring identity between input and output, are relevant for the analysis. I
will just refer to constraint (7), banning the deletion of syllables:
(7) M AX -IO: An Input syllable has a correspondent in the Output
Tableaux (1) and (2) illustrate the effects of this set of constraints in the two languages
for the initial stage, that is, when truncation is taking place. N otice that at this stage
PARSE -s must dominate constraints (3) and (4) in both languages; otherwise, this latter
constraint could be fulfilled at the expense of leaving syllables unparsed.6 The constraint
hierarchy at this initial stage is thus: F T BIN , PAR SE -s » A LIG N (F t, R ,PW, R ), A LIG N
(PW, L, F t, L) » M AX -IO. The Tableaux follow the usual OT formalism: asterisks indicate violations of the relevant constraints and a fatal violation is indicated by the
exclamation mark. Violations of certain constraints, such as A LIG N and M AX -IO, are
measured in terms of syllables. In the output candidates square brackets indicate PWs
and parentheses indicate F t.
Tableau (1) for Spanish conejo ‘rabbit’
/ ko ’ nexo /
FTBIN
PARSE-s
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
[(’nexo)]
MAX-IO
s
[ko(’nexo)]
[ne]
HEAD-MAX
*!
*!
s
s s
4
Although F éry (1999) refers to McCarthy & Prince’s Generalized Alignment, who discussed ALIG N R IG HT in the
sense of constraint (3), she seems to interpret the constraint in a less restrictive sense, as ALIG N (PW, R, F T, R ).
For the reasons discussed here, the align constraint that is needed in child language at the earliest stage is the
most restrictive one.
5
This type of constraint was originally proposed by Alderete (1995). Pater (1997, p. 223) proposes STRESS-FAITH ,
which serves a comparable purpose; Goad & Rose (in press) have reelaborated it also in the context of acquisition, and Piñeros (2000, p. 298) in the context of truncation in Spanish.
6
A similar point is made by McCarthy & Prince (1994, p. 17), who notice that “noniterative foot-parsing can be
obtained from a low ranking of PARSE-SYLL”, and by Pater (1997, p. 212): “to allow iterative footing, PARSE-SYLL
must dominate ALIG N L EF T ” (here A LIG N R IGHT ).
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
301
Tableau (2) for Spanish mariposa ‘butterfly’
/"m aQi’posa /
FTBIN
PARSE-s
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
HEAD-MAX
[(’posa)]
MAX-IO
s s
[(’maQi)]
*!
[ma(’posa)]
*!
[("maQ i)(’posa)]
s
s s
s
*!
Tableau (3) for G erm an kaputt ‘broken’
/ka’put/
FTBIN
PARSE-s
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
HEAD-MAX
[(pUt)]
MAX-IO
s
[ka’(pUt)]
*!
s
[(’kapUt)]
*!
Tableau (4) for G erm an zumachen ‘close’
/’tsu:"m ax nµ /
FTBIN
PARSE-s
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
HEAD-MAX
[(tsu:)]
s s
[(’tsu:)("maxnµ )]
*!
[(’tsu:)( "max)]
*!
[(’maxnµ )]
MAX-IO
s
*!
s
All four productions shown in tableaux (1) to (4) of the Spanish target words, conejo
and mariposa, and of the G erman target words, kaputt and zumachen, correspond to the
earliest stages, in which the candidates without the offending material, a syllable or a
foot, are preferred over the satisfaction of M AX -IO; that is, unfaithful forms are preferred.
In the case of Spanish conejo and G erman kaputt, the offending material is the initial syllable,
whereas in the case of Spanish mariposa and G erman zumachen, the offending material
is a whole foot, the initial one, not aligned to the right with the PW as required by
A LIGN R IG H T . As indicated above, the reason why the second foot of mariposa is selected
in Tableau (2) and the first one of zumachen in Tableau (4) lies in the satisfaction of the
constraint H EAD -M AX , which predicts that the head foot is maintained.
