Acquisition of velars: A whole-word approach

This study focuses on the acquisition of velars in a child, Max, aged 1;09-4;08, with protracted phonological development, possibly as a result of his diverse input conditions: he is an internationally adopted child who produces his first words shortly after exposure to English at 1;09. Max's acquisition of velars is characterised by U-shaped development as well as by a positional velar-fronting process, in which velars are realised consistently in prosodically-weak but inconsistently in prosodically-strong positions. In prosodically-strong positions, they are conditioned by vowel quality, voicing, the place-of-articulation of the post-vocalic consonant and whether they are part of an obstruent-sonorant cluster. The study aims to account for Max's U-shaped pattern of development, his positional velar fronting process and his partial realisation of prosodically-strong velars appealing to generative and usage-based approaches of phonological development.