Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

ISSN: 0269-9206 (Print) 1464-5076 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/iclp20

Tap and trill clusters in typical and protracted

phonological development: Conclusion

Barbara May Bernhardt & Joseph Paul Stemberger

To cite this article: Barbara May Bernhardt & Joseph Paul Stemberger (2017): Tap and trill
clusters in typical and protracted phonological development: Conclusion, Clinical Linguistics &
Phonetics, DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2017.1370496

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2017.1370496

Published online: 28 Sep 2017.

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 CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS
https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2017.1370496

Tap and trill clusters in typical and protracted phonological

development: Conclusion
Barbara May Bernhardta and Joseph Paul Stembergerb
a
School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; bDepartment
of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The current issue examined acquisition of challenging segments in Received 24 July 2017
complex contexts: Taps/trills in word-initial clusters, plus related targets Revised 18 August 2017
(/l/-clusters and singleton rhotics and /l/). Data were from preschool Accepted 18 August 2017
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children with typical versus protracted phonological development (PPD) KEYWORDS

in Iceland, Sweden (Germanic), Portugal, Spain/Chile (Romance), Crosslinguistic; European
Bulgaria, Slovenia (Slavic), and Hungary (Finno-Ugric). Results showed languages; phonological
developmental group and age effects. Clusters generally had lower acquisition; phonological
accuracy than singletons, although not uniformly, and were more accu- complexity; phonological
rate in stressed syllables. The rhotics were less advanced than alveolar /l/ development
except in European Portuguese, where the lateral is velarized. In early
development, the rhotic is often deleted, but in later, development
substitutions for rhotics were more common, primarily non-nasal cor-
onal sonorants, which match some of the place and manner features of
the rhotic. Vowel epenthesis sometimes appeared in rhotic clusters.
Children with PPD showed more varied mismatch patterns, including
more than one mismatch pattern within a cluster. Implications for
research and clinical practice are suggested.

Introduction
The papers in this issue addressed the acquisition of a challenging segment (rhotic tap or
trill) in a challenging context (word-initial [WI] clusters). Where relevant, data from
singleton tap/trill and the related liquid /l/ were also examined to provide a context for the
rhotic cluster development. The data were from a larger crosslinguistic investigation of
phonological development in preschoolers (Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2017). For this
issue, data were examined for 489 monolingual preschoolers from 7 countries: 350
typically developing (TD) children and 139 with protracted phonological development
(PPD). The objectives of this issue were not only to investigate similarities across lan-
guages and developmental groups in acquisition of rhotic clusters and related targets,
similarities that may arise due to constraints on complexity, but also to detect any
differences which might ensue because of differences among phonetic and prosodic
inventories across languages, and between participant groups (by age; status as TD/
PPD). The studies utilized a relatively standard methodology, allowing greater compar-
ability than has heretofore been possible for this specific area of acquisition. Using
standard word lists, native speakers collected high-quality digital audio-recordings of a
similar number and type of words across languages. Participant groups varied somewhat

CONTACT Barbara May Bernhardt bernharb@mail.ubc.ca School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of
British Columbia, 2177 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
 2 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