In the next stage, Spanish conejo is pronounced target-like as regards the number of
syllables, but mariposa is generally produced with three syllables, for example, [ pa’bOta] by
José (1;9,2). These utterances are analyzed in Tableaux (1a) and (2a) respectively, which
show that A LIGN LEFT has been demoted under M AX. On the other hand, in German, dactyls
are produced with two feet from rather early on, whereas unfooted syllables of iambicand amphibrachic-shaped words are still truncated for some months. Table 4 indicates a
relatively high degree of truncation of dactyls, because syllable truncation has been
included in that table, as well, not only foot truncation. The truncation of whole feet,
though, does not last long; it is greatly reduced at the 1;9 – 1;10 point for Bernd and at
the 1;11 – 2;0 point for M arion and Thomas. In words like zumachen, aufmachen, anziehen,
ausziehen, and so forth, it is generally not the second foot that is truncated, but only the
last syllable or the syllabic consonant that constitutes the head of the last syllable. A
constraint against syllabic consonants is thus active here; it must outrank A LIG N R IG HT .
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C. Lleó
I adopt Prince & Smolensky’s (1993, p. 134ff) analysis by means of the sonority scale:
vowels are allowed as syllable heads or Peaks in the earliest stages of acquisition, but
consonants are not. This is expressed by constraint (8):
(8) *C ON S / P EAK : consonants should not be parsed as a syllable Peak (i.e., associated to
N uc)
The analyses for the production of G erman kaputt and zumachen are shown in
tableaux (3a) and (4a), respectively.
Tableau (1a) for Spanish conejo ‘rabbit’: subsequent stage
/ ko’nexo/
FTBIN
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
HEAD-MAX
[(’nexo)]
[ko(’nexo)]
[(ne)]
MAX-IO
PARSE-s
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
s !
*
*!
s
s s
Tableau (2a) for Spanish mariposa ‘butterfly’: subsequent stage
/ "m aQi’posa/
FTBIN
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
[(’posa)]
[("m aQi)(’posa)]
HEAD-MAX
MAX-IO
PARSE-s
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
s s !
*!
[ri(’posa)]
[m a(’posa)]
*!
s
*
*
HEAD-MAX
MAX-IO
s
s
s
Tableau (3a) for G erm an kaputt ‘broken’: subsequent stage
/ ka’put/
FTBIN
PARSE-S
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L)
[(p u t]
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
s
[ka’(p u t)]
[(’kap u t)]
*!
s
*!
Tableau (4a) for G erm an zumachen ‘close’: subsequent stage
/ ’tsu:"m axnµ/
FTBIN
PARSE-s
ALIGN(PW,L,Ft,L) HEAD-MAX *CONS /PEAK
[tsu:]
[’tsu:" maxnµ ]
[’tsu:" max]
MAX-IO
ALIGN(Ft,R,PW,R)
s s !
*!
Ft
s
Ft
Tableaux (1a) and (2a) illustrate that the constraint hierarchy for Spanish children
at this second stage is A LIG N (F t, R , P W, R ) M AX -IO » A LIG N (PW, L, F t, L), whereas
tableaux (3a) and (4a) show that for G erman children the hierarchy is rather A LIG N (PW,
L, F t, L) » M AX -IO » A LIG N (F t, R , P W, R ). That is, whereas Spanish children introduce
unfooted syllables very soon, G erman children omit them, which is reflected in their
grammars by means of the different status of the two A LIGN constraints in the hierarchies
of constraints. Spanish children in the stage following the production of a single foot per
word, are able to violate the constraint that requires that each PW be aligned to the left
with a foot, showing that the constraint A LIGN (PW, L, F t, L) is outranked by M AX -IO.
