Developmental Aspects of Prosodic Word Structure in Hebrew Rhyming

Rhyme, defined as the phonological overlap from the primary stressed vowel to the end of a word, is a central component of phonological awareness, a foundational skill in literacy acquisition. While the core principles of rhyming are shared across languages, it remains unclear whether rhyme judgments are made over rimes or over the whole prosodic word, because English studies typically use monosyllables, in which the word, syllable, rime and stress domain coincide. Hebrew, where word length and stress location vary independently, allows researchers to test these accounts. The current study examines the effects of syllable number and stress location on rhyme detection and production in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, elementary-school children, and adults (n = 120). All groups preferred rhymes that matched the target in syllable count and stress pattern. The length preference was graded and, contrary to expectation, strengthened with age, favoring a prosodic-word comparison over rime-based and input-based accounts. Stress acted as a near-categorical constraint already in kindergarten, so the two constraints followed different developmental courses. Rhyme comparison thus appears to become anchored to the prosodic word during development. The findings also inform a hierarchical framework for teachers and clinicians supporting early phonological development.