in number and type due to availability of participants but all were in the preschool age
range (see Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2017, introduction to this issue). For all but
Hungarian (Tár, 2017), the international research team for each language (including the
authors of this paper) developed conventions for phonetic transcription at an equivalent
level of narrowness per language, with supplementation of acoustic analysis as needed
(Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2012). The phonological analysis programme Phon (Rose and
MacWhinney, 2014) provided spreadsheets that served for data analysis using similar
procedures across languages.
At the outset of the project, a number of predictions were made concerning match
levels (accuracy) and mismatch (‘error’) patterns for participant and phonological
variables. In terms of participants, older children and TD groups were expected to
show more advanced development of the targets (higher accuracy, fewer mismatch
patterns). In terms of accuracy for prosodic variables, higher match levels were
expected for (a) timing unit match (simple presence of the cluster element timing
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slots) versus full segmental match; (b) structurally simple singletons compared with
structurally complex clusters (for both rhotics and laterals); (c) targets in prominent
stressed versus unstressed WI syllables and (d) short versus long words. In terms of
accuracy for segmental variables, the articulatorily more complex rhotics were expected
to be less developmentally advanced than the dental/alveolar /l/ (except for Portuguese,
where the lateral is velarized). Feature sequences in clusters were expected to show
some differences in relative advancement, although the prediction was not clear as to
which consonant feature sequences might be more advanced, e.g. in terms of place
features, those starting with labials (e.g. /pr/) versus those starting with coronals (e.g.
/dr/) or dorsals (e.g. /kr/).
Relative to mismatches, more pervasive patterns (e.g. deletion) were expected in
early development, and more feature-changing (substitution) patterns in later devel-
opment. In terms of structural mismatches, C2 Deletion (i.e. of the liquid) was
predicted to be more likely in earlier development (avoidance of the most challenging
segment). However, C1 Deletion was also considered possible, depending on its
relative mastery level and/or relative strength as an obstruent, especially in languages
like Spanish and Icelandic where the voiced fricatives are approximant-like, i.e. have
reversed sonority. Structural patterns such as coalescence, metathesis/migration, sylla-
ble deletion and full cluster deletion were expected to occur at low-frequency levels
based on previous reports. Because of timing challenges for production of rhotic
clusters (see Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2017, introduction to this issue), vowel
epenthesis or consonant lengthening/shortening was also expected, especially as the
rhotic became pronounceable. Finally, for early developing systems (younger children,
children with PPD), it was expected that multiple mismatches might happen within a
cluster (e.g. C1 Substitution plus C2 Deletion etc.).

Overall patterns: Match data

Table 1 summarizes key findings for the seven studies according to predictions concerning
accuracy (match) levels.
An asterisk indicates a statistically significant finding (with more detail given in the
individual papers); parentheses indicate a non-significant trend; and ‘No’ indicates a
 Downloaded by [University of Essex] at 09:36 29 September 2017

Table 1. Predictions and results across languages.

C > CC
Short > long
Language (age) Older > younger TD > PPD TUM > FM ‘rʼ l l > ‘rʼ Stressed > unstressed words
Icelandic (3,4) *PPD /l/, Cl ([C]r); (TD) *All but /l/, 4 years *PPD Cr (TD) No *PPD 4 years *
(other)
Swedish (4) * (Yes) (TD) *PPD (TD) *PPD
Portuguese (Eur: 3–5) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) *Cɾ > Cl 5 years (Yes, TD) *5 years
(other)
Spanish
Chile (1;6–2;8) (Yes) (Yes) CC > C (Yes) (Yes)
Chile (3–5) *Cr, r (Yes) CC > C (Yes) * *TUM, TD (Yes: other)
Granada (3–5) *r: PPD * (Yes) *CC < > C * * *TUM, PPD
*Overall: TD (Yes: other)
*Unstressed: TD
Bulgarian (3–5) *PPD 3 vs. 5 years * (Yes) No (TUM, PPD)
(other) (TD)
Slovenian (4) All but single/l/ (Yes) (TD, yes) (Yes) (PPD) (TD – full) (TD)
Hungarian (3–5) *Cr (r, l: TD) * *TD 3 years (4,5) *TD 3, 4 (5) *TD
*Cr TUM PPD (l) *PPD 3,4 years PPD (yes) *PPD 4 years
(PPD 3,5)
Note: TD = typically developing; PPD = protracted phonological development; TUM = Timing Unit Match; FM = full match.
CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS
3
 4 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

finding contrary to expectation; and a dotted cell indicates that this analysis was not done
for the language. A brief perusal of the table shows only two ‘No’sʼ, and about equal
proportions of significant findings and trends for all variables.

