The impact of Daniel Dinnsen's career on phonological theory, especially in acquisition, is thoroughly illustrated in this collection of chapters presented upon his retirement. Contributors, who include colleagues and former students, represent fields spanning beyond phonology to speech therapy, dialectology, and cognitive psychology. Two major currents are present in the volume: first, the contribution of empirical studies on phonological development to phonological theory; and second, a personal homage to Dinnsen in the form of “statements of the field” touching on those areas influenced by his research. Many chapters deliver on both fronts, while a few adhere more closely to the latter. Phonologists are likely to be this volume's main audience, and the chapters more directly related to phonology and with greater theoretical contributions will interest this audience the most. In addition, a secondary audience of those touched by or simply interested in Dinnsen's legacy will find the diversity of chapters a fitting homage to an equally diversified career.
The volume consists of a foreword (with a tabula gratulatoria), an introduction, 11 chapters divided into four major sections, and an author and subject index. The foreword and introduction provide a brief biographical sketch of Dinnsen and his career, including personal details such as favourite classroom sayings and jokes (to which I would humbly add appealing to Superman and Clark Kent to describe complementary distribution).
The first major section centres on speaker competence, namely with respect to the factors influencing morpheme realization or contrast, and contains two chapters. In the first chapter, Demuth summarizes findings in the literature concerning the relationship between prosody and morpheme realization in acquisition. In addition to the typical segmental/syllabic contexts, she discusses the effect of a morpheme's location in foot and phrasal structure on its form. Prosodically strong positions favour morpheme realization, and she proposes that much of the variability seen in the child acquisition literature may be attributed to the influence of these positions. In the second chapter, Eckman, Iverson and Song investigate the covert contrast between /s/ and /z/ in Spanish-speaking learners of English. In their production study, the authors find evidence that the derived-environment effect holds, even for covert contrasts. That is, only those participants producing the voicing contrast in an underived environment would produce the same contrast inter-morphemically. However, those maintaining an inter-morphemic contrast did so covertly, while their contrast in initial position was overt.
The second section, with three chapters, addresses the issue of variation in child phonology from a variety of viewpoints. In the first chapter, Ingram and Dubasik examine phonological similarity within and across four pairs of children: two pairs of twins (one identical, the other not) and two non-twin sibling pairs (one born two years apart, the other five). Using five measures of phonological similarity, the authors find that the two groups of twins and the first, closer set of siblings show greater similarity than the more distant set of siblings. They argue that closeness of age may account for similarity and also that, since the identical twins showed the highest rate of similarity, genetic factors may be at play (as supported by some previous literature). In the second article, Gierut, Morrisette and Younger examine the number of clinical trials necessary for generalization (i.e., any transfer of learning) in phonologically delayed children. Rather than requiring a certain threshold of correctness, the authors rather examine the instance of first generalization. The authors find that a relatively small average of 185 trials is necessary to induce generalization. Moreover, this generalization applied overwhelmingly to untreated sounds with different manners (i.e., across-class generalization). Finally, Pisoni's chapter concerns the acquisition of phonological forms by children with Cochlear Implants (CIs). As part of the chapter's background, Pisoni details the issues facing CI-wearing children (especially the neural consequences of comparatively long-term sensory deprivation). He then devotes a large portion of the chapter to summarizing studies that demonstrate the multitude of factors contributing to these children's variable success rates.
The third section examines phonological phenomena from a cross-linguistic, largely empirical perspective and contains three chapters. In the first, Yavaş examines the successful production of word-initial sC-clusters in six languages (three Germanic, three non-Germanic), in both typically developing and phonologically delayed children. Differences in the cluster members' continuancy (rather than in their sonority) proved to be significant at both a language-specific and universal level. On the one hand, all groups showed a preference for deletion of /s/ in /s/ + stop clusters (both oral and nasal) but retention of /s/ in all other incorrect pronunciations. On the other hand, correct pronunciations of /s/ + [-continuant] clusters were greater in Germanic languages, whose inventories of clusters are poorer than those of non-Germanic languages (and more well-behaved in terms of sonority sequencing). In the second chapter, Barlow and Pruitt-Lord examine differences in children acquiring African American and mainstream American English for -s marking (both 3rd singular and plural). The authors find a preference for marking the plural, and for marking either morpheme in utterance-final position. The authors also find dialect-specific differences concerning the type of segment following the attempted /s/. Finally, Keel profiles several unexpected changes in a group of severely endangered dialects of German spoken in Kansas. Phonological developments include the velarization of /f/ and nasalization in atypical contexts (or complete disappearance thereof). Morphological and semantic developments are detailed as well.
Finally, the fourth section examines a wide breadth of phonological phenomena from formal, constraint-based approaches. In the first chapter, McGarrity draws comparisons between languages with onset-sensitive stress and child language, offering analyses of several types of the former. While child language mirrors these languages in that it prefers stress on syllables with low-sonority onsets, it prefers faithfulness to the position of stress rather than to the identity of the onset (while onset-sensitive languages may employ either). In the second chapter, Farris-Trimble ties together several conspiracies present at a stage of Amahl's development into a larger faithfulness conspiracy. Unlike typical conspiracies, where the target is a single illicit structure, a faithfulness conspiracy avoids an accumulation of unfaithful repairs. Farris-Trimble provides accounts in Local Constraint conjunction and Harmonic Grammar and discusses the merits of each. Finally, Green and Davis examine two processes of minimization in Colloquial Bambara (CB): velar deletion and vowel syncope. While the former is preferred, it can only apply once in the word, while the latter may apply twice. Using several locally conjoined constraints in a weighted grammar to implement superadditivity, the authors show that several phenomena in the language place significant restrictions on non-high vowel deletion.
Given the nature of the volume, various topics and approaches are to be expected. Especially in the short introductions to each section, the editors have done an excellent job drawing out the parallels among chapters and their major threads. The volume is strongest when chapters are in communication with and can build upon each other. The final section is particularly strong in this aspect. In addition, the chapters by Demuth, Yavaş and Barlow and Pruitt-Lord form a cohesive unit in their topics. Grouping the three together would better strengthen this connection, though this would complicate the regrouping of other chapters.
The volume is also strongest when the authors make theoretical contributions, which prove most readily accessible in chapters with delineated studies or “problems”. In general, chapters that prioritize summaries of recent findings over their application to theory (especially phonological) are interesting in their own right but fall somewhat outside the stated purpose of the volume. In particular, Keel's chapter on Kansas German is almost exclusively empirical, though the dialect's history will be no doubt an interesting surprise to many, and the discussion is brisk and clearly written. Pisoni's chapter is harder to follow for those uninitiated in cognitive psychology and/or cochlear implants, and the complexity and breadth of studies covered in a small space heighten this effect. Given the volume's primary audience, focusing on one or two representative studies and/or challenges facing the field might have made the chapter's message more readily apparent. Still, the parallels between this research and Dinnsen's are clear and thought provoking.
In the end, the stated purpose of the volume aside, it deserves reiterating that the diversity of voices in this volume serves an equally important purpose: to illustrate the impact of Daniel Dinnsen's career. It is clear upon reading this volume that Dinnsen's influence was as wide-reaching as it was profound. Whether the chapters in this volume directly build upon that work or illustrate how related fields have advanced, both serve as fitting tribute.
