Infant labial, apical and velar stop productions: a voice onset time analysis

Initial prevocalic labial, apical and velar stops, as produced by eight 9- to 12-month-old Swiss-German infants, were examined spectrographically for voice onset time (VOT). Results indicate that VOTs for each place of articulation cluster in the 0- to + 30-ms voicing lag range. Comparisons of the present infant data with available results from adult Swiss-German stop productions show the VOT distributions to be very similar. The present infant data for apical stops are also compared with available data from 122-month-old American-English and Lebanese-Arabic infants. Since all three infant populations show similar VOT distributions, one might conclude that the forces of nature rather than nurture determine manner of infant apical stop production.