Participant variables
The strongest variable in the studies was developmental group. The TD children were almost
uniformly more advanced than the corresponding group with PPD; only /l/ targets in
Slovenian (Ozbič et al., 2017) and Icelandic (Másdóttir, 2017) showed equivalency, due to
the earlier acquisition of the lateral. TD children had achieved or were approaching mastery of
(light, non-velarized) /l/, and the older children with PPD were catching up. TD children were
still developing /r/ but were fairly advanced, while the children with PPD had barely begun.
The strength of this participant variable confirms the original classification of TD or PPD,
which was at least in part based on Whole Word Match (WWM) and Percent Consonant
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Match (PCM) for each child (see Bernhardt and Stemberger, 2017 and ‘Clinical Implicationsʼ
at the end of this article.). It also shows that even ‘late-acquiredʼ segments can differentiate
between TD and PPD groups.
A developmental age effect was also expected (except for Swedish [Lundeborg
Hammarström, 2017] and Slovenian [Ozbič et al., 2017], which reported in this study
only on 4-year olds). However, ceiling and floor effects were also expected; in the
former case, the youngest age group may have mastered the targets; in the latter, the
oldest age group may not have mastered the targets. The data did show increasing
mastery by age; however, not all comparisons were statistically significant (Table 1).
Age-related differences were especially apparent in the PPD groups, where the
youngest group showed low match levels and the oldest group showed developing
mastery. Even the youngest TD children were more advanced than the children with
PPD, making for smaller differences across the age range sampled, which missed
significance due to ceiling effects. Másdóttir (2017) notes for her Icelandic data from
3- and 4-year olds that increases in accuracy may not have been statistically sig-
nificant because major advancements for rhotics might occur later (e.g. at age 5): A
floor effect. Appearing to support this suggestion are the data from Chilean Spanish
(Perez et al., 2017), where the greatest difference in accuracy was between 3- and 5-
year olds. However, in Granada Spanish, the greatest advancement in phonological
development occurred between age of 3 and 4 years. As Perez et al. suggest, where
there are small samples within age group (in this case, generally 10 children per
group), individual differences can have a relatively strong effect. If the 4-year-old
data from Chile and Granada were pooled, developmental changes in Spanish from 3
to 5 years would have had a more linear progression (see the ‘Implications for future
researchʼ section).

Word structure variables

In accordance with a non-linear phonological framework (as in Bernhardt and
Stemberger, 1998), data were examined both in terms of word structure and in terms of
segments/features. Word structure variables examined included prominence (stress), tim-
ing units, and complexity (cluster vs. singleton).
 CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 5

Word stress (and length)

For four of the languages with both left-prominent word stress (WI syllable stress, left-
headed foot) and other stress patterns (centre-prominent, right-prominent), match
data were contrasted in the initial stressed versus unstressed syllable. Icelandic and
Hungarian were excluded because stress is only WI in those languages; Swedish was
excluded due to the insufficient numbers of targets for comparison. In all of the
languages in this issue with variable stress placement, stress-initial words are more
frequent than words with initial unstressed syllables. Data were expected to show
higher match levels in the WI stressed syllables because of the frequency or promi-
nence or both. This prediction was generally confirmed for each of the languages
tested (Table 1), most consistently for timing unit match; i.e. the child produced a
cluster but did not necessarily match the segmental content. Only Spanish showed
statistically significant differences (timing unit match: Perez et al., 2017). That stress
differences were more likely to appear relative to timing unit match probably reflects
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the pattern of early deletion reducing the level of timing unit match (see Mismatches),
deletion being more common in unstressed syllables. One limitation is that the stimuli
for this comparison were not balanced numerically (as noted above for Swedish);
because the elicitation wordlists reflected frequency in the languages, there were
more left-prominent words in each sample (see the ‘Implications for future researchʼ
section).
Related to the variable of word stress is the actual length of the word. Only one paper
systematically examined word length as a variable relative to accuracy (Ramalho and
Freitas, European Portuguese, 2017) with significant differences between shorter and
longer words noted at age 5. Theories of language processing may explain why clusters
would be more easily mastered in shorter words; in short words, fewer resources are
required at one level of production, thus enabling complexity at another level (see Mason,
2015; “Implications for future research” section).