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
303
In the grammar of the G erman children it is the constraint A LIG N (F t, R , P W, R ) that has
been demoted under M AX -IO, whereas the constraint A LIG N (PW, L, F t, L) continues to
be undominated. This hierarchy leads to the omission of unfooted syllables and at the same
time allows the production of two-feet structures, because the G erman children’s grammars require alignment between PW and foot to the left, but do not require that all feet
be aligned to the right with the PW.
3 Bilingual data and analysis
The bilingual data come from the bilingual project “Prosodic constraints on the phonological and morphological development in bilingual acquisition,”carried out in the Research
Center on M ultilingualism at the U niversity of H amburg. This project comprises four
longitudinal studies of children (Jens, Nils, Simon, and Matias), acquiring German and Spanish
simultaneously. The data are being collected in a naturalistic fashion in the children’s homes,
with two researchers present. The two languages are recorded in separate sessions by two
different research teams; often the parent that is a native speaker of the language being recorded
is also present at the session and plays or talks to the child. For the present analysis the data
of three children — Jens, N ils, and Simon — have been considered, because one of the
children (M atias) began later than the other children to participate in the project, and is
substantially younger. In all three cases the mother is Spanish-speaking and the father is
German. At home the parents follow the rule of “une personne, une langue” (Ronjat, 1913)
when addressing the child, that is, each parent addresses the child in his/ her native language.
Being in a G erman speaking community (H amburg), G erman is generally used as the
common language by the parents, especially in the presence of non-Spanish speaking
friends or family. Only in the case of Simon the parents report communicating in Spanish
with each other. Jens and Simon spent the three first years of their lives at home with their
mothers, with a fairly large exposure to the Spanish language. N ils began to attend a
G erman day care center when he became 1;5, and since then his use of Spanish has been
diminishing. It can thus be said that the exposure to and use of Spanish mainly takes place
at home, and it has been larger for Jens and Simon than for N ils. All children spend a few
weeks in the country of their mothers each year, which amount to a maximum of 8 to 10
weeks in the case of Simon and to a minimum of three to four weeks in the case of N ils.
Table 5 selectively presents for the Spanish of the bilingual children (Jens, N ils and
Simon) the same type of data we have seen for the Spanish monolinguals: The first columns
include information on truncation of unfooted syllables in percentages and numbers of
target unfooted syllables in parentheses. The last columns show the numbers of complex
prosodic structures produced by the three children: a foot preceded by an unfooted syllable,
as well as two-feet utterances; the latter, children’s complex prosodic structures, are given
in raw numbers. Table 6 presents information on Jens, N ils, and Simon’s G erman productions: percentages of dactylic truncation, number of target dactylic words attempted, in
parenthesis, and production of two-feet utterances. The information on truncation of
unfooted syllables in G erman has not been included in the table, because the amounts of
target unfooted syllables were so minimal that no reasonable percentages could be calculated. The few target words (containing unfooted syllables) that were attempted by the
bilingual children were mainly truncated, as in the case of the G erman monolinguals.
