The acquisition of plain-emphatic consonant contrasts by Arabic-speaking children: an acoustic study

Arabic emphatic consonants are claimed to be late-acquired, likely due to their motoric complexity, involving both coronal and pharyngeal/uvular constrictions. Children's production has largely been studied using impressionistic data, with limited acoustic analysis. This study acoustically examines the acquisition of emphatic consonants in Saudi-Hijazi Arabic-speaking children aged 3-6 years. Thirty-eight children performed a real-word repetition task, after which consonantal and vocalic cues to the plain-emphatic contrast were measured. Results show that children produce both types of acoustic cues, with an age-related increase in the acoustic contrast and an overall alignment with adult patterns. Larger acoustic contrasts were found in vowels preceding rather than following consonants in word-medial positions, with no evidence for a difference between word-initial and word-final positions. The plain-emphatic contrast was greater for stops than fricatives and larger for female than male children. These findings are discussed in relation to the development of coarticulated consonants.