Timing units
Moving down the phonological hierarchy from the foot level, cluster data were also examined
in terms of timing unit match (i.e. in terms of cluster slots, ignoring segmental content).
Phonological development proceeds across multiple parameters of the phonological hierar-
chy simultaneously; de facto, clusters require segments. However, faithfulness to the cluster
as a structural unit does not require faithfulness to the particular segments within the cluster
(of course, if the child’s segments match the targets, then timing units also match). If a target
cluster shows deletion, epenthesis or a match, then timing unit match and full segmental
match will be the same; if one or more of the cluster segments show substitution, then timing
unit match will be greater than full segmental match. Timing unit match was generally in
advance of full segmental match, although this was often more of a trend than a statistically
significant finding. The difference between timing unit match and full segmental match in
singleton onset consonants is usually minimal, because deletion of such consonants is
uncommon. In clusters, the difference is usually small early on (because deletion is the
most common type of mismatch, reducing both Timing Unit and Full Segmental accuracy)
and again late in development (as everything approaches mastery). The difference is notable
only in between, as deletion gives way to substitution. A presupposition here is that during
early and intermediate periods, timing unit match will be greater for singleton Cs than for CC
 6 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

clusters. This analysis was not done specifically in terms of timing unit match, but the data
indeed often showed low timing unit match for CC in early phases of development, while
singleton Cs showed high timing unit match.
Another aspect of timing relates to epenthesis, where an extra segment is present
between the two target consonants. Some studies observed an increasing amount of
epenthesis as children became capable of using a tap or trill (e.g. Spanish, Hungarian).
We discuss this further below under Mismatches: Structure.

Full segmental match

CC versus C: Full segmental match
Full segmental match for liquids was expected to be higher for singleton rhotics than
rhotics in the structurally more complex clusters. This pattern was observed, but with
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many exceptions. There appeared to be language-specific effects, possibly reflecting the

type of rhotic in the language (tap versus trill). For example, in Spanish, tap and trill
contrast as singletons word medially, but only taps occur in clusters and only trills
occur word initially as singletons. When we compared Spanish WI ‘rʼ as singletons
versus in clusters, we were comparing trills (singletons) versus taps (clusters). In the
Spanish samples, there was a trend towards earlier mastery of the rhotic in the cluster
(a tap) than as a singleton (a trill). Perhaps the ‘rʼ was more advanced in the cluster
context because the tap was more advanced than the trill, and any effect of syllabic
complexity was masked. In contrast, Spanish /l/ singletons were in advance of the /l/
clusters (Perez et al., 2017), as predicted by syllabic complexity. Unlike Spanish, the
other languages addressed in this issue have similar phonetics for /r/ as singletons and
in clusters (always trills, or some variability between taps and trills). The data from
Hungarian (Tár, 2017), Slovenian (Ozbič et al., 2017) and Swedish (Lundeborg
Hammarström, 2017) showed differences favouring the singleton rhotic versus rhotic
clusters, in accordance with an effect of structural complexity. However, no differences
(even non-significant ones) were observed between /r/ as singletons versus in clusters
for Icelandic (Másdóttir, 2017) and Bulgarian (Ignatova, Bernhardt, Marinova-Todd
and Stemberger, 2017). Thus, the data are somewhat contradictory, and the reason is
not entirely clear. We cannot rule out the possibility that the /r/ is articulated in subtly
different ways in different languages and that those subtle differences lead to interac-
tions with structural complexity (see the ‘Implications for future researchʼ section).

Segmental variables: Rhotic versus lateral

In the liquid category, /l/ was expected to be developmentally advanced relative to the
rhotics in languages with the dental/alveolar ‘light’ /l/. This prediction was confirmed,
showing statistically significant differences for most languages (although sometimes only
for a specific developmental or age-related group); ceiling and floor effects undoubtedly
precluded differences in some comparisons. In contrast, advancement of /l/ was not
expected for European Portuguese, which has a much more complex, heavily velarized
‘darkʼ /l/ and this expectation was confirmed.
 CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 7

