The acquisition of fricatives and affricates by Mosuli children between 2 and 5 years

Abstract EN

Abstract The present study deals with the acquisition of fricatives and affricates by Mosuli children of the age 2-5 years old.

It describes the way in which these sounds are acquired by those children.

So, 48 children were needed for this study.

They were divided into two age groups.

Each group contained 24 children.

A group of pictures were presented for the children to test their pronunciations of fricatives and affricates.

Their speech has been recorded and analysed.

It is found that, the acquisition of these sounds was gradual and that children do not acquire fricatives and affricates at the same rate.

The children used many phonological processes throughout the process of acquisition to simplify their speech, such as: assimilation, deletion and substitution.

The study has shown that the earliest fricative sounds to be acquired was /f/ and / ʕ/ followed by the palato alveolar /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/; the alveolars /s/, /ṣ/, /z/, /r/, the glottal /h/ and the uvular /ɤ/ with /θ/, /ð/, ð/ and /x/ being the most difficult