Early Development of Syllable Structure in French

ABSTRACT Cross-linguistic studies describing the syllabic structures of babbling productions agree on the high prevalence of the CV structure, but few have addressed the other types of syllables emerging during this pre-linguistic stage. However, studying the evolution of the distribution of syllabic structures during babbling would make it possible to test both the influence of motor constraints and the influence of the perceptually based patterns from the infant’s language environmental input on the production of early syllables. A monthly follow-up of 22 French infants from 8 to 14 months showed that the distribution CV>V> CCV>CVC>VC was shared by the majority of infants in the sample and remained the same throughout the observation period. The comparison of the frequencies of the structures observed with those attested in adult-French and in 4 other languages (Dutch, Korean, Moroccan Arabic and Tunisian Arabic) revealed significant differences between all adult samples and infant productions. The results have implications for understanding the nature of factors impacting syllable production at the babbling stage. We discuss the possibility that the target language does not affect the production of babbled syllables.