Segmental variables: Place of articulation and CC match

Predictions concerning the actual feature sequences within clusters were only tentative. In
terms of place of articulation, it was not clear whether clusters starting with labials versus
those starting with lingual consonants (particularly other coronals) might be earlier
acquired. Similarly, whether clusters with voiced or voiceless onsets would be earlier
was not clear. Frequency of the various consonants in the language or the individual
child’s constraints (whether it is easier to produce a sequence with the same or different
places of articulation or voicing) might affect the outcome. Data were examined qualita-
tively in this regard in the Spanish and Slovenian papers, with some suggestion that there
was earlier mastery of clusters beginning with labials or with (Slovenian only) voiced
obstruents. However, this result was not uniform and interacted with whether the target
was in a stressed or unstressed syllable (see the ‘Implications for future researchʼ section).
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Mismatch patterns
A second major analysis in the studies involved mismatch patterns for the rhotics. In this
section, we comment on the major patterns observed across languages, starting with the
patterns affecting word structure, and then looking at substitutions for the rhotics.

Word structure mismatch patterns

In acquisition, deletion often resolves complexity in cluster (Bernhardt and Stemberger,
1998), and consonant deletion in clusters was observed in every paper in this issue. The
most extreme deletion patterns (deleting the whole syllable or the whole consonant
cluster) were rare, as predicted, occurring almost entirely with the youngest TD children
and with children in the PPD groups (e.g. Spanish PPD, Perez et al., 2017). Other complex
patterns involving movement or merging of features (coalescence and migration/metath-
esis) were also relatively uncommon. C2 Deletion was the most frequent structural
mismatch pattern, especially in the younger TD children and children with PPD. For
Portuguese TD children, C2 Deletion was the predominant pattern, still present at age
5 years at the same level as epenthesis (9–10% of total targets). C1 Deletion did occur
across languages, however, especially in cases of reversed sonority, e.g. Spanish ‘br, dr, grʼ
[β̞ ɾ, ð̞ ɾ, ɣ̞ ɾ]. This suggests that strong onsets are ‘preferred’, and in the latter case, the rhotic
in C2 position is the ‘stronger’ onset (and not the approximant in C1 position). In
phonology, there is a tendency for sonority to be greatest at the syllable peak, with a
tendency for decreasing sonority as the segments move away from the peak. Stemberger
and Bernhardt (2017) note that this preference is not necessarily based on global seg-
mental sonority per se but might reflect a preference for individual features that lead to a
closed vocal tract. See also the papers in Yavaş (2014) for evidence that it is not always
sonority that drives the reduction of initial clusters.
As noted, epenthesis is another way to resolve syllabic complexity: An impossible
complex onset is simply split into two simple onsets: e.g. /bre/ as [bere] or [bəre]. But
vowel-like elements may appear in clusters for reasons that are more articulatory-phonetic
than phonological. Many languages show vowel-like elements in clusters in adult speech,
e.g. Swedish gris /gris/ ‘pig’ [gᵊriːs]; these elements are short and are generally not
transcribed. With C-/r/ clusters, a vowel-like element can be expected to arise naturally
as a consequence of articulation. A trill or an aerodynamic tap engages an aerodynamic
 8 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

mechanism (the Bernoulli effect), which requires a minimal speed for airflow. In a cluster
such as /pr/, the airflow at the end of the stop is zero and takes time to build up; during
that time, there will be a short vowel-like element. In addition, the trill requires a very
specific tongue shape for trilling to occur, and if a speaker takes time to create this tongue
shape, there will be a short vowel-like element. One could argue that short transitional
vowel-like elements could even be used by listeners as a cue for C/r/ clusters. But how
short does such an element have to be to qualify as a transitional element rather than as
part of the articulatory target for the word? Tár (2017) notes that adult Hungarian has a
high frequency of such elements, which may be up to 70 ms in duration but are most
commonly below 40 ms. She suggests that vowel-like elements longer than 70 ms should
be considered true epenthetic vowels and that these are relatively infrequent. But we do
not know for sure whether these are long enough to constitute true epenthetic vowels in
adult speech. Epenthesis was infrequent in the other languages, but perhaps this is because
very short vowel-like elements were not always perceived as epenthesis by the native-
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speaker transcribers. In Icelandic and Hungarian, the tokens taken to have true vowel
epenthesis show an interesting interaction with stress: The epenthetic vowel is unstressed,
with stress on the second syllable in the child pronunciation, even though all words in
adult Icelandic and Hungarian have stress on the first syllable of the word. This shows that
the adult restriction on stress is being ignored (or, alternatively, that stress stays with the
vowel on which it is placed in adult speech), which is quite interesting, or could be taken
as evidence that this is not a phonological epenthesis of a true vowel. Several papers show
effects of age that suggest that the child’s epenthesis is not due solely to matching
‘epenthesisʼ in adult speech. For Bulgarian TD children (Ignatova et al., 2017), the
proportion of epenthesis was highest at age 3 and decreased notably by ages 4 and 5 as
children became more capable of trill production; the decrease with age suggests that the
epenthesis is not (entirely) a matching of (transitional) epenthetic elements in adult
speech but is consistent with overuse of a particular adult variant that simplifies articula-
tion. In Spanish, epenthesis increased by age 5, as more taps appeared in clusters,
suggesting that it had more to do with the child’s articulation than with its occurrence
in adult speech. Clearly, additional research is needed, particularly with careful measure-
ment of duration of vowel-like elements in both child and adult speech, and careful
consideration of quantitative properties of the phenomenon at all ages (see also
Simonsen et al., 2015 comparing epenthesis in clusters in English and Norwegian).

