Prosodic Differences between Declaratives and Interrogatives in Infant-Directed Speech

Autor/inn/en	Geffen, Susan; Mintz, Toben H.
Titel	Prosodic Differences between Declaratives and Interrogatives in Infant-Directed Speech
Quelle	In: Journal of Child Language, 44 (2017) 4, S.968-994 (27 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0305-0009
Schlagwörter	Infants; Suprasegmentals; Mothers; Speech Communication; English; Interpersonal Communication; Syntax; Word Order; Sentences; Phonology + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Infant; Toddler; Toddlers; Kleinkind; Mother; Mutter; English language; Englisch; Interpersonale Kommunikation; Wortfolge; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Fonologie
Abstract	In many languages, declaratives and interrogatives differ in word order properties, and in syntactic organization more broadly. Thus, in order to learn the distinct syntactic properties of the two sentence types, learners must first be able to distinguish them using non-syntactic information. Prosodic information is often assumed to be a useful basis for this type of discrimination, although no systematic studies of the prosodic cues available to infants have been reported. Analysis of maternal speech in three Standard American English-speaking mother-infant dyads found that polar interrogatives differed from declaratives on the patterning of pitch and duration on the final two syllables, but "wh"-questions did not. Thus, while prosody is unlikely to aid discrimination of declaratives from "wh"-questions, infant-directed speech provides prosodic information that infants could use to distinguish declaratives and polar interrogatives. We discuss how learners could leverage this information to identify all question forms, in the context of syntax acquisition. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01