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C. Lleó
Table 5
Truncation of target unfooted syllables and percentages of production of com plex prosodic structures:
unfooted syllables and two-feet by bilingual children (Nils, Jens and Sim on) in Spanish
Spanish
Truncation of unfooted syllables
% (out of target n)
AGE
Child productions n
unfooted syllables
Je n s
N ils
S im o n
1;6
–
83% (12)
1;7
0% (11)
55% (11)
1;8
0%
(2)
1;9
two-feet
Je n s
N ils
S im
Jen s
N ils
S im
100% (2)
0
2
0
0
0
0
100% (16)
1
5
1
0
2
1
88% (26)
55% (11)
0
3
9
0
6
1
21% (14)
81% (32)
80% (10)
3
7
2
1
7
2
1;10
36% (14)
50% (44)
76% (50)
9
24
10
1
26
7
1;11
22% (32)
48% (73)
78% (36)
24
38
14
7
41
13
2;0
30% (40)
33% (46)
65% (17)
29
35
15
38
58
7
8% (74)
26% (19)
5
70
14
9
49
15
4% (22)
12% (26)
0
21
23
3
19
21
–
–
–
–
–
–
2;1
2;2
2;3
0%
(9)
–
7% (27)
–
–
Table 6
Percentages of truncation of target dactylic structures and percentages of two-feet productions by bilingual
children (Nils, Jens and Sim on) in G erm an
Spanish
Truncation of dactyls
Child productions
% (out of target n)
two-feet n
AGE
Je n s
N ils
S im o n
Je n s
N ils
S im o n
1;6
–
–
–
–
5
2
1;7
–
–
–
–
3
2
1;8
–
–
–
–
13
5
1;9
–
(4)
–
–
61
–
1;10
–
6% (35)
–
–
58
3
1;11
–
17% (18)
2;0
0% (16)
2;1
0% (3)
2;2
25%
(3)
8
109
11
21% (14)
33
51
86
47% (15)
20%
(5)
14
86
40
–
10% (29)
44% (16)
1
137
26
2;3
0% (3)
–
–
25
–
–
2;4
–
–
–
47
–
–
0%
(5)
33%
F igure 2 and F igure 3 plot the individual data of the bilingual children, Jens, N ils, and
Simon, in comparison to the respective monolingual groups: F igure 2 for unfooted syllable
truncation in Spanish and F igure 3 for dactyl truncation in G erman.
A comparison of these data with the monolingual Spanish as well as with the monolingual G erman data show that the three children — Jens, N ils, and Simon — stay longer
at the one-foot stage than the monolingual children: their rates of truncation are high and
their rates of complex prosodic structures are relatively low. This is especially true for
Jens, who in general began talking a few months later than the other children, and his
The International Journal of Bilingualism
Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
305
Figure 2
Percentages of unfooted syllable truncation by bilinguals in Spanish
Figure 3
Percentages of dactyl truncation by bilinguals in G erm an
utterances were very reduced in numbers; this is the reason why his data were calculated
for two more months (until 2;4) than in the case of the other children. As regards unfooted
syllables in Spanish, they are attempted later by the bilinguals than by the monolinguals,
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306
C. Lleó
their numbers grow at a slower pace and their rate of truncation resembles the high rate
of truncation of the G erman monolinguals rather than that of the Spanish monolinguals.
Only Jens has percentages of truncation that resemble the Spanish monolinguals; but
notice that he begins to try unfooted syllables not earlier than at 1;7. The first unfooted
syllables in his utterances constitute the first syllable of iambs; he does not attempt amphibrachs until 1;9. Interestingly, between 1;7 and 1;8, Jens does not truncate the unstressed
syllable preceding the stressed one in a disyllable, but changes the position of stress into
the initial syllable; thus, although he does not truncate, he produces almost no unfooted
syllables. The high rates of unfooted syllable truncation in the Spanish productions of the
other bilingual children are maintained during the whole time-span, still amounting at 2;0
to 33% in the case of N ils and to 65% in the case of Simon. N otice that at this same age
the monolingual children had percentages lower than 20%, and in the case of José even
less than 10% (cf. Table 2). Table 6 shows that in G erman the bilingual children retain the
tendency to produce single feet, especially within PWs, longer than the monolingual
children: Jens produced almost no dactylic words, except for the 2;0 point. N ils’s first
target dactylic words were produced at 1;9 and Simon’s at 1;11; in all cases dactyls were
introduced in the children’s lexica some months later than in those of the monolinguals.
Whereas the monolingual children’s productive vocabularies contain some dactyls beginning at 1;7 or 1;8, bilingual children begin to attempt them not earlier than 1;11 or 2;0.