Segmental mismatch patterns: Substitutions

When there is timing unit match but not a full segmental match, one or both of the target
consonants show substitutions. The most prevalent type of ‘substitution’ was predicted to
be a related segment in the language, e.g. tap for trill or trill for tap, or [l] or [j] for either,
with survival of the key features by manner ([+sonorant], [−nasal]), voicing ([+voiced])
and place of articulation ([Coronal]). Across languages, these were in fact the most
common substitutions, with some exceptions and variation between TD and PPD groups.
Each of the languages has detailed tables and/or figures devoted to substitutions in
clusters and where relevant, singleton rhotics (and for the Spanish toddlers, for the /l/:
Perez et al., 2017). Readers are directed to those individual papers. In summary, across
languages, coronals (primarily sonorants) were the most frequent substitutions as
expected: Liquid [l] and approximant [j] were fairly equivalent in frequency across
 CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 9

languages, one or the other being most frequent (and the other second) depending on the
language. Other rhotics also appeared (Slovenian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Icelandic), as did
voiced stop [d] (Spanish) and approximant [ð̞ ] (Icelandic and Spanish, both languages
with [ð̞ ] in the adult inventory). Least common substitutions included a variety of
fricatives, other glides, stops and nasals, not always at the same place of articulation or
with voicing.
Languages and participant groups differed relative to the most common substitution(s)
as follows:

(1) [j] most common, [l] next most common: Spanish toddlers and young preschoolers
with PPD, Hungarian PPD; Swedish 4-year olds. For Swedish, TD children only
showed [j] as a substitution, whereas the group with PPD showed [j] but less
frequently, also [l].
(2) [l] most common, [j] next: Spanish older children, children with PPD (clusters);
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Hungarian TD.
(3) [l] most common, [ɹ] next: Slovenian PPD.
(4) [l] most common, [ɾ] next, then [d] for singleton trill: Granada Spanish.
(5) [l] most common (two tokens), then [n], [ʃ] (one token each): European
Portuguese.
(6) Other rhotics most common, [l] next: Slovenian TD ([ɹ]); Bulgarian (tap, uvular
fricative or trill or approximant [ɹ], the latter only for TD children, and only in
clusters).
(7) Other rhotics most common, then non-rhotic approximants (including [j] and
vowels): Bulgarian PPD.
(8) [ð̞ ] most common, [l] next: Icelandic – TD singleton trill; PPD in clusters; somewhat
frequent, Spanish.
(9) Other frequent substitutions: [d] for singleton trill – most frequent, Chilean Spanish; [h],
[t], [ʝ] also in Chilean Spanish; lateral tap (Spanish, Bulgarian); variety of stops, fricatives,
nasals, especially in PPD groups in Spanish, Slovenian, Icelandic.

