Speech error elicitation and co-occurrence restrictions in two Ethiopian Semitic languages.

This article reports the results of speech error elicitation experiments investigating the role of two consonant co-occurrence restrictions in the productive grammar of speakers of two Ethiopian Semitic languages, Amharic and Chaha. Higher error rates were found with consonant combinations that viol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language & Speech Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 451 - 505
Main Authors: Rose S, King L
Format: research tables/charts Journal Article
Published: Sage Publications Inc. Dec2007
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:This article reports the results of speech error elicitation experiments investigating the role of two consonant co-occurrence restrictions in the productive grammar of speakers of two Ethiopian Semitic languages, Amharic and Chaha. Higher error rates were found with consonant combinations that violated co-occurrence constraints than with those that had only a high degree of shared phonological similarity or low frequency of co-occurrence. Sequences that violated two constraints had the highest error rates. The results indicate that violations of consonant co-occurrence restrictions significantly increase error rates in the productions of native speakers, thereby supporting the psychological reality of the constraints.