The rate of truncation for dactyls is rather low in the case of N ils, though, soon joining
the values of the monolingual G erman group.In the case of Simon, his truncation rate
also joints that of the monolinguals at point 2;0, and Jens, in fact, does not truncate
dactyls, although he exhibits very limited numbers of relevant utterances. To notice is
that truncation of dactyls exhibits some variation: N ils’and Simon’s values substantially
raise at 2;1 and 2;2, respectively, although they do not go beyond 50%. Two-feet production in Spanish as well as in G erman is comparable to that of the monolingual groups.
Interestingly, Jens, who generally produced few complex prosodic structures (very few
unfooted syllables and few dactyls), produces comparatively many two-feet utterances.
5 General Discussion
Summarizing our findings, we can say that the monolingual data have shown similar
results among the children within each language group, but clearly different results across
groups: Spanish children’s input contains higher numbers of iambs and amphibrachs,
and accordingly, such prosodic structures appear in their vocabularies earlier than in the
G erman children’s vocabularies. These target words with unfooted syllables are produced
targetlike relatively early, truncation ceasing to operate very soon in Spanish. This has been
interpreted as the effect of demotion of the constraint A LIGN (PW, L, F t, L) and PARSEs below M AX . G erman children have much more limited numbers of target words with
initial unfooted syllables in their vocabularies and they truncate these syllables more
persistently, showing that their grammars keep the latter constraint in a dominant position for a longer period of time.
What could be the explanation for this difference in the grammars of the two groups?
Spanish has a clear preference for penultimate stress, amounting to about 80% of the
Spanish vocabulary as opposed to ultimate and antepenultimate stress, which reach
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
307
together the remaining 20% (Sosa, 1999, p. 58f.). At the level of the PW, Spanish has very
large amounts of trisyllabic words with penultimate stress (paroxytones), whereas trisyllabic words with antepenultimate stress (proparixytones) are exceptional. This means that
the above mentioned constraint, A LIG N L EF T, which requires that the left side of the word
aligns with a foot, is not dominant in Spanish. This subordinate position of the A LIGN L EF T
constraint is also clear if we take into account the sequences of article plus noun. The Spanish
lexicon is full of nouns composed of trochees, that is, disyllables with the head to the left,
and these are richly represented in young children’s vocabularies. F urthermore, articles (especially definite articles) in Spanish have the prosodic status of proclitic syllables, and can
thus be analyzed as belonging to the PW. N ouns combine with articles very often, and
the combinations of an unfooted syllable plus a noun are numerous (see Lleó, 2001).
Young G erman children’s lexicons have few lexical items with initial unfooted syllables,
that is, iambs and paroxytone trisyllables or amphibrachs. This implies that violating the
A LIGN L EF T constraint does not lead to crucial progress at the level of the PW. On the other
hand, at the level of the N P, G erman prosodic structures are very different from the
Spanish ones: Articles constitute feet on their own in G erman (see Lleó, 1997, 2001; Lleó
& D emuth, 1999). Still more important than this is the fact that such a constraint is dominant in the adult grammar of G erman, as shown by stress assignment. Long words always
receive a secondary stress on the initial syllable (Alber, 1998), even at the cost of stressing
a light syllable followed by a heavy one, which thus remains unstressed, as in Dè.ter.mi.nís.mus
‘determinism’, Kà.lei.do.skóp ‘kaleidoscope’ or È.man.zi.pa.tión ‘emancipation’. As Alber
(1998) argues, this shows that a constraint like A LIG N (PW, L, F t, L) dominates WSP
(weight-to-stress principle), by which heavy syllables should be prominent, that is, bear
stress (Prince & Smolensky, 1993). On the other hand, the production of target words
constituted of two feet requires the demotion of the other alignment constraint, A LIG N
(F T , R , PW, R ). This constraint, so highly ranked in early grammars must be demoted in
both languages, G erman and Spanish, since both contain long words comprising two
feet. But the crucial fact is that at the level of the PW the need for its demotion is better
supported by the G erman than by the Spanish language. Target trisyllables are very
different in the two languages: If we disregard monomorphemic multisyllabic words,
which are not very numerous in the G erman children’s vocabularies, G erman multimorphemic trisyllables carry stress on the initial syllable, whereas most Spanish trisyllables
are of the W ’SW prosodic type, and they are monomorphemic. That is, the normal case in
Spanish multisyllables is paroxytone stress, and this implies alignment of the PW with the
head foot of the word to the right. In G erman multisyllabic compounds and derived
words (mainly derived verbs with a prefix) stress appears on the left margin, which requires
alignment of the PW with the head foot of the word to the left. In order to be able to produce
multisyllabic words in a fa ithful way (i.e., target-like) G erman children must demote
A LIGN (F t, R , PW, R ) and Spanish children must demote A LIGN (PW, L, F t, L).