There are two general expectations about substitutions. First, the substitution will likely
be similar to the target speech sound, with similar articulation and/or similar phonological
feature. Second, there is a bias for the substituted segment to appear independently in the
adult segmental inventory, because such segments must be learned by the child at some
point and can then serve as attractors for unmastered target segments; however, segments
from outside the adult inventory can also occur. In feature terms, the most similar
segment to [r] and [ɾ] is [l], another liquid (and therefore sonorant and non-nasal) with
a similar anterior coronal place of articulation, but with a different tongue shape (lateral).
The next most similar segment is a non-nasal sonorant with central airflow (non-lateral
tongue shape), but with a lower tongue tip and too wide an aperture to lead to a true
consonant, i.e. the approximant [ð̞ ]. The approximant [ð̞ ] appears in adult Icelandic and
Spanish, but not in the other languages addressed in this issue. If the tongue tip is slightly
retracted, the approximant [ɹ] results but is not in the adult inventories of these languages
(except perhaps as an uncommon variant or /r/ in Icelandic and Hungarian). If the tongue
tip is lowered but the tongue body remains high, the approximant [j] results, considered a
non-anterior coronal in phonological theory. Other alternative substitutions such as the
 10 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

stop [d] or the fricative [z] or the glottal [h] all have a much lower degree of similarity or
involve much greater changes in airflow. In all the languages addressed in this vowel, the
most substitutions for /r/ and /ɾ/ were [l] or one of the coronal approximants. It is easy to
explain variability across children in terms of which of these similar segments is used as
the substitute for the rhotic: Different children match different characteristics/features of
the target sound. It is more challenging to explain if children in different groups differ
from each other: If children learning different languages tend to have different substitu-
tions, or if there are differences between TD and PPD children or children of different
ages. We can identify factors that might explain some of the differences that we observe in
the different papers in this issue, but the reasons underlying some of the variation is
unclear.
Why do children in some languages prefer the lateral [l] over approximants as a
substitute for the rhotic? Factors such as phoneme frequency are unlikely to be important,
because /l/ is more frequent than [j] in all of these languages, and so we would not predict
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variation between languages on that basis. One could argue that the lateral, as another
liquid, is more similar and so is a more advanced substitution. This would explain why
Hungarian TD children prefer [l] more strongly than Hungarian children with PPD; but
we find the opposite for Swedish. The adult Icelandic inventory includes the approximant
[ð̞ ], which is arguably at least as similar as [l]. The preference for [j] in Swedish could
potentially be phonological. In a sequence of /r/ followed by a dental consonant, the two
consonants coalesce into a retroflex consonant (e.g. Eliasson, 1986): Diachronically in
words such as bord ‘table’ [buːɖ], synchronically in phrases such as ser du ‘do you see’
[seːɖʉː]. This has led to the standard assumption that /r/ is [-anterior] in Swedish, despite
being alveolar, a characteristic which it shares with the [-anterior] /j/ but not with the
[+anterior] [l]. But perhaps /r/ is [+anterior] in some of the other languages. Indeed, if we
were to hypothesize that the position of the tongue tip varies slightly between adult
languages, we might predict variation between [-anterior] and [+anterior] across lan-
guages, correlating with different substitutions. A slightly more anterior articulation might
lead to a preference for [l] and [ð̞ ]; a slightly more retracted articulation might lead to a
preference for [j] and [ɹ]. This is of course speculative and requires additional research in
comparative phonetics. There are also hints of differences between languages in terms of
the use of other rhotics that do not appear in the adult inventory, such as uvulars in
Slovenian and epiglottal trills in Icelandic, and it is not clear why languages would differ in
this way. For the moment, we must conclude that further research is needed to explain the
variability that we have observed across languages.
Another factor that could influence substitutions is whether they abide by restrictions
in the adult phonotactics. The expectation would be a bias towards substitutions that
occur in the same environment in adult speech, because children have to learn such
outputs in that environment independently, and a bias against substitutions that may not
appear in that environment, which as novel for the child’s speech. This has never been
investigated, but we do know that adult phonotactics can be violated, because English-
learning children frequently produce [bw] for /br/ in words such as break /bɹeɪk/ [bweɪt]
even though sequences such as /bw/ basically do not occur in adult English (e.g.
Hammond, 1999; Smit, 1993). A common theme in the papers in this issue is that the
dominant substitution led to violations of adult phonotactic restrictions, with sequences
such as [pð̞ ] in Icelandic, [dj] in Swedish and [tl] in Hungarian. It is very clear that adult
 CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 11

