Production of Mandarin Chinese R-Suffix by Mandarin-Speaking Children: A Preliminary Study

Acquisition of rhotic sounds has been shown to be challenging for children in many languages. However, less is known about the acquisition of syllable-final rhotic sounds, known as the r-suffix or erhua in Mandarin Chinese. The current study examines the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese r-suffix among preschool children. Words with r-suffix were extracted from the CASS-CHILD corpus, a child language corpus, and compared with adult production. Results showed that r-suffix production can emerge as early as one and a half years old, but children do not achieve the same level of production as adults at the age of 6. Accuracy in its usage increased to 50% by the age of four and remained steady thereafter. Common errors observed were the omission and misarticulation of the r-suffix, as well as the incorrect production of the preceding vowels. Acoustic analysis showed that children's r-suffix had higher F3 and F2 compared to those of adults, with no significant differences in F3 and F2 observed among children of different ages. Our results suggest that although the production of the r-suffix begins early, complete mastery of it may be achieved relatively late in the developmental process.