Let us now turn to the bilingual results. The data presented in this paper show that
the prosodic structures of the early vocabularies of the three bilingual children are simpler
than those of the monolingual children, both in G erman and in Spanish. This is especially
the case for Jens and Simon. Some bilingual children appear to prefer disyllables, mainly
trochees, and monosyllables for a longer time than monolinguals. The introduction of
multisyllabic words in their vocabularies takes place later than in the vocabularies of monoThe International Journal of Bilingualism
308
C. Lleó
linguals; and their productions of multisyllabic words are characterized by truncation
(i.e., simplification) for a longer time span than the simplifications and truncations undertaken by monolinguals. This means that the prosodic structures of bilingual children
undergo a certain delay (to use Paradis & G enesee’s 1996 terminology), in the sense that
unmarked structures last longer and more complex structures are acquired later. This is
clearly the case for lexical items containing unfooted syllables in Spanish, such as iambs
and amphibrachic trisyllables: Their targetlike production experiences a few months of
delay. As F igure 2 shows, the level of negligible truncation, which is reached at 1;9 by the
monolingual group, is reached by the bilinguals a few months later, at 2;2 by N ils, and still
later by Simon; Jens reaches it at 2;1. On the other hand, in the case of dactylic productions, although they enter the children’s lexicons almost six months later, the children’s
utterances soon keep up with the amount of complexity of the monolingual children’s productions; that is, from the very moment of their introduction, they are produced with almost
the same low rate of truncation applied by the monolingual G erman children at that time
point, although with some noticeable fluctuations after that, in the case of N ils and
Simon. M oreover, in the production of two feet in G erman, there is no delay either within
complex words or at the level of prosodic phrases. In those cases in which there is delay,
this is overcome in a few months, so that at about the end of the second year of age, bilinguals reach the same level of acquisition as that of monolinguals.
It should be noticed that the comparison between the monolingual and bilingual data
has been made by matching the two groups of children on the basis of age. Another alternative might be to match them on the basis of M LU or certain other measurements (see
G enesee, N icoladis, & Paradis, 1995). A first approximation in terms of M LU shows that
there is no clear correspondence between this measurement, originally conceived for
comparing morphological and syntactic development, and prosodic development, at least
not in terms of the two phenomena we are observing here, unfooted syllables and twofeet productions. The data show that in fact for some children there is a closer correspondence
than for other children. Among the Spanish monolinguals, José has a fast prosodic
development, in the sense that he produces long words very soon: at 1;9 he only truncates 5% of unfooted syllables and produces many unfooted syllables (104 in one session),
although his M LU is hardly over 1,0, it only reaches 1,07 at the age of 1;9 and 1,2 at the
age of 1;10; a value over 2,0 is reached at the next month, 1;11. M iguel’s prosodic development in relation to unfooted syllables is relatively fast, too: he reaches the very low mark
of 2% of truncation at 1;10 and his productions contain many unfooted syllables (61 in
one session), his M LU reaching 1,81 at this age; but he exhibits an M LU higher than 2,0
at the age of 2;2 for the first time. M aría has a comparatively slower prosodic development. H er percentage of unfooted syllable truncation is finally reduced to 5% at 2;1, but
her M LU reaches only 1,53 at this age, reaching the mark over 2,0 at the age of 2;4. This
shows that there is no one to one correspondence between prosodic development and
M LU : in the case of José and M iguel, prosodic development reaches high values in spite
of a very limited M LU, for M aría, both developments seem to go slower hand in hand.
