Phonological words and stuttering on function words

Abstract

Stuttering on function words was examined in 51 people who stutter. The people who stutter were subdivided into young (2 to 6 years), middle (6 to 9 years), and older (9 to 12 years) child groups; teenagers (13 to 18 years); and adults (20 to 40 years). As reported by previous researchers, children up to about age 9 stuttered more on function words (pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs), whereas older people tended to stutter more on content words (nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives). Function words in early positions in utterances, again as reported elsewhere, were more likely to be stuttered than function words at later positions in an utterance. This was most apparent for the younger groups of speakers. For the remaining analyses, utterances were segmented into phonological words on the basis of Selkirk's work (1984). Stuttering rate was higher when function words occurred in early phonological word positions than other phonological word positions whether the phonological word appeared in initial position in an utterance or not. Stuttering rate was highly dependent on whether the function word occurred before or after the single content word allowed in Selkirk's (1984) phonological words. This applied, once again, whether the phonological word was utterance-initial or not. It is argued that stuttering of function words before their content word in phonological words in young speakers is used as a delaying tactic when the forthcoming content word is not prepared for articulation.

Figure 1

The mean normalized scores for stuttering rates of content words across utterance positions for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).

Figure 2

The mean normalized scores for stuttering rates of function words across utterance positions for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).

Figure 3

The means of normalized scores for stuttering rates of function words across word positions within utterance-initial phonological words for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).

Figure 4

The means of normalized scores for stuttering rates of function words across word positions within utterance non-initial phonological words for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).

Figure 5

Percentage of stuttering of function words in utterance-initial phonological words distributed according to pre- or post-content words for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).

Figure 6

Percentage of stuttering of function words in utterance non-initial phonological words distributed according to pre- or post-content words for the five age groups (young, middle, older children; teenagers; and adults).