| Abstract | [Introduction]
The idea of an underlying structure which is given some kind of imperfect surface manifestation is, of course, a rather common one in description of behavioral phenomena in general, and linguistic systems in particular. Following the lead of Jakobson’s (1968) famous monograph investigations of child language have been couched in terms of underlying phonological systems, related to a child’s phonetic output by rewrite rules, like the rules governing morphophonemic alterations in adult speech. Thus, a child who omits the final /g/ in the word “dog,” but will produced the diminutive “doggie” may be described as having an underlying representation which includes the /g/, with a rule which deletes it in syllable-final position. |