At most, it can be claimed that prosodic development and M LU are roughly correlated
in that the child with a slower prosodic development has lower M LU by two years. As far
as the G er man monolinguals, a substantial reduction of dactylic truncation (11%) is
reached by M arion at 2;0, although she only has an M LU of 1,34 and by Thomas at 1;11,
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
309
also with a relatively low M LU of 1,50. Bernd’s 11% truncation is reached later, at 2;2, at
which point his M LU is still very low, 1,16. Again, there is no close correspondence
between prosodic development and M LU, at most a rough correlation as above in that
the child with a slower prosodic development has the lowest M LU by two years. LópezOrnat (in press) has proposed number of syllables per utterance as a measurement of
development. Such a measurement is very much language-dependent, and it is not obvious
that it can be used in a crosslinguistic context. We should certainly try to discover other
measurements for matching children. In the mean time, though, given the lack of correspondence between standard measures, like M LU, and prosodic development, we will
consider a comparison on the basis of age as valid. N otice that in the comparison between
the monolinguals and the bilinguals it cannot be argued that the monolingual groups
comprise children, who develop, in general, at fa ster rates. Both monolingual groups
contain a mixture of faster and slower children. As mentioned above, one of the Spanish
monolinguals, M aría, and one the German monolinguals, Bernd, displayed slower prosodic
developments than the other children in their respective groups.
What is the explanation for the delay that takes place in certain areas? It should be
clear that our data do not show delay indiscriminately. In fact, in a study of coda production, which is an area in which G erman and Spanish monolingual children differ, Kehoe,
Trujillo & Lleó (2001) and Lleó, Kuchenbrandt, Kehoe, & Trujillo (submitted) have shown
that bilingual children have a higher rate of coda production in Spanish than Spanish
monolingual children do. In fact, those studies make clear that the rate of coda production in the Spanish of the bilinguals is very high and rather resembles the high rate of
German monolinguals. This can be interpreted as acceleration (in Paradis & G enesee’s, 1996
terminology) or as bilingual bootstrapping (in Tracy’s, 1995, and in G awlitzek-Maiwald
& Tracy, 1996). The most plausible explanation can be found in (a) the markedness of the
phenomenon and (b) the amount of positive evidence offered by the target language.
Those areas that are marked take generally longer to be acquired. N evertheless, if the
evidence in a target language is very strong, the child acquires that phenomenon, in spite
of its markedness, earlier than expected. This is the case as regards coda acquisition in
G erman.
It has been noticed by several authors (G rijzenhout & Joppen, 1999), that G erman
children produce coda consonants very early. The reason for this does not only lie in the
numerical richness of codas in G erman. Codas are used in the target language to comply
with foot and syllable binarity, that is, they often provide the necessary second unit (beside
the vowel) to complete the rhyme. G erman-Spanish bilinguals have access to a great
frequency of codas in G erman, to which the Spanish codas are added. The latter are not
so numerous, but they come to enlarge the total number. This has a beneficial effect from
G erman to Spanish, given the essential role of codas in the grammar of G erman, and no
negative effect in the other direction, that is, no negative influence of Spanish into G erman.
