There are many studies devoted to the segmental level of a phonological development. From this perspective, the phonological development is discussed as a sequence of separate phonemes acquisition. In contrary, following the whole-word analysis [1], the main point is how a child copes with the whole-word acquisition. For the latter approach, a longitudinal corpus of spontaneous speech is the most suitable data. The aims of the current study were: a) to estimate a distribution of word-structure patterns with different phonological and articulation complexity, produced by Russian child (2;04-6;05) during his daily conversations with adults; b) to analyze dynamic changes of this distribution. All the words were analysed according the pattern of their syllable structure by means of specially designed software [2] and classified into 22 basic groups; their percentage distribution was estimated. Statistical analysis revealed the most frequent syllabic structures: CVCVC and CVCCV (9-16%) and CVCVCV (8-10%). To verify an influence of the word-structure complexity on a frequency of the given words, their pMLU index [3] was estimated. The regression statistical analysis evidence a high significant determination of the word-structure complexity on their frequency in daily conversations; however, a force of this determination decreased from the age 2;04 to 6;05.

The study examines macro- and microstructural characteristics of narrative production in Lithuanian as the first language of a group of Lithuanian-English sequential young (mean age 6;1) bilinguals (n = 12) living in the UK; the control group of monolingual Lithuanian children (n = 12) residing in Lithuania was tested as well. Monolingual children demonstrated greater vocabulary diversity and used a wider range of syntactic devices to create story cohesion than the bilinguals, although general story length (words, utterances, communication units) was higher in the bilingual group. The results point to specific aspects of language that may be difficult for children to acquire without formal education in Lithuanian. We speculate that the advantage in story length for bilingual speakers might be attributed to a greater emphasis on oral narratives within the UK educational system.