Disfluent speech and aquisition. V’s data.

Abstract

This article proposes to analyze some disfluence data of a subject, V, between 2 and 3 years of age, to verify the hypothesis that disfluent parts of the statement are not random from the prosodic point of view, nor are they opposed to the speech dynamics. Morphological reanalysis data, short pauses in falso starts and declination of F⁰ were also observed and compared with those of adult speech samples. The results show that the disfluent stretches of utterances tend to occur outside the syllables with phrasal accent. The child's speech does not exhibit F⁰ declination in successive repetitions and resorts to the use of filling sounds and syllables. The conclusion is that childhood disfluencies attest to the acquisition of the prosodic structure of the utterance, in a phase of greater syntagmatic complexity and greater enunciative-discursive demand in the child's speech. It is recommended that the concept of physiological stuttering be better understood.