phonotactic restrictions have a particularly strong effect on substitutions in clusters,

although there could potentially be more subtle effects that were not investigated in the
papers in this issue (e.g. that sequences that violate adult phonotactic restrictions are
slightly less frequent than sequences that occur in adult words). Usage-based grammar
(e.g. Sosa and Bybee, 2008) hypothesizes that child phonological substitutions occur when
the motor system does not have a stored (precompiled) syllable corresponding to the
target syllable, and some other similar syllable is produced instead; this predicts a strong
(possibly even an absolute) bias towards existing syllables. The data reported in the papers
in this issue are a challenge for usage-based grammar accounts of phonological develop-
ment. Exemplar-based approaches to acquisition have also emphasized the role of statis-
tical support in the adult language for child outputs (e.g. Edwards, Beckman, and Munson,
2015), and such approaches may also find the results in this issue difficult to explain.
Making sense of all the results is challenging. Variation across children is expected. When
that variation is statistically constrained within a given language so that one substitution is
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statistically more likely in the speech of children learning one language more than for children
learning another language, explanations are more difficult to find. Further research, including
in the phonetics of /r/ in different adult languages, is clearly needed.

Conclusion
Implications for future research
While this issue represents the most comprehensive study of rhotic cluster acquisition for
languages with tap or trill to date, the data leave as many questions as answers. One major
lack is knowledge about the adult languages in terms of phoneme frequency, word
frequency in language used with children, dialectal influences, acceptability of pronuncia-
tions as matches/mismatches, relevance of timing differences (epenthesis?) in trill or tap
clusters, phonetic realizations of trills (numbers of acceptable iterations) etc. Research on
child phonological acquisition needs more information about the adult languages, not just
about the phonology and phonetics (including acoustic data), but phoneme and lexical
frequency, dialect differences, speech to children etc.
Second, the studies in this issue were not conducted with this particular set of questions
in mind. Data were collected for the entire phonological system. While this has enabled us
to use the data for a variety of studies, there were insufficient data for certain statistical
analyses in the current papers, e.g. in comparisons of stressed versus unstressed contexts,
word lengths, different feature sequences and singletons versus trill contexts. The studies
included data from 489 children, but when those data sets were divided up by age across
seven languages, the data for any given group were still relatively sparse. Not all studies
could include both TD and PPD groups, or all age groups. Further research is needed with
both younger and older age and developmental groups.

Clinical implications
The studies in this issue provide information about match levels and mismatch patterns
for seven languages. All studies showed differences between children with TD versus PPD.
In terms of assessment, the data confirm that a low WWM and PCM can also predict
 12 B. M. BERNHARDT AND J. P. STEMBERGER

match levels with challenging targets such as rhotics and laterals. Another observation was
made relative to early developmental patterns and especially in children with PPD, i.e.
presence of more than one mismatch pattern per word, e.g. C1 Substitution plus C2
Deletion or the reverse. Such patterns may also be indicative of phonological difficulty in
children older than 3 years. The data serve as a basis for clinical assessment and treatment
planning.
For further clinical application, readers are encouraged to visit the website phonodevelopment.
sites.olt.ubc.ca for word lists, test materials, analysis procedures (tutorials and protocols) and
activity ideas for intervention planning in a variety of languages, including those for this issue.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge all the partners in the various countries for their collabora-
tion in this crosslinguistic study and all of the many research assistants at the University of British
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Columbia and elsewhere. Most of all, we thank the children and their families for their
participation.

Declaration of interest
The authors of this paper are the leaders of the crosslinguistic project and have read and com-
mented on the papers in the issue prior to their review process. There are no financial conflicts of
interest.

Funding
This research was conducted according to the following grants from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, for which we are very grateful: 410-2009-0348;
611-2012-0164.

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