SIMPLIFICATION AS THE GOAL OF PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN CHILD SPEECH1

It is argued here that childhood phonological errors systematically simplify the child's inventory of phonetic elements and strings. The argument is based upon a straightforward criterion of simplicity which is formalized in the following definition: if a phonological error reduces the total number of contrastive phonetic elements or strings which would otherwise occur in the child's speech, it can be said that the error is one of “simplification.” All of the well-documented types of phonological errors in child speech are a result of simplification.