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This book examines the phonological development of a child acquiring Shona, a Bantu language, as L1. The book explores the phonotactic constraints exhibited by the child and her segment inventories including how the adult word was re-organized to suit the child´s phonetic skills as well as phonological knowledge at a particular phase of her development. The subject, Caroline Mudzingwa, was observed over a two-year period using a parental diary and fortnightly tape recordings. The data was divided into three phases, with each phase corresponding to a Phase Word Template (PST). A PST was the preferred word pattern it had a particular phonological shape: particular co-occurrence restrictions, a particular vowel pattern and particular number of syllables. The analytical framework involved analytical tools from Generative Phonology, conventions from CV-phonology, the concept of articulatory gestures, phonological processes, and the notion of templates.

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MA in Human Security and Peacebuilding (Royal Roads University, Canada) (in progress). PhD in Linguistics (The University of British Columbia, Canada). MPhil and BA Honors in Linguistics (University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe). He takes up a lectureship position in African Linguistics at the University of Cape Town, beginning January 2011.

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