In the case of unfooted syllable production we have a different situation. At the
level of the PW, the initial level in child production, Spanish offers some positive data, in
the form of some iambs and trisyllables, but the evidence for them is not abundant, and
it is somewhat diluted, because in their G erman vocabulary there are few unfooted syllables. The positive evidence for them does not reach the threshold that would lead the
child to demoting A LIG N (PW, L, F t, L). F inally, in the case of two-feet productions, the
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310
C. Lleó
evidence is certainly very strong, because combinations of two feet into phrases are very
numerous, although they correspond to a later period, after the one-word stage. At the
lexical level, that is, the level of the PW, the need for having two feet is much more
compelling in G erman than in Spanish, which only offers a few quadrisyllabic nouns and
few oxytone and proparoxytone trisyllables. The introduction of dactyls in the children’s
G erman lexicons coincides with the introduction of two feet in the grammar of G erman,
and they enter the vocabulary later than the Spanish paroxytonic trisyllables, which are
present almost from the beginning.
Interestingly, Kehoe, Trujillo, & Lleó (2001) found another area in which a certain
delay tended to appear for most bilingual children: acquisition of VOT. It is well-known
that G erman voiced stops have a VOT value approaching null and voiceless stops have
positive values and aspiration, whereas Spanish voiceless stops have near null VOT values
and voiced stops are prevoiced. M ost G erman-Spanish bilinguals in that study needed a
longer time than monolinguals to make a voicing distinction, and their values tended to
cluster around null for a longer time, as well. This delay is parallel to the delay found here
as regards prosodic structures. Acquisition of marked or complex phenomena, as for
instance positive or negative VOT values, unfooted syllables, and so forth, requires sufficient quantitative evidence. Thus, marked phenomena that only appear in one of the
languages, and only in a limited fashion there, or phenomena scarcely represented in
either language are diluted in their quantitative strength, and they need more time to be
acquired by the bilingual child. As the child grows older, evidence becomes stronger and
there is a certain potentiation of the data of both languages, delay generally giving way
to a development indistinguishable from the monolingual one, as in the acquisition of twofeet structures.
In terms of the questions posed in the introduction about (a ) autonomy of the two
phonological systems and (b) possible phonological interactions between the phonoprosodic structures of the two lexicons, the answer is doubly positive. That is, both
languages develop autonomously, in a fashion parallel to that of the monolingual children
learning each respective language. The bilingual children reach a stage of their grammars, in which A LIG N R IG H T is demoted under M AX -IO for G erman and A LIG N L EF T is
demoted under M AX -IO for Spanish (later on, both will have to be demoted in both
languages, anyhow). But this process takes longer than in monolingual acquisition. This
means that there is an interaction between the two systems: Their Spanish productions
of complex prosodic structures reach the level of truncation more typical for G erman than
for Spanish children. On the other hand, this slight delay is very short: By the time twofeet words are introduced in their G erman lexica, these words are produced in a manner
hardly distinct from that of G erman monolinguals.
6 Conclusion
This paper has given empirical substance to claims that have previously been made on the
basis of a few examples. It has been shown that after the one-foot stage, Spanish monolingual children enlarge their lexicons and prosodic structures by introducing an unfooted
syllable before the single foot. G erman children, on the other hand, go over to the production of two feet, albeit a few months later. These different courses of development have been
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Complex prosodic structures in German and Spanish
311
analyzed by different grammars, that is, different constraint hierarchies. The difference
has been attributed to the evidence offered by the target languages, which also show an
outranking or a dominated position for the same constraints that children favor or demote
in their grammars, respectively. Bilingual data in this area of prosodic development has
shown a certain delay of a few months in overcoming the initial stage, that is, in enlarging
the first prosodic structures, especially as regards the production of unfooted syllables,
but not as regards two-feet productions. The reasons for this delay should be looked for
in the markedness of a certain phenomenon, such as unfooted syllables, as well as in a quantitative appraisal of the evidence offered by the target languages and in the structural role
of the phenomenon in the grammar of at least one of the languages. Bilingual children
develop the prosodic structures of their languages in a parallel fashion as monolingual
children do. N evertheless, the two developing languages interact, giving rise to acceleration and to delay. In case of the acquisition of marked phenomena, a certain delay can
take place, if the evidence of the bilingual’s other language does not positively contribute
to its acquisition.
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