What does prevocalic voicing entail?

Prevocalic voicing refers to a phonological process where voiceless consonants that occur before a vowel are substituted with their voiced counterparts. This means that sounds like "p," "t," and "k" (voiceless sounds) are changed to "b," "d," and "g" (voiced sounds) when they appear before a vowel.

For instance, in a child's speech, the word "cat" might be pronounced as "gat," substituting the voiceless /k/ sound with its voiced equivalent /g/. This process indicates a common pattern seen in speech development, where children sometimes simplify complex speech sounds by voicing those that should be voiceless. Understanding this process is important for speech-language pathologists as it helps in diagnosing and treating speech sound disorders in children.

The other options relate to different speech processes or errors that do not describe the specific phenomenon of prevocalic voicing.